Fall Update

Fall is here! Well, it's been here for a while now and I apologize for the long delay of this update.

Busy, busy, busy...

In my last update I mentioned about the trial I had gone through. Now in retrospect, I can truly appreciate the experience, as unpleasant as it was, it prepared me for two similar situations but on a smaller scale. One was quite saddening due to a clash of cultures, but I'm glad to say that we've all grown up from it.

Proverbs 3:5-6

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.

What I love about the Word is that it rings even more true as I struggle through each trial. I'm still adjusting to being both an admin and a teacher, still learning to manage my group of teachers, and still trying to be more efficient in juggling kindergarten, elementary, and middle school ESL classes.

School - It's hard to believe that two months have already come and gone. Grand Opening, Open House, Sports Day, Field Trip, Fall Harvest. Next on the calendar: midterms! And with the midterms come another round of parent conferences. I'm still waiting for a time of lull - and then I realized that admins like me don't ever see a time of lull as different teachers deal with different kinds of issues at different times. I'm in constant need of wisdom, and hopefully by the end of this semester, I will have grown wiser.

Projects - I'm slowly reclaiming my usual routine after work. I don't have after school classes anymore, and I've started up the Wednesday kid's group and the Monday English adult group. These have been slightly more challenging to keep up with as the demands of school drains me. But I thank God for the Holy Spirit, even on my most tiring days I get a nice boost after teaching and fellowshipping.

New stuff - Every Tuesday I've been meeting with a fellow brother for prayer. I've been blessed greatly to be able to lift up my needs in prayer, and as a big plus, be able to learn about courtship and marriage. This is good timing, since I'm currently in a courtship and wedding planning has just begun. Yes, I suppose the courtship is another reason for being busy, busy, busy... :)

Since I've been back in Beijing...

It figures that on a Saturday morning that I found time to rest my weary soul by reading up on my devotionals and the Bible. It has been over a month since I last updated here in this blog.

Quick Updates:

Remainder of my Seattle visit - ran the Seafair 8K race - it was actually tough because I had not been running consistently. But during the times I did go training, I ran on hilly terrain which helped alot as the first 4K was a slight incline. The reward was being able to really pick up the pace on the latter half to the finish line.

Macau-Hong Kong - after my month long visit in Hong Kong, I flew to Macau to see my girlfriend and her mom. That was for a few days before taking the ferry back to Hong Kong. The week was spent hanging out with her, her family, and her friends. It culminated on Monday, when it was time for her to say "good-bye" to Hong Kong, and "hello" to a new chapter of her life in Beijing.

August - It has been a busy month, especially since arriving back in Beijing. I returned to school a little over two weeks ago, spent a few days settling into my new office and my new position as the director of the ESL department. Then there were days of orientation, training, and helping the new teachers.

It has been a lot of work, but the real point of this blog is about my current trial. As my first real test being the "face" of the ESL department and representing the school - 10 parents of the 3rd Grade are staging some sort of revolt against one of my English teachers. They have unfavorable opinions of her teaching and classroom management styles. They brought several reasons why they do not wish to have this teacher, however, some of the reasons seems baseless. What the parents are saying and what I've witnessed in this class at the end of the last semester are truly day and night.

Last year, I was simply a Kindergarten English language teacher. And now, I'm an ambassador, a diplomat, a champion of teachers' rights and at some points a politician. I have a lot of bitter feelings towards this situation, as it has taken away much of the precious time I needed to do my lesson planning. I have some bitter feelings towards these parents, and feel a little perplexed by the teacher and the school's policy.

But after having sat down with the Lord this morning - I realized one thing. I'm too dependent on my prideful self. There is a reason why this situation is draining me. I've been dealing with this situation with too much of my face, and not enough of Jesus' heart. I've taken advantage of God's grace for me, and cheapened it by not showing the same grace towards these parents.

I'm reminded that Jesus sat with prostitutes and tax-collectors, for they need a physician. What I have is a situation where these parents need a savior. They may not be saved during the next meeting, but at least in my words and actions they may find a glimpse of God's unconditional love in me.

May God grant Jesus' humility in me, so that speaks greater volumes that will reach the hardened hearts of these parents. May I continue to be a servant to them and to their students. And, may this situation be dealt with God-pleasing integrity.

My Visit Home So Far

Time really flies...so I must be having fun!

I can't believe it's been three weeks already! And I have 9 days to go! My time here has been great - here's what I've gotten accomplished so far:

1. Relax. It was my #1 priority when I came home and all I wanted to do was to simply chill. The end of the school year had gotten too hectic for me and I definitely needed to just get away from it all.

2. Family time. It was made better with my brother visiting home from Berkeley. Took a trip to California with mom and brother for a wedding. Spent a day in Vancouver to see relatives. Good times!

3. Eat. Trying to eat up all the foods I've been missing out on, like In-N-Out in Cali, Five Guys in Renton. Home cooked meals and home made won tons. Dim sum. Real ice-cream. Fish tacos. Fresh sushi.

4. Maintenance - health. I realized that my check-ups in Beijing weren't quite preventative in nature, so I had a check up here in Seattle. Good to know that I'm vitamin D deficient and that I need to keep a close eye on my cholesterol. Need to eat more fish and need to get out more when I go back to Beijing.

5. Maintenance - computer. I enjoy tweaking my laptop and netbook. I attempted to swap out a 100Gig drive in my laptop with a faster 320 Gig HD. Failed due to totally different contacts. So I swapped out my netbook's 120Gig instead - success!

6. Movies - in a theater. Caught two so far: Transformers 2 and Up in 3-D. Liked Up a lot better than Transformers.

7. Shopping. Found the books I had been looking for: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Some ESL resources. Pre-marital counseling materials. Found some gifts to bring back to Temy like a Husky (University, not the size) sweatshirt. Found a replacement AC adapter for my laptop (spare blew a fuse in Beijing). And most of all - clothes! I tore up two pairs of jeans, so I had been waiting to come back to Old Navy to stock up.

8. Picture taking. Yup, for the sake of showing Temy what life is like here in the states, I had been taking snapshots as if I was a tourist. Most of the pics were of food.

9. Hanging out. Not quite "accomplished" as my schedule has recently been more open. I hope to find more peeps to hang out with in the final week.

What's there left to do?

1. Hanging out. Still plenty of people I'd like to see before my trip ends.

2. Seafair Torchlight Run this Saturday.

3. More family time.

4. Work. Yeah, after putting it off for three weeks, it's time to put in some work like class assignments, curriculum review, scheduling. Apaprently much has happened within the week I was gone.

Overall, I'm feeling quite "re-connected" with the people, the culture, and the surroundings. I am truly enjoying my stay here and I'm amazed that it has not become something that would make me think "hmmm...maybe I should return for good". There is absolutely nothing wrong returning to the comforts of home and spending time with the people you love - because that is totally different than living out your purpose. My purpose in life isn't here in Seattle. It's waiting for me back in Beijing. Unfortunately, very few of my friends understand that. Some have thought that my time in China was only a phase, say one or two years. Only now many of my friends have learned that I've been in China for over four years; they are realizing that this is more than just a phase. This is the real deal. And it disheartens me to share that I have this weird feeling that I've become merely a visitor to my own home church. It's only a somber reminder that I am truly an alien to this world, and my real home is up in heaven. What I can do is be a positive influence and let others know that we are all waiting to go home, our true home. While waiting, we are to be active in our lives, being a faithful steward of the time we have here on earth.

Seattle, now en route to San Jose

It's been a great few days here in Seattle. The weather has been warm and comparably drier than Beijing's (I had one nosebleed this morning).

I've done a bit of shopping already, like helping my parents acquire an HDTV. They have two older analog sets with converter boxes, but seeing these 22" (AOC and VIZIO) at discount prices of $200 were too hard to pass up.

I haven't really eaten - but more healthily with dad's home cooking of mainly vegetables. The only time I ate out was at a mall food court. "Noodle King" or something like that where my mom had wonton noodles and I had fried noodles. Not cheap by any standard, but there is definitely a difference where the veggies used are fresher and the flavors aren't bland.

It seems like everytime I'm home, there's something new about the house. This time, new toilets because one had been leaking. New couch set because the old ones were sagging in. New faucet, water heater, is this my house. I then realized that the house is about 17 years old. So things are bound to leak, sag, break, and fail.

The one interesting addition is the neighbor's new pet: goats. Two of them, and they occasionally slip through the fence and eat the weeds in our yard. Not to mention the poop pellets and pee they leave behind.

I'm at the airport now waiting for my flight to Oakland, where I'll attend a wedding in San Jose and hang out with mom and my brother in SF and Berkeley.

School Year Reflections 2008-2009 - Part 2

I had been religiously (haha) reading the word every day as part of the 1-year reading plan. I had gone through much of the Old Testament without any complaint - even enjoying books like Deuteronomy and Leviticus. A part of me wanted to side with folks like Abraham and Noah saying "Really God? You're asking me to do this?" As I kept turning page after page, from one book to the next, I was getting the big picture - and that big picture had one central character: God.

I felt pretty small then. Despite being hard on myself, I was starting to see glimpses of God's grace and forgiveness in my life.

I reconnected with a friend in Hong Kong whom I have known for over four years. We were able to meet during my visit to Hong Kong back in February, and even though I was struggling with a cough, I really enjoyed spending time with her. She enjoyed our time just as much.

Our chats became frequent, and one thing was starting to happen - I was caring for another person more than I cared for myself. And not only that, I was caring for her through God's eyes, not my own. This was new to me.

This was reoccurring back in school. I had been grumpy around my kindergarten kids because they were annoying me. But turning my thinking around really made the difference - caring for them through God's eyes.

And more recently, taking upon this position in the ESL Department meant providing the care these teachers need, and doing so in the manner of God's love.

This school year is ending on a great note. This week will be one of the busiest and most demanding, but I'm enjoying it because it's a way for me to provide care for both the teachers and students.

I'll close out this entry by saying that I'm still learning. I'm still human. But a lot more aware of what I say and do. I'm learning to love, and I thank God that He loved me first. And I am in awe and amazed, that nearly four months later, I still have someone who loves me back. (Thanks, Temy - I love you.)

Well, I'll be in Seattle for the month of July - and hopefully I'll be able to blog a little more and with pictures.

School Year Reflections 2008-2009 - Part 1

My last visit to Seattle was in July of 2008. It was actually my second visit home last year, the first was during Chinese New Year. It was always a blessing to see my parents and my brothers. During those months, my family had some issues to work through regarding their new phase in life...retirement. And with age comes health issues. With that, I wasn't really all that looking forward to returning to Beijing. But I did.

The Beijing Olympics were a good distraction and definitely a highlight for 2008.

Then the school year began. It got off to an exciting start as with the help of some friends, starting teaching elementary school kids in an Awana like study. I was also co-teaching on Mondays for the young adult group. I guess you can say that I was more busy after-school than I was with school itself. And one Sunday a month was all the more interesting as I helped out teaching Sunday school.

Teaching the kindergarten kids English was fine, but for some reason, going into my fourth year doing pretty much the same thing wasn't as exciting as it used to be.

What turned it around was the opportunity to teach Oral English to 4th, 5th, and 6th graders for the elementary school. That brought back the joy of teaching - albeit making my daily schedule even more busier and leaving me a little more exhausted. Later in the semester, I felt the tug in my heart that I had to step back teaching the young adults on Mondays and place a greater focus on this new club for the kids.

In the meanwhile, I was training for two marathons - and after completing one in December, not sitting still finally took its toll on my restless body. I struck down with some lung infection to end the first semester. I had to quit a marathon in Hong Kong after only 2 kilometers.

And boy was that a blessing in disguise. While traveling from place to place seeing friends - I was battling this cough and continuing to lose sleep over it. Never before had I prayed this hard to maintain a humble attitude. And that's when I discovered just how prideful I had been all year long.

I am used to having things going my way. And when they didn't, I had become an immature kindergartner myself, secretly pouting. Being sick for nearly a month, finding times of reflection while waiting in airports in Hong Kong, Japan, and Dalian (China) made me see that being selfish and prideful does result in lonliness.

In tears and in anguish, I prayed to God "in whatever condition I'm in, I worship you".

I looked forward to a fresh start in 2009. (to be continued)

June 2009 Update

I'm sitting at my desk on a Sunday night catching up on last week's New York Times crossword puzzles.

Strange, I thought to myself. I actually have free time. So I better post this entry before I lose the chance right before visiting Seattle this July.

Running through this week's "to-do items" in my head, this is what I came up with:

Club Activities:

• Prep Monday's study on the last half of Mark, chapter 4.
• Come up with a bunch of games for this Wednesday's kid's corner. It's our last Wednesday before the summer break.
• Prep the Monday's group last get-together - a day of sports this Saturday followed by dinner.

Work:

• Finish editing a promotional video for the kindergarten. Create a slideshow for the graduation ceremony. The ceremony's this Friday.
• Three more rehearsals with the graduating class on their English language play. Gotta make sure their props and masks are ready.
• Semester reports for 52 students.
• Pack up the classroom into boxes for the summer.
• Teacher evaluations and leading one more department meeting.
• Recruiting a new kindergarten teacher.
• Finalizing the fall's ESL teaching assignments and selecting the curriculum.

Personal:

• Pack for my home visit in July. Writing up a list of things I want to get in Seattle.
• Downloading directions so I know how to get to my friend's wedding in San Jose.

So I'm enjoying my crosswords during this calm before the storm. A storm that will hit hard this week. My past month has been more or less this busy, and while staring at this list, I realized how faithful God has been in my life this past year. I didn't just teach all year long. God made this past year truly abundant with opportunities to share the word and develop relationships. Almost by surprise, He recently placed me in a position at school that will create an impact to more students.

In fact, it's God who has been doing the teaching. (to be continued)