weekend update - God is Good!

Hi everyone,

So glad you have been reading my blog. It is not like me to write, but knowing ppl are reading makes me do every week! So this week has been hectic. On Tuesday night I was able to FINALLY have dinner with one of my assigned language partners - Tang Lijuan. She doesn't go to school at Tsinghua and works south of the campus (which is very far from my part of the school) so it has been hard to meet up. But we did! YAH!

On Wednesday night, the two girls we met at church, Abby and Susan, invited us to the English Corner (there are several in Beijing) but this is just a class that the Chinese can take to learn English. It was a real comfort to see how they are struggling like we do to learn the language, but their English skills are far superior to ours... ;) We went to a noodle place afterward and got to try rice noodles (literally noodles made from ground rice) it's a speciality of a province in South China.

After a long week, we had another exam on Friday. This time though, we were able to leave our 3 hour class after the exam and relax under the sun before our culture class. Tsinghua has a beautiful lake/pond on campus, and we traveled there to sit in the sun. It is common in China for their to be just large groups of older people with live music dancing (kinda like line dancing, but Asian - not southerner! lol)
We enjoyed the atmosphere and our time off before heading back to class!

This weekend, we also got to experience an amazing German restaurant in the city (I know German food in Asia that is actually good!) Paulaner Brauhaus - beer from the Paulaner brewery - housed great food and great atmosphere. We dined outside under umbrellas in their Beer Garden and I finally had good chicken (shnitzel) so yummy!

AND!!!!! I finally saw Blair! For those of you who read this and don't know who that is, it is my cousin that happens to be in Beijing this summer as well. We were able to see each other for drinks in Sanlitun at Kokomo (which means nothing for you, but is a good reminder for me). Great atmosphere, good music, good company!

This morning, I took another crowd of kids to church (Jorge and Marcel joined Charlie and I this morning) We were able to meet up with Abby and Susan again and enjoy yet another amazing service. This time, we got to sit in the front and I was able to hear ppl singing. It is so uplifting to hear ppl with different accents, different ways of saying things, etc all sing to praise God. We sang some songs I know (including God of a City - which was talked about in reference to all the changes in China and Beijing over the last 20 years, but God has not changed. Amen!)

We had a woman lead the sermon today - Jessica Wang. Her English was not as good as our friend Hee Sung last week, but it was great to see someone talk about God's love regardless. She talked about Isaiah 54:10 and 1 Peter 4:8. She talked of a boy born without arms and legs to a dedicated Christian family and his struggles as he lived, telling his story and his life's theme: No arms, no legs, no worries!

It was again a great experience and one I truly enjoyed! I'm constantly reminded of God's goodness and how wonderful it is to share our faith throughout the world. The Chinese have good hearts and it is still amazing to see so many different ppl congregate together: We saw ppl from all around the world today, with very little actually from Beijing (but that is bc many of the locals go upstairs for the Chinese service). Our friends Abby and Susan still don't understand the sermon bc it is so fast, but they are learning quickly. We explained the meaning of 'covenant' today.

On Saturday, we also went to Bei Hai, which is an amazing park that I will write a paper on and post online later. Hope you enjoyed my time. I will try to post pictures with this blog but if it doesn't work, I will post another blog entry.

love to all! miss you so much!