Remembering....

exactly two years ago today, we landed in the 3rd largest city in China...

Final Day of Class - July 2011 - 8:00 a.m. class

It was an adventure that I will forever be grateful for.

Oh, how I loved those dear, dear students.

Allen and I both get emails from our students occasionally.  It just always reminds me how wonderful the students are.

Some specific memories:

showing them a DORITOS commercial from the Super Bowl and then handing out Doritos...oh, they squealed with delight...they loved it.  (It was expensive to buy those chips in China, but the squeals of laughter and delight were so worth it!)

Their final exam talks on a TURNING POINT in their lives; they were so inspiring and beautiful and tender and poignant and honest.  I wish I had those recorded - every one of them.  They were memorable.

The night that Jeremy and Kristi came to a special class meeting (which the students called a party!)  Jeremy and Kristi each sang and talked.  Then, I will NEVER forget the end of the evening when Allen sang with his guitar, HAVE I TOLD YOU LATELY THAT I LOVE YOU....then he walked over and kissed me.  The students - 200 of them - were cheering wildly, snapping photos, laughing, it was an amazing moment.  The students don't see older people exhibiting any kind of physicality, so it was electrifying for them.  And, for me also.

Visiting the girls in their dorms and seeing how stark their situations were, yet they were always so pleasant and happy.

Hearing their personal stories of: growing up as an only child, being beaten for poor grades, sneaking out of boarding school, having their hair cut by the teacher when it was below chin length, their parents working so hard to give them a college education,  trying to hide her mother from the government when she was expecting a 2nd child, wanting so badly to do well in school, hoping to pass the test to come to America, not making it into a good high school, learning her father really loved her and only knew how to show it be being harsh and demanding, wanting to please their parents and make them proud no matter what, feeling such a great love for their beloved China....oh, the stories.....

And, many many more fond memories; going to church each week in a white-knuckle, 40 minute taxi ride, watching the adults and children use the sidewalk as their personal toilet, shopping, eating the interesting food, the long beautiful walk each day to school, the yogurt drink for breakfast each morning, the mosquito bites covering my entire body, the heat, the cold, the incredible trips to The Great Wall, Avatar Mountain, the Forbidden City, and other amazing sites, the marvelous people we met - both Chinese and other nationalities....

Thank you, Heavenly Father, for that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity....