July 19, 2009
This weekend has been so much fun! School on Thursday and Friday went very well. I think my kids are starting to understand the rules of the class real well and how they need to behave since we had prize day on Friday and they needed to have been good all week to earn enough tickets for certain prizes. They saw certain prizes they wanted but could not get because they did not have enough tickets so hopefully that will be a good motivation for next week. Friday was such an encouragement. We were playing around the world with flash cards in my class and they started singing a calendar song I taught them. I was so encouraged by that because I was not sure if I was teaching them anything or not. For our mid semester performance we are going to sing and dance to some of the basic phrases we learned in our phrase book: “Hi. Hello. What’s Your Name? My name is… How are you? I’m happy…” and so on. They catch on quickly. I have learned repetition is what’s key. Friday morning I woke up not feeling so well, but with God’s strength I was able to make it through the day with my students. With how I was feeling before I know I could not have taught, but of course through God all things are possible (Luke 1:37; Mark 10:27). After school I had a fever so I went back to my room and slept for the rest of the afternoon and throughout the night. I just got run down with not enough sleep. Saturday morning after I woke up my roommate shared she had been praying Isaiah 58:8-9 for me, “Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and He will say: Here Am I,” for restoration. I woke up feeling so much and I was able to praise God He heard my cry. I was able to go to the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square yesterday afternoon which was amazing! The Forbidden city held the area where the Imperial Palace and Imperial Gardens resided where several Dynasties and Emperors ruled for over 600 years. It was huge! If I lived there I would get lost every day! All the buildings looked the same to me, but each building had a little difference in size or decoration such as how many columns there were. The last building of the palace we saw was a building at the top of a hill that looked over the city of Beijing…beautiful! For lunch we ate at Outback in the hotel where we think the American Olympic team stayed. It still had the Olympic rings at the front and boy was it fancy! After our tours and dinner, Grace us to a tea house that has over 500 locations in the world. It started in Taiwan and goes as far as London. It was like my childhood dream! Haha. They had such beautiful china, samples of so many teas and finger foods, and elegant decorations. We were not allowed to take pictures unfortunately, but before I knew that I took one picture without the flash. It didn’t really show up though, but I still have the memory. They had EVERY kind of tea you could think of. I got fruit herbal tea, which the lady told me was good for a sore throat. It was wonderful! Each person got their own personal pot of tea and scone, and every two people got a three layer tray of desserts and finger foods. The tea house was pretty much all of the girl’s favorite place we had been so far! Right down from the Tea House there is this outdoor mall called The Place and it had this long screen running down the ceiling in the middle of the stores that continuously plays LED lights. We laid down in the middle of the place and watched the lights turn from making flowers to waves to an aquarium. It was so cool! You will be able to see better with my pictures than you can with my explanation. The majority of the group went on from there back to the arcade we went the other night and four of us came home. We had a full day and I was pretty worn out. It was such a great day though!

I woke up this morning feeling about the same. I was praying for discernment for if I should go shopping with everyone and our T.A.s after church. I was torn because I really wanted to spend time with my T.A., but I also wanted to get better for the next week of teaching. God led me to read His word in Isaiah 58:13 which says “If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the Lord’s holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words, then you will find your joy in the Lord.” God couldn’t have given me a straighter answer than that! We drove out the Beijing International Christian Church. It was awesome! There were so many people there and it was a very modern church. When we walked in we were greeted by Americans and I overheard and American family talking about camp Kanakuk. I felt very at home and welcomed there! The worship was awesome! The man who led worship had played lead guitar for the Christian group Newsboys and He sang a new song he wrote called tomorrow. One of the lines that stuck out to me the most was “tomorrow is another day to bring you praise.” The song was about how no matter what tomorrow brings, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow” (Hebrews 13:8) and it gives us another day to praise Him for what He has done for us. I really enjoyed the sermon. It was really neat because the speaker who spoke quoted almost all of the verses we have been meditating on for the past couple of months before our trip and during our trip! Our sermon was on learning humbly who we are meant to be based off of Matthew 11:28-30, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden in light.” We don’t fully understand the depths of God’s love and forgiveness and never will until we are in heaven, but in order to know our purpose on our temporary time on earth we have to seek God for spiritual growth and spend time in stillness with Him (Psalm 46:10). The speaker, Grey Smith, gave an example on how God has given us a GPS, and His Holy Spirit is our direction. Whenever we fall off the path, He is continually leading us back to His path for us. Mr. Smith asked, “How do we know our purpose in life?” Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.” He went on to say that is important that we learn from the past (Psalm 86:11; Proverbs 28:13) so we are not carrying around guilt and shame. God will take that from us, but we are the ones that have to let go of it. We need time to reflect on God and to expect miracles through God (Psalm 25). He ended the sermon with Remembering God’s promises: building a foundation that lasts (Isaiah 41:10). Mr. Smith mentioned the example of the Lion King when Simba follows Rafiki to the lake to see his father. He sees his father’s reflection and Mufasa, Simba’s father tells him to remember who he was, a child of the king. We need to remember that we are children of the King! There is no way we can grow spiritually alone in the daily spiritual battles we have. He quoted C.S. Lewis,

“There is no neutral ground in the universe; every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and counter-claimed by Satan.”
It is important for us to daily take time to reflect on God (Luke 9:23) and to trust Him completely (Proverbs 3:5-6). We deserve nothing from Him, but He deserves EVERYTHING from us!

After to church we met up with one of the T.A.s and Grace, Kimber, and I came back to our places while the rest of the group went shopping. I just woke up from a nice nap and know that it was the right decision to come back early. It would have been too much for me to continue to go go go. Praise God for giving me wisdom and discernment for what was best for me. It is about 7:00pm here (6:00am Texas time) so I am going to try and get my lesson plans done for tomorrow and hopefully get to bed early. I am feeling much better, but I ask that you would please pray that my health restores completely quickly so I can devote my full time and energy to my kids again, that I will lean on God’s strength and not my own. I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend!!

“O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” Psalm 8:9