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