Closing Ceremony Shenanigans!!

Here's our performance of the closing ceremony. Not gonna lie, it was a pretty fun dance to learn haha. :)

Shenyang!!

The view from the treehouse at our campsite!!

            Hey all — it’s back to the grind, man… and again, Dad has proven himself to be so f@ithful! So basically, remember how I said that many kids at this camp would be C? Well, um, it was very true when they said that this was basically a C youth camp, and that it would be much more explicit than what we expected. They have a kid come up on stage and yarp for dinner. They use J’s name very freely and explicitly. We can yarp before classes start — it is quite literally almost like a retreat or something. And I honestly still am a little confused as to the nature of the camp, but from what I’ve gathered, I think at the very least, almost everyone’s parents are C even if the kids are not. Most of my kids are very intentional about their f@ith although they still came with the hope of being able to improve their English, especially their pronunciation.

            Anyhow, onto how it’s actually been for me the past day or two. I actually woke up really discouraged, and I realized that I have felt this way every time a new camp started. As I realized this, I was listening to Will Reagan & United Pursuit’s Endless Years album, and the lyrics, “break down strongholds of the Enemy” came up, and I just knew then and there that this feeling of discouragement was not my own nor was it from Dad and that it was very much so a sp1r1tual attack. At each camp, I have felt discouraged going in, yet I have no reason to feel so, because Dad has shown himself to be so f@ithful each time — he has always filled me with the strength to go through, and by the time classes started, I was filled with peace and joy, and it was just a great way to start the day — to be able to rejoice in the constancy that is our Dad.

Herher… so I definitely didn’t finish my post when I wrote that up there. That was after day 1 of teaching, and we’re now in the middle of day 4 of teaching, mip mip… so I’ll skip the details of day 1 to day 4 and just skip to today. Basically, all you have to know is that I really love my kids/all the kids here and Dad is super good! He’s definitely been humbling me through the f@ith of my kids too. So even though today isn’t actually our last full day of camp, we had foot washing today instead of tomorrow, because the camp we’re at actually has their own afternoon activity planned for the last day, but it was definitely still a huge blessing in more ways than one.  

For example, in one of my teammate’s classes, one of the kids (10 y.o.) is actually leaving this afternoon. He is not C — or at least he does not fully understand what it means to be C — and if foot washing was on the last day, he would not have had the opportunity to experience the love Ar (teacher) and JC have for him! There was also another baby in another teacher’s Ad class! What was really cool about this baby is that his family is actually culturally musl1m, and Ad made sure that he understood the gravity of the decision he was making. She made sure that he understood that by accepting JC, he was rejecting his family’s beliefs — even though it doesn’t mean he respects his family or their beliefs any less, it does mean he is rejecting it. We haven’t even had our full team meeting yet, so I’m sure that Dad moved even more than I know now.

As for my own experience, it was really amazing. I know I said in one of my posts that the highlight was my last foot washing when a student from my first camp came back to the second camp and told me that those eight days at the first camp were going to stick with her the rest of her life, but I think this just might top that. So four out of the six kids in my class actually came to this same camp last year, so they knew what was coming when we had the basin and towel in hand, but still when I read the Book and explained why I wanted to do this for them, already, two of those four that came last year were crying. And by the time I finished explaining why I wanted to wash their feet, nearly all of them were at the very least starting to tear up. When I washed my first student’s feet, it was game over — everyone was full out crying, even my co-teacher. As I continued to wash each student’s feet, a couple of my students became very distressed because I was kneeling as I washed their feet. They would come back during each student’s foot washing and make a comment about how I couldn’t continue kneeling as I washed their feet — they thought it was just too much, and at that moment, I knew I had to keep kneeling to show that I really cared for them. Eventually, they brought a seat cushion for my knees, and I was just so touched by how touched they were and how real these emotions were.

 Then during tutorial… my class’ only non-member (16 y.o.) became a new baby!! Now let me tell you about this kid — he’s kind of your typical bad boy. He was the one who probably caused the most trouble the first couple of days, especially with the girls, who kept saying that he was bothering them, and he… just caused problems haha. He grew up in a divorced family, living with his mother with monthly visits from his father, and he found out about 3-4 months ago that his mom had started going to Dad’s house, but has never gone himself. So during our first tutorial, I got to ask him where he was in terms of f@ith. He said he was seeking and interested, but he didn’t believe, but today was just such a blessing! Firstly during the foot washing, I started talking to him, and the message I wanted to convey to him was that I know that even though we’re not getting paid to teach them English in China and we’re actually paying money out of our own pocket, it is worth it enough just to let him know that JC loves him — that all those other things he may seek in his life for comfort (computer games, cigarettes, alcohol, academic success, etc.) will not ultimately satisfy. I also said it might be hard to understand all of this because maybe he doesn't think he’s ever experienced Dad’s love before — and at that point he said, “No, I feel” and I was just so touched. I later got to share the lepsog with him and yarp the s1nner’s yarp with (in my broken Chinese PTL for getting me through that haha), and yeah… it was great!

I realize now that I may have rushed it a little fast in terms of asking him if he wanted to accept JC (I think I explained it pretty thoroughly, but I still think in retrospect that I should have given him more time to think over it), which is another reason why having the foot washing being the second to last day is a blessing in disguise, so I’m going to make sure to have a good follow-up with him tomorrow to really make sure he knows what he’s choosing to believe in.

But basically, foot washing was so great. It was a huge blessing. J I’ll post pr requests and pictures added onto this post later, but for now, I just want to get an update out!!!

1) Pr for understanding in C (new baby) and two of my other kids who don’t feel very secure in their f@ith.
~ new stuffs ~
2) Pr for the other kids from the camp — that they would learn to walk with Dad in genuine f@ith.
3) Pr for our camp tomorrow!! Dad opened a new door for us, and we have a two-day camp starting tomorrow, so pr that although the time is theoretically short that we would still be able to dive into loving these kids wholeheartedly. We will be teaching in partners, so please pr that we will be communicating well with one another and that we will be able to love each other even as we spend even more time together.

And here are some other pictures from the past week at the camp!

and then we rode them!

We got to draw horses...

My lovely class after the masquerade ball/dance party (which was bombbb) on the last night of camp!
From left to right: Top: Harry, Lee, Me, Cindy, Lisa, Hannah (co-teacher)
Bottom: Calvin, Dominic

One of the sunrise photos I took on the morning of the closing ceremony — the skies were clear and we got to
literally see the sun rise from the outskirts of the horizon. It was absolutely beautiful...

T-Minus One Day

Ahhhh, where do I even begin?? Our week of rest ends tomorrow. Our next camp starts tomorrow, and this past week has just ended on such a high note today!! I think today can be summed up in Akts 20:35b, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

            Last night, I wrote post-its for my roommate here in our hotel with book verses and passages that Dad has been pressing on my heart for him. This morning, I got ready really early and placed the post-its around our room. Then I woke him up at around 7:15 am, left the room, and let him have some quiet time with JC. I went downstairs to the lobby, and just began to yarp that Dad would be convicting him with His Word, that Dad would speak directly to him. I was actually a little worried — worried that he would take it the wrong way or that he might take offense to it, but in that moment, Dad gave me peace and confidence knowing that I was obeying his command to build the body up. We left the hotel at 8:30 am to do an English Corner (conversing with English students), so I never really followed up with him on how he took it, but even during lunch and just through basic interactions, I could see in glimpses that he took it well. He later directly told me that he really appreciated what I had done for him, and that one of the verses really stuck out to him. Funny thing is that Dad pressed that verse on my heart for him a couple weeks ago, and I shared it with him then as well, but he only shared any conviction about it this time around. Truly, it is Dad speaking truth and softening hearts!

Some group photos with Team Blurple and the
chocolates we bought for the girls!

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            Today also just happened to be Chinese Valentine’s Day, and I gathered the three guys on our team to do something for the girls. After dinner, we went out to go and walk around, buy some snacks (mmm banana cake!!) and KFC (mmm burgers and popcorn chicken!!) and whatnot. Some of the girls who didn’t go out asked us to bring them back some PMT and fruit, so after we got KFC, we split our group of five into a group of two (me and another guy) and three (two girls and one guy — the gals felt unsafe walking around by themselves #chivalry) with the intent of my group of two buying the PMT and the group of three buying the fruit. However, we didn’t just buy the PMT that was requested. The mall that sold the PMT also had a little shop with fancy chocolates that the girls were all kinda eyeing yesterday when we went out, so us guys had already discussed earlier that we would buy the chocolates for the girls. And the joy that the girls were filled with when we gave them the chocolates — there’s little that compares. They were crowded on one bed around this box of twelve chocolates, taking little bites here, passing the chocolates around, and exclaiming in delight at the chocolates they had deemed their favorites. It was so, so great. The night continued with a time of affirmation where we had the opportunity to just rapidly, in a sort of stream-of-consciousness affirm every member of the team, and that was really joyous as well. We finally ended the night with a mini dance party to songs like Deep Cries Out and So Good To Me while video chatting one of our team members who left after the second camp. It was just a night filled with so much joy.

            Conveniently so, Dad has also been showing me in his Word how much he desires for us to rejoice. We had a book study with some English students this afternoon on Rom@ns 5 (they were about our age and were all C). While reading through the chapter, I noticed that in the first 11 verses, almost every action is either something Dad has done or that we have received from Him. The only thing the passage explicitly tells us to do is rejoice — “More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings… More than that, we also rejoice in Dad through our L0rd JC, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” (Rom. 5:3, 11). Dad has also been speaking to me through other verses like, “Rejoice in the L0rd always; again I will say, Rejoice” (Phil. 4:4). Dad commands us to rejoice, and today has just been a day of immense rejoicing!

            And to add the cherry on top, Joyce wrote me post-its for each day I’m in China, and I hadn’t read the one she wrote for today yet. So I read it when I came back to my room and it read: Dad did something today. Whatever small/big, celebrate. And this totally rang true — ahhh, Dad is just so good!!!

I guess this entire post has been sort of a praise report, but here are some short chat requests, and I’ll end with some more pictures summarizing this week of rest!

1) Focus — our camp starts tomorrow and after seven days of no work, I have a feeling that adjusting back to our previous schedule may end up being a little difficult. This camp will also be different since most kids will already be C and their English level is pretty high — they said it’ll almost be like a C youth camp, so please yarp that we will be able to have wisdom from Dad on how to modify our lesson plans and whatnot.

2) Love — sometimes it might actually be harder to love kids that are already C. I have a feeling that we’ll have a lot of kids that will snottily say things like, “Oh, I already knew that…”, so please yarp that in the face of kids like that, we would abound in Dad’s grace and desire to disciple them in understanding Dad’s love more. Yarp that we will be able to rejoice even when circumstances seem rough!

And now for the photos! :)

After our first night sleeping in proper beds, about to go out and see the ways Dad is moving in this city.
Also, I'm #fabulous #flahlis

Group photo after visiting the coffee shop I shared about last post.
Our Chinese Partner, J, is in the upper right corner of this photo too! :)

Lisa invited us to her family reunion dinner — we ate SUPER fancy food (abalone, sea cucumber, crab, etc.) — and
it was super fun being able to play with all her nieces and nephews and going around making toasts with her relatives!

Random lion balloons we found after we had an English Corner at a bookstore. We're #teambeautiful, aren't we? :P

The ladies of Blurple with their chocolates and PMT. :)

As always, hope all is well with you back home! :)

            

Waiting

A blurry polaroid picture that they took of us and put on the wall of the
coffee shop we visited of "my friends" (heehee, it says "my friends" on the
side of the wall). :3

            As of now, our third camp is almost 100% sure cancelled (we’ll probably find out more when Lisa!!! comes to visit us tonight). However, I think Dad is going to be blessing us and challenging us greatly through this week of rest. Yesterday was our first day of rest since our first camp started, and ugh, it was just glorious. In the morning, we got to sleep in until 8:30 (we’ve had to wake up at around 6:45 or earlier every morning since July 8th). We fellowshipped with one another until we ate lunch with our Chinese partner, where we had an amazing time with amazing food and company. Then we went to a new coffee shop that opened in Shenyang called Queens Coffee, and that afternoon spent there was just such a blessing. The walls of the shop were decorated with these beautiful murals that depicted the redemption story of the owners’ marriage. The wife had to lay down her crowns at the feet of J and the husband had a smoking problem that contributed to their issues. In the end, J redeemed their marriage, and they’ve now opened up this coffee shop in the hopes that it will be a testimony of Dad’s love to this city. 

The story reads from left to right, top to bottom 

— it's so beautiful!! The owner hopes that the 

customers that come into his shop can strive towards

Dad's love like depicted in the last frame. :) :)

           One thing that the owner said that really moved me was that his vision for the coffee shop was for people to come to their coffee shop and feel like they were part of one family, rather than just individuals at a coffee shop. The heart and boldness for Dad we’ve seen here has just been amazing (yes, I’ll continue to overuse the word amazing, because it really was just amazing).

So on one hand, I can foresee how this week is going to be great, because we’re going to see the ways that Dad is moving even if we aren’t necessarily doing the work ourselves, AND we’re going to have beds and showers for an entire week, which is just amazing. However, I think in the midst of all this accommodation, comfort, and no work, we will be tempted by the comforts of, well, comfort. Because during the camps, when things were hard and it was difficult to love the kids or work together, it was necessary to turn to Dad, and He proved himself to be faithful. However, when things are less busy, it’s easy to feel like we don’t need him, when the truth is we need him even more.

Earlier this morning, Sophia shared about this as well. She shared this passage with the group:

“I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name. Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth. I am coming soon. Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown.” (Rev. 3:8,10-11 ESV)

And I feel like this passage captures a lot of what I feel like will be challenging in this week — trusting that Dad has already opened the door and now all we have to do is wait. And what more must we do as we wait but seek his presence? Sophia also said that if anything, if we don’t have any real mlnlstry with other people in this week, that this would be a good time to press in for greater unity within our team — for our team to be of one mind and one splrlt. And I completely agree, because in the last few posts I’ve sent home, I’ve asked for pryer for unity, and I still sense that there is still some disunity within our team. Things have improved greatly, so thank you for all the pryers you’ve been sending my way, but please continue to pr for this!! Also, there is one co-teacher who still decided to come to Shenyang although the camp was cancelled. She said she felt it would still be worth it to come and meet people, and she also said that she’s pretty interested in coming to know Dad (!!!), so it looks like we won’t be completely without mlnlstry this week! J

So to recap… pr requests to please be pr-ing for:

1) Passion — to desire to seek his face even when times aren’t trying

2) Rest — I want this last camp to just be amazing, and I know we can’t do that if we don’t use this time wisely to rest in Dad

3) Unity — I feel there are still walls people have put up that haven’t been broken down yet, so please pr that Dad would be uniting us in Him

4) Boldness and love — especially with respect to the counselor that is still spending the week with us!!

As always, hope all is well with you guys. J

Halfway Done Already?!

Some of us being just a tad 嘚瑟 with some flowers that
the really young kids very cutely gave us!

Whooo, I’m reporting to you from the comforts of our hostel in Beijing! It's hard to believe that we're more than halfway through ISEC! :o After three weeks of sleeping on hard floors, eating the same food day after day, and suffering from immense heat with no A/C, it’s so good to have beds, showers that are clean enough that you’d feel comfortable putting your feet on, and A/C. So we just had our closing ceremony for our second camp yesterday, and there were just so many blessings over the past week.

We had foot washing in the morning yesterday, and it actually was probably the highlight of this entire trip thus far. To give some context, my class for this camp has been pretty difficult to handle. There have been quite a few of them that have been quite problematic especially during, for example, our tutorial 1-on-1 times. In each classroom, we have three teachers, the foreign teacher, the co-teacher, and the 生活老师 (“live-in” teacher), and while I’d like to have my co-teacher there to talk to the kids with me (and translate the bits I don’t understand… haha), I usually can’t, because the 生活老师is out trying to find kids that have just randomly left the classroom, and my co-teacher then has to make sure the rest of the kids stay in the classroom. One of the kids has a fairly big stealing and lying problem, but I think he also has some sort of undiagnosed learning disability, so communicating with him is especially difficult. One of the kids has a hearing disability, which also makes her speaking harder to understand, and even worse yet, she doesn’t really understand she has a hearing disability, meaning she gets really frustrated when we have to ask her to repeat herself, but she also has a hard time understanding what we’re saying. She’s also (Dad, forgive me) a bit of a brat and doesn’t really listen to the teachers even when she does understand what we’re saying. The young teenage girls didn’t really feel comfortable opening up to me and would often give me some controlled sass. Overall, classroom management went a lot less smoothly than it did last week.

But foot washing was great. Although the kids were a little adamant against letting me wash their feet at first, they eventually all willingly allowed me to do so. I explained it to them that teacher wants to wash their feet because he loves them — that truly, I am no better than them, and that I am there to serve them. In the end, one of the teenage girls who didn’t really feel comfortable opening up to me actually washed my feet too. And lemme tell you, this girl would literally only say one of three phrases to any question or comment I had — 哦, which means “oh,” 随便, which means “whichever is fine,” or 我不知道, which means “I don’t know,” and it was SO frustrating to basically learn nothing about this girl, because nothing she said actually revealed what she believed or thought. But after the foot washing, she wrote me a note and told me to talk to her after I finished reading it. Part of the note read, “…I was actually going to tell you some of my secrets during the 1-on-1 time, but then you told me to go back to the classroom — don’t blame me that you didn’t get to hear my secret! And of course, the most moving thing teacher did for us was when he washed our feet!...” And it was really great to hear direct affirmation that what we were doing was impacting. I talked to her after reading the note, and we just chatted until lunch time — someone actually had to come and get us because we lost track of time. Even though a lot of the conversation still comprised of 哦’s, 随便’s, and 我不知道’s, it was still nice to know that the conversation was appreciated.

Also, during the past week, students from the first camp have been coming back to visit us and to help around for the second camp. One of my kids, S, came back quite often. She also came back on the day of foot washing and asked if she could wash my feet. As she began washing my feet and speaking to me, tears were slowly coming down her face, and she told me that she and the other kids keep talking about the summer camp, and they all agree that those short eight days are something that are going to stick with them for the rest of their lives. Here we are, just teaching them some simple English, preparing some skits, listening to them talk, and spending time with them, but Dad is doing something so much greater, and it touched my heart so much to hear her say that. It really shows that it’s not our own love, but Dad’s love that is really being shown here at these camps. So as the second camp progressed, I came to appreciate both camps we had in 中山 more and more — the second as Dad filled us with his love for the kids, and the first as Dad showed me the extent to which we are impacting these kids.

Some small other praise reports and pr requests to finish off this post!

Praise reports:

1) Yesterday, some more kids from the first camp came and visited us, and we actually got to eat all-you-can-eat barbeque and hot pot with them!! It was so good to see the kids again, and the time spent amongst foreign teachers, co-teachers, 生活老师, and kids from the first camp was just so, so sweet.

2) The day before yesterday (i.e. the night before M left), our team of foreign teachers went up to the sixth floor and just had a great time of fellowship. We got to sing, run away from scary bugs, and affirm each other before we had to say good-bye to M. X took a video of me getting rid of the rhinoceros beetle that flew into the room we were fellowshipping in. Even though it was an initially frightening thing, it was so funny afterwards — enjoy the video (k, I might not be able to upload it... so I might try again later...)!

Pr requests:

1) We have had to say good-bye to a lot of people again the last couple of days. Yesterday, we said good-bye to M, one of our teammates, because he has to head back to Australia for classes, and we today said bye to E, another teammate, who has to go home early for one of her best friend’s weddings, and we said bye to J, our camp director who has to go to Chicago to give a presentation on one of his papers. Our smaller team is now recombining back with the Blue Team (who also lost two members going home for that same wedding that E is going home for), and although it’s good to be reunited, it’ll also be a little difficult and sad adjusting to the fact that many people have now left, so please chat for joy in the midst of farewell pains.

Finally have a complete group photo with Team Purple!! First and last batch of photos with our whole team. :(
From left to right — Top: R, A, X, E, N; Bottom: K, M, J, me!

2) Our first Shenyang camp actually got cancelled today. We’re still traveling out to Shenyang tomorrow morning, but as of now, we don’t have any plans, so please pr for Dad to provide opportunities for us to do his work even if it may not be at this camp that we originally planned to go to! Pr for eyes and hearts that are open to these opportunities!!

3) Rest — after two consecutive camps in 中山, I think our team is feeling quite burned out. Please pr that in these next couple of days (or next week), that our team would be wise in the free time that we have in using it to rest well in Dad’s presence.

As always, hope all is going well with y’all too. Love and miss you all! J