Visiting on Christmas

I have been struggling how I can at least be able to knowledgeably greet the other 11 families who live in our apartment. I have played around with inviting everyone for a meal, but that is not realistic, both for space, and cultural appropriateness. So last night I suddenly thought about taking a small bag of left over candy canes (left over from sharing with our students), and knocking on every door for Shang Dan Kwai La. Merry Christmas. So Rick and I did this at 6 this evening, Christmas Eve our time.   Only 3 families were home, out of the 11! I left the candy with a note on the other doors. No more than “Merry Christmas”, but I feel like maybe I have at least been faithful to   a vision. It is quiet here. I made part of the Christmas Day supper for tomorrow night with 6 friends at our house. We went to the bank to exchange some of our yuan to USD for our trip home on Dec. 31. We teach all morning tomorrow. Strange way to spend Christmas, but what is appropriate for...

Pearl Market

The snow covered everything by morning to a little over an inch, but it was melting by the time we went out at 11. Today we took our once a semester trip to the Pearl Market. It is a huge multi-story two building complex of wholesale items. It is really quite remarkable. There are certainly plenty of jewelry choices as the name implies: gold, silver, jade, pearls, etc. I really do not know anything about prices on these items, but my impression is that many of the shops are looking for massive bulk sales for export, or at least resale. We went looking for luggage. Because it was cold, I dug out and put on an extra layer of leggings under my blue jeans. My Chinese doctor would be very proud of me. She, as well as most of my local friends, are just appalled if they run their hand over my leg and realize that I am only wearing one layer of clothing. It is true that it helps my arthritis but if the rooms end up being hot, I start to suffer from too   many layers that cannot be conven...

Snow and Thanksgiving

It is snowing. It has certainly been cold enough lately to snow, but we are next to the Gobi Desert, so it is usually not humid enough. We were in our Friday study, and during that hour, it started and a skiff was all ready covering everything. The people we were with were excited. Me, not so much. Biking in snow is OK, but not my absolute favorite. I bet my Thanksgiving meal was different from yours. No turkey, no stuffing, no green beans, no sweet potatoes, no pumpkin pies. We did have mashed potatoes, I think. We were at a buffet with the chuch family. There were individual bowls of mashed potatoes with carrots and corn mixed in. They were not hot, but not cold either. It may have been potato salad?? We also had sesame chicken, beef and onions, mixed whole vegetables, toasted white bread and butter, rice, noodles, watermelon, tangerines, and cookies. A Chinese friend we were with said, “Oh, this is not as heavy as a Chinese meal.” I looked at the bread, rice, noodles, potatoes a...

Falling Off Bike x 2

Solving transportation issues is always necessary in every culture. We have been so very happy here with our combination of subway and bicycles. Bicycling particularly brings much joy to our lives, as well as physical benefits. However, this week has not been very good. First Rick was sideswiped by a bike turning in front of him on Thursday night. He fell. At first he was OK, but by bedtime he was quite sore where apparently the handlebar must have poked him in the side of the chest. He has spent a few days in pain, but it has lessened every day and we are encouraged that really he is fine. Today as I was biking to church, a car hit me. He was slowly turning off a side road and just did not look both ways. Admittedly I was driving down the wrong way on the bike lane, but they are closer to two-way streets and usually you are just as safe going one way as the other. I assumed he saw me, but he just kept coming and his car hit me from the side and I went sprawling right in fron...

Where Are We Supposed to Be When?

I am sitting here looking at 4 beautiful glossy tickets and 2 lanyards.   They were left last night for us with another Foreign English teacher in our building by one of the administrator ladies whose job is to take care of us. We were asked about 2 weeks ago if we would come to the 70 th anniversary celebration of the Foreign Language Department at our premier university. Even though it was a Sunday afternoon and would be slightly difficult, we readily agreed. We did not hear another thing until last night, 2 days before the event. The little bit of English on the tickets say that one set of tickets is for a 12:30 dinner. The other two tickets are for a program of some sort that will last from 14:00 – 16:00. However, we have absolutely no idea where these activities are going to happen. I will take the tickets with us to our Friday night study group in hopes they can read the tickets and tell us where that might be….but maybe not. Our organization team leader will write an emai...

Hearing Aids

Rick has hearing aids! We have known for years that he has needed them. Over 20 years ago he was tested and found that his hearing lose was greatest for the tone of my voice. Haha. However, we have not really followed up on the diagnosis, for many different reasons. But today was the day! We knew this would involve more Chinese than we really had, so were able to contact a friend to go with us. This is not often possible because people work, but this is a wonderful wife of a new ERRC (our sending organization) couple who is Chinese. When I used social media to ask a Dr. friend to set up an appointment to help Rick get hearing aids, the translation system gave her the impression we were asking for help because Rick had AIDS. She was worried that she would not be able to find a hospital who would take his case!   I straightened that out. Getting to the hospital was even a problem because we could not get our Didi (Uber) app to accept the spelling of the hospital name, nor e...

Change in Locale....Again

Messages were sent out on social media on Friday that we would need to meet in a very restricted setting for Sunday morning. We need 400+ seats for our English congregation, and the space we were given seats 150 at best. We were told we would be in this restricted space for the next month. When we arrived this morning, we were then told that we would have to have a new place by Dec. 1. I guess the hotel is attached to a university and the powers-that-be will not let us mingle. The leaders have searched since the end of May and only found this location at the last minute. We really do not know what is going to happen. We are being asked to join with other parts of the group (Mandarin, Korean, Indonesian, Japanese services) for our last month to alleviate being crowded.   Only our Father can answer this question. Please remember us.

Birthday Party

I am prepping for my Celebrate Recovery meeting tonight. This is a group dealing with our “hurts, habits, and hang-ups”.   There are over 20,000 such groups in meetings all over the world. It has a specific structure and is very helpful. Two years ago, I went through the process as training for leadership. We have met as this group for about a year now.   To finish the materials, we will continue into the winter months, so about a year and a half overall. These ladies have become dear friends through our weekly meetings. One of them has a birthday today. It slipped out when she and I were talking individually last week.   So I have tried to do things that will make this week’s meeting special. However, prep for something like this, here, is interesting. I could order a cake, but most of us do not really enjoy commercially baked goods here. My best comparison is sawdust, although the results are better than they were 30 years ago. Baked goods have just not been prese...

Reflecting

I am being obscure. I have been reading a book about a brother from here who was jailed and tortured and miraculously survived. It was more than 40 years ago and has little physical relation to today,   but is a very touching biography. He was the head of the meetings in homes. I was also reminded today in my reading in Romans that Aquilla and Priscilla had such meetings as well. It is a very ancient and on-going concept of growth and spread of the Word.   We know that many such meetings are held today. We were just told by the administration that someone who had come to teach here this summer was deeply suspect because it had been published in a very obscure hometown newspaper that he was coming to teach at the university and hoped to contact the meetings in the homes here. It was enough to cause trouble for him and our organization. Just that simple statement. We have plainly been told not to reach out to such meetings because we endanger others by doing so. My heart is he...

Childhood Experiences

Our Friday group continues to be such a source of profound joy. A few weeks ago we started to talk about "what you sow, thus shall you reap", "whatever is lovely, honorable....think on these things", self-fulfilling prophecy. It was just an off hand remark, but the two friends locked eyes with each other and then turned to us with mouth agape.(I do not know if I have ever said, or written "with mouth agape" before, but they literally had their jaws hanging open.) They blurted, "No one has ever told us this before." They said it was a life changing concept to them. They had no idea what they fed upon, would be what they became. How can this be? It is deeply embedded in Scripture, and also in psychology. How can they not know this? But they brought it up the next week again. They often say that they wonder what they were taught in school, that our hour on Friday nights are the best education they have ever had. We assume they are being thankful for...

Cold, Cold Rainy Day to Bike 5 Miles to Church

Cold, cold rainy day to bike 5 miles to church. It was well worth it, however. We are now relocated to the new hotel. It is crowded, but next week we will be in another room in the hotel, which can better accommodate our 700-800 people. The preaching team has chosen to begin the school year with the book of Ecclesiastes. This is   a brave choice. It tells us that work, education, pleasure do not bring us fulfillment. Now, most of our international congregation are students getting advanced degrees at the most prestigious universities in Asia. It takes a bit of chutzpah to tell these students that their education is “vanity of vanities, all is vanities”. But it truly points us to what is eternally fulfilling. On our long trek to the hotel this morning, I saw my first open air church service here. It was at a green space leading up to an underpass for one of the big “ring roads” that surround the city. In the rain, a group were out with mics and keyboards singing.   Consid...

Student Essays

This are some direct quotes from my latest set of essays. I think most must be direct translations of Chinese. Some make a weird kind of sense. Some are just incomprehensible, and some are hysterical. Enjoy: “As Napoleon once said, the default powerless undoubtedly makes an opportunity of failure” “Too many corrupt officials, entrepreneurs, big bosses, and so on, because too much money and material too heavy, and finally because of the loss of things than want to get a lot more, the price paid is regrettable.” “After losing only regret not to cherish is a very stupid behavior, and the real life is no regret medicine” And finally, a whole paragraph: “In my childhood, filled with a lot of interesting young Fun, will not help laughing sometimes question that all of us should ask. On thing that made me worry a new memory. I remember that during the last one year when Sunday morning, I was sitting comfortably on the sofa and watch television with relish. Inadvertently, I...

New Worship Location

At celebration times here, our internet and firewall circumventing app become very difficult. We have been struggling for a week. It is the 70th anniversary for the founding of modern C, a big deal. Please remember us during this time. We have been told to stay home quite a bit and we are, but there is no real reason to feel that this is necessary except that there are many people out and about. Our international church was told in May that we had to find a new location by the end of July. That was extended to the end of September. Until last Sunday we still did not have a new venue. We were told on the first Sunday in October we should just visit other churches. (Where? This is more difficult to asses than it would be in some places.) However, last Sunday we were told that they had found another venue that will house the close to 800 members. Tomorrow (Thursday, as we have a vacation break) we are going to bike to the new locale to make sure we can find it. It is 5 miles away. The o...

First Emails

"Hello Dr. Marklund, I am Zhang Liyuan from Class 4. I come from Sichuan province, hometown of panda.  In my first English class at Peking University, I was so surprised at such a cute teacher, making me so excited to attend the next lesson. May you a nice day." Always fun to get student's first emails.....of course this was to Rick, not me. Today we have our second classes of the semester. The registration is starting to be solidified so we will not have 59 and 49 students as I did in my classes last Monday. Today, I should have 25-30. Of course students can still enroll if there is space until the third week of classes. (Can you imagine all the info I have covered after 3 weeks of classes? Admin says, well just don't give any assignments until week 4. Well, that is not going to happen.) The way different cultures attack similar situations is always interesting. I will get their first journal entry today. That means long hours of work for the next week. That is...

Requests

We attend an international church here. It is legal if we only let people having foreign passports attend. (Which is strange and rubs a little against the grain to restrict church attendance by checking your passport as you come in. Oh well.) However, in May the church was told that they would have to leave the venue in a large hotel banquet hall which they have used for several years. This venue was allowed a few years ago because it has cameras, etc., that keep things from becoming secretive. Important within this context. The church has searched since May for a new location and have been completely unsuccessful. We have to vacate the end of September. Last Sunday we were told perhaps we would be utilizing a house meeting model for a while, if we cannot find anywhere else. Our regular attendance is 700-1000 people every Sunday! We need real intervention. Please remember us. We also need pryers for our continued laptop difficulties. We went back and forth to the computer repai...

Computers， prayer beads

A year and a half ago my laptop quit and I had to buy one here. I was directed to a nice little man in a huge selling complex.   Three weeks ago my Windows download alerted me that my license had expired. I assume it was a pirated English version and brought it back to the computer man….7 times now. He downloaded another version but the wifi and Power button drives were not activated. Then he downloaded Windows 7, rather than Windows 10. As I sat waiting for an hour and a half yesterday morning, I took this picture.  (that I ended up not being able to downloadThis is a 12 story building with 100’s of itty bitty kiosks selling anything electronic or mechanical you can envision. This is China capitalism at its best. Haha I watched the man across the aisle from our computer man. He had a kiosk selling pliers, small flashlights, and mobile phone cases. During the hour and a half I watched him he constantly rubbed his Buddhist prayer beads. Two people stopped ...

Opportunities

Just met with a friend who has helped us set up meetings at times. He is a leader for this type of work. Rick is going to go do training next Friday afternoon on leading group meetings and some content material. Good opportunity. Just Rick will go. He is better at this teaching, and it is considerably easier for him to get places. We gave our friend one of the books we brought back. The friend said they are OK as long as they keep their meetings small. It is mainly students and younger people who are being targeted. They also harass party members and business people so that they do not attend. This is   partially in hopes that financial support will be cut off for the work. Remember us.

Cultural Distinctives

Two things emphasizing cultural differences have struck me in the few days that we have been back. One was yesterday.   We keep a phone with a Chinese SIM card in China and a different phone with a US SIM card in the States. Just keeps the frustration down. However, because I was biking so much this summer and needed to be able to call someone, so we purchased two phones (for the very first time in our lives that each of us had a phone). I wanted to download my Noom diet program onto the smaller US phone here in China and tried to put in a Chinese SIM card into the trac phone. It did not work. At one point the person helping me, laughed and said this phone, which was not compatible, said, “Made in China”.   The cultural jar was that before I could even talk to someone about purchasing a new SIM card I needed to review the huge board where 50+ numbers were listed. I tried to bypass this step, but they were very, very insistent. Numbers are important to Chinese. Like one does ...

Arrived

Arrived. Absolutely no problem in landing our bodies or our books. All the hassles of setting up internet, unpacking, buying food, jet lagging. Ugh, but we are happy to be back here.

Poem Written by My Mom When They Thought I Was Dying

By Helen Morrison The night we found out Ann was so ill (Sept. 17, 1981), this came to me in a dream and I had to write it. Thank God, He spared her for us all. To be shared only after I’m gone. God took our daughter today, Her spirit and soul are a rest. He holds her in the hollow of His hand. Her time on earth was blest. In memory her comforting ways Her cheery wit, tossing of her head. Her busy hands to all, she gave her best. God took our daughter today To His home above to rest. We bless His name and all He does, For His great way is best. Mary Beth Morrison  Our mother was truly a woman of God. She was humble and til the day she died, she did not know what a great woman she truly was. She has been gone 11.5 years now. She would have been 102 if she had lived. Our father died 4 months prior to her. I know that she could not wait to be in his arms again. Our father was truly a great man too. We are so blessed to have 2 parents such as these! They had been marri...

return

We are anticipating our flight out on Tuesday, August 13. However, we have a few prayer requests before that can happen. We have waited five days here in Massachusetts while the alternator on our car has been worked on. We bought the car in Florida the beginning of July, trading our beloved camper. I just had to have AC to make the summer (getting soft). The dealer who sold us the car wanted the camper very badly for his 4 kids and has told us the interesting changes he has made to it (Painted black and told his kids to go decorate it, etc.) It meant a great deal to us that someone who could appreciate our camper got it. The Dodge Caravan that he sold us had a rebuilt motor, which is one of the reasons we agreed. It has worked fine for traveling around Florida, then up to SC, PA, and finally to MA, a long trip. However 5 days ago the alternator went out. This would not be a problem except the mechanic said that whoever had been working on the car had "used a hammer rather than a w...

Biking 4

We thought we had identified a beautiful ride for me as we drove around last night. However, it was up and down and up and down when I got to it this morning. I did not get out of first gear in more than an hour. Exhausting. The good part however was that I could actually walk the bike up about 4 hills which I know I would not even have attempted a month ago.  So I ended up just biking down the sidewalk beside the main road. It was a much, much easier ride. All I saw was strip mall America, but considering how little I have experienced that in the past 40 years, it was reasonably interesting. Tomorrow I will bike for a few hours and then end up at our good friends the Hilburns from Panama. (She is making me muffins!) We will go to church with them on Saturday and then go over to our good friends the Bremers from Panama and go to church with them on Sunday, before heading north.

Biking 3

Done with the third day of this biking trip. Different from the other days. I was not on a bike trail, but rather back back back roads. They were like the logging roads back home in MN. And these were FL logging roads. We saw logging trucks with huge loads of long, very straight trees on back. They are pine trees with long needles and very very rough bark. I biked through forests of these trees. I wonder what kind they are? Slightly large pine cones, not very large trees, but tall, tall. They also seem to grow in swamps or at least close to swamps.  I saw very little wildlife, which seems strange to me because it really is not settled areas: no houses, etc. But it was the middle of a very hot day and any wildlife was probably sleeping. It was probably only silly me out in the sun. I did hear some plopping into the swamps now and then. Most of it smaller bodies, but once it was obviously a very large something going into the water, a little unnerving. There also were 4 inch long gra...

Biking 2

It is not really enjoyable biking along beside a major road, even if there is a bike trail provided. I figured that out this morning. So I crossed a bike trail that really was not necessarily heading towards Orlando (East), but that is a well known trail: Suncoast Bike Trail. I took it for 3 hours, while Rick tracked me at crossroads, and then he delivered me to the hotel. Much nicer. Live and learn. Four hours of biking all together. It is hard to describe how good it feels to be moving without pain. Walking has been difficult for almost a year now, but biking is non-weight bearing, and I can just move. (Albeit rather slowly. I used to bike about 10 miles an hour. Now I bike a miserable about 5-7 miles an hour, but it is moving without pain, and very enjoyable.) It is hot hot hot here. Within a few minutes my clothes are soaked, but I have lived in tropical countries most of my adult  life and can tolerate that. The bike trails as opposed to the roads beside highways also has bett...

Biking 1

I will try to let you bike with me to Orlando....just because. We revised our plans. We decided that we really did not need to push as hard as we would have had to in order to cover the 30-50 miles a day necessary. So we are leapfrogging. I will bike for an hour or two, while Rick drives, and then we will switch. This turns it into a lazy, easy, laid back fun trip. We started an evening early: tonight. Boy was it different biking in the cool evening, rather than the hot hot noon day that I have been. Still as drenched as if I were sitting in a bathtub, but  more comfortable. We mumbled around having left at 6 this evening. Beautiful bike trails. Herons, Sandhill cranes (did you know that they screech, birds almost as tall as I am.) Swamps that I thought about alligators as I traipsed past...but that was rather silly of me. Turtles in the middle of the road. I almost took off on the trail that took me far away from the roads and out of touch from Rick but it was already 8 p.m. , a...

Biking from Tampa to Orlando

It has been a very, very busy summer so far. Rick’s hernia repair went well. He is still restricted from heavy lifting for another week, but that is all. He had both sides repaired and one hernia was rather large, but it was done laparoscopically and virtually painless. Earlier the same day, (June 19) I had a gel injection in my knee. That has helped some with the pain and I have been able to walk without my cane at times now for the first time in 6 months. Three days after the treatments we met with all of our kids and grandkids and spent a week together in the Poconos. What fun. Memories. Then we drove Peace down to her home in Florida. We are giving Peace Lasik eye repair for her 29 th birthday. That will happen tomorrow. We also suffered enough from the heat driving from PA to FL without AC, that we traded in our beloved RV van and got a Caravan that has plenty of room to sleep in, but not all the amenities that our Econoline did. (Of all the material things I have ever owned I ...

Medical Stuff

  Whirlwind since leaving Beijing midnight last Monday. The trip was long but uneventful with 5 hours in Amsterdam and 7 hours in Detroit. Arrived SC at 11 p.m. Tuesday. The next morning we drove the 10 hours to PA. Friday we had the first of our doctors’ appointments. I am waiting to hear when I can have my gel injections for my knee this week. (I also was finally able to receive clarity to the bills for my hip replacement in January. The entire procedure and hospital stay ended up costing me $360. Sometimes insurance really does work!). I have 4 PT sessions this week. At least I have been doing the correct things. Just now we had the appointment from the referral to the surgeon. Rick’s hernia repair is scheduled for Wednesday!! Next week the whole family will be together in the Poconos. Things are really coming together. PTL. Appreciate prayers for Rick’s surgery and continued recovery for both of us.

End of Term

Things are a little tense here. It is the 30th anniversary of an important event. I should not write the word since it will trigger oversight. Our access to many things on internet are blocked right now. We are being told by our US director to stay home as much as possible and not frequent foreign establishments. We are not personally aware of any problems though. Last classes on Thursday. Things feel comfortable, but I mention it so you can pry. We leave on June 11 for SC, PA, FL.

Hernias

Two nights again in the middle of the night, Rick suddenly said, “This is not right, Ann.” He described what was happening and I knew right away he was describing a hernia. He said it had been happening off and on for about a month, but he just kept stuffing it back up in and not paying any attention to it, because he did not know what it was. Well, now it is about the size of a bean on one side and the size of a large plum on the other side. He is in no pain, but we can hear water sloshing around in there! If we were in the States we would simply go to the dr. and then proceed. But life is not quite that easy if you are overseas. Instead I quickly posted on Facebook and asked for help (haha), but got what I needed. I had visions for the rest of the night of putting him on a plane for Pennsylvania in the morning and then filling in for his classes for the last week of classes, but we are 2 weeks away from being in the US. Can’t this wait? Overall opinion is “yes, it can.” We ...

Biking to Church in the Rain

This morning Rick looked out the window and reported that it was a Minnesota all day rain. If you live together for 47 years and have moved as often as we have, you have a definite framework from which to communicate. I knew what he meant. It was a soaking rain that was moderately heavy. As opposed to the dribbles that we usually get in Beijing which count as rain in what is a very arid climate most of the year. (Although July is when it is humid and most of the rain for the year falls, so it is moving into damper weather here.) Or as opposed to an “embarrassing” rain as we experienced for half an hour almost every afternoon in Panama. “Embarrassing” because even if you had an umbrella you were so soaked that you could see your underwear through your clothes. Usually it is nice to have some rain in Beijing, however it is Sunday morning, which means we have a two mile bike rain in the rain. Now we can do this with very light weight rain panchos. Be sure to have see through plastic ones ...

Luke 8: 26-39

We have a wonderful study guide that gives us discussion questions to use and that has been our source for our Friday night studies. They give multiple choice questions which help the students so that they do not have to come up with their own ideas or language. But we always branch off greatly and discuss many, many things. A 10-15 verse study with 6-8 questions usually takes us 2 or 3 one hour sessions to finish. When I looked at the source material for this week, I really questioned whether this was the right study, but I took it as His leading as we are going through chronologically. It is the story of the man possessed by a Legion of demons. The Lord drives out the demons into a herd of pigs which rush down the slope and are drowned. To introduce spiritual possession to these new babies and seekers just did not match where I would want to go. But in faith we went into the discussion tonight. Of course, we may be more prepared to realistically discuss this topic than many Weste...

Mud Huts and New Visas

We just received word that on Wednesday we will receive back our passports with our visa and resident permit for next year. Each time we hold our breath until it is in our hands. We are many years past the legal age limit for us to continue as expat teachers here. We have peers from our organization who are being threatened with denied return visas because they have turned 60, and they have served here for 18 years! But PKU is the premier university and has pull and thus we are here for another year. Wonderful! I was recently reminded that many may think that we have spent our lives in mud huts and growing our own food. I was reminded that I should state that yes, we have lived in some remote areas, (no mud huts) but mainly we have lived in very large cities, some that are considered first world countries. Zambia from 1981-1983 was the poorest country in which we served. (It also was our most favorite location: the most fantastic people on earth.) I have written previously about ...

Ethnic Village Museum and Varying Responses

Varying responses. Yesterday we went with some of the other “foreign experts”, which connotes expat teachers, on a field trip to the Chinese Ethnic Villages Museum. It is a large park right in the middle of Beijing. It highlights the 56 recognized ethnic groups represented in China. Some of these are the main population, such as Han. Some are very, very small, consisting of only about 5,000 people. Some are persecuted minorities such as Uygurs. There were restored houses, and a few exhibitions of dances, or throwing water at one another to represent luck. Our university guide estimated that there might be 100,000 visitors there, mostly school groups….and groups of expats. Overall there really were very, very few actual people representing ethnic groups. It was a lovely park and very restful as I sat and read while everyone else walked the miles necessary to see the park. However, besides the park itself, there were other examples highlighting the varying responses of differing g...

Courage for Freedom: Transformational Stories of Courage, Hope, and Resilience

Check for the book on Amazon.com. Today it is only $0,99. Help them by purchasing now to get best seller status. It is inspiring stories about human trafficking. Proceeds will go to support help groups. I know the author of chapter 16. She is a dear Sister in Christ who are friends and neighbors to our older son and his family. You will be blessed from the reading.

"Beijing Snow"

No, it is not snowing in Beijing in May. But there are pieces of cottony kind of fibers flying thick and fast. They are from the kapok or cottontree. I do not see any around me here, but they must be a whole lot of them somewhere. I know what they are because of dealing with them in Senegal, where we did see the bushes with the cotton kind of bolls on them. It reminds me greatly of other times and places where what is in the air is compared to snow. At a certain time in Senegal (I think February because we would be at the President’s Day softball tournament), there would be millions of small white butterflies. There were so many we would call them “Senegal Snow”. In Panama there was a time when a certain tree would lose its white flowers. They would lie under the tree and swirl in the air. We called them “Panama Snow”. However, Senegal and Panama are tropical countries and never see snow. Beijing does not have much snow because it is almost a desert climate, but it is the same la...

When Your Internet Is Blocked

Woke up and my VPN was blocked. !!! This may mean nothing to most of you, but to those of us living in areas where much of the internet is not available unless we have a VPN this is gasp worthy. Without this bypass of firewalls I cannot access most email, facebook, youtube, browsers.   Our particular country has blocked google. Think about that for a minute. I can usually access my yahoo account without the VPN, but that is about it, and not completely reliable. Our internet is a lifeline for many of us. (A connection which has only been available the last few years of my overseas sojourn, and one which is a game changer for many of us maintaining ourselves here. My family calls me daily on FB. My emails provide relationships, but also any business connection I need to do, etc. etc.) Soooo, to get my VPN reconnected, I was able to press the button on the icon which said to press if I needed help. It did open on the limited internet available here. Good. I found the listing of my ...

Students' Paragraphs Describing Holidays

I teach English writing to Ph.D. students in a major Asian University. The assignment was to write an in-class paragraph in preparation for their final. The prompt was to choose one of the holidays we had discussed in the last 10 weeks of class: St. Patrick Day, April Fool’s Day, or Easter. Each of my class presentations had been a powerpoint discussing   origin and cultural celebration. For all holidays I give secular and religious aspects and they are all short. It is always surprising to see what is actually communicated. I have close to 80 paragraphs and they are interesting for many different reasons, but I thought I would share two paragraphs. “My favourite holiday is Easter, because I think it is a gorgeous festival. Easter originates from a Bible tale, which is about the death and the resurrection of Jesus. People celebrate this holiday in many countries. The signal of Easter is rabbits, candy and colorful eggs. Dr. Ann told us that she would paint eggs with her famil...

Sharing "White Rabbits"

We did the best we could in describing this holiday. I used my ppt and just went once over lightly covering secular and religious symbols. Rick went far into the back ground of spring holidays to Egypt, Persia, and finally our beliefs. We were clear albeit brief about the basis for this holy week. I looked for candy eggs to share but Taobao (Chinese online source) nor Baopals (English online source) had candy versions. I did find a popular toffee wrapped in rice paper (did you know you eat the rice paper with the candy?). The name of the candy is “White Rabbit” and it has a picture of a rabbit on it. I decided that was as close as I could come. As each student left the classroom, I told them, “Happy Easter”, and handed them candy. Being this culture, most accepted with both hands and bowed head. Every time, the vision I saw was delivering communion, and saying, “The body and blood” as I passed out the pieces. It was a strange feeling and I wonder why I equated this with the eucharist...

"White Privilege", "Austism", Career Choices

  “White privilege does not mean your life has not been hard; it means that skin color is not one of the things making it harder.” In response to this meme I posted on FB, a friend answered and said she was trying to share something her daughter had posted recently. She said it referenced Rick. After working on the technical aspects of it (which often eludes many of us) she was able to send the following post: "Today is #WorldAutismAwarenessDay. This past year, ***(our son) was diagnosed with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (what we used to call Asperger's). He's funny and bright and kind, and he'll need some special skills to cope with the world as it is because of how he processes things, but I know he can do it. I am so blessed to have had a high school teacher with this same difference in his brain, who taught my psychology class and talked about what this meant for him in daily life. Because of him, I had a huge headstart in recognizing and learning ...

How Do We Share??

This week we will be sharing about Easter. We regularly share holidays. They are a good cultural addition to our class. Last semester and this semester we have shared about Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, St. Patrick’s Day, April Fools Day, and now Easter. However, this one needs a few prys. I hesitate and don’t know how to share too much here. Things are tense. Although we are not necessarily directly effected, one never knows when. Another member of our team is definitely being perused regularly and it is disconcerting and uncomfortable. Certainly we have considered not sharing this holiday at all, but we will try it. How do we do this honestly and yet stay within the confines being dictated to us? We are working on it and need divine help. We also just received our paperwork for applications to the government to return here next year. This is a long long involved process, even though we have received the initial visa which was even longer and more difficult. The university...

Friday Night Study

Friday night study just now, so very very good. In Luke, He calls his first disciples. Are we following Him or the rules? He always answers: yes, no, wait. He invites our questions. He understands our emotions. The 4 students just eat this up. I have rarely had such an enraptured audience. Praise Him. Keep thinking of us.

Stitches Out and Combustible Balconies

Rick just got his stitches out. We were sitting talking to our team leaders here when it suddenly dawned on me why the nurse was so adamant that we NOT come on Friday. Tomorrow is Tomb Sweeping Day, a national holiday. Traditionally families go to the graves of loved ones and clean them up. (But that was in Buddhist Taiwan, and one needed to be sure that the ancestors were appeased.) Here it is a day to spend with your family enjoying spring, flying kites, eating a picnic, etc. However, we do not have classes on Friday so we were completely ignoring that it is a holiday. When we were arguing with the nurse on Tuesday about not coming back until Friday, she never once mentioned it was a holiday. I suppose it was just so obvious that what was the use of reminding these silly foreigners; everyone knows holidays after all. Anyway, it was about 4 in the afternoon after Rick had been teaching most of the day when we realized that tomorrow probably would not be a good time, and hopped on ou...

Stitches out.....or not.

We went back to the university hospital today to get Rick’s stitches out. We had been there on Saturday as per instructions to get his bandage changed. At that point I said, (or thought I said) we would be back on Friday to have the stitches removed. The nurse said, “Oh, no, you need to come back Tuesday.” I said, “But we want to come back Friday. We were told 7-10 days.” She was very insistent. Therefore, we biked the half a mile over to the hospital and went inside this morning. This is the first time we have been there that it was not either late in the day or a Saturday and previously, we were going through the ER. Therefore, it was a new ball game in figuring out where to do what. You register here (and pay for another hospital card because we had lost the first one). Then you pay for the visit. Then you find the dr. office and stand in line. The dr. swipes your card and hands you a paper and tells you to go down the hall. (Down the hall where???) Down the hall the nurse comes o...

ER???

Rick had a fight with his bike, and the bike won. For unknown reasons, yesterday the tires locked up going over a speed bump and stopped the bike, but not Rick. He landed hard. There was lots of blood and people were insisting on him going to the ER, but he refused and walked the half mile home. (I have no idea what people around him were thinking seeing him trudge home with blood flowing down his face.) He did not know how bad it looked, until I had him look in the mirror. He did not want to go to the ER, but finally agreed. Our team leaders went with us and we started at the PKU hospital, them walking and me riding my bike. The doctor there, said she could not handle it and we needed to go to a neighboring, larger hospital.   We went out to flag down a taxi but were not very successful. It was rush hour. I had just bought a new phone so did not have the Didi (Uber) app yet. I just grabbed a group of students walking by and asked them to phone for a taxi. (They even paid for it....

Phone???

Just bought a new cell phone. For more than a year our old one has sent us nastygrams about being too full and nothing I deleted seemed to help. Buying a new phone is the same bumps and bruises as it always is to try to get a new electronic device….but times 7 being in another language and culture. We have been through this before here and went back to the man who found us our laptop. We call him “the little man”. (He is short.) I am not really sure what his little kiosk sells, maybe computer mice, and pads. That is what I see setting out at his place. He was introduced to us by another foreign teacher here at BeiDa, as an honest man. He ran around and found us our laptops a year ago when mine gave out. He stuck with us through all the hassles involved in changing it to English, and then Windows failing on us a year later, etc. etc. He has moved his kiosk a few times since then, and it took a bit to find him this spring, but now we have it. Involves a half mile bike ride, through som...

Heat??

The government turned off the heat for the country on March 15. At least that is what my friends have said. Somehow PKU kept the heat on for another week, both in our apartment and also in the classroom. Well, that is now over. It is in the 30’s in the morning, so it is not terribly comfortable really. (Not 30’s in the house, but outside.) But it has been warming up during the day. Even some days are up to 70’s. We have an electric space heater which helps vaguely, but only vaguely and I am aware to be careful with it. Rick started with a cold last night and is more than uncomfortable with a fever and huddling in bed. Not a good scene. We just need to hang on. Being too hot is probably on the way. Just life. haha

Study??

Sooo, tonight we are having our first evening study of the new term. We have been advised by our organization, as well as some local situations that perhaps it is not a good idea to have a study at this time. We have complied with those suggestions, reluctantly, painfully, with a heart full of pain. I But on Wednesday one of the students contacted us. We obliquely communicated and decided we would meet Friday night with our previous young friends, just to talk through some things. The previous location, which was quite nice, has closed. (Common occurrence here. Many times your favorite venue is gone overnight. No idea why, but I assume straight economics is the main reason.) The student suggested the café right outside our apartment door. We said, “no”. Just too close and too observable. (Although I started back up with my Celebrate Recovery group at that locale this week.) We will travel to the other side of campus to a well-known active coffee shop. Maybe too public, I don’t know. ...

Eating Out Habits Here

I have no idea how I raised 4 children to maturity. During those years, I did not cook. And I mean I did NOT cook. They learned how to care for their food needs at very young ages. I thought the boys would marry for food as much as love, but neither of their wives really enjoy cooking all that much. (I guess it must have been for love, huh?) Anyway, that changed about 8 years ago when we moved to Panama. I am not completely sure why. Maybe it was that with the kids gone I actually had more time to cook? (Counterintuitive). Or maybe it was because finally I had some cooking aids like a machine that chops my onions and carrots, and some better knives. Or maybe it was that I was in a country that had things like Cream of Mushroom soup, and cheese. (Previously, although I might bring some of these kinds of things back after furlough, I would horde them so thoroughly that they would go bad, or else still be on my shelf when it came time to take another furlough.) But in Panama I could buy...