South Asia Trip: Day 7

Here's Day 7:

Today we woke up very tired and trudged to class. We had yet a different teacher today who was very lively and friendly. While she did try to speak a lot of her language to us, she was very understanding of our limited knowledge and tried her best to help us. Instead of repeating every word over and over again, we only read each section once and she let us choose different ways to do each section. We concentrated on the tones a lot since we find that the hardest. She also gave us information on teas, and we discussed differences between America and here.

After school we went to the cafeteria to eat. This was my weak/low day and nothing looked good to eat. We sat by four students who did not speak very much English. They were very kind and shared their watermelon with us. We did communicate a few things like Jackie Chan, who had a boyfriend and girlfriend, and that one guy was very muscular. Ha! Some things you can just use universal sign language. Also, a brother of the faith sat with us. He had even more limited English, but he knew how to say, “Jesus loves you!”

We got some different types of ice cream treats on our way back, and Lud and I managed to get it all over us. They were very tasty though! We read through the next chapter of John and then fell into bed for a nap. This afternoon, Lud and Evan went to play badminton with Johnny and his friends, but the girls were all busy so Elena, Kayla, and I sat around talking. This night was Lud’s and my anniversary so we cleaned up and went a Western restaurant called Rio. We eat steak, cheesy potatoes, calamari, and seafood pasta. All of it tasted wonderful! (I think we both needed a different kind of food than we had been having.) When they found out it was our anniversary, they gave us a free scoop of ice cream and took our picture to put on the restaurant website. After dinner, we walked around the shopping district we were in and then headed back to the apartments. We had a wonderful anniversary!

The other half of the group made it back around the same time, and we shared about our nights. They had been to a barbeque restaurant where you cook your food on a grill top in front of you. Then they rode the large electronic animals around a park. Most of the time kids ride these so they received plenty of stares!

South Asia Trip: Day 6

Here's Day 6:

On Tuesday, we woke up early to go to class. We journeyed up the hill and down to our classroom across the street. This day would bring us a new teacher. She came in and from the very first moment spoke every word in Chinese and asked us to speak in Chinese. During our lesson she read each sound or word and then we repeated. Then, she repeated each section 3 times. Talk about repetition! She also made each person in the class repeat each section on his or her own. This really intimidated us! By the end of the class I felt like I had learned a lot, but it was still a very impersonal, bland lesson. We hoped the next teacher on Wednesday would be better.

After our class, we ventured to the cafeteria and met up with the girls who helped us on Monday. They were so sweet and wanted to make sure we had their numbers in case we needed anything. That is what I find so welcoming and comforting about being here – all the students we meet are so concerned about our well-being and comfort. They go above and beyond to be helpful to us. God has definitely blessed us in that specific way.

Keeping with our new routine, we came back and had our bible study. We specifically prayed to God that he would help us not find class so intimidating in the future and that we would meet new students. We took a nap, and then went outside to the basketball courts. We kind of just hung out and met an old man who collected bottles. He tried to talk to us, and we failed miserably! However, we did tell him “Jesus loves you.” in Chinese. We also tried to talk to a few more students, but they were not as fluent in English as the English majors normally are. Later in the afternoon, we met up with Vivian and taught her Phase 10. She was very good! She helped us take the bus to get some famous rice noodles to eat. Lud recognized the area as a place where he had some really good steak one time. He led us on a wild goose chase trying to find this restaurant, but we never found it. Ha! Fortunately, Vivian was very helpful and understanding, and we ended up eating some really good rice noodles.

After dinner we ventured to a sweet shop where I had some amazing Oreo gelato and other people got pastries. We also visited Wal-Mart (How many times can we go there in a week?) to pick up some sunscreen since it has been so sunny. This area of town has beautiful LED lit trees and buildings that are very cool. We got a cab and made our way back to the university. We stayed up a little while talking and went to bed.

More South Asia Trip

So, I have been super busy this summer! Since we got back from South Asia we have enjoyed attending a friend's sweet wedding, going to the beach with my family, helping my parents pack to move, and now we're visiting Lud's brother in Texas. Plus I'm taking a class in July! Whew! Anyway, so that's why I haven't updated, but I really want to share our story so I'm going to keep posting my journal.

Here's Day 4:

On Sunday we slept in late again. We had our bible study and since we had no plans with anyone we went to eat lunch at the restaurant where Lud kind of knows the owner. She remembers Lud from past trips and helps him when he is ordering. It was raining so we came back to the apartments and rested/watched a movie the rest of the afternoon.

At dinnertime, Nemo and Jerbon came to help us find some rice noodles. We had a very interesting conversation and felt our father’s presence there. Nemo and Jerbon had friends from Kunming still in town so they went back to hang out with them. I thought it was very sweet they interrupted their evening to help us. I told Lud that they probably thought we would starve without them! We played another game of cards and went to bed.

AND

Day 5:

Monday was our first day of class, so we woke up early and hiked over the hill to our classroom. Natalie arrived as our teacher and we immediately began sounding out letters. There are some letters in the Chinese language that sound the same to us! And they especially do not sound like the letters we have! She also taught us the four tones they use in Chinese to make words sound different. It is so hard to hear the differences! We finished the lesson in our book fairly quickly during the 3 hours and after the book lesson, Natalie offered to teach us words we wanted to know. She taught us many food words and how to ask for them.

After class, we piled in her car to go to the cafeteria. She helped communicate with the cafeteria ladies that we needed meal cards. However, we just got one meal card for all of us and found that to be very hard when picking out our meals because we all needed to use it at the same time.

We ran into Vivian and Oscar who were both headed back to their dorms, so we sat by ourselves and tried to make eye contact with some other students to see if they would talk to us. Nobody came up to us, but we did get some girls to help us communicate with the cafeteria ladies that we wanted four more cards. It was not easy at first, because she was like “I already gave y’all a card!”, but after a few minutes she understood.

We went back to our room and had our bible study. We really prayed that God would use this Chinese class to help us communicate. Exhausted from our class, we took a little nap and then Nemo and Jerbon joined us to throw around a Frisbee. Even though they don’t really have Frisbees here, both of them were really good throwers! Because the sun was out, we got hot pretty quick, and Jerbon decided we should go finish our Phase 10 game. There are tables and benches in the shade all over campus, so we played the rest of our game outside in the shade. It felt wonderful out there! Although I got better this time, I still did not make it to Phase 10. Kayla won! We had a great time, and then Nemo and Jerbon had to leave to go out to eat with their friends.

Luckily, we had made plans with Vivian and Christina for dinner. They also brought along a sweet girl named Lilia. They had appointments later so we ate near the school. We actually ate a restaurant we had not eaten at before, and it was so good! We had some barbequed mint beef, awesome spring rolls, spicy potatoes, sour pork, and boiled potatoes and corn. We made plans to go to a lake on Saturday with them.

Oh….Did I mention we had been without electricity this whole day? Well, when we got back every other building’s electricity was turned back on except for ours. So, we went to another department’s end of the year performance for a little while. It was funny because the auditorium was super crowded, and the program attendee made some girls get out of their seats on the second row for us! We were so embarrassed. The performance was pretty good with a skit/dance from High School Musical, a short ancient Greek play that we had no idea what was going on, and some Chinese pop songs with interesting choreography. We left before it was over, hoping that our electricity would be back on. Everyone else’s electricity in the building but ours was back on, so we went to inquire our neighbors about it. Kayla and I bothered a poor boy who looked like he was ready for bed, and he told us we needed to pay our bill! We tried to tell him that we were just visiting. Luckily, he kind of understood and got some other students to call our teacher. She said that it was too late for that night, so we might just want to stay with someone. Ha! We just decided to sit on the porch until we were tired and then went to bed. Thank God (really!) that the electricity was turned on later on in the night so we could take showers and dry our hair the next day.

South Asia Trip: Day 3

Whoohoo! Leaving for the beach in a few days... so excited!

Here's Day 3:

On Saturday we woke up slow again and had our bible study in the morning. We are studying John and read John 2. We recounted Jesus’s first public miracle where he turns water into wine at a wedding. His mother, Mary, is actually the person who asked him to help with the wine shortage, and Jesus told her it wasn’t his time. She didn’t listen to him and told the servants to do whatever he said. Lud brought up the point that Mary obviously believed that Jesus could perform miracles and that more than likely she had seen him perform miracles as he was growing up. All we have to do is believe God can perform miracles and He really will perform them. We also thanked Him for setting up ways for us to meet the people He wants us to.

We decided that the girls would go eat with the girls Kayla had numbers for and the guys would go eat with Lud’s friend, Johnny. The girls we met up with were Christina, Vivian, Jane, and Wisteria. They were all so sweet and friendly. They were so willing to show us around Yuxi and took us to a restaurant they thought we’d like. We ate french fries with ketchup (it tastes different here), fruit salad, fried pea squares, and drank watermelon juice (which was really good!). Vivian and Christina took charge by carefully ordering us dishes that were not too spicy. I ate a kind of chicken curry with rice that was really good. We talked with them about life at the university and with two of them who are Christians we talked about when that happened and what it means for them here. We took a bus back to campus and they showed us the library.

When we arrived back from our outing, Lud and Evan were coming back from playing ping pong. Nemo and Jerbon arrived to take us to a park where there are carnival rides. We rode the bus and walked there. On the way we saw a beautiful sweets shop that we bought a few treats at. I had what kind of looked like a cinnamon twists. It was a very light, flaky pastry with sugar sprinkled on the outside. So good! When we got to the park we watched these elderly people play a one-stringed instrument and sing songs. It was a different sound than we hear in America! Then we watched more elder people do kind of a line dance but in a circle. I don’t think I’d ever get the hang of it, because they didn’t seem to be moving in any certain rhythm. We also all played bumper cars. It was really fun because it lasted longer than normal carnival rides in America. My car was pretty powerful too! We walked around this huge park for a while and then headed to dinner. At dinner we ate some roasted duck and had some steamed dumplings. The dumplings were very good! After dinner we walked back and tried to watch the Avengers, but the quality of the sound was not good. So, we taught Nemo and Jerbon how to play Phase 10 instead. They were very good at the game! I was the only person who got stuck on Phase 3 for like 5 rounds. Very frustrating for me!

As you can see, we had a very busy day with our local friends. Lots of walking and new foods! I am really enjoying my time here. We are also enjoying these free days before we start class on Monday.

South Asia Trip: Day 2

Sorry, went to a friend's wedding this weekend, so I haven't had time to keep posting our trip journal!

Here's Day 2:

Today we decided to take it slow in the morning in order to get as much sleep as possible. We woke up and had our bible study. We talked about our insecurities and how God should be the one to shine through us, so ultimately we should just set aside insecurities about ourselves. He will use us if we are willing. That’s the most important part about serving here. God will orchestrate everything if we let go control.

We ate a really good lunch and then met up with Lud’s friend Nemo, who was going to help us find phones. He had to meet up with a professor, so he handed us over to his friend Oscar. Oscar is timid, kind, and loved getting to practice his English with us. For the first time, we got a public transportation bus, and he led us to the main shopping district. There were like 30 different phone booths set up in this part town and we started shopping. We tried to express that we just wanted a really cheap phone, but none of the vendors really wanted to show us any. Finally, we found this nice man with a wife and little baby girl who was happy to sell us his cheapest phones. He was really friendly offering Lud a cigarette (which Lud of course declined politely) and handing me his baby to take a picture with her. I wish he could have texted me the picture because I would like to have it. We walked around the rest of the busy shopping district and found some American movies that we bought to watch while we’re here. Apparently it was Children’s Day in the country so the shopping district was crazy busy full of parents buying their children gifts.

By the time we made it back to the university it was time to eat. Oscar helped us order at the restaurant and we talked about differences between Americans and his country’s people. After dinner he invited us to an end of the year party, which ended up being kind of like a Senior Follies. There were at least 30 acts and it lasted 3 hours! There was mixture of dancing, singing, and skits. I found it very interesting how much American music is a part of their culture, but they also had traditional and modern music of their country too. Jetlag hit me during the middle of the party and I headed back to the room with Elena. After the party Lud, Evan, and Kayla were walking and started talking to a couple of girls. One of the girls said that she had met Lud before in the cafeteria. She said that he said a statement about Jesus and that it had really stuck with her. In fact, during a rough time in her life, it led to her to believe in Jesus. How amazing is it that they happened to run into her when there were hundreds of students present at this party?! Lud says it over and over that God really shows himself here. He definitely orchestrated that meet up and the girl becoming a Christian. Hopefully we are going to meet up with her today.