Our Week in Xi'an

Last week we enjoyed a visit from Midge and Kirk Evans, our China Teachers Program (CTP) directors, who were here to meet with our university officials, visit our classes, check out our living quarters, and make sure we were all surviving our adventures. They were at JiaoDa with us on Friday and slipped in after their meetings to catch the last half of my 10:10 two-hour oral English class. The students were all on their very best behavior, so impressed to have foreign visitors from America! After class I took the Evanses home to our apartment to give them a welcome break from Chinese food. At this mid-point of their lengthy sweep of China they had been under way for some two and a half weeks with a lot of cities and teachers to visit still to go.

They laughed with us about our apartment's charming exterior with its piles of concrete stacked just outside our door saying, "Well, your place is not the best we have seen, but its not the worst either." We remain grateful for the blessings we enjoy of being so close to campus and having such great folks at our school to work with. Later that evening, after John's usual Friday marathon day, we met with all the Xi'an BYU teachers for dinner with the Evanses. They were with us again on Sunday for our meetings, where we enjoyed hearing from them. (So nice to have new faces to speak in our branch!) After our meetings and lunch we bid them farewell as they headed for the airport then on to Jinan on the next leg of their journey.

Monday evening that week I had been "invited" by the dean, through Mr. Chen, to judge the second-leg of the public speaking contest at our university prior to JiaoDa's winner moving on to the national competition on Saturday the 20th. I had already spent Wednesday evening in a similar fashion on the first level contest. I didn't mind doing it through having to judge each contestant and then being the Question Master to ask each student to respond to a question was sometimes a little tricky since I had to concentrate carefully on their English that was too often a bit difficult to understand. John and I had both been fighting colds and staying on top of our regular teaching and preparation loads while also taking on these extra curricula was becoming a challenge. Tuesday between my morning sections, Mr. Chen was waiting for me outside the classroom with the winner of the competition from the night before in tow. He told me that the dean had "invited" (there's that word again!) me to be the "guide" for the winner to work with her to get her ready for the upcoming final competition. I wished her well but told Mr. Chen to tell the dean that I was not able to take on more right now. All the extras were cutting into my being able to do my best with the classes I had full responsibility for. My extra class teaching the primary school teachers was also taking much more time than I had anticipated and I simply could do no more. He told me he would send me an email about it. He did, again inviting me to coach the winner. I replied by saying "no." I was doing all I could right now without getting seriously ill. I received a very nice email back saying that the dean was very pleased with my teaching and understood my not taking on more. I was relieved and had learned something about how things work here.

One of the challenges of teaching in China is that the Chinese work harder than any people I've ever seen. They work from early to late, seven days a week and think everyone else ought to as well. We had been cautioned about escalating schedules and reminded that since we were the first at our school, what we agreed to do would set the pace for all the BYU teachers who would follow after us, so be careful. Though we had tried to follow that counsel things were getting a bit out of hand! Three different preparations with classes Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday (seven two-hour sections), English Corner on Thursday evening from 8:00-10:00 pm, my branch RS presidency responsibilities, and other branch assignments (we spoke in sacrament meeting today, for the second time in two months) all keep me relatively busy. John's schedule is similar with its own heavy load while he also is acting branch president with the Brittons' move. Being branch clerk adds to keeping him scrambling.

If, as you read this description, you think that I am complaining, you are mistaken. It is a glorious journey that we love very much, despite our working harder than we have for years. We feel it such a blessing to be here doing what we are doing with the people we are serving.

Friday evening this week we had a wonderful time at our fall social for our Relief Society. We met in Julie Monson's boxcar apartment to enjoy dinner and watch the Women's Conference. All but two of our numbers were able to be there. A wonderful warm gathering on a crisp autumn evening. Julie had made hot chicken salad. I brought broccoli cheese soup and homemade bread. (It is an adventure in and of itself to transport soup on a bus:) Because my companion and I were going visit teaching before the event with no time to make the trip home before the social I lugged soup in quart-sized yogurt containers in my handy canvas bag to Starfish and back, actually making it with no mishaps.

Bethany and I are Amanda Delange's visiting teachers. She is the director of Starfish foster home, where, in three apartments, she remarkably oversees some forty-five to sixty at-risk babies for whom she provides wonderful care, overseeing her Chinese nannies and foreign volunteers, and arranging for the baby's many surgeries always hoping to get them well and then facilitate their eventual adoptions. Sometimes we go and just hold babies who are always happy for warm hugs and cuddles, sometimes we actually get a little message in, but just being at Amanda's we are privileged to watch someone doing Christ's own work of caring for and loving the "one."

Amanda, born in South Africa, joined the Church at 23, served a mission, went to Taiwan where she learned Chinese, never knowing why. Through a remarkable series of miracles, she was able to set up a foster home with the support of the Chinese government (you have to be in China to know how remarkable THAT is!) She has never married but is mother to hundreds of babies over the six plus years since she has been in China making a difference. (She told Heavenly Father on one occasion that she understood that she was not going to have the chance to marry and she was OK with that IF he would give her something really interesting to do with her life. Well, He has certainly honored her request! Interesting is an understatement for sure.)

To conclude our week, on Saturday morning the Monsons met John and me at one of the south gates of the city for us to enjoy a really beautiful autumn morning to walk in the park and observe the older generation at play. The park runs between the wall and the moat and is home to taichi devotees, kungfu groups (with swords), the coolest adult playground mechanical equipment of every kind that can be imagined.

It is an older generation playground. Children are welcome--they come with their grandparents--but it is the adults who come to play. In the park you can see men out walking their birds, hanging their cages from trees in order to sing to others likewise brought while their owners chat below. (I never knew owning a bird was such a responsibility!)

From the park we walked up into the old city to enjoy a morning market (Xi'an's answer to Salt Lake's Farmers' Market) where we bought breakfast on the street--egg crepes and hot scones--wandered here and there looking at and sampling the fresh veggies, fruits, candies, and looking at the wares of clothing, buttons, shoe repairs, and anything else you can think of intermixed along the way.

John and Dave left to go home teaching together while Julie and I walked on to the Muslim Market to do a little shopping before heading home to get ready for Sunday. What a week. We hope yours is a full of joy as ours has been. Talk with you next week.