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 

Room B & then some

Our Father has graciously supplied our need for a larger room at our hotel. We now meet in Room B at a well-negotiated price. For just a little more cost per week, we have a bigger, better oriented room in which to meet. Lately we have consistently averaged about 75-80 people, from about 15 different countries. We had heard that many times during the summer, our numbers drop very low as many folks return to their home countries or travel, making the commitment to a bigger room a little dicey. However, this summer apparently many people stayed to worship together, meaning that when we all returned at the end of August, we had a full room. Now we have the bigger room indefinitely. We thank our Father for this gracious provision.

I still get amazed when I think of how so many nationalities come together to worship our Father. Yes, we see numbers increasing, but we also see people growing in their faith and living out the truth.  We get excited when we watch a husband wrestle with loving his difficult wife. How does he live out the gospel towards her? What does it mean to love unconditionally as Jesus loves him? What does it mean to forgive? How does he demonstrate the gospel in front of his children? We get excited when we watch a young man and a young woman work out the gospel in their growing relationship. What does that look like for unbelieving extended family members? How does he love her like Jesus loves the Church? How does she learn to love and respect him the way the Church loves Jesus? We get excited when we learn a young man takes worship and rest seriously on the Lord's Day. What does keeping the Lord's Day mean when Monday demands attention? We get excited when we see people hang out together, fellowshipping and/or serving. One lady went to an expectant mother's home to help prepare food ahead because the new mommy often feels tired. Three single ladies from three countries spent the afternoon chatting and hanging out together.

Isn't this what the Body of Christ looks like? Beautiful!! It also makes me realize how much of our small town American church life is so homogeneous.

New House Plants

Mark & I both love houseplants. When we left our home in Aug. 2013, I moved all of our plants to the two front rooms of our house to make caring for them easier for the girls. By October, we learned that several of our 21 plants were on life support. By the time we returned home that term, most of them had already died. My lovely African violets, Christmas cacti, and scheffleras were mere brown twigs. The pothos somewhat survived.  So after we settled in our own BJ apartment, we bought a few plants to add to our home.  When several of our plants died over this past summer, we decided to replace them. However, we bought a couple of bigger plants this time for green color. Hopefully, we can find a way to keep these alive over the months when we visit the US.