Following God's Voice

Many are wondering why we left China.  It has been the first question that most people ask.  I have a feeling that because we love China and were very sad to leave that people think that something happened that caused us to leave.

I just want to clear things up, we were not asked to leave, nothing happened that caused us to get hurt and want to leave, we really just felt because God was leading us back to America.  We do love China and we will always have a special place in our heart for China. We loved the experience, the culture, the people and the friends and relationships we built there.  We have so many great memories there.  (All three kids were born in China!) So it's easy to understand why someone might be asking . . . "Why did you leave?"

I believe it was a year ago that my husband was really feeling unsettled in his job and began to seek God for guidance.  My Husband knew he wasn't going to sign another contract at his job, but we really wanted to stay in China.  So we began to pray that God would bring something to us.  There were several things that did come up, but as we looked into them and sought God's guidance, we didn't feel that those were the things that God had in mind for us.  Time was running out, our job was coming to an end and God still hadn't made anything clear yet.  So we planned to pack up and head back to America.  When we made this decision it was made evident to us that that was what we were suppose to be doing.  Oh, how God provided for us!

We moved to China about 6 months after we were married and have been there ever since.  Spending all that time away, our families really haven't had a chance to get to know the respective spouse and us as a couple.  We also had three kids who don't really know their grandparents and cousins.  We want to spend time with our family and our family to be able to spend time with our children.  We also want our kids to get to know America!

We had been in China for almost 8 years!  It was a great time of learning and growing, but it was about time for a break.  Life can be hard in China, if you want to cook Western food, you have to make things from scratch (sometimes even making the ingredients from scratch, --- one time I had to make corn syrup).  All the attention we and our kids get because we have white skin and light colored hair can be very overwhelming.  Because of the language and culture, anything we do ends up taking a lot more time than you think.  We enjoyed the challenge of learning and using another language, but that can also be tiring, It's hard work!!  And no matter how well you know a culture there is always something that happens that just makes you go "huh?!".  After 8 years we have learned to expect the unexpected, because it will happen!  So I say all that to say, we need a break from it all and come back to America and rest.

So as we began to make plans to head back to America we were given a financial gift which was such a huge blessing!! We were able to bring stuff back from America and then have some money to live while we looked for a job and also buy a car.  Also, once we got settled into my mother's place, my husband began to look for a job.  He did not look for very long and it was only 2 weeks when he was offered a job that he really wanted!  It's amazing that during this time when people are losing jobs, or jobs are very few that we find a job in just 2 weeks!!  It is the perfect job for him and he is loving it!!  We really feel that God has had his hand on us through this whole thing and as things work out, we really feel that we are exactly where God wants us to be.  God is taking care of us!! and we are so blessed and thankful.

We don't know how long we'll stay in America. We hope to rest and spend quality time with family.  We would love to go back overseas, but as of right now we don't have any plans set for that.  We will continue to seek God and listen for his voice to lead us.

Local Lunch

We ate with our friends in a local and very small town. We arrived at the restuarnt which appeared to be someone's home. Our friend asked us to order but we politly refused saying we would like anything he ordered.

As he finished up ordering the workers ran around gathering everything needed to make our food. One ran out back and returned with our chicken. They killed it, plucked it chopped it up and cooked it. They also pulled out an eel from a bucket, killed it, chopped it up and cooked it (see picture below). Talk about fresh food!



I'm sure this would violate some health code.



The food was pretty good and we tried several new dishes. One was a local speciality called sweet and sour cucumber. I was a little hesitant to try it because it looked like a bowl of fat. Once I got over the look the taste was good, a little sweet. One of my favorite dish was sweet potato leaves



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Celebrating the New Year

Since China goes by the Lunar calendar the New Year is not on the same day as we celebrate it (nor is it likely to be on the same day ever). This year we are bringing in the Year of the Rabbit on February 3. The New Year or 春节 (ChunJie), literally translated "Spring Festival" is similar to America's Christmas. It is probably the most celebrated holiday by everyone in China and is probably the most important holiday to spend with your family. People usually return to their hometown to be with their families. Presents aren't exchanged as we do at Christmas time but instead the older members of the family give red envelopes filled with money to the young children.

On New Year's eve everyone gets together and 包饺子 (baojiaozi - wrap dumplings). Jiaozi, or dumplings are made with ground beef or pork and some chopped vegetables then wrapped with a small flour wrap. Usually there are a few coins put in several of them (whoever gets those will have fortune in the new year, and they are usually required to sing a song for fun during the meal).

The Chinese are very famous for their amazing paper cuts . . . my daughter is trying her hand at it. She LOVES arts & crafts and did several paper cuts. This year is the year of the Rabbit, so she cut out a couple of Rabbits (unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the finished products).

During the New Year you will also see signs hung with the character 福 (Fu) on it which means blessing.

Here my friend and my husband & daughter are practicing their calligraphy. One of my daughter's favorite things to do is paint, she practiced her characters for over an hour! I think she is actually pretty good, maybe even better than her daddy. ;-)

When celebrating the New Year you can't forget the fireworks! There are so many fireworks set off on New Years Eve that the car alarms join in with the noise. It really sounds like you are in the middle of a war, especially when you live in an apartment complex where the sound bounces between the buildings.
Every year I learn something new about celebrating this holiday. This year my husband was reading a book to my daughter and we learned that on New Year's eve you don't go to sleep for fear of having a bad dream. If you have a bad dream it is a sign of bad things to come, so to avoid the bad omen people will just avoid sleeping all together, at least until the sun comes up the next day. Probably another reason why they shoot fireworks off all night, so you CAN'T sleep. (But I have to say my children who have grown up here and being here 7 years myself I have learned to sleep through all the noise.)

Foot Binding

This past weekend we attended a wedding out in the countryside. I have never experienced anything like that before and I will never forget it. The wedding took place in a village and it appeared that most of the people from the village where there. When we arrived at the groom's house (where the ceremony took place) there was a large crowd waiting. I looked around and saw many different faces, some sad, some happy, most of them intrigued by our white faces. I saw this woman here and noticed that her feet were bound. After living in China for 6 years, in 3 different cities I have never seen this before. I was fascinated by it and when I began this blog I started searching online for information. I found this page that had stories from many different Chinese women who were still binding their feet (I believe these interviews were done around 1989). This woman here, along with one other villager I saw who also had bound feet, wasn't wearing the pretty 3 inch embroidered shoes but these black shoes which are very commonly found around China. Around 1949 the government came around and made the women unbind their feet. This was very painful and some women decided to keep binding their feet because they couldn't walk.