laughing traveler

It still hits me so hard every time I realize how different life is here. Its hard for me to imagine a place where people have never heard the name of Jesus but its true. I am living there! The Shekou fellowship, underground church had the children’s Christmas play and it brought me to tears. I don’t know why an Indian girl playing Mary is so much more moving next to a Chinese Gabriel and an Australian Joseph. But it was! It was beautiful and unexpected. Almost as cute was one of my friends who was sitting behind me with her student that just become a Christian. I could hear her say, “so this is a play? Jesus is a baby? Her mom is very lucky, look how happy!” The preacher got up to speak and pointed out a boy my age in the audience that was a first time visitor. He said that he had spoken to him before the service and the boy asked what the sermon was about and then responded, “Who is Joseph?” The speaker was an American and talked about how he knew the story of Christmas long before h...

So for Christmas this year we find out at the last minute that the Chinese education bureau wants to throw a Christmas party for all the foreign teachers. They have rented out a hotel and a santa suite for the occasion. So I went with a few friends to get hair washes to relax before the party. The guys there let us give them English names. We took our responsibility very seriously and want them to have cool names not the standard John and Matt like every other Chinese man. So in honor of my favorite Christmas song the crazy haired guy is now DOMINIC ( like the donkey hee hee) and the other guy had the pucker lips so he needed a gangster name, JAMAL! So if you are ever in Shenzhen and meet 2 Chinese men named Dominic and Jamal you can know I have left my mark! Apparently our contact teachers were invited to the dinner as well and were encouraged to drive us. My teacher however was relieved when I said I was meeting up with friends earlier, to which she responded, “good I won’t have to ...

Let me start by saying this weekend I saw a black bear ride a motorcycle on a tight rope with a man hanging below on a ribbon swing. And before you say yea right this is not possible, I have pictures to prove it! So yes, I went to the zoo thinking I would see a bunch of cages with one or 2 animals in each. But everything in China has to have some shock value. One word - Liger! In America we think of this lion-tiger mix as a myth! But in China they make it happen! There were literally 20 ligers in this zoo! And pictures of how they were made if you were unsure! As always, the monkeys where very entertaining. This one jerk man was holding a banana in front of the monkeys to make them reach out of the cage right before he pulled it away at the last minute. We all called him an ass in English, but that didn’t stop me from taking a picture. So the bear exhibit had 3 bears and 2 of them were fighting! That’s right I saw a real live bear fight! I was promised that you can pay extra to be dr...

So this last weekend I experienced my first Chinese Wedding. I didn’t know what to expect, so I searched for the nicest dress I own. One of my Chinese friends asked me and Heidi both to accompany him to his friends “happiness day.” We asked if we were dressed ok when he picked us up and he was in a hurry since we were late so said yes and rushed us out of the door. I felt like a fool when we show up and everyone is in jeans as to not upstage the bride! She and the wedding party were at the entrance welcoming everyone. She saw us and said so beautiful! The bride isn’t supposed to tell anyone else they are beautiful! It is her day! She is supposed to be getting all the compliments! So I find out that the actual ceremony is a small private event and everyone is invited to a dinner after to celebrate. The best part was the slide show of the wedding shots! I literally cried they were so beautiful. It was all the bride and groom running around China being in love! Splashing each other in t...