China Pics part I

The pictures below are not in the time sequence. It was so slow to re-arrange all these pictures. So I'll just add captions to help you.

We stayed at my parents' place most of the time. But since they don't have the air conditioner, we slept all over the places. During the second week we were there, my high school friend offered us to stay at her parents' vacant two story apartment. We slept there until we left. When we were there, we visited my parents' farm, went to the park, visited church, did friendspeak, spent time with family and friends, and ate a lot of delicious food and fruit. Here are part of the pictures:

That's how we eat watermelons - we ate watermelons and grapes non-stop
See how tall the corns (right at the back of David and Emily), the tomatos (left), and the green beans (right) are:

Getting ready to pick the vegetable

Emily cut the grapes off the vine:

Look at these grapes we picked:

The bittermelon inside the bottle (how did my parents put it in?)

The over-sized chinese okra:

The bell pepper was so big!

Picking the vegetable in the garden:

Andy and Grandma in the shade:

See how much we picked in the garden:

Emily and Andy's favorite drinks - Chinese yogurt. We bought lots of them.

David making the Chinese noodles:

Riding on the favorite Chinese cartoon character - Xi Yang Yang

Trying the new balance skill:

Monkey bar

Apple trees were everywhere on the street. You can see all the red apples.

Electronic cars were the kids' favorite - Andy cried everytime when he finished riding.

The kids enjoyed the Chinese food:

Climbing onto the rock

Tired kids on the airplane:

They even slept in the bumpy car riding from the airport to my parents' house - we wouldn't let them do this here in America.


Eating the best breakfast we ever had in a Beijing hotel. Andy had his special highchair.

Andy got fresh produce from the neighbor's garden during his stroller walk.

The kids loved the outdoor life in China. They didn't want to come home. Here is a picture of them visiting with the neighbors. Andy was held by a neighbor; Emily was in the stroller pushed by a neighbor and her granddaughter.

Andy's favorite food. We ate a lot of them. One of the neighbor knew Andy liked the one that looked like a pizza. She bought for Andy and brought it to Andy while the kids were playing outside. These are all different flavors.

The government church that we visited. While we were there, this church had their once-a-year baptism. Over 100 people baptized on that Friday.

Two of the university students who studied Bible with David

We had a late lunch and Andy was sleepy. The waitress wheeled in a crib for Andy to take a nap in it - and he did!

We were amused by this birthday cake. My brother ordered a cake with a "horse" on it (David's zodiac is horse) for David's birthday. Does this horse look more like a pig to you? (This is just a piece of cake on David's plate. )

Views from Gary and Danita's apartment

The world travelers (Andy fell asleep in the taxi)

China Trip 2011 Summary

It seems that we were just talking about taking a vacation in China yesterday. Now it's already a past memory. So many things happened during those three weeks and so many pictures have been taken. I haven't had chance to get it together. To start, here is just a brief summary of our vacation.

We left Dallas on August 15th at 3:30am, flew to San Francisco (over 3 hours), then flew to Beijing (12 hours), then we stayed in a hotel for a night, flew to Urumuqi the next morning (4 hours). My dad and my brother picked us up at the airport. We got home at around 8:00pm on August 17th (local time). There are 13 hours of time difference between Dallas and my home town. Andy had a hard time adjusting his sleep schedule. He had an even harder time adjusting back - all of us struggled with the jetlag for a week after coming back. Andy's sleep schedule got completely messed up. He didn't get half of his normal sleep. He got sick two days later. Unavoidably, Emily was sick also. Both kids are still not completely well. Andy's sleep schedule almost returned to normal. I finally got chance to sit down and write something. So the jetlag was the biggest side-effect of the trip. But still it was worth it!

Both kids did great during the long trips - much better than I thought. They adjusted to the Chinese environment very quickly. In other words, they thoroughly enjoyed every moment. They were like human-pass-around-parcels, always in somebody's arms. They loved spending time outside with the neighbors or relatives - they could live outside if we let them. Our neighbors loved our kids. Often times after Andy had a stroller walk, his strollers were filled with fresh produce or delicious food from the neighbors. During the three weeks, we stayed at six different places (half with air conditioners and half without). In my hometown, my high school friend let us stay in her dad's two-story vacant apartment. To the kids, every place was an adventure. Because of so many fresh fruit, vegetable and melons, Andy's constipation was gone and his picky eating habit got much better.

One of the highlights of our trip was to help my mom to find a church family. We had a couple of house church Christian contacts from last trip. But we couldn't reach them this time. So we visited the local government church. I was impressed by the preacher, who didn't receive any formal theological training. After church, we met a lady who lives close to my parents. So the following Wednesday we took my mom to her small Bible study group. My mom seemed to like the group. She said that she will make an effort to go to the Bible study regularly after she comes back from my sister's place (she left the same day as we did to see my sister in Shenzhen). The local government church was trying to reach out to the local Muslim community. One Ugur family was converted and then moved to another city. Before long, that family converted four other Muslim families. One Ugur told the Christians frankly after he visited the church:" We Muslims wash outside (seven times); while Christians wash inside (the heart). Our mosque is doom and stinky; while your church is bright and fresh; We look heavy-ladened; while you look happy... I'll come back again." We often heard about the government church verses the house church. Undoubtly, the government church has its advantage in evangelizing more people. The preacher's comment impressed me "No matter where I serve, the government church or the house church, I know who my Father is. And that's who I serve."

David did Let's Start Talking with several University students. Hopefully the seeds will grow someday. One day at the bank, we bumped into two American ladies. They were the missionaries in Beijing and Shanghai, who were sent to Xinjiang to do some exploration. We are curious about what they were finding.

On the way back, we stayed with our missionary friends Gary and Danita Jackson in Beijing for three days. During the three days, they had two baptisms. One guy was from my home province. He shared his testimony after the baptism "I wanted to set free as soon as possible so that I can serve others better." There were over a dozen first time visitors in that Sunday service (of about 60 attendants), plus four LST workers (Pleasant Ridge team). One visitor was from Ghana. He said he knew that China has Kongfu and Taichi; but when his Chinese customer invited him to the church, he was surprised. Now he can go back to tell his friends that China has lots of churches too! Gary and Danita are such a wonderful couple! We were so blessed to witness their busy and effective work in Beijing. While we were there for the weekend, they had English Corner, Theological study, Baptism celebration, church service, fellowship, Bible study and another baptism, ... One of the church members said they were God-sent. Their dedication to the Lord was one of the reasons that church member made the decision to follow Jesus. Their busy schedule didn't affect them from being a wonderful host. We thoroughly enjoyed spending time with them and learning from them.

We also visited our missionary friends Andrew and Jaime and their five months old daughter Lucia. On the way out, we bumped into one of the LST workers (prestoncrest team), who attended Prestoncrest 15 years ago. She had planned to do LST for four weeks. Later we got word that she and her teammate will stay in Beijing for two years and six month respectively.

I haven't look through all the pictures yet. So I'll have another post with pictures sometime next week. Overall, we had a wonderful time with family and friends, although we didn't have enough time to see all the people that we wanted to see. When we got home in Dallas, both kids had a dream look on their faces. I totally understood that - the three weeks' life, the sight, the sound, in China seemed to be a dream!

China Trip 2007 Recap

(Last time when we went to China was in 2007. To refresh our memory, here is the recap we sent to our friends after we came back. This time it will be very different because we are with two little kids. We are looking forward to the new experience next week.)

We had a great trip to China.

We spent five days in Beijing taking engagement pictures and visiting Wendy's college and high school friends. On Sunday we attended Gary and Danita's house church. We were impressed by Gary's sermon in Chinese. After the service, we had lunch with the local Christians. Then Gary and Danita took us to their apartment and to a coffee shop for some coffee. David's Friends Speak reader's mom came to see us before we left Beijing. It was heartwarming. We stayed at Wendy's friend's apartment. She works at the Communist History department in the University. She told us that several professors in her department are Christians. We left a Chinese Bible for her as a personal gift.

We spent a week in Wendy's hometown. On the second day there, we visited Shihezi University. It happened to be the Registration day for the new students. We walked around the campus and stopped at the Foreign Language Department booth. Several students came up to speak English with us. They invited us to their PE class and asked us to come back the next day. We went back the next day and met the class leader Harry. He volunteered to line up Friends Speak readers for David. David read with 6 students in one day. We were also invited to the two welcoming parties for the new students. We broke into two small groups and answered questions. David's readers connected us to a Christian student there. Her name is Zhang Baomei. Baomei came from a Muslim city and was put into prison for her faith before she came to the University. She took us to the government church to attend the Sunday service. Our experience at the government church far exceeded our expectations. The auditorium was packed with people. The yard around the building was packed too. We couldn't help wondering: what do they do in winter when the snow covers everywhere? People were so sincere in prayers and worship. We talked to the Christians in the bookstore. We were surprised by their openness to us. They even invited us to come back and speak at their Friday night gathering. We asked what they need. They said the biggest needs are discipleship and Biblical teaching. They asked us to pray that God would send more workers to teach and disciple them.

One of Wendy's cousins came to the family reunion. He told us that his grandmother was a Christian. She inspired people because she began to learn to read at age 60 so that she can read the Bible herself, When she was dying, she requested to be cremated in her best Sunday clothes. One morning after breakfast, Wendy asked her mom whether she believed in God and whether she wanted to become a Christian. She said yes. That brightened our day.

We visited an orphanage in Shihezi. We bought some backpacks and wall clocks for the orphans with the money our friends gave to us. As soon as we got there, the director said the kids were waiting for us. Down the hallway and upstairs we found a big room full of about 50 kids excitedly waiting to perform for us. With lively music and rhythm, the kids danced and sang for about 30 minutes. We didn't expect such a nice treat. We promised to prepare something for them next time. The kids laughed and leaped the whole time while we played games together. We were impressed by the living condition and the love they had for each other. The management told us that the Buckner Children's Home from Dallas donated a van for the orphanage. Many organizations have gone there to do summer camps. The kids loved it. Sadly, when David tried to teach the kids the song "I have decided to follow Jesus", they told us not to teach about Jesus.

We also visited the largest of 18 government churches in Urumuqi. The four story building was packed shoulder to shoulder with 3000 members. We were touched by the passion of the preacher and the sincerity of the local Christians. David took some video of the service. We had lunch with a young girl Yan. She just got her new job working as a psychologist in the prison. She was looking forward to the opportunity to bring the Good News to the prisoners. While we were in Urumuqi, another Yan, who was baptized in Memorial Road Church of Christ in OKC and returned to Urumuqi, took us for dinner at a five-star restaurant. She showed us her beautiful home and asked us to tell Memorial Road COC how much she missed everyone there. Later that evening while we were walking around the Muslim market and observed a service in a Mosque, we met a guy named Aili outside the mosque. He told us he had been married five times. David began to tell him the story of the Woman at the Well and Jesus. We became his friends instantly. He insisted buying us some drinks and took us to see his wife and mother-in-law. He begged us to call him if we had a chance.

We loved the food in China . We loved the people too! Everyone we met invited us to come back often. We certainly wish that too.

Here is the link to some of the pictures.
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=qu0dq1t.2oyopqap&x=0&y=-7f0ajk
Here is the link to the Shihezi church service.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3375212824404649229&pr=goog-sl

July Update

July has been the hottest month of the year. Almost triple digits everyday! We've been staying inside most of the time, except the swimming time after dinner for Emily. Emily loves swimming. We should have taken her to the swimming lessons. But we didn't get around to do that this summer. Here is the summary of our July:

David did lots of home projects. As I mentioned last time, we put the wood floor on and sold our new carpet in early July. The floor guy came back to fix a few stripes later. Besides that, David fixed the rental house's fence as well as our own fence (both houses got the notifications in one week). He also fixed the back door. He's attempting to do more and more home projects by himself. I'm glad he's enjoying it! Emily followed David everywhere to lend a hand to him. She was a great helper.



Emily continues growing in her body, mind and spirit. She loves her Bible class. Every time after we sat down in the pew, she would request to go to her Bible class. It brought us many friendly smiles from people who sat around us. Her first memory verse was Proverbs 3:5. She often pretended reading Bible stories and narrating them in her own words "... This is the day the Lord has made ... Jesus was glad to see the children ..." Her teachers obsolutely love Emily. One teacher said she wished her daughters were like Emily. We know that it was those wonderful teachers who made Emily wanting to go to the class more and more. Emily also loves the story time in the library. We went there almost everyday since Andy transitioned to one nap a day. Actually both kids enjoyed the story time and the puzzles in the library.


It melt my heart every time when Emily gave me a hug and said, "I love you, Mama, I'll always love you!" (which she does very often) or when she complimented me with "This is the most delicious quesadilla that I can eat, Mama! It tastes really good, doesn't it?" "You look very pretty in that pink shirt - I like the beautiful flowers on it!" "You did a great job, Mama! That's a great idea!" ... She is very protective of Andy. She tells Andy to sit down on the sofa, or not to get close to the TV, or follow Mama... She gave Andy the most gentle hug when he least expected with a loving comment, "You are precious, Andy!" or "Good boy!"


She can sing over a dozen songs ("Onward Christian Soldiers" "Sweet Low, Sweet Chariot", "I'm In The Lord's Army", "My God is so Big" and many other songs) with complete lyrics and correct tunes (I learned quite a few lyrics from her already!). It often attracted big smiles from strangers when she sang in the grocery stores or parking lots. Her favorite things to do are singing, dancing, doing the puzzles, having bubble bath, and swimming in the neighorhood pool. Undoubtly, Emily has a very good memory. If we don't know where something is, half of the chances are she can tell us. She can direct us from Preston to Hedgcoxe to Moonlight all the way to our house as if she could read the street signs. She knows where all the big and small water fountains are along Preston Rd. She recognizes all the logos from WalMart, Costco, Babiesrus, Sprout, Plano library, etc.

Emily likes to eat her homemade popsicles in the back patio. Hmmm!

Emily's first memory verse - Proverbs 3:5 "Trust the Lord with all your heart!"

Pretending reading

This friendly old man loves Emily. He always smiles and talks to her when he bumped into Emily.

After Andy's shots, Emily put two stickers on her legs to show sympathy to Andy:

Andy just turned 15 months old. His height and head size are still over 97 percentile. His weight dropped to 25-50 percentile. He still has hard stools so we are still working on his diet. He gave up his morning nap completely. So he only take a 3-4 hours afternoon nap. His favorite words are: hot, pop (which is bubbles), flower, fly (which is butterfly), eat (which is food), ball, car, prune, bread, bird, truck (which he pronounced as "Kuk").... He has been walking non-stop. As a result, he had countless falls and bumps. Finally after he had several big bumps in one day, we purchased a helmet for him. I was suprised that he kept the helmet on his head. He actually brought his helmet to me to put on his head a couple of times. Wished I had bought it earlier! Andy's favorite video is the Signing Time. This is one video that we have to take on our trip to China. His favorite songs are "Patty Cake" "Itsy Bitsy Spider" "If You Are Happy and You Know It". His favorite things are bubbles and flowers. He is ready to share. He continues winning everyone's heart by his charming smiles and friendly waving.

Fred and Fang gave us some toys. Andy really enjoyed them.

It's signing time!

bath fun: Andy and Emily don't usually take bath together because of their separate bedtimes. Once they did, they loved it!

Poor boy with a big knot

Andy's first Carousel ride. Emily decided to sit and watch instead.

While Emily was doing the puzzles in the library, I had to chase Andy around. Here he is:

David and I have been busy connecting with old friends and meeting new friends recently. Our friends Dawn and Lori both had baby boys not long ago. We had chances to meet them. We also had lunch with Leslie and dinner with the Hargroves. It always refreshes us after spending time with friends. We also made some new friends during the last couple of weeks. One was a family (American husband and Chinese wife) that David and Emily met at the playground. They were looking for a church to plugin. We invited them over for a dinner and shared our stories. The other was the New Life Behavior Ministry (http://www.nlbi.net/) friends. They were looking for someone to help them to translate their courses into Chinese and put on the website for their training seminars in China next year. David knew the president of that Ministry (they went to Russia together several years ago) and this task seems to be right in my alley. So I volunteered to help them out. As a result, we got to know several wonderful people who are involved in this ministry. This brought back my memory when I was baptized. My old neighbor Bill (who did some Bible study with me when I moved into that apartment) asked me on the way to my baptism what I wanted to do in the future. I told him that I wanted to translate English Christian literature into Chinese to help the Chinese Christians to get more Biblical teachings. At that time, I didn't know how and what to do yet. It seems that the perfect opportunity didn't come up until eight years later! Five years ago, Don Barnett and I talked about starting an online Bible study with people in China. But because of lacking of resource, we didn't proceed with the idea. Now the Seeker's ministry under NLBI is doing exactly that. I can't wait to see how this ministry will bless the Chinese people in the future!

We will take our China vacation from August 15th through September 5th. We pray that everyone will stay healthy and safe during the trip; we will be an encouragement to the Beijing missionaries; God will be gloried in everything we do in China; we will be a light everywhere we go; we will find opportunities for future contribution; ... I'm sure we'll have a lot to say next month. Until then, please say a prayer for us. Thank you!

Grandpa's visit and July 4th

June was gone in a flash. Our widow friend Sue passed away on June 6th. David was so busy with her funeral arrangement, possession distribution (she donated all her possession to a Children's Home), medical bills, etc.

For Father's Day, we had Mexican food at home. Emily helped me to make the Father's Day cards for David and for Grandpa. She also helped me to make a frame to put in David's office.

(Inside the cards, Emily said "I very very like you!" -that's how she said it before she learned to say "I love you very much".)

As part of the Father's Day celebration, Dad came in the following weekend. We took him to In and Out for hamburgers. We liked the hamburgers. When David looked at the bottom of their beverage cup, it said "John 3:16" on it. I wonder how many people who ate there noticed it. Saturday we went to the Butterfly house at the Fair park. The kids enjoyed it. But it was a little too hot. They maintain a 80 degree year around for the butterflies inside. For Emily, she enjoyed more spending time with Grandpa than anything else. Even before Grandpa came, she said, "I want to go to Grandpa's house and hold him!" When Grandpa was here, she followed him everywhere if she wasn't holding Grandpa's hands:



Emily reached her arm out the whole time for the butterflies to land. Unfortunately none of them landed on her arm as she hoped.


Andy followed the butterflies around. He didn't care about the heat at all.

Emily with Grandpa

A couple of butterflies:

July 4th David had four days weekend. So we thought we might use it to do some house project. The first thing came to our mind was to change the carpet for the living room and the family room. Friday we got the estimate and Saturday it was installed. During the installation, we began to smell the strong fumes that I never thought of. At night after I read about how bad the lingering new carpet smell and the carpet itself were for the little kids and everyone around, I couldn't sleep. I wanted to take the new carpet out right away. But nobody works on Sunday or July 4th. So we took out the carpet Monday (July 4th) morning and bought the bamboo wood floor ourselves. David North offered to help David. He spent most of the day shopping around with David and taking out the carpet. Luckily (God was watching over us) a floor installer whom we contacted earlier called back in the afternoon. He found three guys to help him and they were able to finish the wood floor on the same day with a very reasonable price. So we got it all done during the weekend. The weekend was anything but relaxing. While David was doing the work with others at our dusty and noisy home, I took the kids to the July 4th festival at Kyri and Jeff's neighborhood at night. We had a good time. Emily enjoyed the food, the free snowcone, watching other kids playing, and staying in the bouncing house briefly. But we certainly wished David was there and our weekend wasn't so hectic. That was an expensive lesson! It certainly made our July 4th memory!

Leslie brought over the Sprout BBQ ribs lunch on Saturday. It was delicious! We had a great time visiting each other.

Mary Ellen gave Emily and Andy some of her old sunglasses and toys. Both kids loved their sunglasses. They had so much fun.






Emily started going through the stage of drawing things everywhere. We found her drawings on the wall, furniture, Bible, etc. After she drew this in the utility room, we took away all her crayons and markers.

One day, Emily put a candle in the yellow cup and left it out in the backyard. When she saw it the next day, she told me, "Mommy, the candle grew inside the cup!!" David explained to her how candle melt in the sun and got remolded by the cup. To help her understand, we put some ice on the stove and melt them into water. She had a small science lesson.

One night right before bath, Emily sat on the toilet. She put a piece of toilet paper on her head and said to David, "Daddy, Look! Now I'm married!" When David told me that, it reminded me of the day. Emily saw a middle east lady walking by our car with head covered. She asked, "Mommy, is she married?" I guess in her mind, everyone who has a cover on the head is married. She also thought a dentist can fix anything. An old crown on my tooth chipped a little. I told her the dentist could fix it. Since then, if anything (her sock, her toy, etc.) is broken, she would say, "Are we going to see the dentist?" One day she said, "Oh no, Daddy's Bible is broken. We have to get a new one for Daddy, or we'll have to let the dentist to fix it!"

She loves pretending reading. When we parked at our pediatrician's office for Andy's appointment, she pointed to the building number on the wall "5560" and said "It says 'Doctor's Office'!"

Emily's favorite indoor things to pass time are: watching videos and playing games. She likes to line up Blokus or use dominos to build buildings.

Emily picked half dozen of the squashes in a few minutes in the backyard. We made several dishes with them. Our favorite one so far is the baked squash casserol.

Our Andy is really mobile now! Grandpa said he was hot-footed. As a result, we put up the gate to limit his cruising territory for a while since he had so many bumps and falls. He is pretty stable now so we sadly said bye bye to the gate. Our baby is a toddler now. He is also very friendly and social. He smiles and waves hi to everyone he sees. When we were in public, Emily used to get all the attention. Now it is Andy's turn.

Andy was very constipated for a while (mainly because he loves carbs and didn't drink enough water). Our doctor asked him to take Miralax. Luckily he likes prune and prune juice. It didn't take very long for him to clear up the constipation. We are working on eating more fiber, fruit, and hopefully vegetable. Andy absolutely loves watermelon (Emily on the other hand doesn't want to have anything to do with it). We consume at least half a watermelon each day.

Emily and Andy love to play together. The only thing is: Emily sometimes doesn't know what to watch for when they play together.

Emily is very protective of her loveys. This is a rare occassion when she didn't mind Andy sharing her favorite security blanket. Both kids love smelling and touching the blanket. Wonder what was in it?!