China Update Today is Friday, July 11th. This update is a day late and I ask your forgiveness, but between our schedule and taking care of team related things, life has been a bit busy. I am writing this from one of the few air conditioned rooms at the school. The team is currently having quiet time during the break between lunch and our next session at 2:00. We are doing a quick read-through and study of the book of James. We are now in the middle of our program and it is going very well. This morning’s activities were mostly game-related and sweat-filled. We played musical chairs…probably the most intense and competitive version I have ever seen. I saw a Chinese girl pull the chair out from a boy who was just about to sit in it. He hit the floor, got up and promptly pulled it out from under the girl as she was starting to sit. She too landed on the floor. After a quick conference, our panel of impartial judges (our leadership team) awarded the chair to the boy who had it first. As I said, competitive. We followed up the chairs with a ping pong ball race. Ideally, the goal is to lay the ping pong ball on the back of your hand, fingers closed, and try to run from one end of the basketball court to the other. If you drop it and the ball advances, you must pick it up and begin from where it originally fell off your hand. Best intentions aside, this game quickly desolved into something that resembled managed chaos. Once we sorted out those who held a liberal interpretation of the rules (gripping with the fingers, kicking the ball forward, not crossing the foul line, and multiple claims of foul and of winning) order was established and we all had fun. Our team then taught them the “Cha Cha Slide”. This was a big hit and we ended the morning laughing and dripping with sweat. Such is life in humid China. This afternoon we’ll have a talent show, of sorts, with each group being given 5 minutes to fill with special abilities and talents (like bouncing a basketball on your head 100 times). And even though some groups sound more like 12 howling cats being roasted alive than pop stars, karaoke is always popular. I mentioned that our days are busy and filled. Here’s the schedule we’ve been running on the last few days: Wakeup is a 6:30am, and we meet in the lobby at 7:15 to go to breakfast in the adjacent building. Breakfast is from 7:30 to 8:10 (this includes a staff meeting). We are outside and loading the buses (if they arrive on time) at 8:20. We arrive at the school, meet and go through the day’s schedule, before meeting in the gym to begin the 9:00-11:00 session. After the session we have lunch from 11:30 to 12:15 (Think school cafeteria food but Chinese style. It’s a bit oily and bland for Chinese food) After lunch, we have quiet time from 12:30-1:30, and then have a break before meeting to start the next 2:00-4:00 session. We then get a whole hour (mostly) before dinner at 5:00 (same cafeteria food), eat fast, load the buses at 5:30 and head back to the hotel and the blessed showers!! So, we all catch a shower and change our sweaty clothes, then meet in discipleship groups from 6:30-7:15. Afterwards, we meet as a large group in the building next door and debrief the day, worship, discuss the quiet time assignment, and then pr_y. Large group goes from 7:30-9:30/9:45. Lights out are at 10:15 so everyone gets a solid 8-hour sleep before beginning the next day. I understand that writing out the schedule borders on boring, but I think it’s good for those of you at home to realize how hard the team is working! Tomorrow is the weekend, and though we will not be involved in the culture exchange program, we will be busy. The person who is our liaison with the school has organized a full schedule. They are going to take us to the city of Xiamen (pronounced shau men), and over to an island from where you can see Taiwan. It’s supposed to be very scenic. We’ll be out and about all day seeing the sights, then on Sunday we are off to Xiamen again (1 ½ hour drive) to attend a Chinese International Church. You have to present your passport to be allowed in. Then we get a tour of the university and more general sight-seeing. And as wonderful as all these sights are, I think our team could use a rest more than it needs more things to do. I can’t promise it, but I’m going to try to shorten our day out-and-about on Sunday and give the China family some (much needed) time off. Last, each group has given themselves a name. Here’s a list of the group names. And if I’m able to upload the photos, I’ll get a pic of each group posted on Reign’s Facebook site. The teams are: The Happy Group (Val, Troy, Kimmy S), the Shark Lakers (Kim B. and Elizabeth K), the Colorful Dragons (Dani & Jacob), the Fire Wolves (Danielle & Steven), Blue Dragons (Laura and Tiana), Black and Blue Tiger Elephants (Devin and Liz M), Totrow Chinchillas (Blake & Olivia), Crazy Ice Cream (Carsten & Thea), Flying Black and White Cats (Kylie & Raessa), The Bosses (Hannah & Charlotte), Smiling Monkeys (Tim & Mary), Super Lions (Jenna & Riley), and the Red Fire Pandas (Ben and Michaiah). For The China Family, Tom PS: For those of you who would like to pray for our team, our students are starting to get tired and worn down. We have some who have a cold (even in the extreme heat), one who is running a fever, and a few others with gurgling (or worse) digestive systems. Check out China Team Pics here (more are currently being uploaded): https://drive.google/folderview?id=0BxkSH-MgUstJcUpsRGlFU3pGU0k&usp=sharing
Posted on: Fri, 11 Jul 2014 21:58:27 +0000