Ladybugs!

When I arrived in my apartment a month ago, I was greeted by an uncanny number of lady bugs, dead on the floor. It was like there had been a massacre. It was really sad, but they were one of the first things to go when I bought a broom. 

A few days later I had another surprising encounter when I realized that on the short walk to the door of our teaching building I had gained several new, very clingy friends who seemed really to like my black sweater. They almost looked like buttons! 

Watching ladybugs crawling up and down the insides and outsides of my windows this morning, I decided that after a month of wondering about these little creatures, it was finally time to find out a little more about them.

Today I learned:

•     it is normal for ladybugs to come inside in the fall;

•     it is normal for them to swarm and infest buildings that get a lot of sunshine (like my south-facing apartment);

•    sometimes they bite (so I wasn’t crazy when I thought it pinched a little when a ladybug landed on me!)

All of this confirmed my most recent experiences with the cute(?) little beetle (if you can describe a beetle as cute). 

I read on to find information which I could not have learned through experience alone. Prior to reading about them, I felt a tad foolish in my attachment to these bugs who are infesting my apartment, but then I read that “ladybug” was originally “ladybird,” lady meaning Our Lady, as in the Virgin Mary. Interesting. The word for ladybug in Dutch is “the little animal of our Good Lord,” in Hebrew they are called “Moses’ little cow/horse” or sometimes “little Messiah,” and my favorite: in Irish, Romanian, and Polish the words all translate directly to “God’s little cow.”

Feeling less foolish in my fascination and attention, I have embraced the mystery of these tiny beetles. I don’t know why there are so many of them, I don’t know why I am so fond of them, and I don’t know why they were given their delightful names. But I like the reminder they now serve of a Creator who has affection and attention for even the smallest of creatures.

Incredibly Full

On my way back to the office after dinner tonight, I felt wonderfully full – full of awesome noodles, but more than that, full of hope and purpose.

I weaved my way across the quad by the library, avoiding the people who were roller-blading (an older woman and a little boy whose dad was teaching him to skate). Walking past the waist-high, brightly colored flowers, my breath was taken by the brilliance and serenity of the scene. I stopped to take a picture and then headed up the six flights of stairs to sit where I am now, overlooking the front part of Heilongjiang East College from my desk in the foreign teachers’ office.

Today was not at all what I thought it would be. I really enjoyed my first class this afternoon. My students left class knowing how to ask for directions, how to give directions using prepositional phrases, and how to use a map. WHAT. They got it. They didn’t just get parts of it, they got all of it. The whole lesson. YES!!! Then I walked into my second class [last week, I thought this class would have 76 students, but only 39 came.] Expecting 39 students, I was surprised by the 62 who showed up. (I have been promised more will come next week. Woot.) Fortunately I took many extra copies of everything I planned to hand out. The lesson went very differently in this class… but I had their attention (mostly) which was a miracle of sorts.

After class, I had a really lovely and meaningful conversation with a girl who sits in the front of the class. She is incredibly insightful; I don’t think anyone has ever described me so well after spending so little time with me. And she did. After class, she told me who I am. She pretty much told me what I believe – something to which I had never even alluded, and she spoke words about who I am as a person and as a teacher that were beyond encouraging as I struggle with fear and inadequacy. She and her two friends (they are three of the most delightful people I’ve ever met) invited me to dinner, so we walked to the dining hall and began getting to know each other. I think we will be great friends.

Tonight was the beginning of what I know will be very meaningful friendships. We only scratched the surface, but we did scratch the surface. These girls alluded to their life stories at a surprisingly personal level for a first conversation in China, and they made it clear that they want our friendship to be deep. I am so honored and so pleased – I did not dream such wonderful friendships could form so soon.

A week into teaching...

“Has it really been a week since our last tizo?!” 

 That was my question for Dan as our team sat down to dinner together at “the end,” our favorite just-off-campus restaurant. What it is actually called, we have no idea. We have just adopted the name given by last year’s team. It sounds kind of epic… The END.

This past week has been a whirlwind, to say the least. I am sorry for those of you who fell out of the loop; let me catch you up:

• ·         Sunday 9/4 at 10:30pm – I’m glad I have a week to relax and mentally prepare for Friday’s classes. I don’t mind not knowing when I’ll be teaching!
• ·         Sunday, 10:45 – text message from Dan: Tiffany, are you awake? I have just discovered some information about your schedule that probably shouldn’t wait.
• ·         Sunday 11pm – brief meeting with Dan to discuss my first week lesson plan and my schedule.
• ·         Monday 1pm-4:30 – back-to-back oral English classes for third year finance majors who are not excited about English… yet.

The week was certainly not what I expected it to be; instead of one class, I had seven, and instead of time to rest and prepare, I was frantic and scrambling to keep my head above water. The week left me weary, doubting, and wondering how on earth I could survive the year, hopeful that I would do more than survive. I walked through some of these emotions this weekend and over the past few days as I prepared for tizo time (our weekly dinner and fellowship/study time)by reading Colossians over and over again. The words that kept standing out to me were joy and thanksgiving.  

These words challenged me to earnestly check my heart, to take a long look at the thoughts and feelings I was indulging that were preventing me from feeling and living with joy and thanksgiving. I am on the war path to root those things out; they do no favors to me or to my students.

Now as I sit in my darkened kitchen room thing, enjoying a thunderstorm, the glimmer of hope that sustained me last week is shining brightly in my heart. (It was never gone, but it has been uncovered and washed clean, by grace.) I know that He loves my students and that He intends to love my students through me, and if I am willing, I might even love teaching.

Today was a good class – not a perfect class, but a good class. And I look forward to seeing what tomorrow holds. I cannot believe it has already been a week since the last time our team had tizo . It was a long week, but already, I see that time here passes very quickly.

What a happy birthday morning :)

This morning I woke up at 5:50, looked up at my watch and thought to myself: It is very unnecessary to get up before 6am on my birthday, especially considering the fact that I do not teach until 1pm. 40 minutes later I was jolted out of a very strange dream by the sound of my alarm. I turned it off and laid there, wanting to tell someone about my dream, missing my roommate. With my eyes closed, I slowly recreated the scene that would have surrounded me were I back in T2. The memory returned more easily than I would have guessed; it was delightful and warm with carpet and splashes of color, filled with memories and souvenirs from our lives. Opening my eyes, I stared back at the blankly staring whitewash walls, the empty and bare space daring me to despair of my life here.

Then an unexpected knock on my door, and I leapt from bed, puffy-haired and puffy-eyed. Still wearing retainers and pjs, I opened my door to stand face to face with my teammates, wearing sleepy smiles and holding a blueberry muffin cake and a card, both made with love and care. They quietly sang happy birthday and then, laughing at the fact that I had not been up for a long time already (which would have been normal), they all went back to their apartments. I enjoyed a muffin slice while opening the gift my mom sent with me when I left Colorado nearly six weeks ago. Reflecting on my Harbin friends, I tore away layers of protective wrapping to reveal my family’s smiling faces in a frame that reads “the love of a family is everlasting.” And as I post this, I am having a delightful conversation on Skype with my friends in T3. :)

My hope for this year is that I will enjoy a full appreciation for the homes from which I have come and the home we are building here.

I will work on beautifying the space in which I live and making my apartment warm and welcoming, and in the meantime I will enjoy the home that I have in the community of people – both here and in the States – by whom I am so blessed daily.

My Fruit Salad

 

In my fridge there is an orange bowl. The orange bowl is full of sliced fruit – apples, bananas, and peaches – that I will be taking to our team pot-luck tonight. The potluck was planned to give people a chance to eat their leftovers, but because my two leftover jiaozi hardly felt like a sufficient contribution, I sliced up the fruit I bought earlier today, threw it in a bowl, and called it fruit salad. The fruit salad in the orange bowl in my fridge is the first thing I have ever made to take to a potluck. I suppose it is also the first time I had the opportunity to do so in my kitchen. :) A first worth noting and celebrating, I would say.

Rather ironically, one of the main recurring themes of late is that my life, my time, my things, my students, my team… are not my own. This brushes up against American culture in an uncomfortable way, but Oswald Cambers puts it like this: “He makes a disciple His own possession, He becomes responsible for him.”

That is an incredibly beautiful and freeing thought! I am His and He will never leave me high and dry. He has taken responsibility for me. 

I see the truth of this as I look back over the past week. We are in a new city, in a foreign country, unable to speak the language, and immersed in a culture that is so nuanced we can never hope to fully understand what is going on around us… and yet we have all that we need. Not only do we have all that we need, but we have found an incredible amount of favor with the school. They have taken care of us above and beyond what any of us dared hope they would. Example: Tuesday morning we had a meeting in the foreign affairs office; they gave us an opportunity to voice any concerns about the dorms and within an hour, my previously non-functioning shower and kitchen sink were in perfect working order and I had gained a control for my air conditioner (it’s already too cool to need it). And my water dispenser appeared the very next day!

Nervous as I am about teaching, I know that I have been called here, that He has come before us into this place, and that I will have help as I plan and teach my classes. (There’s that personal possessive pronoun again...) 

Speaking of classes, I found out this week that I will be working outside of the English department, teaching oral English to students majoring in Japanese, International Trade, and Humanities. My first class is the Japanese majors on Friday. That is all I know. :)