Tis the Season to be Jolly...

I’m sorry that it has taken me so long to update the blog but things have been crazy busy here! I want to fill you in on whats been happening here…the good, the bad, the funny, and even the downright disgusting!

The Good

Thanksgiving was wonderful! The seven teachers from ZR got together with our Chinese friend, Dawn, and the Randalls. The Randalls are an older married couple who have three daughters, Hope, Grace, and Mercee. Hope is American and Grace and Mercee are Chinese. I love this family and they are so good to us, always welcoming us into their home! We had a traditional thanksgiving dinner including a frozen turkey, shipped from Beijing, mashed potatoes, green beans, sweet potato casserole, and even pumpkin pie! We all had to chip in and make something because it is no easy task trying to create a huge meal in toaster ovens, trust me! All in all it was a nice holiday. I even got to skype with several members of my family and cried a little when I talked to my maw maw and paw paw, which was to be expected! 

The whole group, minus Aaron, who took the picture, having a truly delicious Thanksgiving dinner. We even watched a little bit of the live streaming of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade online! 

They turkey we had shipped from Beijing!

so many yummy desserts!!!!

For my students, I taught them the story of Thanksgiving about how the pilgrims were Xns who traveled to America to find rel.i.gious freedom.  I had them create turkey hands and write down the things that they are thankful for. I shared that I was thankful for my family, my friends, my students, and most importantly my f.a.i.t.h. It was a wonderful week with the students and I even discovered that one of my students is a Xn!!! I was so excited! 1 in 500!!!! It can be few and far between here. Another student gave me his turkey hand to keep and this is what it said….

Sorry that the picture is kind of blurry! In case you can’t read it, it says “I thank Gd for letting me meet you teacher”. I almost started crying right there on the spot, it was just so sweet because I could tell how much he really meant it! 

Some of the boys in one of my classes showing off their finished turkey hands! I think most of the students enjoyed doing the activity because they never really get the chance in school to do art or crafty things!

Some of the girls from the same class! Some students are very camera shy and won't let me take their picture at all. Others, like this boy in the back, cover up their faces with the paper!

The Down Right Disgusting

Almost two weeks ago Camille and I returned home from our hip hop class at the gym (which we love btw! We are starting to become friends with the teacher and other members of the class even though not a single one of them speaks English and we can’t speak Chinese!) to find our kitchen completely flooded! A pipe in the ceiling had burst and was pooling, literally pooling on the floor! I proceeded to use all of my towels to try to absorb all of the water. Remember this for later in the story…I used my bare hands and towels! We call Diana, our waiban (that means boss) and she came over to look at it and realized it was a huge problem. The next day several workers came to look at the problem and  ripped off the ceiling leaving chunks of the ceiling and debris all over the kitchen and dining room mixing with water. We had to move all of the things from the kitchen into the dining room and living room. There are so many precious items sent from our families from America that we would not be willing to mourn the loss of! No one speaks English so no one can tell us what the problem is. Our main boss, Henry, just tells us that it is the "same as before", not that we have any clue what that means! Anywho, after a few days the kitchen re-floods! We did our best with bowls and buckets and towels to try and catch the water but the flooding is inevitable so we just let it be! Finally, Diana explains to us that it will take the workers some time to get the right kind of pipe to fix the problem, that the water is a sewage line draining from floors 7, 8, and 9!!! Ok, first of all, please explain to me how the water flooding an apartment of floor 3 comes from the apartments on floors 7-9 but not floors 4-6?!?!?! I don't get it! Second of all, and this is really the more important one....do you remember when I said I used to MY towels and MY HANDS to clean up the water the first time it flooded????? Ahhhhhh it was sewage water!!!!!!! Now you know why this is titled the "Downright Disgusting"! I will never be the same again! 

The ripped out ceiling! 

Bits of ceiling mixed with about an inch of water!

Camille standing in all of the water with her rain boots on....we had to conduct a mission to get the water cooler out of the kitchen and into the dining room!

So after two weeks of craziness our kitchen is finally fixed and our lives can get back to normal! Once this was taken care of, Camille and I are were able to decorate the apartment for Christmas! I'll post another blog soon...I promise....about all of the other wonderful things happening right now with our students! Even the midst of this kitchen fiasco, Camille and I were made aware of all the other ways we are blessed and one of those is definitely our students!