Here and There

Last week I took Emily to the Russel Creek Park to play. After spending a few minutes on the swing, we walked over to the pond and picnic area. As soon as Emily saw the ducks, she began to leap and bounce, wishing she could jump into the pond with the ducks! A few minutes later, two Chinese moms and three of their kids came over. They were prepared with the bread to feed the ducks. Emily was anxious that the ducks left her to pursue the bread. Two of the little girls were so sweet that they gave Emily two pieces of bread and one blue berry muffin (they smelled so good!) after they saw Emily screaming at the running ducks. Emily's first reaction was to eat the bread and muffin herself. After a few minutes' show and tell, she managed to feed the ducks a few pieces of bread. She had a great time!

The little girl who shared her bread with us

In this picture, I had to block Emily with one arm to prevent her following the ducks into the pond



We also had a couple of playing dates. One with Kyri, Charlie, Dawn, and Austin. The other with Kathy and Mike. Emily did great. She enjoyed eating at someone else's house and looking around at different things. Charlie was so sweet to share her toys with Emily. I was impressed by how many words she could already say. I'm also amazed at how easy Austin was. He slept on Dawn's lap while we were talking and eating (by the way, the wraps that Kyri prepared were so good that I wanted to steal the recipe some day!). Mike grew a lot since I saw him last time. I just wish I could spend more time with these precious babies and their parents.


Jerry and his mom came over Tuesday night and brought us lots of food. His mom also helped me to wash Emily's hair before they left. Dawn made a big container of delicious soup. I have been enjoying it every day. Fang and Fred invited me over for dinner Thursday night. Both Emily and I enjoyed the visit very much. Many family members and friends called to check on us. All of these help and caring thoughts made our week so much easier!


David continues doing great in Beijing. He met so many interesting people every day. (To read more about their happenings, visit http://pcchina2009.blogspot.com/) The one that he talked the most was the girl from a peanut farm in southern China. She failed the college entrance exam (in China, only 1 out of 10 people in average can go to the college) and felt lost in this world. But she didn't want to spend her life on the farm. So she came to Beijing sitting in the back row of the college classrooms, just to learn what a college students can learn, hoping that someday she can pass an English level test and have some luck finding a job. She certainly didn't have money so no one knows where she stayed at night. Her story just made David tear up. David told her about me, that I was from a poor farm in the Northwest part of China; that I had to choose between buying food and buying books every day at school; that I lived in a rental room at the construction site to prepare for my future (and the room was burglarized while I was at work on my first job); that now I have a passion to sponsor the poor village kids in China to go to school because I didn't want them to experience what I experienced as a kid ... I was a lucky one among millions of Chinese village kids. Now I have millions of more things that I never dreamed as a young kid. So when people asked me:" What are your struggles now?" I always answered without any hezitation "Nothing". To others, I may be superficial, insensitive, and private. But that was a true answer for me. Nothing today can be called "struggle" compared to what a village kid experienced 20 years ago. I've been blessed with the most wonderful family and friends, a great job and a loving church. Even without these, I still have an almighty God and an eternal life - think about that! What value does the "struggle" have when you already have the most precious thing that anyone can have in this world "the eternal life"?! This girl that David read with just brought back so much of my early memory, not a sad or bitter memory in any sense, but a memory of advance from nothing, a memory of persistant hope, plain joy, and steady growth. Someday when I had chance to dig out the old photos, I will have a post on that. I'm sure Emily will want to read it in the future. A side note about this girl was that she told David that she doesn't believe God. But a Christian lady reached out to her on the bus one day and she went to the local church with her afterwards. Apparently God is sending people to work in her life. I just pray that no matter what struggle she is having now, she will find the most precious thing that she can have in this world - the ultimate thing that makes her struggle in this world worthless ...