28 days

Yes, the title of a movie or eight, but more applicable today...28 days is the measure of my time left in the States. 28 days to figure out how I am going to pack a years worth of living into two trunks and a backpack. 28 days (for a girl who lived with education majors, constantly balked at their workload, and never envied their high aspirations) to create lesson plans that could actually serve to impart knowledge. 28 days to try to squeeze every last beautiful second of laughter and love out of my family and friends. 28 days to figure out where I put that CD I can't live without, decide if cheese could survive a 3 day journey, and come up with a way to trick the visa agents into having my authorization here in time. 28 days to prepare for a cross-continental grand adventure!

Moment of honesty: Overwhelmed is the only word that seems within the realm of adequately conveying my emotions. I have never felt a stronger desire to break out into a sprint and take a nap at the same time! It is evident to me that there is a battle, right here right now, one that is not bound to lift for the next 11 months. A battle of wills (if you will) that in my limited point of view seems to be happening only to me right now. There is a sense of loneliness in it, and I am close to resenting my own struggles, but then I look out the window...

I am sitting here in a lovely little coffee shop downtown Seattle. Have I mentioned I love this city? The quirkiest, funniest, most amiable people in the world are right here! I am watching them walk their dogs, hold hands with their sweethearts, avoid cracks in the sidewalks, talk on cell phones, inhale their venti/triple shot/non fat/no sugar/breves...going on with everyday life in a seemingly enjoyable fashion. Their covers are as convincing as my own! But I have a distinct feeling that the same emotion that keeps welling up in me is in them as well. We are an overwhelmed people and while we run around in circles pretending to enjoy it we are really all searching for the same thing - REST.

Seeing no rest in sight, I think I am watching the next 28 days stretch out as one long hurdle before me. I have never wanted anything more and never felt less prepared to handle it. Discouragement has been knocking and like little Much-Afraid, sometimes I have the audacity to open the door enough to have polite conversation. So please, could you send up a flare for me, that I could be reminded every once in a while that that Discouragement is a door-to-door salesman with cheap tricks and it is best to lock the door, turn out the lights, and pretend no one is home?

I recieved this poem from a friend the other day and it was another one of those amazing Big G things. Obviously planned, perfectly executed, at the exact moment when it was desperately needed. It reminded me that I have been searching for rest, but there is still fighting to be done and I am a desperately needed warrior! We are given adequate time for refreshment, it is what happens in the moments between the refining battles. Thank you for your cover!!!


Press on.

Grant them strength to press on.

When our cherished dreams begin to burst like the children’s bubbles blown to the air,

When people of common sense and clear sight,

When doctors and lawyers, specialists, friends and neighbors all cry:

“A good try, but you’re through.”

Give us strength to keep on persisting.

Light the fire to press on.

And when the forces are overwhelming – as in illness or death –

Keep our goal ever before us – defiantly

Past every temporary setback,

Past every discouragement,

Past every surrender of those we love and respect,

Give us the mighty power to press on and on and on.

-Robert James St. Clair

Starting Something New

Exactly 40 days from today I will board a plane at LAX and step off that same plane the very next day in Wuhan, Hubei. Then I will take a train to Shi Yan, a small (by Chinese standards, only about a million people) city in the Wudang Mountains of South Central China. Shi Yan will be my home for 10 months as I will be an English teacher in the Hubei Automotive Industrial Institute.


Things I don't know...

More than 10 words of Chinese

How to cook in a wok (Okay, okay, how to cook period)

If I will ever be able to find shoes my size

How my year in China will change me

What I am going to do with my life afterwards


Things I do know...

Ni Hao Ma is the start of every great conversation

How to live off fruit and tea

My mom will always send me shoes if I need them

I will be changed for the better

I will be okay, because there is a force greater than myself, greater than my decisions, and greater than I can imagine to guide me in China and through whatever else lies ahead.


So this blog is to keep all of you posted on what is sure to be my greatest adventure (so far!), through photos and blogs. Keep checking back every once in a while, and I would love to hear from each of you!


For Today:

How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, "Your God reigns!"

Listen! Your watchmen lift up their voices; together they shout for joy. When the Lord returns to Zion, they will see it with their own eyes. Burst into songs of joy together, you ruins of Jerusalem, for the Lord has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem.

The Lord will lay bare his holy arm in the sight of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God.

Isaiah 52:7-10