The first day of November--the temperature totally drops to below freezing and we see our first day of snow! Talk about "hen lung"--very cold! And the funny part is, the heat isn't turned on yet. The way it works here, the heat is turned on in the entire province on the same day--November 15th. It is turned off on March 15th. So during those months, you have heat (assuming your heaters are working in your apartment), and before or after, you don't have the option! A little different, eh? So we're all bundled and drinking lots of hot tea--and super thankful for fleece pajamas for the cold nights that we're about to have for the next two weeks!
After our time at fellowship the kids had a blast playing in the snow briefly before I shooed them inside because of how hard the snow was blowing. Of course I was the main target for the snowballs, but they all managed to keep them out of my face (per my request).
I haven't talked much about our fellowship we attend on Sunday mornings. We've really enjoyed it! There are several hundred folks who meet together at the building which also offices our school. Everyone who comes has to be a foreigner and show their passports as we walk in the door. The kids have their own program, which they really enjoy and which gives them the chance to meet some new friends. The thing we probably love the most is the diversity of the congregation. There are so many nationalities worshiping together that it is truly like a scene straight out of Revelation! Each week a different elder teaches, so we have lots of variety in the lessons and in the accents being spoken.
We had a great message this morning that really seemed to go with a theme that Kevin and I have been reflecting on a great deal lately--that of "death to our selves". The thrust of the message was how our self tends to act as a veil which obstructs our view of who our Father is. We get so distracted by our self that we cannot see Him through this veil. We looked at John the Baptist and how he made the amazing statement of JC that "He must become greater; I must become less." I was reminded of that last night when I was literally sitting on our living room floor in tears. I had just gotten all the kids and Kevin in bed (almost everyone is sick with something right now! Karis with fever, Kevin with fever and cold, Hud with stomach issues, Noah with maybe teeth coming in?) and made one more trip downstairs to collect a forgotten blankie. Wearing my new wool socks that are oh so comfortable but lacking any traction, I slipped on the wooden stairs and fell down the last few. I'm not exactly sure how I did it, but I managed to really hurt my left hand. As I sat there hurting and wondering if I'd broken a bone, I was half-laughing and half-crying. "Are you kidding!" my heart seemed to be crying out! This is NOT my plan or my timing for an injury. I'm supposed to be the caretaker right now and not the klutzy invalid! I was reminded right then and there of how often I tend toward self-reliance. I really think I can do it all on my own. But that is sooooo not His plan--and certainly not truth. And I am thankful that He will do whatever necessary to continually draw me nearer to Him and gently teach me this lesson (as many times each week--no, each day!--as I need to hear it!)
I looked up on our living room wall and am so thankful for His providential reminder that we have hung there. When we were in a northern city in China last summer we found an artist that painted something for us that I fell in love with. I thought it was cherry blossoms at the time, but have since learned otherwise. I'm still not sure what the type of tree is, but the symbolic meaning (which pretty much everything in China has!) is that of perseverance. It is a tree that blooms even in the harshest cold of winter. Very fitting for us as the cold weather hits hard with no heaters to look to for warmth, and also as I know there are tough days of homesickness, trial, and learning still to be had for the Joseph family! How comforting to know that His goodness carries us to a point of fruition and growth even as we experience death to our self in the challenges He faces with us each day! "I need thee, I need thee, I need thee every hour. So bless me now my Savior, I come, I come!!"
