Year 2, Day 1, Game On.

2 Classes – 1 Day – lots of stories.

I asked for Him to confirm us being here, especially the new teachers, but I think He was loving on the returnees today too. Here’s a barrage of funny thoughts and awesome happenings.

Sexy Introduction? Whoa!

During my first class, the students were new so one activity was to create a way to help me remember their names. As I read through the name tags, I see “Egg” I look up to see the name tent read “Mr. Egg” Your name is Egg? I asked. “Yes.” Ok… why? “Because I like.” You like eggs? “Yes.” Ok… well, ok. Good.

Many students did basic things to tell me, two sang though which was the highlight until I got to Tiffany. Tiffany starts with “My English name is Tiffany. Tiffany has the same pronunciation of Sexy. Tiffany, Sexy. So you can remember me Sexy is Tiffany.” At that point she does the whole floor slap roll up thing. I was just like “Ok then…NEXT!” The whole class laughed and I think her intro was more of a joke than a serious move, but lets put it this way, I wont forget Tiffany, but I will probably stay away from her.

CLASS 2

I had been thinking about and wanting to play the drums again, but where are you going to find them in China? My teammates got me some bongos for Christmas last year, which is awesome! But, I still miss a full set.

I went early to my second class (one I had last year) and as I was writing stuff on the board. Bruce Lee (or Brush Lee as he often misspells it) came in and just said, “Ohh! I miss you!” and walks over and just gives me a big ole hug. It pretty much made my day…almost. His next words were “do you play the drums…… I play, will you help me?” Apparently, there’s a drum set in one of the buildings on campus that he goes to play all the time and said we could play together sometime.

After the class was over I talked to some students and practiced my Chinese. At one point some other students from one of my old classes came over and were talking. Elspeth (who has the best English in her class) looks at me sad after a joke in Chinese I didn’t get, and says, “I wish so much that you could speak Chinese so that we could share so much more of us and express ourselves that we can’t translate in English.” I was crushed. I wanted it so bad too.

Dating Towards Family?

Another student was hanging out afterwards and we got to talk about his girlfriend. He had went to her house over the summer and slept with her father, talking about her and her daily life every night. (How would you like that for a crash course with the parents?!) He asked me my opinion on what to do with her (which he had a little bit last semester but each time it gets more serious). At this point, I was explaining how sometimes you have to love someone, even when they don’t want to love themselves. Sometimes this love is helping them take care of themselves and be more bold and forceful. (She wears the pants.) He thanked me and talked about how his roommates all kind of have a life of their own and it’s hard to talk to girls about this. (It’s pretty cool that he keeps coming back and getting my advice – soon I’m just going to have to lay down the Book views on a guys role.)

I got to eat with him and his girlfriend and afterwards we talked for 2 hours or so. It went from learning Chinese to did I find my girlfriend to how his girlfriend wants to give my dad a hug because she thinks big Americans are cute and wants like a fatherly hug…or something. I got lost in the translation… and it was in English.

Towards the end of the conversation she leans forward and says, “Can I ask you a serious question?” Yes, I replied. “Can you let me know about Bptist? Is it part of C-iantity?” I was getting really excited at this point. She explained how she was doing a presentation on it and couldn’t understand it all. Could I help with it? Pssh, yeah! As we all started walking back to her classroom she asked about puritanism. I realized at this point I needed to call in Tannah (the history major) for back up. When we got there I knew I was way over my head as her first sentence “Bptsts came from the German Anabptsts who were originally called heresy and were exiled into ….” Well, crap. I know very little about history let alone Chch history. Tannah came in and explained it all and noted how she was looking up graduate level info on the doctrines. The student just talked about how she liked culture and history and was really interested in knowing more about this type of stuff…. Bingo. Tick tock. He’s lit a passion in her and is tearing down and building up him in His ways. It’s going to be awesome.

The last part was just encouraging. As we were walking she said her teacher asked her what she thought successful was. She gave the typical “graduate, have my love, don’t bring shame to my parents, get a good job and have a family” response. Without saying a word she continues, “I think this is different from yours. That you want many more people, to be able to help them, and love G and all.” Wow! Yeah! She pretty much stated my life purpose and goal right there in Chinese English. I’m glad she knows and can’t wait until she has the same.

THANKS

Thanks for reading all of this and keeping up. Your Thoughts are doing work and I want to try to capture His hand at work in written form for you. So thank you and Celebrate Him! This is just snippits of my day, let alone other's who had students ask if they could make chocolate for them? Another student turned to her boyfriend and asked a teacher to tell her boyfriend about the King. The teacher asked if he knew anything about Him and he quoted a Greenday song that explained He was the Son. Go figure. Psalms 115 - "He does what He wants."