Wuhan is exactly how I remembered it--crowded, full of traffic, polluted, dirty, and in desperate need of the good news. I've found that coming back this year has been a new kind of challenge because I have no illusions this time around. That is, jumping right back in, I'm already annoyed by traffic and a seeming lack of consideration for others. I suppose in a country of a billion people, waiting in line doesn't really get you anywhere...but it still bothers me. I think China has taught me to be more easily irritated because people will do the same thing to you if you don't do it first. I guess I simply need to pr@y for patience.Getting back to work has been exciting for me, too. My first week back, I had an interview with a new school. I had to teach an hour-long demo lesson about the speaking portion of the ToEFL test. Apparently I did my homework well, because the students really liked me and the school really wanted to hire me. That might have been unfortunate, actually, because the school is over an hour away from my place, which would mean two hours of traveling (round-trip) every day I had to teach there, so I opted not to teach at that school. What's more, they never even considered that I wouldn't take the job, so I ended up teaching there for four hours as a gesture of goodwill. I taught speaking and writing to the same class of students for four hours, and they were really nice. I loved the students, but apparently I couldn't tell them that I wouldn't be teaching them for the remainder of the semester. It made me kind of sad, but I have to do whatever's in the best interest of His work while I'm here, and I think part of that is being a little more free with my schedule.
Now I'm back at work at Luo Jia College, Ivy's school, where I taught last year. I'm one lesson into the year, and I told them about summer and listened to a few of them talk about their summers. I was happy to see my students again. My freshmen have grown up into sophomores. Still, some of them don't like me, so I know this year will be a bit of a challenge as I try to make class both wholesome and exciting for my students. If anyone who knows how to teach has any suggestions, I would welcome any advice you have, as I'm really still an inexperienced teacher. I recognize my shortcomings, but I do love my students and want them to learn from me.
I have a new companion this year for my time in Wuhan. Ivy bought me a new back--or rather, an old bike. Nicole Lehman opted not to return this year, and Ivy bought her bike for me. I went to my favorite repairman, Mr. Zuo (means something like "Left" in English) to get a basket added on to the front. The bike isn't as fast as my old one, or quite as tall, but I do think it will require less repair work than my previous bike, so I'm thankful for the gift. Hopefully my new bike will keep me safer this year.Last weekend I visited Changsha, the capital of Hunan province, which is just south of Hubei province (of which the capital is Wuhan). Ivy went there to take the ToEFL test, and I came along to meet some of her friends in that city and to provide her with support. The only problem is that we were both sick when we left. Thursday night she came down with some form of the flu, but I was at a men's study, so I didn't see her. It hit me Friday morning. We must have gotten it Thursday afternoon, and it hit her first, but it seems that it hit me worse. I rode my bike to school and was very weak throughout the day. After I rode my bike home, I needed to sit down for about 20 minutes. Then I packed, and our adventure started. I rode over to Ivy's place (which was probably a mistake, considering how tired I had gotten from riding that morning). After sitting there waiting for her for a bit, we went to the ticket agency to pick up our tickets. Ivy must have copied down one of the ticket numbers wrong, because there was only a return ticket for me and no ticket there. After getting very frustrated with the personnel from the ticket agency (because we should have been at the train station at this point) and yelling at them to help her, they let her use their computer for a minute to look up my ticket number. Sure enough, she had copied one of the numbers wrong. After that was taken care of, we took motorcycle taxis to the train station. When we arrived, Ivy couldn't find her ID card, so she decided to go back to the ticket agency to look for it there. She left her bags with me, and I found it about a minute after she left. I called her to come back, and we went through security to the waiting rooms only to find our train had already left. From there, we went to find out if we could change our tickets to a later train, but we found out that we had simply lost the money (it was less than $10 US each). I offered to buy the next available tickets that would get us there at reasonable time, which was a fast train. I paid a higher fee, of course, but it got Ivy to the test.
So we left that train station to go to the fast train station. We had to take a taxi, and I was already tired from all the traveling we had done. We made it to the new train station with plenty of time to spare, boarded the train with no problems, and arrived before our other train would have arrived--but in a different location. That meant we had to take a bus to get to where her friends were picking us up. Ivy found the bus, and we were on it for about 40 minutes. When we got to the final stop, Ivy realized that she had chosen the wrong bus. Apparently all the characters were the same except we had taken the one that said 南 and we wanted 西. That meant we had to take another bus for 45 minutes or more to get to where we really wanted to be, all this time while I was feeling very tired from being sick. When we finally met her friends, I wanted to go to the place where we would stay the night so I could go to sleep, but they took us out for supper. Since I had the flu, I was not hungry at all. I barely ate anything. Then they decided they should take me to check my temperature. I had a fever of about 101.5, and Ivy started to get really worried. When we got to Ivy's friends' place, I took some medicine with some tea and then went to sleep.
And now the part you've all been waiting for. When I got back to China, I had a lot of gifts to give Miss Ivy, and we had a little photo shoot of her in her new clothes and such. Rather than talk about it, I'll try just to show the pictures.
That's the word from Wuhan so far. It's good to be back at the good work. We started our studies last week, and next week I will be starting CSI (essentially BIC) classes. I'm going to teach a short course on Law and Gspel. I'm excited for the opportunity and look forward to learning more about the subject as I teach it, too.
Pr@yers for all of you. Please pr@y for us here, also, that He would bless our work and open the door for more and more s0uls to come and know Him as L0rd here in China. I miss you all!
The grace of our L0rd Jes-s Chr*st be with your spirit!
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