We Need a King!

I was struck by the sadness of 1 Samuel 8 today, when Israel rejects God and demands a king so they can be like all the other nations. History does repeat itself on so many levels.

Thanksgiving

It's hard to believe this is the third Thanksgiving I've celebrated in China! This year was very simple - just had dinner with our closest Chinese friends. A half Western/half Chinese meal. And as always, we ended up with way too much food.

















Brad and I made green bean casserole (with so many substitutions who knows what it really was, but it was good), mashed potatoes, stuffing, tons of rolls, deviled eggs, and pumpkin pie. We rented a room at the reception center on campus and ordered some Chinese dishes so no one would starve if they hated our food. :) We went to Wuhan last weekend to scope out a turkey but saw that they were 300-400 yuan! So we skipped out on the turkey this year. It's so hard to cook one here anyway since our ovens are toaster ovens. So since we had no turkey, we ordered chicken at the restaurant. Please notice the head. Bet your turkey didn't look like that!
















It was a nice, relaxing meal with some of my favorite people. So much to be thankful for here.
(Linda and Helena: two of my girls)

Waffles!

Yichang has waffles! Oh, the times, they are a'changin'!

Random street vendors pop up everywhere in China, and you never know what random surprise it may be...








This guy said he met a German who taught him how to make them. You can get an assortment of sauces to put on them. Even blueberry!!!

Wuhan Randomness

Brad and I made a short trip up to Wuhan this weekend. Actually, it turned out longer than we'd planned, but who can leave Peach? We did a little shopping, found some cool resources, and of course, ate. We ate at Gianno's Italian restaurant on Saturday (and Sunday!), and it's quite delicious. A Chinese lady owns it...she lived in New York while she studied biology and fell in love with Italian food and decided to bring it back to the Motherland. We are so thankful for that. Anyway, Gianno's is good stuff.








Now for those of you who know Brad, you know that he savors every single bite of food (especially pizza) and might be called slow by some, as he feels he needs to enjoy every.single.bite. :) So now you realize the tragedy of what I'm about to tell you... Brad's last bite of delicious cheesy calzone dropped to the floor right before it reached his mouth. (Below is a photo of the aforementioned bite-that-wasn't...)















There was much lamenting on his part.



















And Peach and I couldn't stop laughing.

Other than the Great Calzone Sadness of 08, we found a few humerous sightings in Wuhan. I got busted before I could take more pictures of hilarious pill bottles (Breast Nuts and Kangaroo Extract).

Thanksgiving Acrostic

For one of my classes this week, I'm having them do Thanksgiving acrostic poems. I thought I'd try my hand at one instead of just finding one off the internet as an example for the class, and it's not bad if I do say so myself. :)

Thinking of all I
Have and being
Amazed
Near or far
Knowing there is
Someone praying to
God on my behalf
Imagining the future out of my
View but without fear
In faith trusting that
No matter which side of the world I'm on
God holds me in His hands.

Oops.

Sometimes you just don't say what you mean to say...

"We welcome you from the heart of our bottom." - Student giving welcome speech
(I almost lost it in class on this one.)

"Yes, I'm so busy! I'm in charge of milking 150 kids!" - Student to Brad
(He meant giving them milk and snacks at English Village.)

Stevie Nicks the Impaler

Stevie Nicks the Impaler might be my favorite part about the Haunted House. Remember before, when I made a paper mache head?

It became Stevie Nicks the Impaler. We aren't sure if it's a man or a woman. It kind of has the face of a woman and the body of a man (in Brad's clothes).

But dear Stevie hung in our Haunted House, terrifying many.










After cleaning up until 1:30 am, Brad had the brilliant plan to leave Stevie in the Madame's (our landlady) office for her to find in the morning. We thought it was hysterical. We're not sure of her reaction (but I hear giggling).















Then Stevie made his/her home in Brad's house and has fit right in!

Halloween

Ok, the time has come to finally post about Halloween. It took a while to round up pictures.










There's no way to actually convey the magnitude of what we pulled off here, but I'll try. We.made.a.haunted.house.

We'd tossed around the idea in the early days of China but weren't sure how it could be pulled off. Now that it's just Brad and me out of the original "party making 5" we weren't sure it could be done. But we did it!

We turned the stairway of our 6-floor (probably condemned) building into 6 floors of terror! Our plan was to get some of our closest Chinese friends to help by having groups be in charge of a floor and planning it out and getting the stuff. Yeah right. Brad and I did most of it, but they had a blast once it was all together. And I'm sure they'll never forget it! Sadly we don't have good pictures of everything because it was complete chaos before the Haunted House opened, but here's what we've got...

We had "tour guides" to lead small groups of petrified students up to the sixth floor and back down.

















First floor: Graveyard. We made paper tombs, had some zombies and mummies walking around, and even rented a fog machine!






























Second floor: Dracula and his lady victim, complete with paper coffin and bats. (We do actually have bats that fly in the stairwell but I don't know if they came that night.)















Third floor: A witch with a huge cauldron and a boy tied up beside her. (Brad was not the boy. He was in charge of general terror and noise making.)






















Fourth floor: Chinese restaurant, complete with scary butcher and live head on a table!















Fifth floor: Insane Asylum/Flashback to "The Ring". It was scary.





















Sixth floor: Haunted Hospital - while the original idea was to have a patient on the table and doctors working on him, this group took poetic license (wish we totally encourage) and set up a table to feast on the post-operation goods. Gross. In China it certainly isn't hard to buy intestines and "innards" at your local market. That might be the scariest of all! :)
















Now what was my job you ask? I was the "Gatekeeper."



















Basically I stood outside trying in vain to do crowd control. Have I ever mentioned that Chinese people are pushers? I almost lost my mind more than once. Every time I would open the door to let a group in, the entire mass would push forward. At some points I couldn't even open the door to let people out! It was a nightmare. Thankfully one of Brad's students stepped up and helped me organized people into some semblance of order. I had dreams for several nights after that that we did the Haunted House again and I was able to get people to line up single file. Ha!

I think there had to have been nearly 400 people come through. It was ridiculous. Brad and I told all of our students, and then of course, students tells students. We opened the doors at 7:30 and went until 10. Many people stood in line for over an hour. Craziness!

But I think overall, it was a success. A success I never want to do again. :) Most people were pretty scared by it (though it isn't hard at all to scare a Chinese girl) and some even ran out before they reached the top.

Here's the whole Haunted crew...














We did it again.

Ah, Fall.

We've always complained in the past that Yichang has two seasons, winter and summer. But this year we've actually had Fall! Sure the weather is always strange, sunny and hot one day, cold and rainy the next, but overall we've had a month of pleasant weather. The leaves have even changed a little! Maybe it won't get cold until Christmas week...wouldn't that be nice. :)

I'm back...

We've been without Internet for the past week, hence the lack of news on Halloween, etc. I'm too tired to recount it all now but I will leave you with two words: Haunted House, and pictures of the aftermath...(no, my house was not the Haunted House).

Please note the paint and pastels ground into my carpet. :)