Now more than 10 hours ago, I left Beijing after what seemed like the 10 months I spent there had lasted about 10 minutes, but had also somehow been more like 10 years. How so much adventure and fun and amazing, supernatural work could get packed into such a "short" time on this incredible journey of joyful uncertainty that has officially come to a close has only one explanation (see also below). I have a lot of unpacking to do when I get back, and not just with my luggage. So much was packed into these last days and weeks and even the final minutes of my time that I am thankful for and want to unpack with words here, which I will. My original connecting flight home was even canceled and let me have some bonus face and talk and prayer time at the airport with one of my great friends, Kyle, who had already returned from his faithful time on the journey in China with TIP.
For now, before my laptop battery dies as I cruise the last couple of hours to Dallas at 40,000 feet above the earth, enjoying the free in-flight wi-fi on Alaska Air, I want to share the lyrics to a song new to me that my great friend, teaching partner in TIP, and amazing sister in Christ, Dorothy, shared with me moments before I boarded the plane in Beijing. I can’t imagine a more special message to receive during my last minutes in the place where I enjoyed so much of what God is doing in the great land and people of China. I got to listen to and read them for the first time in the Starbucks where we were supposed to rendezvous before we even knew each other, but didn’t, when we both first arrived last August 5th in Beijing Capital International Airport. So amazing to consider all that has taken place since then….I’ll write it about all of it more in the coming days.
Praise God that He allowed me to participate in all that took place this last 10 months! I will never be the same.
To all my friends in the TIP family and all my friends all across China, I have so much I could and want to say, but for now this is my parting wish for each of you:
"I Wish You Jesus" by Scott Wesley
I could wish you joy and peace
to last your whole life long.
I could wish you sunshine
or a cheerful little song.
I wish you all the happiness
that this life could bring
But I wish you JESUS
more than anything.
I could wish you leaves of gold
or may your path be smooth.
I could wish you treasures
so that all your dreams come true.
I wish you all the paradise
that every day be free.
But I wish you JESUS
more than anything.
For when I wish you JESUS
I wish you everything.
One Solitary Life
Watch this sometime and share it with someone you care about:
Just as He Said…
This morning I woke up wondering if God designed that we would need sleep everyday to remind us of the Resurrection of Jesus when we wake up. In ways that echo and provide a shadow in a sense of this event, the daily pattern of rise, live the day, sleep, wake again gives a picture of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection. I wonder why do we have to lie down to sleep? Why didn’t God just design us to not need sleep in the first place?
But to wake up daily in the knowledge that, even if it’s hidden behind a line of clouds in a storm, or a hazy day fogged over with pollution, the sun will rise and light the day. In an odd sort’ve way, lying down nightly foretells the eventuality of the grave for all of us, but the morning renews the reality that we will live on beyond the darkness, beyond this life, beyond physical death.
And praise God for His provision that the life both here and beyond is intended to be full of Him, even in the brokenness and suffering of this world that is not ultimately our home, just like our beds are not ultimately the place we are to exist. The vastness and magnificence of the universe is meant primarily to display His glory that we might praise Him, and not ourselves, and awaken and surrender fully to the desires He originally intended for all of us to have to be in a relationship with the Creator.
So I praise God that I woke up today, that the sun also rose again, and today we can celebrate that the One who created everything also rose 2010 years ago and proved His defeat of death, sin, Satan, and even self so that we, as the first two women to see Him that first Easter morning did, would worship Him with all our life, in all we do. Just as the angel instructed them, so am I instructed to “come and see” that it is just as He said–He is not here, He has risen, just as He said–and then “go quickly and tell.”
So I will go eat some french toast now, watch some live Final Four streaming, and look forward to carrying out today’s assignments to “go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19).
” So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” 1 Corinthians 10:31
If you’re reading this and don’t know this Jesus who is celebrated today, invite you to come and see, and consider Him who today we celebrate, and Who is not asleep, but alive and risen indeed. Just as He said….
A TIP Clip: 4 minutes of Fun!
Thanks to my friend and teammate, Geoff Hill, for creating and sharing this fun four minutes that gives a glimpse of some of the TIP events and our students and facilitators during our monthly English-only sessions…think summer camp for English!
Enjoy it here also… 
April….tomorrow?
I look ahead as March Madness rolls on toward its climax this coming weekend while I look back on the beginning of this month here on its last day and wonder how it seemingly just evaporated into a time vacuum. For me, March began not with madness but series of sudden events and a mad dash to join my kids in Southeast Asia while their mom returned to Canada to be with her family that lost Dabney, her stepmom, to a sudden and fatal heart attack. This came only days after my family and this world lost a great one when my uncle, the senior most male member of our family, also passed away suddenly from a stroke. Maybe all that’s why March, 2010 "suddenly" seems to be over.
So much took place in this month I can hardly recount it all. Two deaths, the birth of my new nephew, an unplanned, week-long tour of Southeast Asia with my kids to Bhutan, Thailand, and Laos, the lost passport and visa adventures of leaving China and moving in and out of 3 countries, hiking, temples, archery, special time at an orphanage with 29 children cared for by one adult couple, feeding and washing 33 elephants rescued by a most unlikely and diminutive lady, planting 120 trees where 30,000 others had been added in only the prior 10 months, and Muay Thai kick boxing with some semi-professionals. And then there was plenty of after arriving back in Beijing as a both a final blast of snow and Spring arrived in the same week while we were redeveloping training plans and programs for next year, participating in the close of our session with Dot’s amazing Genius Group of Gladiators from Class G, and joining our team to help lead worship at the English Fellowship service of Haidian Christian church. I’m aiming to unpack each of these separately here in a series of new posts, so hang on for more, including a few flashbacks from earlier this year as well.
Meantime, for now we can welcome April tomorrow and a new month full of more joyful uncertainty to experience. In store is a brand new session, TIP #35, with 100s of new students arriving, and when it wraps up a chance will arrive to visit bunches of TIP alumni students, as well as training the trainers for the dozens of new TIP facilitators that will arrive this summer, and preparing for the next chapter back in the great "nation" of Texas when I return in just 2 months for a new adventure with Teach for America. I have a feeling they will pass quickly just as March did.
Bound for Bhutan and Beyond…
This has been a very unique week that has unusual events unfolding. After two relatively sudden deaths in our family, my uncle and dad’s oldest brother, Don, and Sue’s stepmom, Dabney, both from that great southern state of South Carolina, Sue is headed home to Canada for the funeral and to care for her dad who is not well. I am leaving tonight to be with our kids in Bhutan and travel with them to Thailand and Laos before Sue returns there and I head back to Beijing.
Please pray for safety and protection in our travels and our kids, and the comfort and peace of our families who are mourning the losses of two very special people.
There’s no guarantee of tomorrow for any of us, so call someone special in your life today and tell them you love them while today is still today, and before tomorrow becomes a yesterday.
How the Colts are Saints, too…
We finally got to watch Super Bowl XLIV last night on a sometimes sketchy internet replay thanks to our teammate Abby who was a big part of the Putonghua TIP session planning team, and who ordered the NFL replay for us all to enjoy. Her teaching degree, skills, and experience were put to work in helping design what we’re all experiencing day to day. Also, growing up in Indiana, she became a legitimate dual Colts and Saints fan having having followed Drew Brees who played for her collegiate favorite Purdue Boilermakers just a half an hour from her home. She was a true fan and wore her Colts shirt underneath the #9 Brees jersey to complete the split personality spirit.
As we hung out last night in the darkened community room enjoying the big screen broadcast, Kyle and I ate some big giant pan-fried cheese burgers (with ketchup and sour cream and onion chips I might add), and our Chinese Bangzhuzhe (facilitators) friends were introduced to American football and hamburgers for the first time. They enjoyed the burgers, but the game–not so much . Too many internet pauses and a fuzzy screen put a damper on the cross-cultural sports exchange.
In any case, Abby also happens to be battling a migraine right now and hasn’t been in the classroom with us, but she blessed me today with this story from her friend whose little brother lost a battle with a terminal illness. The Colts happened to lose the battle for the Super Bowl title Sunday night, but they won many battles much more important than a football game by investing in the lives of the people of this family. Read the story and you’ll be inspired and see why it’s easy to be a Colts fan even when your favorite quarterback plays for the other team.
(For my friends in China: if you have trouble like I did accessing the blog site to see the pictures, try using www.eatmybrowser.com and enter the URL.)
________________________
…..here is the blog entry from my friend. if you want to see the
pictures the blog address is themcgfamily.blogspot.com It so
encouraging to read stories of professional athletes really being the
role models and people that they should be!
Abby
why I say.. GO COLTS!
From the top: Gary Brackett with JD, Bob Sanders talking with JD,
Justin Snow with JD, Peyton Manning with JD
These men- on their own time, free of press, free of payment, nothing
in it for them, came to the hospital to make a boy’s wish come true.
When JD found out that his time left on earth was short, he had three
things he wanted to do: be baptised, meet professional football
players, and see lots and lots of people. Praise God- all of those
were able to happen, and to the extreme.
The Indiana Wish Foundation and some other sources had arranged a day
for JD and 10 guests to be limo-ed to the Colt’s game, meet players,
go into the family lounge, and have dinner at Ruth Chris Steakhouse.
Devastatingly, however, JD was too sick to make it happen. He was
ambulanced to the stadium, wheeled in on a wheelchair, put on a
stretcher, and put back into the ambulance to be taken back to the
hospital. His pain was tremendous that day, and it took the remainder
of the day to get on top of it. The few minutes he was inside of Lucas
Oil Stadium, though, the Colts staff was doing anything and everything
they could think of to accommodate. I was extremely impressed.
Fast-forward to Monday, the day after the wish trip didn’t happen. We
caught wind that we may be getting some special visitors… JD hadn’t
been awake at all that day- none of us could get any reaction from
him, but you better believe he shot right up when Gary Brackett walked
in the room. And the look on his face when just a few hours later his
all-time favorite Bob Sanders came strolling in… a memory I’ll never
forget. Let me tell you about this man, how he handled himself, the
character we saw.. JD got so excited (and probably nervous too), that
he tensed up…which sent him into incredible pain- screaming pain.
They had to lower his bed completely flat, adjust his meds, the works.
Bob asked if it was okay that he was still there, and once permission
was received, he pulled the stool aside, sat down on the ground to be
eye-level with JD, and continued to hold his hand and talk to him
through his pain. He could’ve left, no questions asked, and no one
would’ve blamed him… It is hard to see someone in pain like that,
but he stayed. He stayed and comforted JD.
The next night, 7 full-course Ruth Chris dinners (along with dessert)
were sent to the hospital for my family…from the Indianapolis Colts.
Justin Snow, the long-snapper for the Colts, came on numerous
occassions to the hospital, and continues to communicate with the
family. He came one day with the Colts chaplain. Justin sat in tears
as the chaplain prayed, and then prayed himself for my little brother.
Jim and Meg Irsay and the Indianapolis Colts sent a giant horse-shoe
shaped blue and white flower arrangement to be displayed at the
viewing and funeral. Justin Snow and the chaplain came to the viewing.
After JD’s passing, my parents were able to go to a regular season
game and into the family lounge afterwards, and then Jusin Snow got
them tickets to the first round playoff game.
Sure, it may be ‘just’ a football game, but the people who make up
this organiziation, the Indianapolis Colts, have touched my family in
an incredible way. A team made of some of the most talented football
players in the nation, yes, absolutely… but also a team made of men
of character and full of heart- who gave more to this family than they
could ever know.
Can I get a ‘GO COLTS!!’ anyone??
Superbowl champs 2010…here we come!
2010 Super Bowl: Commercials, Controversy, and Connection to Hope
Was it really so long ago already that the Saints had lost all respect and their "S" and become the "’Aints"; and likewise, the Colts were dubbed the "Dolts"? What a difference a few years can make. Was it already 5 years ago that Katrina rolled through New Orleans which now has something else to rally around?
As hard as it can be sometimes to keep track of time, with the Super Bowl born the same year I was, I can easily keep track of which edition of the annual spectacle will air and fuel the debate over whether it qualifies as the largest single TV event of the year world wide. No matter what is, clearly 10s of millions of people will tune in around the globe and even here in China, CCTV will carry it live and make it available to the 100s of millions of citizens here. We’ll tune in on a time-delayed internet broadcast version Monday night.
As much as I am excited about enjoying the game and the debut of new creative ad genius (hopefully), I am infinitely more excited about the stage being set to put the message of life, marriage, and family, and the sanctity of all of them in the middle of the Super Bowl spotlight. University of Florida phenom QB and one of my favorite, high-impact dudes Tim Tebow has partnered with the folks at Focus on the Family to present a pro-life commercial message during the Super Bowl that has already been in the center of a giant firestorm of media controversy.
All this attention will also bring many others across a connection to hope for families and marriages that will include my great friends back in Texas, Jeff and Cheryl Scruggs. You can read much more below on how they will be connected to the Super Bowl ad.
"Ten disappointing years of marriage. Seven painful years of divorce. One remarkable, true-life story of a love rescued by God." (quote from I Do Again, by Cheryl and Jeff from Waterbrook press.) What a difference a few years makes when lives are surrendered to God’s healing power and grace, Who then is multiplies it in offering hope to others. The Scruggs are now sharing their story and bringing hope to people all across North America and beyond via many online resources.
Earlier this week, their daughter, Brittany, and I along with my teammate Geoffrey and my student from November, Rosy, also had the great pleasure of connecting here in Beijing and witnessing in person how she and an international group of others is serving with New Day Creations Foster home on the other side of the city to bring hope to orphaned infants, toddlers, and other kids.
I will also love witnessing the glory of a new marriage being born on Sunday as I enjoy the wedding celebration of one of my student’s here in Beijing. Sunday also happens to be my little brother’s birthday, too. He is awaiting the glory of a new life when his son Cole is born just a few weeks from now.
I love seeing how God uses the temporary glory of fun events like the Super Bowl to put His story of ultimate and forever glory on display. The sanctity of life and marriage and family–and voices standing for its protection, will all be set center stage on one of the world’s premier media and sporting events to do just that.
(You can learn more below about how the Scruggs and their story will be part of the Super Bowl platform as one of God’s means of grace to connect others to hope.)
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HOPE MATTERS MARRIAGE MINISTRIES, INC | 5804 Gallant Fox Lane | Plano | TX | 75093 |
T.I.P. Mandarin – Wading into the Putonghua “Baby Pool”
February is always a unique season in China with Spring Festival capturing the nation’s attention and interrupting the normal routine of things as people criss-cross the country to return home, spend time enjoying family over many meals. Because of this reality, most of my TIP teammates and I have the unique and special opportunity to be piloting the first-ever Putonghua TIP, TIP Mandarin (common language of the people), with a fun and dedicated group of Chinese Facilitators (Bangzhuzhe) who are from many different places all over China. Our brains are already saturated just from the overwhelm of new vocabulary but we are having fun and learning the TIP way with interactive, student-centered, activity-driven lessons and games and song time and diction exercises and so on. I’m looking forward to watching my first Super Bowl in China in the middle of all this learning fun. We’re already mastering the favorite Chinese crowd cheer “Jia You (jah-yo)” as we wade into the shallow end of the new language pool and encourage each other to dive into some of the most difficult language waters to learn to swim in.
Another small group of us has spent the last week running a TIP camp for youth in Tian Jin. For us here in Beijing, here’s the schedule we’re keeping weekdays followed by our weekend regimen. We’ll all enjoy a 4-day break in the middle of our time as Chinese Spring Festival arrives on the same weekend as Valentine’s Day. I know all my students will enjoy seeing that we are walking through the same regimen they all submitted to during their 20-day TIP experience.
Pictures and more from our “pool” party soon….
TIP ZHONGWEN SHI JIAN BIAO
Nǐ nénɡ zuò dào. Tài dù jué dìnɡ yì qiè.
(Attendance is taken at all sessions written in bold print below. Please be on time.)
TIME MIN Weekdays
8:30 — 9:00 30 T.I.P. Exercises @ 4106 (ABC’s, 99 Tips, Bible Verses)
9:00 — 9:40 40 Diction @ 4106
9:40 — 9:50 10 Idiom of the Day @ 4106
9:50 — 10:00 10 Walk and Talk in Chinese
10:00 — 11:50 110 T.I.P. Class @ 4106 and 4107
11:50 — 12:00 10 Walk and Talk in Chinese
12:00 — 12:50 50 Lunch (Join others at a restaurant or at the dorm. Daily food monitors will be in charge of ordering delivery for those that want it.)
12:50 — 1:00 10 Walk and Talk in Chinese
1:00 — 1:50 pm 50 Nap (This resting time is extremely crucial. If you don’t plan to sleep, please shut your eyes and rest your mind for awhile.)
1:50 — 2:00 pm 10 Walk and Talk in Chinese
2:00 — 2:50 pm 50 Games & Activities @ 4106
2:50 — 3:00 pm 10 Walk and Talk in Chinese
3:00 — 3:50 pm 50 Listening Class @ 4106
3:50 — 4:00 pm 10 Walk and Talk in Chinese
4:00 — 4:25 pm 25 Song Class in Living Room
4:25 — 4:30 pm 5 Walk and Talk in Chinese
4:30 — 5:30 pm 60 Clubs @ 4106
5:30 — 5:40 pm 10 Walk and Talk in Chinese
5:40 — 6:20 pm 40 Dinner (Join others at a restaurant or at the dorm. Daily food monitors will be in charge of ordering delivery for those that want it.)
6:20 — 6:30 pm 10 Walk and Talk in Chinese
6:30 — 7:30 pm 60 Language Lab @ Living Room
7:30 — 8:30 pm 60 Daily Review & Journaling (Write as much as you can (in pinyin) in your journal each day. If preferred, you can create an oral recording of a journal entry instead. Pocketbooks should have 25 words each day. Journals and Pocketbooks will be collected on Feb 10th and 19th.)
8:30 — 10 pm 90 Personal Time (Do your best to use Chinese during this time.)
| TIP ZHOUMO SHI JIAN BIAO | ||
| Dānɡ nǐ shì zì jǐ de lǎo shī shí shì jiè jiù shì nǐ de jiào shì | ||
| (Attendance is taken at all sessions written in bold print below. Please be on time.) | ||
| TIME | MIN | Xingqiliu |
| 10:00 — 11:50 am | 110 | Speech Work in Living Room |
| 11:50 — 12:00 pm | 10 | Walk and Talk in Chinese |
| 12:00 — 12:50 pm | 50 | Lunch (Join others at a restaurant or at the dorm.) |
| 12:50 — 1:00 pm | 10 | Walk and Talk in Chinese |
| 1:00 — 1:50 pm | 50 | Nap (This resting time is extremely crucial. If you don’t plan to sleep, please shut your eyes and rest your mind for awhile.) |
| 1:50 — 2:00 pm | 10 | Walk and Talk in Chinese |
| 2:00 — 8:00 pm (estimate) | 6 hrs | Special Activity: Feb 6: Life in China Video, Jiaozi Prep & Dinner Feb 20: Amazing Race, Dinner Out |
| TIME | MIN | Xingqiri |
| 10:00 — 11:00 am | 110 | Church @ Haidian |
| 11:00 — 12:30 pm | 90 | Lunch (Join others at a restaurant or at the dorm.) |
| 12:30 — 1:00 pm | 30 | Ride/Walk and Talk in Chinese |
| 1:00 — 2:30 pm | 90 | Nap (This resting time is extremely crucial. If you don’t plan to sleep, please shut your eyes and rest your mind for awhile.) |
| 2:30 — 3:30 pm | 60 | Bible Study in Living Room |
| 3:30 — 3:50 pm | 20 | Worship in Living Room |
| 4:00 — 6:00 pm | 120 | Movie in Living Room |
| 6:00 — 7:00 pm | 60 | Dinner (Join others at a restaurant or at the dorm.) |
