thetinymite.com » China

Friday July 29, 2005

reese — Sat, 30 Jul 2005 04:36:04 +0000

Only four days left in Fuxin. I really am glad to be heading home, not because I hate it here, but because I miss home so much. I miss my friends and family. It’s been difficult putting life on hold like this. As I have been looking back on this summer I began to think that it was all a waste. I wish I had shared more, invested more time into the students, etc. As I was waking around town, I thought about all God had taught me because I have no idea how He used me. The most important thing God showed me was that I should spend the rest of my life living with the people whom I minister to. A true community of faith. I keep calling it the frame around my life. I have no idea what picture will be framed, but I trust God will guide me to that place. As I was walking He gave me such a peace about it. When I return to A&M, I need to put up an empty picture frame in a place I look often to remind me of what God has told me.

The difficulty and necessity of discipleship is certainly something that my eyes have been opened to this summer. As we (Rebecca and I) talked with Li Ju Feng it became obvious that discipleship needs to happen in the native tongue. Rebecca and I struggled through the first hour and a half and then Dong Mei joined us. Thank goodness! Wow, that changed everything. Not only did he understand what he believed, but God was giving him wisdom and understanding. It was really beautiful.

Communication is so important. My dad is so wise, so very wise, and it is so true. Communication is a cornerstone to healthy relationships. Disagreements happen but it is all in how you handle them. It’s where Christian living really shows itself as light, as set apart form the world – with forgiveness and love. Anyway, I’m tired of writing but this is a start to have God has been revealing to me.

July 26

reese — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 23:09:13 +0000

I know, I know… I just e-mailed you, but we’ve now arrived in our new city and I wanted to fill you in. Lots has happened and I’m going to try to keep it condensed. We use an Internet cafe and it is has a great connection so we should be able to show you more of the adventures from the past two weeks. Check around Monday.

*Our new home*

We’re in a small town of ohhh just 1 million people, instead of 7 million, and I must say that I am SOOO glad. We’re living on another college campus, and it already feels like home. The only downside is that many of the students are gone. Still, we have plenty to keep us busy over the next 11 days or so. There is an orphanage that needs many helping hands. Also, we will be doing some English clubs to meet students. Remember Darrell, our tour guide in Beijing? He is basically our life line to the people. He is a student at the school we’re staying and has been introducing us to all his friends just in the first 24 hours. He has led a handful of people to Christ and we will be helping teach these new believers. Not surprisingly, most of them are girls, so I really won’t be doing much of that

*Our new sister*

The night before we left (Wednesday) our teachers took us out to eat along with the Chinese family we made dumplings with. The food was outstanding, and after the meal, we sang more karaoke. If anyone is counting this brings the total to about half a dozen. I just wish they had more classic rock… I can only handle so much Celine Dion, Backstreet Boys, and country music (yes, they have a good selection of country). Still, somewhere in the middle of the noise, our missionary, Tom, started sharing with Zhang, our teacher, with her husband (he’s already a believer). As one of our friends sang Celine Dion’s Titanic song, Zhang prayed for Jesus to come into her heart. It was a wonderful ending to our time on campus.

*Our new requests*

For God to show us what needs to be done here… we have things to do, but there are surely going to be down times
The orphanage… patience for us, but more for the children who live there. Some of the stories are horrific, and most of the children have disabilities…
For our team to shine Christ’s love and teach the new believes how the Body ought to act.

*The Random*

Last night we ate a rice porridge restaurant. They serve other things, but you need to ask for that menu. I ordered the ‘8 Blessing’ porridge. It was seriously everything that I had been missing for breakfast. Imagine, sweetened rice with 8 different berries or nuts… it was so good I went there this morning.

If there is one downside to having a couple teammates who speak the language very well is that I do not ever practice. So now that we’re in a smaller town I think I am going to find out how poor my understand and of the language is. So much more to say, but some may not be appropriate for this e-mail and the rest would just be a bunch of clutter. Until then, I hope all is well with each of you and I really enjoy reading your replies to these e-mails.

-Reese

July 25, 2005

reese — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 04:35:09 +0000

Today is one of those days where it feels like so much went wrong, yet somehow God worked despite all of our insufficiencies and moments of disobedience. Let’s walk through it. I wake up slightly irritated and wanting to shut the world off. So, I plan a day to keep to myself and do my own thing. My first order of business is to go to the laundry to wash clothes – can’t find it, so I come back to find David and Kelly. I join them at the tea place with Nadine and Alan. Kelly, Nadine, and I are at a table, Alan and David another. I don’t really have much to say with Nadine so I zone out. Whenever I zone back in, I just become straightforward and almost blunt – not loving at all. I told her she had to forgive this guy who stole her cell phone or she would be bitter her whole life. Then she kept talking, I zoned out and told her to read Philippians 4:6-9, again very rude and basically said ‘you must obey’. Anyway, I left with Kelly to use the computers and somewhere in that time Nadine reaccepted Christ and Alan accepted. It’s things like this that make me wonder why God does things the way He does. He shouldn’t have used that conversation; He surely shouldn’t have used me with my heart so distant, so wayward, so unfeeling. Yet, that’s the thing – He does. Even now, it’s tough writing this, it just doesn’t seem right.

Speaking of which, Jimmy said something very telling yesterday before we went to the fellowship. We were talking about what we had learned this summer and he said that “God uses the weak things to shame the wise.” He said this in regard to Kelly and possibly David leading people to the Lord because they weren’t the typical missionary type. I don’t know, it’s just kinda makes your flesh boil when you hear such arrogance and foolishness. I’ll leave it at that.. One thing I do know is that God uses the weak and broken, the needy and castout to do mighty things for His name. So, it should be of no surprise at all that God chose to use David and Kelly in such powerful ways. As for me, I feel like my job is to keep the peace and listen to my brothers and sisters. I also get the impression God has been shaping me to go back to lead a group of Bible study leaders. Today taught me that sometimes you do need to be straightforward and tell people they must obey. I want our. I wan tour leaders to be doing the same – to pus their freshmen to obedience to love to service to Christlikness.

We have no idea what we’re doing… especially myself, especially in this life. I just read a letter by Carrie Tallichet summarizing everything we did over the past year. Somehow I lose track of it all, how did it work out that I met Joy Vick, who changed my life forever? I can’t imagine not leading a Journey Group or not coordinating this year. I am quite curious how God works it all together and what He will do with my life. I know that even my wildest dreams can’t imagine it. There is no way could ever come up with something that could trump God’s plan. I just don’t know. I really just don’t know anything. May I only continue to obey, to speak truth and show love to others, to seek and show forgiveness,and cling to God and aim to please Him in all I do. It’s all I want – simple things. Oh, we’ll maybe to finish my website – that would be very nice. My dad is right, I shouldn’t get carried away with all this Bible knowledge. Rather, I should be full of tenderness, compassion, love, service, and selflessness. I know I like to leave God out of the equation because I have appearing super spiritual.

There is something so about the way a woman uses her mouth, something so pleasant, so delightful. Speaking of women, I am so glad I ate with Dong Mei, Maria, and Kelly today. Dong Mei because it was nice to finally flush out all those annoying crush like feelings, Maria because she’s not Chinese, she’s something completely different. Griff would go crazy for this girl, beyond crazy. I can hear him growling now. And Kelly, well maybe not glad. I’m just afraid she might like me. I just hope it’s a brother/sister thing. I hope we don’t exchange AIMs. I don’t know

Random things that have been exciting me:

Integrating Picasa2 with Wordpress
Making a DVD from all the summer photos
Updating and finalizing thetinymite
Building the loft, moving in, and finally living in a house!!
Seeing James, Griff, Carrie, and everyone else in Dallas
Finally picking up everything that’s on hold

That has been such a struggle. I’ve wanted to continue my life in Dallas while I’m still in China. It’s foolish, but I just don’t think I have the time to finish everything in time before school starts again.

Sunday July 24, 2005

reese — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 04:33:36 +0000

We can now add a new nationality to the list: Vietnamese. The list goes to:

Chinese
Russian
Japanese
Korean
Finish
Canadian
German
Good ‘ole American

Never have I had a three language conversation until last night. These Vietnamese are really fun, and they are very different from their Chinese counterparts. Vietnamese are very Western in their thinking. They can make their own decision and are creative. Take our friend, the breakdancer, he wanted to bike to Dalian. My kinda guy! He’s also a Photoshop pro and can really do some neat things with filters and layers. He’s also a hacker and has much less of a moral grounding compared to a typical Chinese, but… (this entry was interrupted)