Qing Ming Holiday or Tomb Sweeping Day

I think that the translation of Qing Ming would be something about spring brightness; maybe a bright

spring day. ….Well, it is not! It is 34 degrees right now, and last night it was sleeting and snowing and really miserable while we were trying to bike home after a costly scam at our massage parlor involving the removal of moles and warts. Oh well.

 However, this holiday has another name: Tomb Sweeping Day. My students have a different feeling here than they did in Taiwan. There it definitely was a day to go to the graves of departed ancestors and clean it and also bring things they liked or things that represented things that the departed valued in life: paper cars, god money, etc. It was important and viewed as activities for protecting the family. Changes.

We are staying inside on this day off school and having our ERRC team for meeting and then supper. We spent the day filling out our contract and application for visas for next year! Everyone seems confident that this should yield a positive result, but when we look around us and see the problems others are having with visas, jobs, etc., I know we need to ask for prayers.