Reflections

I have been reflecting on a lot of things in the past couple of days. 7 weeks ago we left all we knew. Our country. Our city. Our language. Our family. Our friends. Our comforts. We were excited. We were scared. We were sad. We were happy. We were nervous. We were at peace. 

We are here. Some amazing things have been going on. We have been blessed beyond measure. A wonderful flat to live in. Furniture to sit on. A team to connect with. A team to support us. A team to come along side and help us. New relationships. New friends for all of us. Comforts away from all we knew. Peace. 

There have been some things that we've had to learn and adjust to. No vehicle. Busing it everywhere. Shopping at multiple places for all our needs. Being followed at some of those place because we are white. Language barrier. Stares from locals. Locals trying to take our picture (with or without asking). Callings out of 'guoren' (foreigner). Callings out of 'si heiza!' (4 children!). Food. Yet there is still peace. 

We have seen more of our children in the past 7 weeks then we have in the past year (maybe an exaggeration, but you get my point). Im loving it. My children have amazed me. Their willingness to adapt. Their willingness to 'go with the flow'. The way they accept things. The way they are accepting the people (locals and team members). Home schooling. Hanging out together watching DVD's. Family meals. Breakfast, lunch and supper! Smiles on their faces when they play together. Big kids making meals. Everyone helping out with cleaning. Less fighting, more cooperating. Laughing together. Smiling together. Sad together. Talking. Really talking. Growing together. 

Gd is showing us how to be a family. Showing us what is important. Showing us what we can do without. He is giving us all we need. And its not always what we thought we needed. He is there for each of us. Drawing us closer to Him. We depend on Him like never before. Our dependence isnt always evident, but in our quiet times you can see us leaning on Him. He is carrying us. He is holding us. He is guiding us. He is giving us His peace. 

Gd is teaching us to be flexible. To be content. To be accommodating. To listen. To talk. To follow Him. 

We are continually being asked if we have started working yet. I have expressed this to various team members. Those who have been here for a while. Those who know the 'ins and outs' of living in China. The same answer is given time and time again. We ARE working. Working is more then just being in a project. More then just being with the ICC children day after day. Working is figuring out how to live in China with 4 children. Working is building relationships with the team. Working is ensuring paperwork is in order. Working is doing our Team Life Coordinator/Coach things. Working is language classes. Working is exploring Changsha. Working is parenting our own children - Gd didnt call us here to work with abandoned children and to abandon our own to do it. Yes, working is being with the ICC children, but its more then that. 

Although we have been working in the capacity above, we also worked with ICC children last week and are on of a plan for the following weeks. Andrew will be working with the boys in the Lighthouse on Thursday mornings. He is going to build relationships with them. Once he knows the boys better and they know him, Andrew will be taking them out to MaiDangLao (McDonalds) for lunch on Thursdays. This was started by a team member who left about a month ago. The kids loved it! Andrew hopes to continue this outing. This not funded by ICC. It is supported by ICC. 

I visited VTC and the Lighthouse last week. This week I will be visiting En quen yuan (EQY). I will be assisting the OT with some play therapy with the children. The plan for me is to spend 1/2 day at each of the 3 projects each week. I been asked to introduce painting to the VTC group. To get some new activities going for them. At the Lighthouse I will be working with Josie and the preschool children (ages 4-6). I will be following her lead. And then at EQY doing the play therapy with the OT, Christy. A somewhat regular schedule should be in place next week. 

So, in response to if we are working. The answer is a huge YES. Without a doubt. 

 Looking at where we have come. Where we have been. Where we are going. All points to one thing. Gd. His peace. His glory. His will. This is still an adventure. A journey. Filled with good times and not so good times. But in the end, if we have His peace and are doing His will, we will survive through it all, good and not so good.

Mandarin anyone??

We have begun our Mandarin lessons. We have a tutor who comes to our home twice a week. Right now lessons are Tuesday and Friday mornings, 2 hours each morning. Andrew, Brendin, Jacq and I are taking the classes. The twins poke their heads in every now again, but they mostly get time to play on their DS's or watch a movie while we are in class. I know they are soaking up what is being taught, even if they dont realize it. They were playing 'ice cream shop' the other day and saying ni hao (hi) and ni hao ma? (how are you?) as they took each others 'orders'. They are also good at counting in Mandarin. Brendin is certainly the one who is excelling, but if you know him, this wont be a surprise. Jacq can only keep her attention going for about an hour then she 'checks out' and gets bored. We get her to sit at the table with us so she can at least hear what is going on, even if she isnt participating. I prefer to read the pinyin (phonetical spelling of Mandarin) but that doesn't help me when I'm out in the community. Andrew is okay with talking, but his tones and pronunciation is sometimes off. 

So, now that we are learning Mandarin, I'm going to 'teach' you some of what we are/have learned. 

First off, you need to know the tones. There are 4 tones, plus  neutral:

• Neutral is when there is no tone. You just say the word. eg: ma
• 1st tone is flat and is depicted by "-" above the end sound or with the number 1 after the word...you start with a higher tone and keep it there eg: ma1
• 2nd tone is low-high and depicted by "/" above the end sound or with the number 2 after the word...you start with a lower pitched tone and raise the tone as you end the word eg: ma2
• 3rd tone is high-low-high and depicted by "v" above the end sound or with the number 3 after the word...you start with a mid-low pitched tone, drop the tone, then raise your tone again eg: ma3 
• 4th tone is high-low and depicted by "\" above the end sound or with the number 4 after the word...you start with a higher pitched tone and drop the tone as you end the word eg: ma4 

Now that you know this, here is something else you need to know...a 'c' usually makes a sound like 'tch', a 'z' is 'tz', 'x' is 'sh'...i think that is it for the weird sounds

Now on to some useful (?) words
1. ni1 hao3 (knee how)                            hello
2. xie4 xie  (shay shay)                        thank you
3. zai4 jian4 (tz-eye jen)                      good bye   
4. xi shou2 jian1 (sh-eye shoe jen)      washroom
5. hen3 hao3 (hen how)                      very good
6. wo3                                             I
7. ta1                                     he or she (doesnt matter)
8. ni3                                                         you
9. wo3 men                                                us/we
10. ta1 men                                               them/they
11. ni3 men                                               you (plural)
12. Ja1 na2 da3                                        Canada

13. Ja1 na2 da3 ren2                                Canadian

14. Mei3 guo2 (may gwa)                         America

15. Mei3 guo2 ren2 (may gwa ren)           American 

16. hao3-bu-hao3 (how-boo-how)            okay?

17. bu2-xie4 (boo-shay)          No thanks needed/youre welcome

18. yao4 (y-ow)                                         want

19. you3 (y-oh)                                          need

20. shi4 (sh)                                  am/is/are/to be

21. wo3 bu-dong3                         I dont understand

Those are a few words that we have learned. Altogether we have learned over 100 words. The words above were from the introduction and the first lesson. 

Our sentence patterns started out simple. A subject (S) an equative verb (EV) and a noun (N). For example: wo3 shi4 lao3shi1 (I am a teacher). We learned more and more, and today our sentence structure looks like this: S, A, AV (auxiliary verb), V (verb), SP (specifiers), NU (number), M (measure word), N (noun). For example: Lao3shi1 bu2 yao3 gei3 wo3 nei2 yi ben3 shu1 (Teacher didnt give me that one book). Confused yet? The measure word is a word that comes after a number to describe the noun. We have learned about 5 different measure words. In the example, ben3 describes books. Textbook. Notebook. Workbook. kuai2 describes money. zhi1 describes pens, sticks, anything in a stick like shape. zhang1 is for anything flat - stamps, postcards, table. ge is a generic measure word, but cant be used if there is a specific measure word for the item. Im sure you are confused now. Welcome to the world of Chinese language.  

We have also learned to count. Yes, that is just as strange. Well, 1 - 99 is ok, the higher numbers are crazy. If you know the numbers 1-10 you can count to 99. 11 is just 10+1, 12 is 10+2, 13 = 10+3 etc...20 is 2+10, 21 = 2+10+1, 22 = 2+10+2 etc. Oh, and when you need 2 of something you dont say er2 you say liang3. And when saying a phone number, the 1 is no longer yi1 it is yao1.

Anyone still with me?? I dont blame you if youre not. Im hoping once we get out more in the community and start using our language it will become much clearer and easier for us. We did learn useful words to use in the market when buying fruit and veggies and we learned the names of some our favorite dishes so we can order in a restaurant. And we learned to ask "How much is the total" so at least we can pay correctly. 

Besides learning Mandarin, we are also learning Australian and British...some new words/phrases are:

1. heaps....  (lots)

2. that is as (hot, cold, spicy, crazy...fill in the blank) as..... (the sentence just ends at 'as')   

3. reckon....(think, suppose)

4. rubbish....(garbage)

I would like to share some pr@ise points with you all

1. every child in my home now has their own bed and their own room (twins are sharing a room, but they have bunks now!)

2. we signed a 1 year contract with the landlord for 2300RMB/month, thanks to Justin (he was asking 2500RMB/mth) 

3. we will have our passports, birth certificates, work permit and residence permits in our hands tomorrow

4. we seem to be all settled in now...pictures are up that we brought from home, room are sorted out, all of L & A's things are gone from here and in their new place

We have a couple of pr'yer requests:

1. we have to buy the furniture off of L & A...they have not given us a price yet for their items...things like the beds, couch, kitchen table...pls pr that the price will be in our budget

2. ICC's major fundraiser, Walk The Wall, occurs this weekend...please pr it will be a success (we dont actually walk the Great Wall, we will just all walk 5-10k by the river bank) 

3. we are still not at 100% of our support raised...please pr that Gd will raise up those who would like to partner with us (we are at about 85%...i just received an update but havent had a chance to do the math)

Only in China

* 7 adults, 2 (pre)teens and 2 prechoolers can go for a filling meal for only 186RMB...that is less then $30CAD

* when you leave at 6:30pm for such a meal, you run into tons of high school kids just finishing their day

* moms think its okay for them to place their pre-schooler at your table (while we are eating a meal), next to your children and expect them to talk to each other

Thanks again for reading!! 

Love the Ying's (our new Chinese family name)

Month End...Where did the time go?

Hello again!

It seems like a while since I last wrote to you. Ive sat down and tried to compose an update and it just didnt work. So, here I am again, trying to compose an update for you all.

I cant believe we have been here for nearly a month. What an experience this has been thus far. We came in not knowing what to expect from the team, the culture, the city, our family and even Gd. We have learned so much about all these things. I will try to convey some of the things that we have learned during this update.

Finances (then I’ll get into some ‘fun’ stuff)

According to our last update we are at about 83% of our support pledged to us. This is amazing! We are so thankful to all our financial supporters. We could not be here without them. We know that their support is in response to everyone’s pr’yers for us. And if it wasnt for your pr’yers we could not be here either. This month our finances have been applied to rent, travel via bus passes and eating. We have also needed to purchase some furniture for our flat, phones and household essentials like mops, cleaning supplies and appliances (blender, coffee maker, tea kettle etc). We are very thankful that almost all the things we purchased were quite cheap (compared to Canadian prices) and we were able to, therefore, acquire all the things we needed. We have been able to stay on budget for this month, which is always good! Our rent is due 3 months at a time. This month our rent goes to the family that has currently been living here. October starts a new 3 month group. We will have to figure out a budget for paying rent only 4 times a year. So far we have been able to live with the money we have allotted ourselves.

Projects

We have not officially started working in the projects yet. However, we have all had the opportunity to tour and hang out with 2 of the projects. One is called the Lighthouse which is home to about 40 children with mild – moderate needs. Children in this home could be deaf or blind or have Down`s syndrome, Autism or Cerebral Palsy. Some of these children are in wheelchairs, some have walking aids and some are walking independently. These children can usually feed themselves and require assistance using the bathroom but do not need to be in diapers. The other project we have all been to is Enquanyuan (En – chen – you – en). This is also known as the welfare center. This project is home to about 20 children who have severe needs. These children are usually wheelchair bound or bed ridden. The children can not do anything independently. They require assistance for all their basic needs. Andrew has visited the VTC (Vocational Training Center). This site accommodates young adults with mild disabilities. These young adults learn life skills here. They make projects such as jewellery, hand bags and some baking. Their projects are then sold to raise money for ICC. These young adults also apprentice in the city. For example, one young man is apprenticing at a local barber shop. He is learning how to cut hair and will be able to make a living for himself.

The projects also provide schooling for those children who are unable to attend ‘normal’ Chinese school. This begins in the pre-school years and continues up through high school. All projects have access to Occupational Therapists (OT), nurses and teachers.

One thing we have done twice is that we have gone to McDonals (MaiDangLao) with 2 different groups of kids from the Lighthouse. We have gone as a family. The kids have enjoyed this. One of the team members took it upon himself to take rotating groups of kids out for lunch once a week. This team member has finished his 2 year term and him and his wife have gone home. Andrew is hoping to take this on. The kids have really enjoyed this and our director (Justin) would like to see this continue.

Shopping

We are learning where to go for groceries as well as some good places to eat. Food is a big part of the culture here. Relationships are key to living in China and what a better way to grow relationships then around food? We have team meals once a week, sometimes twice. There is always food out at ch*rch as well. So, we have had to learn where to go for essentials. There are a couple of places we go to frequently. One grocery store is the Carrefore. They have some Western foods, but not too many. The main thing this place has is bread! It is the only grocery store that sells good bread at a decent price. There is also the Metro (which is like a mini-Costco). There is a grocery store, the BuBuGao, at the corner of our street, but i find it more expensive for things. A great place for Western items is the PingHeTang. Unfortunately, it was one of the places vandalized during the riots. It is still not repaired. We all hope it gets repaired soon! The best place for our fresh fruit, veggies and meat is at the Wet Market. It is a street market that is, apparently, always open – rain or shine. We are there frequently. We go to mainly the same vendors for the same items. The people at these vendors are learning who we are and are patient with us and our very limited Mandarin. They will smile at us and help us get the best product. The food is amazingly good!!

Eating Out

As I said, relationships are built around meals. Not all meals are in the home. And when teams come in to see the projects, they almost always want to take the team out for a meal. We have been able to go to a few different restaurants. We have not been disappointed. Andrew is the most adventurous when it comes to trying new things. Me, not so much. Brendin has been really good at trying new things as well. Jacquelyn is coming around. The twins stick to what they know – mainly rice. Jacquelyn has tried, and likes, lamb. Brendin tried some sweet and sour fried fish. They have also both tried some street food - BBQ, noodles and steamed buns. These things have been a hit! Alysa likes the steamed buns, but Andrea hasnt tried them yet.

Travel

We travel mainly by bus. Our family has not taken a taxi yet as taxi’s can only take 4 people at a time. Justin (& Lisa, the other family here) has a van and if our families are out together, we will pile into the van. The van has taken us to the Metro, Toys R Us and Carrefore. Carrefore is within walking distance, but the others are not. We are learning the bus routes and have not gotten lost (yet?). The buses come frequently but they dont always have room. You either have to squish or be patient and wait for another bus.

Something New

As you all know, our Team Life Coordinator, Ruth (& husband, Mike) are no longer in this role. Andrew and I have talked to Justin and Lisa and have pr’yed about this and we will be transitioning into the new role. It will take 6 – 12 months before we are 100% in the role

We successfully went, on our own, and purchased wardrobes and a dresser for the kids. It was delivered to us and they even assembled it!

We had a successful trip to WalMart today

The older kids have begun school. Things are going pretty good with it.

Today is one of our team members 60th birthday. We celebrated by setting off fireworks on the roof top (pic attached)

We have begun our language study. We have had 2 lessons. They are twice a week for 2 hours each class, plus study/practice. Us and the big kids are taking lessons, the twins are just hanging out while we do lessons. 

Pra!se

The flat we are currently staying in, is now ours!! we dont have to move!!

The rioting has stopped

The kids are eating and even enjoying some new foods

Our residence permits will be in next week. This is definitely a pra!se as our bio-kids birth certificates do not show parentage and they were not going to accept them. Justin worked his magic and the officer agreed to having Justin writing a letter stating that he knows us and that B & J are our kids. GD certainly worked a miracle this day!!!

Pr’yer

If some of you get this in time, we would like to ask for pr’yer for ICC’s founder, David Gotts’s wife. She was diagnosed with breast cancer a few months ago and is going in for surgery for a mastectomy and reconstruction today (Oct 1) at 10am Pacific time

That we will continue to grow and take things one day a time.

That work in the projects will begin next week

That we can continue to create relationships with the other team members and with locals

For our mandarin lessons...Jacq has had a hard time focusing past one hour...we need to figure out something to keep her attention

Only in China

It is often safer to cross the street in the middle of the road then at an intersection

When you purchase furniture, they build it that night, deliver it and assemble it in your home – and this is all included in the price

You can set off fireworks anywhere, anytime – this may only be in Changsha

Thanks for reading! take care everyone

Love Darcie, Andrew, Brendin, Jacquelyn, Andrea, Alysa