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 ID a