It’s been a while since I’ve written anything. Sorry about that, but life has been busy. These past two weeks we’ve had Chinese lessons every morning for 2 hours. We learned quite a bit of Chinese, but I don’t know how much we’ll actually use it. Some of the things we learned were very useful, while other stuff I feel like we’ll never use it. I guess I will find that out over the next two months. It was fun to learn Chinese! Maybe I’ll audit a Chinese class when I’m back home…
I guess I should talk about some highlights about our two weeks here so far. Last week Thursday we took the day off from Chinese lessons to go to a rural district of Beijing to visit a three-self church there. It is incredible what the pastor does there. We went there with another group from the US to learn about how the Chinese church runs. This church that we visited was considered the ‘central church’ of the district. The pastor at this church is in charge of all the churches in the district (about 50 churches). She makes an effort to make it to each church about 3-4 times a year. At all the churches, the sermons are taught by Evangelists (not what we would consider Evangelists). The Evangelists are trained to teach, but they are not ordained which means they cannot perform the sacraments.
After learning about the ‘central church’ and what the pastor does, we went to the training center. This is where they train the Evangelists and other volunteers. They go for two weeks at a time to train. The training center is an old elementary school that was no longer needed as a school. The church bought the property and the building to use as a training center. They are currently renovating the building so that it is a more suitable training center.
After the training center, we headed to a church in the mountains. Here we were welcomed with open arms by a group of 25 (or so) women from the church. They brought us into the church and fed us LOTS of fruit (watermelon, bananas, and nectarines) while they told us about their church. It is run by an Evangelist but is visited by the pastor on a regular basis. They sang “Jesus Loves Me” in Chinese. It was beautiful! Then were we asked to sing “Jesus Love Me” in English. We did and had them join in on the chorus. It was beautiful!
Let’s see, what else has happened in the last few weeks? One thing I really enjoy here is eating here. When ordering food, as a group, you order a bunch of dishes. When they come out, the food is set in the middle of the table (sometimes on a large lazy Susan). Everyone takes little portions of the dishes, eating what they want. It is very community oriented or family centered. Even though I greatly enjoy the eating here, I don’t always enjoy the food. It took some getting used to and I am enjoying it more that I did when we first got here. But occasionally I come across something I don’t like—like mushrooms that are translated as tree fungus, or freshly caught fish that are still full of bones. I guess I’ll just have to get used to it or avoid eating it. I have been trying to at least try a little of everything they give me to eat. Sometimes it’s harder than others.
Today we moved to new hotel. We were living in a hotel close to our host’s apartment. Now that we’re going to start teaching on Monday and another group of people from North America are coming today, we moved to another hotel that is closer to one of the places we will be teaching. We will be teaching for the next two weeks. In the mornings we will be teaching at a preschool. Here we will be teaching English to 1st and 2nd graders. The afternoons we will have off to prepare and rest. In the evenings we will be teaching English to adults in the church close to our hotel. I am excited to start teaching and to meet the 7 others coming today!
