我是美国人

So yesterday I woke up to the most beautiful blue sky and sunshiny day only to discover that I had a fever, headache, sore throat and all kinds of sinus issues. Needless to say I did not enjoy the sunshine at all, instead I laid in bed and felt sorry for myself pretty much the whole day. Elizabeth did take me out for a strawberry smoothie at the place called "Drinking Cool." That was really sweet of her. Then we watched Gilmore Girls and were utterly lazy. My fever got worse last night and I'm still feeling pretty horrible, but I went to lunch with some new friends today. One was an Aussie from Perth, who is here teaching at a foreign language school, and the other is a wonderful, sweet Chinese girl whose English is better than mine. She told me very excitedly that she was studying last year from a good book, and that she really wants to learn some more. I'm looking forward to studying with her. Well I'm going to go back to bed and try to get rid of this sickness so that I can feel like a normal person again.

早商好

Last night I went over to Zack and Elizabeth's and we made...

...get ready for it...

NO BAKE COOKIES! I don't think you quite understand how incredible and exciting this is! It was perhaps the happiest moment imaginable. Butter is very rare and expensive here, the milk is questionable at best, but cocoa from America makes everything better. I tell you I was deliciously overjoyed. It sure doesn't take much to make me happy these days.

My favorite part of today was totally the Chinese guy with dred locks. I never thought I'd see that. I wish I could show you a picture but the bus was moving too fast. Well on second thought my favorite part might have been the bus driver pulling a jug of water out from under his seat when the bus overheated and pouring it in the radiator like this happens all the time. It probably does.

Today after lunch I just hopped on bus 23 and took it downtown and after shopping a bit I hopped on bus 10 just to see where it would take me. It went across the river to this beautiful spot that helped me appreciate why the University is called the Three Gorges University. I didn't stay long because it was getting late and I was gettin hungry but I will be back! What a gorgeous spot.

Went over to Brad's apartment today where Amy showed me how to make fried noodles, a delicious Americanized dish that I can easily make here. I'm stoked! Met two really amazing Chinese students, and had a blast. We even got to talk about some important stuff with them.

I have one major complaint. NBC.com somehow knows we are in China and won't let us watch the Office! There will be a mutiny if I can't see the new episodes this season. I realize that Chinese people are notorious for pirating shows and movies, but I am an American citizen and I am being discriminated against! I won't stand for it!


"Time you enjoy wasting was not wasted."
-John Lennon

我要水

Ever played the video game Frogger? I'm the frog trying to cross the street.

There is a no-honking rule in YiChang apparently, which means that people lay on their horns every other second instead of continually. Lucky us!

We found a restaurant that has English on the menu so we can point to what we want, so we've eaten there three meals in a row now. It's a lot better than getting surprise food when you point to Chinese characters. I found out that YiChang is famous for their spicy food though. I couldn't feel my mouth after I ate the potatoes for supper. That could be a good thing.

Breakfast tomorrow with Ed before we sign our contracts. I'm excited. It's going to be a good year.

Supposedly here is how you call me if anyone is interested. 011-86-717-139-8674-9214.
I haven't had anyone try it, so who knows if it works or not.

中国

I'm in China! Already I have had quite a few adventures. We left Monday and arrived Wednesday, I never got a Tuesday. Tuesday's gone. ;)
I don't even know where to start. The airport in Hong Kong was beautiful, you could see the ocean on one side and mountains on the other. We flew to Wuhan, had some strange seafood creation for breakfast on the airplane. I thought we were going to be spending a few days in Wuhan before traveling on to YiChang, but when we got there, our Wai Bon was waiting for us with a van so we loaded up five of us in five seats with bags in the floor and drove 4 or 5 hours, I'm not really sure. We stopped for lunch and I had my first attempt at eating with chopsticks, (other than Pei Wei in America). I'm horrible at it. I dropped everything I picked up, but eventually I managed to get enough food in my mouth and it was good food too. You don't order your own individual meal at restaurants, you order a platter and everybody shares off of it. Also, lanes mean nothing here. I don't even know why they bother to paint them on the road. Everybody drives wherever they can fit and even where they can't and that includes the wrong side of the road. Well we finally made it to YiChang, and Jian showed us to our apartments and told us to meet at a little restaurant we had passed in an hour for dinner. So I showered and left, and promptly got lost, but I made it there, and I was still on time too. A word of advice...if you ever get the chance to eat eel, DON'T! It was the worst thing I have ever had the misfortune to put in my mouth. Trying to swallow and pretend like I liked it was not an easy task, that's for sure. Well after dinner, I treked back to my apartment and stuck my key in the door and turned it...and it broke. Now I'm holding a half of a key in my hand, with the other half still stuck in the lock, and it's dark outside, I don't have a cell phone, and I don't know anybody except Zack and Elizabeth. Luckily they happened to be with me because they wanted to see my apartment, so I spent the night with them. They have three bedrooms so it's no big deal. I am REALLY glad I got a shower before I went to dinner. The next morning we had our medical exams at 8:30, and that was another adventure. Then we went and got our bank accounts set up, and went grocery shopping. My favorite part of grocery shopping was the live fish they had for sale in tanks on the wall. It smelled horrible though. I had to buy an umbrella because it has been pouring all day and I was completely soaked. I could not have been more wet. It hasn't stopped raining since I got off the airplane. Oh yeah, and Jian had someone come fix my lock so I finally got back into my apartment yesterday afternoon. I went to an ATM only to find out that it declined my card. I'm not sure if it's a problem with the bank in Oklahoma or the fact that I'm in China, but I need to get that figured out as soon as I can. Zack and Elizabeth came to my rescue again and gave me some of their cash until I get paid, which isn't til the 10th. Yikes! But I ate supper last night for about 16 American cents, so I think I'll be okay. My apartment is really nice, it's got wooden floors, two TVs, a mini oven, a microwave, all kinds of neat stuff. I also get internet for free, so I was super excited about that. I have to plug it in, but that's okay. Zack and Elizabeth have wireless but I'll take what I can get. I still don't have a phone though, and it might be after September 10 until I get one, after I get paid.

Colorado and back

I did one of the stupidest things I've ever done on Tuesday and I got up at 4am and drove 15 hours by myself to Salida, CO to pick Sammie up. Part of the stupidity comes from the fact that I was already sleep-deprived from the week before so driving that long was painful. The other part is that I made the mistake of assuming that the interstates would be faster than country highways. WRONG. So what was supposed to be a 12 hour trip turned into 15 and I was fighting to stay awake and alive by the end of it. Add that with the fact that my windsheild wipers sometimes decide they don't want to work, and you come up with a pretty miserable day. But at the end of it I got to hang out with some of Sammie's Trek buddies, we went to Mama D's and then bowling, where I bowled my best game ever. I even doubled Sammie's points (which wasn't hard to do). Maybe I should always go bowling when I'm sleep-deprived. Then we went back to the barn and watched Top Gun, which surprisingly enough Sammie fell asleep in the middle of but for some reason I, the one who wanted to go to bed hours before, couldn't sleep until 2am Oklahoma time. Then we got up at 5 because Samster and I were gonna bag Mount Massive before we hit the road back for Oklahoma. I only got two days off work so it was a short trip. Well by the time we actually got around to climbing we decided we weren't gonna summit, plus there were clouds around the top since 9am. Must be the hurricane effect or something but I doubt anyone summited that day. We just went for a short little hike instead, which was sort of disappointing but oh well. Then we drove to the Springs to REI some stuff and it was like 3:30 before we actually headed back toward the home turf. I made Sammie drive the entire time. I couldn't keep my eyelids peeled open. I actually drove for 30 minutes while she was on the phone and then I gave up. I'm a loser and I just couldn't do any more than that. Good thing my sister loves to drive because I'm no help whatsoever. So we got back to good ole Norman at 3:30am and then I went to work at 8:30. They say you never recover from the sleep you lose, but I'm sure gonna try.

My Summer Adventures

I suppose if anyone reads this, I should update you on my life. A lot has changed since the last time I posted. I just spent a month with the youth group from Littleton, CO. Somehow I managed to get a month off work, I really have no idea how. God is on my side. I flew out to Denver and the airport is HUGE! I had to ride a shuttle from the gate to the baggage claim and those things go perty darn fast so I played this game where I tried to stand up without holding on to anything and see how long it took before it threw me into a wall or another person. Either it wasn’t as fast as I thought it was or I have stout leg muscles because I managed to stay standing the entire time. Chalk one up for all those water-skiing hours, I knew they would come in handy someday. Then there were six different baggage drop-offs just for United so I naturally went to the first five before I found the right one. Hopefully Jared and Jessica weren’t waiting too long for me. After all that adventure we left bright and early the next morning for Soul Quest in lovely York, Nebraska. It was a wonderful week. 7 hours on an old school bus that has been painted white and gets no radio reception is always fun. I didn’t bring a sleeping bag because you have to pay $25 extra for another bag at the airport so I just planned on going to Walmart and buying a $5 blanket before camp only I haven’t had time. SO I saw my good friend Chelsea, and she lives here so I asked her to borrow some bedding. Ardmore's youth group was there so I got to see Billie Sue and Levi, and Madi. (I used to be a youth intern for their church) Man that girl rocks!!
Then I spent a few days in Littleton preparing for our trip to Germany, which we left for just 4 days later. We spent two weeks in Hildesheim. We flew all night and arrived at 7am. The sun set over the ocean and then 15 minutes later rose again. That was a weird experience. I'd been awake for most of the last 24 hours, with only 3 hours of sleep the night before. Needless to say I was not an extremely cheerful person when we arrived. I was a bit slap-happy though.
Germany made it to the finals in the Euro Cup, and played Spain while we were there, so we got to go to the public viewing and experience soccer on a whole new level. What a great time! Unfortunately, Germany lost but what a night!
At first I felt a little bit frustrated with our mission trip, feeling like we weren't really making a difference, and similar thoughts, but then God proved me wrong once again. We started having people show up to our parties over and over again, and then showing up other random times just to hang out, and by the time we left there was at least one kid who I am convinced is now a member of the church.
While we were in Germany something else happened. I started dating a guy who has been one of my good friends for the last 8 years. I know that I'm going to spend a year in China, so this is going to be very difficult for us, but we both feel like it's possible. With anyone else I wouldn't even try but I think we can make it.
God has been taking care of me in every way lately. A friend of mine, who I just met recently, has offered to pay for my health insurance this coming year, which is a big expense that I was very worried about. I am blown away by the generosity of people. Then two wonderful girls that I spent the last month with, helped me out so that I could buy my plane ticket, because I didn't have quite enough. I never even had to ask. God anticipated my every need before I even spoke it.

Here Am I. Send Me.

It was the year King Uzziah died that I saw the Lord. He was sitting on a lofty throne, and the train of his robe filled the Temple. Attending him were mighty seraphim, each having six wings. With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. They were calling out to each other,
"Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of Heaven's Armies!
The whole earth is filled with his glory!"
Their voices shook the Temple to its foundations, and the entire building was filled with smoke.
Then I said, "It's all over! I am doomed, for I am a sinful man. I have filthy lips, and I live among a people with filthy lips. Yet I have seen the King, the LORD of Heaven's Armies."
Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal he had taken from the alter with a pair of tongs. He touched my lips with it and said, "See, this coal has touched your lips. Now your guilt is removed, and your sins are forgiven."
Then I heard the Lord asking, "Whom should I send as a messenger to this people? Who will go for us?"

I said, "Here am I. Send me."

Basically, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of harvest therefore, to send out workers into His harvest field." -Luke 10:2