Beijing air makes international news

I read that Beijing's air quality made the international headlines today. Rightly so. Here are views outside our window. Between the buildings is a beautiful spire that glows red at night. I use that spire as a subjective guide to the air quality. Objectively I rely on a quantifiable index called AQI (Air Quality Index) which peaked out at 646 today. Needless to say, we stayed inside today. The latest reading indicates the numbers are beginning to drop, currently to 404. Still too high for good health. Pray for strong winds to come.

"The Beast" - Nov. 24

Tuesday, Nov. 24

 

TIC

TIC - This is China.

Wednesday morning about 4am Mark & I woke up to a strange beeping sound in our apartment. I got up and walked around to see if I could figure out what it was. It beeped every few minutes so I tried to follow it and noticed that the electrical box installed above our circuit breaker had red blinking lights. Hmmm.... maybe that was the problem but the sound didn't come from that direction. Since I needed to get up early to get ready for school, I went back to bed. I must have fallen asleep because after a while I didn't hear the beep anymore. However, upon getting up with my alarm clock, I heard the beep again every 2-3 minutes.

After school that day, I met up with Mark and he told me how it turned out. He called our wonderful landlady and she sent a maintenance man. He came early in the morning just as Mark was half-way dressed after his shower and when he was in the middle of fixing his French-pressed coffee. The maintenance man brought his trusted tools - wire cutters and a screwdriver. In about 30 seconds, he confidently knew the problem and cut a wire in the electrical box, and viola, no more beeping. In the process he received a electrical shock, jumped backwards, then flipped the power switch on. Wait -- no power either! He had cut off all the electricity. As Mark finished his coffee in the dark, the maintenance man moved back and forth between the outside hall and the apartment about 8 times until he finally came back with electrical tape and twisted the wires back together. Now we had power and no more beeping.  Success!

Beauty before the Beast

Winter weather is a-comin' so I thought I would take a few pictures of our beautiful yellow gingko trees that line the street near our apartment before they drop their leaves. We love this view as we enter the complex. 

The weather forecast predicts unusually cold temperatures for the next week or so with possibilities of several inches of snow. In fact, it flurried on my walk to school this morning. Nothing stuck to the ground yet, but it surely will soon.

God vs. sin - who wins?

This week has been a very difficult week dealing with a crisis of sin. Sin is ugly. Sin is deceptive. Sin entangles. Sin enslaves. Sin entraps. But the gospel is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes (Rom. 1:16) So we point people (and us) to forgiveness in Jesus Christ and repentance and faith in Him. They must forgive each other, they must repent before Jesus, and they must turn from their wicked ways and obey Jesus. There is no other way.

When God is on the move, when sin is exposed and people repent, Satan fights back. He hates repentance and will distract and discourage. Sometimes we feel the opposition in the spirit; sometimes we feel it when things, like technology, don't work like they normally do. This week my laptop battery quit recharging. The next day my 15-month-old, perfectly good smartphone developed a 'black screen of death'. It won't display anything so I can't use it. Am I superstitious? I don't think so. 

In our devotions together with Pam this morning, we read Psalm 103 to remind us of who God is and what He has done. 

Psalm 103:6-14

6 The Lord works righteousness
    and justice for all who are oppressed.
7 He made known his ways to Moses,
    his acts to the people of Israel.
8 The Lord is merciful and gracious,
    slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
9 He will not always chide,
    nor will he keep his anger forever.
10 He does not deal with us according to our sins,
    nor repay us according to our iniquities.
11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
    so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
12 as far as the east is from the west,
    so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
13 As a father shows compassion to his children,
    so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.
14 For he knows our frame;
    he remembers that we are dust

Korean friends

Recently we invited over for dinner a Korean couple whom we met last spring when they first began attending BBC. The husband is here working for a steel company for the next few years. We enjoyed hearing their story, how they met, and how they are adjusting to life here.

with Hong & Ju

Singapore friends

Our new Singaporean friends - Macy, Grace, Lucas (Grace's boyfriend), and Linni,
They are all study-abroad students for one semester. Lucas came to visit Grace during a break from his studies in Switzerland.

Preparation for Marriage

Because we believe the Word teaches that marriage is a sacred covenant instituted by God at Creation and marriage is a commitment for a lifetime, we very strongly encourage (require?) engaged couples to go through pre-marital counseling before making this sacred but often difficult commitment. Below are four couples that Mark currently provides counseling for. This is just one of the things we do here.

Barnabas from Hungary and Gracelee from the Philippines.
They come over every other Saturday morning for pre-marital counseling
then often we eat lunch together.

Anna & Andrew both from Florida but two different cities about 4 hours away from each other.
As one Chinese friend said, not far away.
They have Skype pre-marital counseling sessions when they are together.

Valerie & Christopher (our nephew) from New Mexico.
They also have Skype pre-marital counseling sessions.

"Tina" from here and Rudy from Cameroon & France.
They come over every other Monday night after work for dinner and pre-marital counseling.

Clean Air! Beautiful Days!

What a BEAUTIFUL day! After several days of AQI of 350-400 at the beginning of last week, the winds came through and blew all the pollution away. Last Thursday began with an AQI of 13!!!  Maybe more clear than Greenville!  After being inside for 2 or 3 days, we needed to get outside and enjoy the clean air. I even opened all the windows to blow in fresh air.  Since then, we have continued to enjoy fresh, clean air. Every day that it's clear, we get outside, not knowing when the pollution will build up again. So last Thursday Mark and I spent several hours at Chaoyang Park - a park that we hadn’t been to yet.  We entered in through the south gate, stopped to watch kite flyers and eat a picnic lunch. Then we walked, and walked, and walked, sometimes in circles. By the time we eventually traversed the park from south to north, we probably covered about 2 miles.

Wedding in Suzhou

Recently Mark & I took an out-of-town trip to Suzhou, a 5-hour fast-train ride. Our purpose in going to Suzhou revolved around John & Sherry. Although a month before, they had legally registered as a married couple, they wanted a special wedding ceremony. So we did marital counseling with them each morning then planned a wedding ceremony outside for Wednesday. Looking at the weather, we determined a one hour window from 4-5 on Wednesday that indicated a 30% chance of rain. The weather forecast for each day predicted heavy rains so we attempted to work around the showers. Tuesday rained heavy all day but when we woke up Wednesday, God provided a clear, sunny day all day. No rain. So after lunch, we all made preparations. 

What a delight to watch their relationship grow over the two years we have known them.

New Friends

Korean-American friends - Cheryl, Esther, Christine, Grace, Ho, John; ages 21-23.
Cheryl met Christine at school last year. Of this group, she came back for a second year; the others have just begun language school.

Alan & Jessica.
Jessica came here for about 4 months to teach and perform violin as part of her PhD in violin performance. She earned her undergrad from BJU in Greenville. Alan works at the company at which she teaches and helps drive her to appointments and translate for her. He spent about 13 years in the US. 

Babysitting Nate and...

John Alan

Malawi friends

Our new Malawi friends invited us to join them for dinner last Monday night. The day before we had learned that Manesi's (the wife) sister-in-law had just passed away on Sunday after a three-week diagnosis of cancer.This sad news came just a few weeks after Nakari's (the husband) mother had suddenly passed away in their home village in Malawi. As we sat visiting, imagine our surprise when the entire Malawi embassy delegation came to pay their respects to Nakari and Manesi. What a delightful treat for us to meet Nakari's co-workers. Later in the week Cheryl and another BBC wife had an opportunity to have lunch with Manesi, their daughter Pauline and friend Angelina. Manesi admitted that she understandably wasn't herself that Monday night. She and Nakari told us how close the two families had been while their respective children grew up together.

We have enjoyed getting to know this family. Before being asked to come to BJ, Nakari shepherded a PCA body in Malawi. A friend in their government hand picked Nakari to help improve economic interest and investment in Malawi. We actually met Nakari when he first arrived last spring, met his wife a few months later, now have met one of their daughters who arrived after completing high school. We often think about how our Father provides all sorts of resources to improve the lives of his people everywhere.

Mark, Cheryl, Manesi, Nakari (aka Lewis)

Malawi custom of washing hands before dinner

QianMen adventure

Yesterday Mark and I attempted to find Beijing’s old underground city. I read in our travel book how the city had a maze of underground bombproof tunnels constructed during the 1960s. We arrived at the QianMen about 4pm, a bit late in the afternoon. We had never been to the QianMen before though I think we had seen it from a distance. We viewed two of the old gates that used to be on the double wall around ancient Beijing. According to our book, the walls were destroyed in the 20^th century, probably during the Cultural Revolution. The mantra of the era seemed “Out with the old, in with the new”, thus destroying so many ancient relics.

Before we attempted to local the underground city, we discovered QianMen Dajie, a street lined with many 1920s style buildings and walkways, although many of the buildings actually looked newly built. After a while we wandered streets following our map. We asked people along the way where the old underground city was and they kept pointing us to one particular area. We walked around in circles, rode a rickshaw because the driver said he knew where it was, and felt like we circled an area blocked off by construction barriers. We finally concluded that the underground city must have been inside those barriers and was now being destroyed. As we wandered the area, we realized that we were the only foreigners walking around. We had walked away from the touristy area of QianMen Dajie. We have never felt unsafe anywhere that we have walked in Beijing so we weren’t concerned for our safety. It’s just an odd feeling when we realize all of a sudden that the chances of finding English speakers diminishing the further in we wandered. However, one or two people did speak English who could help us find our destination. Again, they all pointed us to the construction area. Oh well, so much for that idea. We worked our way back to the Dajie to explore that area further and ended up in old hutong areas.

Qian Men - Front Gate at the south of Tiananmen

Arrow Tower - opposite Qian Men.
These two gates were once part of the double city wall that surrounded BJ.

Starbucks

looking north along QianMen Dajie

a marker in the embedded in the street describing the significance of the 100 year old street

asking for directions to the subway

Entering the hutong area

an eating establishment

left - an eating establishment; right - a place that's processing chickens