Back from China....从中国回来

   Needless to say since my return I've really been digging and being more diligent into studying the language and guess what!!?!?! I'm actually getting somewhere!!!

(My new friend Nina:)

   China feels like home to me, the only thing I miss about the US while I'm gone is my family.

   Yeah, actually I'm pretty sad about being back:P lol Don't get me wrong, its great seeing my family again and I'm looking forward to seeing my friends again....but...I miss China a LOT!!!
    I don't know why I feel this way about China, why I have such a love for the Chinese people, the culture and everything about China for that matter (well not "everything":)

A Buddhist monk

    Maybe it's from God, I can't see "myself" loving any other country as much as I love China.
    Maybe God has given me this love for these people for a reason, actually I believe He has.
   Right now I'm not exactly sure where to go with it, what to do with that knowledge other then to prepare, which means learning the language, culture etc. 
  Which I have been doing somewhat for the last few years, but not as much as I should, this trip has really helped me see how much I lack and what I need do do to prepare for the future.

   The Lord has also used it to show many areas in my life that needed and still need changing, areas I didn't really have a clue about, areas that I really didn't want to change and He has really been helping me in dying to my flesh in those areas!



   Haha, I always had so much trouble learning Chinese and being able to distinguish the characters from each other, but now its actually making some sense. Cool eh?
   While I was in China, Corrie (my good friend who spent 6 months in China last year) was a huge blessing with teaching us Chinese.
    She would give us Chinese lessons, her Chinese was really really, she was our main translator. 
    I also learned some from just listening to people talk or hearing her translate and then figuring out which words mean what.

The best lamb kabob makers ever!!!:)

    It took a lot of guessing!!:) I would listen to people talk and a few words would pop out that I could understand but those words I knew really didn't help me understand what they were talking about.
   For example the word China(中国). 中 means middle and 国 mean country or kingdom. 
   I figured 中国 out while on the train, waiting to fall asleep, each bunk has the character for bottom 上, middle 中  and top 下, then I didn't know which one was which, I'd just ask Corrie or some Chinese person, but it suddenly dawned on me that the same charactor that was in the word China was the same as the middle bunk:) I felt pretty smart when I figured it out:P lol
  Beijing (北京), this is one I learned while studying after I got home. 北 Bei mean North and 京 Jing mean capital, so you could easily figure this one out:) haha I guess I just gave y'all a short Chinese lesson.  

“God, send me anywhere, only go with me. Lay any burden on me, only sustain me. And sever any tie in my heart except the tie that binds my heart to Yours.” DAVID LIVINGSTONE

"And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them" (Isaiah 42:16). 

P.S. I'm working on a more full report of the trip:)