Pictures taken at our group meeting after breakfast. Angel and her daughter Gabriella. Isn't she absolutely adorable? They and Angel's husband are from Chengdu and are good friends with the pastor.
A really cool building across from the cafeteria we eat at.
Benches where we'd hang out before and after meals.
We took a language, Chinese culture, tai-chi and painting class on Day 2, and visited the birthplace of the first emperor in the afternoon. A few of the language partners were able to make it on the field trip, and I got to meet Rita, whom I ended up hanging out with some during the rest of our stay at the school.
Me and Rita. I look like such a bum. As you will notice, I basically wore the same exact shirt the entire trip, just different colors. I'm an efficient packer.
Brett was invited to play at their open mic event that night, so a bunch of us went to show our support. It was really fun to hear some popular Chinese music and the students enjoyed being entertained by the American :)
They sang a really beautiful duet.
Sweet Home Alabama
On Day 3, we went to Kaifeng and visited the Dragon Pavilion Park and the Millennium City of Northern Song Dynasty (both beautiful parks), and did some shopping in the city.
We played Assassin on the bus ride to Kaifeng. It's a fun game, never played it before.
Pastors George and Suzanne dressed in emperor and empress clothing! Don't they look great?
Me and my roommate Elizabeth.
We ate lunch in separate private rooms and I sat at the 'kids' table, haha! They're really fun and sweet. Makes me feel young and old at the same time.
We found this really cool (and difficult) jungle gym. I did not even attempt any of it.
I just wanted a picture with the camel, not sure how Gene got in there, haha!
This was such an awesome picture. Who would have thought? Posing on top of vegetables?!
While these two days were a lot of fun, I think many of us were starting to feel a bit discouraged and felt like we weren't 'doing' anything. The classes and field trips took up most of our days and we weren't meeting many students given our time constraints. We knew it was necessary as part of the 'cultural exchange group' experience, but most of us didn't expect the time with students to be so limited and unstructured. It was helpful when one of the guys shared that we need to humble ourselves under the hand of God instead of trying to do things our own way, casting all our care upon Him. We tend to have a 'works' mentality, where if nothing seems to be happening, we start feeling like we need to take matters into our own hands and do 'something'. We should just be faithful with what He gives us, rather than worried about how much we accomplish.
Looking back on everything, I think it was helpful that we had the time to ourselves the first few days. Because after that, we started to split up into smaller groups and hang out with the students that we had met. We needed to feel comfortable with our own group before we can start working together to reach out to the students. Our group dynamic is really pretty amazing. We have a very wide range in age (the youngest is a 9-year old girl, but she is more mature than most 18 year old boys, haha) and very different gifts and personalities, but we were there with the same purpose. Because we didn't have any structured format to meet the students, we really had to be creative, trusting the Holy Spirit to guide our steps and words and taking opportunities that He places in front of us. We started noticing that many of the students hung out on the track and field right outside of our dorm after dinner. Some of our high school and college students decided to go out there to hang out and meet students one night, and it became a regular 'meeting place' after dinner when we had free time.
1 comment:
the Assassin game, do you have to close ur eyes? and there is a medic? a police? etc?
i LOVE that game! its MAD FUN!
u can only play it with a groups of people though... ;(
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