summer perspective and inspiration

It has been a rollicking couple of weeks as TIP is hosting 600-plus Chinese English teachers from all over the country as well as 20 new summer volunteer facilitators. Spirits and expectations are high all around even as sweltering temperatures are followed by torrential rains; and everyone is in a scramble to master a mash-up of schedules and work assignments. (Please pray for southern and western Chinese communities that are experiencing flooding and relocation due to dangerous reservoir levels. While we are not affected, some of our students have been.)

We have been doing our best to support and encourage the short-term facilitators and the leadership team while plugging holes and dousing fires as they spring up (from taking care of toilet paper needs to filling in during Music Clubs that found themselves without leaders). It has been a blessing to watch as our new friends shake off their hesitancy and uncertainty to take charge of classes and activities while infusing the session with fresh ideas and energy.

After a week of preparing for an English summer camp for middle school students in Shanxi province, the camp was postponed until August and now we’re not sure if we will go. TIC (this is China). We are happy to have had the chance to plan creatively together and plan a schedule that others can pick up and run with. Still on the table is a week of helping out at an English camp for the children (ages 6 to 10) of the Chinese people who work in the office building where our international fellowship meets. That’s where we’ll spend our mornings this coming week.

On the facilities front, we were saddened to watch as “playground improvements” on campus resulted in a half-dozen large trees being cut down. While our program does not use the area, everyone benefited from the only real shade in this place of concrete and asphalt.

Just outside the campus gate, we have discovered a “new” restaurant where the food is delicious and inexpensive. We have enjoyed sampling several new lamb, mushroom and tofu dishes, which have gone a long way toward ameliorating the culinary grind of the cafeteria.

We have also been having a fantastic time talking with our Chinese friends who manage and care for our dorm building. While it has always been a good opportunity for us to practice and learn Chinese, they are showing some interest for the first time in learning some English. Our “conversations” are incredibly mundane, circular, repetitive and confusing but always result in a lot of laughter as well as some learning.

Now that we have identified the mysterious smell that was slowly taking over our room – old, un-refrigerated eggs – we are truly ready for a new week and maybe some housekeeping too.