I blinked and it was May

---

I’m not quite sure why I’m still keeping up with this now that I update so frequently on FB, but I feel like I’ve committed to seeing this through to the end.

I felt for sure April would drag by. After all, I didn’t have any big holidays to look forward to, no big plans to go anywhere and nothing to go and see. But here I am at the beginning of May planning my return ticket, my return plans and overall planning my last two months here.

There’s definitely mixed emotions. I can still feel the dual feelings of wanting to stay another year (where else can I find a job that pays my rent?) and wanting to be somewhere familiar (everyone just stop looking at me!). I feel encouraged that my students don’t want me to go. They shout at me when I tell them I’ll be heading back to the U.S., possibly for good. They understand though when I mention my family that I’ve left behind.

I can’t believe it’s been over a year since I’ve seen my parents! This is definitely the longest I’ve gone without direct contact with them and I can definitely say that Skype and QQ have made it so much easier for me to be away from everyone. I’m not sure I’d have survived nearly as well without the updates, calls and video conferences I’ve received over the months I’ve been here.

While there weren’t any big plans this month I did take a couple smaller trips. My first one was to Jingdezhen. A student of mine, Mikky, invited me along on a trip she and her friend (Hot Pepper) had planned to the china (pottery) city.

I learned a lot from this trip. First and foremost: ask lots of questions. Second: make sure you truly understand the answers to the questions. The trip overall was fun and much better than sitting in my apartment for three days, but by following these two lessons, the trip could have been made much more fun and comfortable.

The first changeable thing was the train ride. I had been talking to another student about getting to the city and was under the impression it took only two hours to get there. It does. By bus, which costs more. The train we took (*cough.ghetto.cough*) took five hours and was a collection of benches and tables crammed into a box. I was also sadly separated from Mikky because she bought my ticket at a separate time. She asked me to sit with her friend (and her friend’s friends) so she would know I would be looked after. I was encouraged, but thought it would be much less awkward to sit by myself than with a group of students who kept looking at me but were too afraid to say much. There was thankfully one girl, who sadly had to get off early, who had a good grasp of English and made at least one hour go by fairly quickly. The rest of the ride was spent mostly in silence (my case) and random offers of food and a card game that I didn’t know from the surrounding students. I was rather grateful to finally reach the destination.

We had left early afternoon, so we arrived in the city around 7 or so. It was late and most of us were ready to just eat and collapse. We were meeting up with a friend of HP’s who was supposed to take us to our hotel. Or so I thought. Remember the second lesson? I had asked Mikky if she had arranged for a place to stay and where we would go while in Jingdezhen. She responded and said her friend had taken care of everything. I thought “yay!” and let the matter go. Well, it turns out that HP did not book a hotel and was expecting to be able to find one on a holiday week at the time most people may already be settling down. Right… not. So yeah, we were stuck wandering around calling people, trying to call in favors, all the while I had not used the W.C. in over five hours and was ready to get my sleep on. Finally I made the comment of maybe we could crash on HP’s friend’s floor at her dorm. Evidently they latched onto that and we headed to her campus where it turns out we didn’t need to sleep on the floor cause there was a hotel that had rooms still left! 0_o Hallelujah!!!!

We thankfully all caught some sleep and were able to get up at get out of the hotel for some sight-seeing in the morning. We first took a look around at the campus we had ended up in. It was a school that covered all subjects, but evidently was famous for teaching pottery. It was beautiful, big and a very welcome place to have when were all tired and read to drop. : )

We made our way back to the main city after the tour and a breakfast of won ton soup. Once there I convinced Mikky to find a hotel where we could book a room for the night and drop off our bags. Once that was accomplished we went souvenir shopping. I was rather confused about this. I’m not sure if this is a common practice to buy things before touring/walking around, but I didn’t understand why they wanted to buy things that they would have carry for the rest of the day. I tried explaining this to Mikky, but gave up and just went with them to the pottery stores.

I found quite a few things I loved and some I wished so badly I could afford, but in the end I made mostly just a few, small and mostly unbreakable purchases for friends and family back home. At this point when we were ready to leave we met up with HP’s friends who we had left at the campus. They off course had to get their shopping on so that left Mikky and I time to talk and walk around the surrounding area.

Finally, when we had all shopped our fill we made our way to the main attraction of the city, the ancient kiln. This is pretty much THE thing to see when you’re in the city and we found it had doubled its prices for the holiday season. It was at least 100 RMB and none of us felt inclined to pay it. We sadly walked away and went back to the city. On our way though we actually came across an area full of rides and games which the others wanted to explore, but I could see Mikky was faltering. She had chosen fashion over function for this trip and her feet were paying for it. I insisted I was ready to go back and we took the bus back to our hotel and got ready for the trip back home the next morning.

So pretty much it’s a few paragraphs of how I traveled ten hours to shop, walk and spend a little extra time with a student who wanted to make the extra effort. Honestly it really was worth it and I would do it again in a heartbeat. With plenty of lessons learned. 😉

Through the rest of April I spent time with friends, did my lessons and just enjoyed life. I did this right up until the 29^thwhen my vacation started for… I think Labor Day. Bah, whatever holiday it was my school gave me a whole five days off (with 2 weekends of working >_

Hai Tao, Stephen and I all took the early morning D-train to Changsha (7:45 am!!!) where HT then led us to the area where most of the brothers and sisters live in the city. We were able to have a quick lunch with the sisters who met us there and we then set off to the meeting point where the brothers would then have a five hour long drive to the mountains. They were all set to enjoy their three day hiking/camping time and the bus left almost as soon as we dropped off the boys.

When they guys left, my vacation started. I spent three days being encouraged, coddled and fed by the wonderful sisters of Changsha. They met and tried to anticipate every need I could have while I was there. On the first day I was taken in by Gloria, who we had had lunch with, and introduced to her home where I met her roommate Lydia and a friend of hers. I spent some time napping, but afterwards we talked for hours until it was time for Emily (who also used to live in Nanchang) and Malaya to take over and take me out to dinner. Finally, after I was done being passed around, Ruth came and got me so we could go back to her house for some great catch up time and sleep.

Day two of my trip thankfully started much less earlier. Ruth and I didn’t bother waking up till a little past 8, which suited me just fine, and then we had a truly awesome morning together. We had breakfast at Dicos (does anyone recognize this place?) where we had a peaceful time of reading our bibles together. After a nice breakfast Ruth took me to the bank (river bank… it was a ‘you had to be there’ moment) and we had a super encouraging prayer walk where we both prayed until we couldn’t pray anymore. We had walked really far and then had to walk back where it was actually time for lunch! We then headed out and she took me to a steamed food restaurant where I ate probably the healthiest meal I’ve eaten since coming to China. ^_^ It was a great little place where you order several small dishes of steamed food to make one big meal.

After lunch Ruth had to go to work so she passed me off to Esther who also roommates with Gloria, Lydia and Malaya. We hung out all afternoon with each other and another sister Lisa. I was completely overwhelmed by all the new sisters I was meeting! It was a great experience and even though I heard a lot of the same questions over and over again we also got to spend a lot of time talking about the bible and how each of them came to know God. We finished off our time together with a great prayer walk, a tour of the downtown campuses and then headed off to meet the final two sisters of the day.

The next two sisters were Iris and Mercy. These two gave me a tour of the music school where Mercy is learning how to play the piano and also gave me a culinary experience of Changsha food. We had a great time walking and taking in the sites together. They both of course had their own amazing stories to tell of how they decided to study in the city and what their lives were before they became disciples. This ate up hours of time until Ruth was done with work and able to come get me.

The last day was a of course a good and sad day. I had really enjoyed hanging out with so many people; it’s definitely something that doesn’t happen a lot in Nanchang. I was emotionally tired, but it felt good having been encouraged the past two days. The last day was focused on encouraging the returning brothers and also getting to know each other on a deeper level. We were supposed to make sushi for the guys, but it turned out they couldn’t find the materials. Thankfully we had the ingredients to make some banana bread and I guided many of the sisters in the art of baking. While I was helping with the bread, the other sisters focused on making lunch. They all took turns making wonderful, mouth-watering dishes which all in all took about 2 hours to make. It took about a half hour to demolish it all. : )

After food was fellowship. We first watched an incredibly moving movie about a disabled husband and his wife who looked after him. We then discussed our feelings about marriage, God, and ourselves. It was sometimes difficult with the language barrier, but we made it work. This lasted far into the afternoon and it was all too soon time to go. I found out that the brothers would not be coming back in time for HT to catch the train back with me, so Ruth came to the station so she could guide me to the right area. It was a sad goodbye, but one with a promise of return. I had an easy trip back and a restful follow up day where I got to relax, clean and just enjoy a bit of peace and quiet.

The month has come and gone and I know the following two will be the same. I’m forever enjoying my time here and will be sad to leave China in just a few short months. I know it doesn’t have to be a final farewell, but only God knows what the future will hold.

---