Blogging A Photo

I hate the quality photo that my phone takes but I can't get enough of that baby boy!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Blogging From My Phone

Living in China makes life interesting, for one thing the Internet is not all that it is in the USA. It's slower and you can't always get to things like facebook, blogs, YouTube, etc. This makes connecting with friends and family back home more challenging.

My husband, the awesome tech guy he is, works really hard to make sure (to the best of his ability) that we can stay connected.

As most of you all know in 10 days we will leave Qingdao, our home for the past 4 years, and go south to Beihai. We will be working at an orphanage for 3 weeks. (We will work a family camp as well as survey for possible long term ministry.) Heading down there we aren't sure what the Internet will be like or if we will have it at all. So my husband has been, again, working deligently to make sure we can stay in contact with family, friends & supporters.

So here I am, testing my new way of blogging - from my phone. Hope it works, and I look forward to keeping in touch.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Update from The Carmans in China

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Dear Supporters,

Four months ago I officially resigned from my position at International School of Qingdao. These last four months have been an intense time of seeking His will, dealing with the emotions of possibly leaving our home of 7 and a half years, and saying goodbye to our incredible friends here. We are still formulating our long-term plan; however, we are excited to tell you about a short-term project that we have decided to do in the meantime.

From July 1 to July 24, the Carman family will be working at Living Stones Village (LSV), in Beihai, Guangxi Province, China. LSV is an orphanage for disabled and abandoned children in Guangxi, China. Children with missing limbs, cerebral palsy, polio, hearing impairment, blindness, and crippling burn injuries are being raised and treasured in the Village.

I initially visited this place in February to see about the possibility of joining with them. I was impressed with the vision of the leadership as well as the obvious blessings that He has shown at this place and to the people who live there. One of LSV’s goals is to be a vital part of the surrounding villages for the purpose of building relationships. This summer LSV has organized several camps to help facilitate this goal. We have been asked to participate in the family camp. Along with us, several families from the US will be working with about 30 children aged 9 to 11. These children come from the neighboring villages. As the resident orphans who are cared for by LSV are all above 11 years old, they will also participate in helping to run various activities at the camp.

We will be engaging the children in various activities, including: English study, sports, hobbies, movies, and games. Week 1 will be orientation and training. Week 2 will be the camp. Week 3 will be getting to know the city, LSV staff, and the director of the orphanage to consider future work. Our objectives are to share the love from above with the children and help LSV create solid relationships with the surrounding villages for future work. Our final goal is to assess how we can further help LSV in the future. As such, this camp will also serve as a survey trip.

Requests:

• That He would do a great work with the children at the camp
• His guidance as we consider working there long-term
• Logistics of getting there and back and then to the US

Financial Needs:
Total Cost of Trip: $4,193 (See attachment for breakdown of financial needs.)

If you are interested in supporting us financially, you can give a tax-deductible donation by sending a check to the following address:

GFMA
PO Box 3326
Chattanooga, TN 37404

Please endorse checks to "GFMA" and signify in the memo line that the money is to go to Jeremy & Jacquelyn Carman

Thank you very much for the continued support over the years.

Sincerely,
Jeremy & Jacquelyn Carman & Family

Jeremy: jalopyhead @ gmail.com (remove the spaces); blog.jalopyhead.com;
Jacquelyn: jalopygirl @ gmail.com (remove the spaces); jalopygirl.blogspot.com
LSV Website: www.livingstonesvillage.org

Mixed Emotions

This past week I have felt just about every emotion the human can feel. Here I am 1 week from my due date, a time of excitement and anticipation, a time to celebrate new life, nervous . . .
and I find my self crying, grieving, morning the loss of a life. A young 10 year old boy who should be outside playing in the sun, riding a bike, running around chasing his friends but instead he is moving on from this earth.

How can I celebrate a my new son's life when my friends are losing theirs?

Our fellowship this Sunday spent time praying, crying and singing. We sang this song, I have sung it a dozen time before, I have always enjoyed singing it but this Sunday it had an all new meaning to me. I had been crying my eyes out the night before, pouring my heart out to God, sharing my feelings with my husband and here on Sunday morning God touches my heart through this song "Blessed Be Your Name". In the song it talks about how we bless our God's name when things are good and how we bless His name when things are hard. When God blesses us or we are going through trials we still need to praise Him for being Him. When everything seem perfect or when we are walking through a difficult and painful trial He is still God & He is perfect. Whatever God does, whether He chooses to pour out His blessings or I feel He has turned away I will choose to say "Blessed Be His Name!"

The bridge hit me; "He gives & takes away, my heart will choose to say, Lord, blessed be your name." It is God who gives and takes life. Whether we are morning the end of a life or celebrating new life we will Bless His Name!

"Blessed Be Your Name"
Matt Redman

Blessed Be Your Name
In the land that is plentiful
Where Your streams of abundance flow
Blessed be Your name

Blessed Be Your name
When I'm found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed Be Your name

Every blessing You pour out
I'll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

Blessed be Your name
When the sun's shining down on me
When the world's 'all as it should be'
Blessed be Your name

Blessed be Your name
On the road marked with suffering
Though there's pain in the offering
Blessed be Your name

You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be Your name

Snuggle Time

I hope he bonds to his new little brother

Lessons in Birthday Cakes

I have been trying to write this blog for over a week but was first uninspired, then unmotivated and then I was kicked off line because our VPN was blocked. Here I am, finally writing this all down. I am writing this blog, not really for others to read but for my own future reference. I want to document the things that I have learned from making these birthday cakes so I can remember for future endeavors (if I dare to try again).

This all started 3 years ago when my not yet 3 year old daughter told me she wanted a Rocket cake from Little Einsteins for her birthday cake. At first I just laughed but as I thought it over I thought that I could possible do it. I looked online for cake ideas and found something that I liked, thought of a plan, and then asked my friend (an artist) to help me. I was actually really pleased with how it turned out.

The only problem with this cake was that there was too much! I could have just done the rocket and had plenty of cake (we aren't huge cake fans). I made a 9x13 chocolate cake that was used for the sky (covered in blue frosting). The body of Rocket was made from two round cake (one was actually cooked in a bowl), the recipe I used was given to me by my sister that is suppose to be very good for carving and shaping. The engines were made out of gluten free chocolate cup cakes.

Summary of the things I learned from making the Rocket Cake
1) Freezing the cake makes it a lot easier to carve and frost
2) Doing a crumb coat frosting will help seal in the crumbs so your final frosting coat is nice and smooth
3) When trying to get a a deep red frosting you should mix it up at least a day in advance, when you stir it up the next day it will no longer be pink but a nice brilliant red

The next year we decided for my daughter's 4th birthday to have a Dora the Explorer themed party. This year I wanted to try making fondant and I also wanted to make the cake taste good. Although I think the cake is pretty cute (my favorite were the stars shooting out of the cake) I almost gave up in the middle of the project and was really disappointed with the end result. However, I was happy with how the cakes tasted, the top was red velvet and the bottom was chocolate with chocolate ganche & raspberry filling.

A few things I learned from making this two tier Dora Cake:

1) Marshmallow fondant dries out & cracks very easily
2) When covering a cake with fondant you need to do it quickly or else it will pull, tear and crack

3) It is very important that your cake is carved flat, DON'T try and cover mistakes with extra frosting - too much and the frosting melts and then the fondant falls/droops
4) Less filling (as well as crumb coat frosting) is best; when using a filling you don't want too much or the cake will bulge.

For my daughters 5th birthday she wanted a princess theme so I thought doing a castle could be simple enough. I started searching on line again for ideas and found some ideas that I liked. After the previous year's fondant frustrations, I wasn't looking forward to working with it again. But my friend pointed out how much prettier the cake with fondant looked and I figured I could give it one more try. I hoped to remember the mistakes from the year before and improved on it.

First thing I did was make the marshmallow fondant much more "wet" than the previous year. This made working with it a bit easier, it didn't dry or crack as much. I also rolled out the fondant much thicker than the previous year which also helped with the cracking. Secondly, I decided to go back to the dense vanilla & chocolate cakes since I wanted to build with it. I knew they wouldn't taste as good but hopefully they wouldn't fall, bulge or slide.

For the bottom cake (purple tier) I used a dense chocolate cake (actually tasted pretty good) baked in two 9x9 pans and layered them. The second pink tier and the purple towers I made a 9x13 dense vanilla cake. After freezing all the cakes I assembled them together using a thin layer of crumb coat frosting. The top tier I carved to a nice square shape and the towers were cut using circle cake cutters with wooden skewers placed in the middle to hold them together. The bottom pink towers are made of chocolate gluten free cake, also cut with cake cutters and held together with wooden skewers.

I have to admit that going into the project I had a bit of a bad attitude, I was nervous and thought it was going to be a disaster. But once into it I started to have fun! I was really pleased with the final outcome thinking it was super cute. It was really pretty simple to make and everything went pretty smoothly. I did struggle frosting the towers, the carved cake kept falling apart. But once I let them freeze it was much easier to frost.

Here are a couple things that did go "wrong" with the Castle cake (but I'm not exactly sure how to improve for next time).
1) Most of the towers were fine but a couple of them the fondant began to slide off (possibly too much crumb coat frosting? possibly the fondant was too thick and heavy pulling it down?)
2) After sitting out all night the fondant's color faded; I guess it needs to be covered but how do you cover a huge carved cake?
3) Need to make sure the cakes are carved evenly and flat (I know I "learned" this the year before - I did a much better job but still had some mistakes

So after making 3 "fancy" cakes I think that I have learned a lot but the big question is "Was it worth it?" I was a little disappointed with my daughters reaction when she saw the finished caked (but she is a bit like her mama and doesn't show too much emotion). But we all have great memories, I had fun creating a master piece, and hanging out with my friend as we made eatable art.

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.)