A B Cs and Other Lessons

Buh, puh, muh, fuh, duh, tuh, luh, nuh.

If I learned them right, those are the first eight sounds of the Chinese alphabet. Learning Chinese will be like having to start school -from the beginning- all over again. It's so fun to see the way all of the teaching assistants (TAs) react when I finally pronounce a word right. I made sure to learn two of the most important things to say as a teacher: "be quiet!" sounds like 'ann cheen!", and "come here!" is said like 'dow chu lee lai!' All of my girls students think it's hilarious when I tell the boys to be quiet in their own language. Some of the boys got more than their required dose of mischievousness when they were made. All day I dragged Brian > by the arm to classes - he is *mildly sarcastic 'ahem'* 'a very active child', and more so since Sally (my TA) was sick today.

A Birthday in Taiwan: My roommate asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday while I was here. Since I couldn't fly my family over here for the day, I told her (after several days of unusual and peculiar cafeteria food) that all I really wanted was pizza (pizza, pizza, pizza!!) I had been craving pizza since the first day I got here, and I had no idea what pizza meant to me until I had no means of getting any. August 12th came, and when Sally found out from Joanna that it was my birthday, she and all of our students made me a card, and sang Happy Birthday to me in both English and Chinese. That day and the next were two of the busiest for the camp...but on Wednesday night, Megan (the camp director) told us American teachers that the TAs wanted to meet downstairs at 10:30. We all groaned (for those that have ever done children's camps, you will know that going to bed early 'simply isn't done'), but trudged downstairs at the appointed time. All of the TAs were already in a meeting, so we went out to the staff room to wait. After their meeting got out, we walked into the room, and they started singing Happy Birthday to Kara and I (Kara's birthday is three days later than mine). Then they pulled out two boxes of....PIZZA!! They had gone all the way into town to get the pizza so we could celebrate. I leaned back on the couch with pizza in one hand and Reeses in the other...I was surrounded by new and old(er) friends that wanted me to be able to celebrate with them, and I had good and comforting food in my tummy. I looked around and thought of the verse in Psalm 145 that talks about God opening his hand, and how he satisfies even our most trivial desires.

Verse for today: Colossians 4:3 "Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds:"
- Every new person I meet and every relationship that is built is a door opened for me by God... if you could pray for my team and I, that there would be 1) a bond of unity, and 2) that doors all around us would be opened and that 3) God would give a singleminded focus to take those opportunities to share about Christ.

Last night we had a Taiwanese-style barbeque for the kids. I learned something as I was standing over the hot grill, plastering BBQ sauce onto fish balls and tofu, while my TA and I waved mosquitos off of us as we made sure all our kids had on bug spray... I learned that... being outside wasn't the worst thing in the world that could happen to me. I learned that... I kind of like the smokiness and the nighttime smell to blend together and settle into my clothes. I learned that... I like to barbeque food that is strange to me for the kids and sprawl out with them to eat it. I learned that I even like the sticky feeling on your skin from the heat that makes you want to go and jump in the water. I learned that no matter how homesick I get - or who I miss - or how terrifying the bugs are... - there is no where else that I could imagine being right now.