I am learning to be more and more thankful for cyclical change--for seasons, even for the start of a new day! After feeling pretty homesick yesterday, I was super thankful for a totally refreshing day today. After getting a short classtime in with the older kids, our friend (known to the kids as Ms. Barbara) showed up at our front door with her arms full of goodies. She had a basket filled with fun stuff for her to do with the kids for the morning. Barbara is a dear friend here who LOVES kids, and has taken a special interest in investing in the lives of our 4 little ones--for which we are thankful beyo
nd words! She has three kids of her own (two out of college and one finishing up at the international school here in town), and is one of the most amazing ladies ever! She brought over crafts, games, snacks, hard boiled eggs with dye, books to read about Easter, and even stuffed animals for eac
h of the kids to hold while they were doing their games and reading. After decorating the eggs, they went on an Easter egg hunt outside to find their treasures. The kids had a BALL! I just kept thinking--"Is this for real? Who DOES this kind of thing?" I suppose the answer is a true friend who sees a need (in this case, both on the part of my kiddos, who are deeply missing their grandparents, and me, who can sometimes use a little break from the mommy routine!) and desires to help meet that need. I am still reeling from the love expressed in such a gracious act of service! Barbara stayed all morning with the kids--playing non-stop through lunch time until Hud had to go down for his afternoon nap.While she was here with the kids, I took off on a mission that I've had for quite some time now--to find a "real" teapot. One of Kevin's real estate friends suggested that it was time for me to serve tea properly, Chinese style, during his last visit over tea while here at our house with Kevin! What this means is loose-leaf tea rather than tea in a bag, which I have to be honest, has really intimidated me up until this point. There's something about all those "floaties" in tea that just kind of freaks me out. But I decided that serving loose-leaf tea would be a major mile-marker for me--one that states that I am on the road to truly arriving at the destination of Chinese cultural adaptation. So here I am--tea pot and loose-leaf tea in hand, ready for entertaining our Chinese teachers this weekend with a proper serving of tea!
Getting the tea pot was an experience in and of itself (of course!). There is a tea shop here in our apartment community that we discovered on one of our early survey exploratory trips around our community. The store owner was incredibly kind, not to mention verbose, in spite of the fact that I'm pretty sure she figured out that I was only understanding a very small portion of the words streaming forth from her lips! I kept nodding and smiling, picking up a conjunction here and a preposition there, praying that I wouldn't hear too many sentences that ended with a "ma"--which is the Chinese way of asking a question that requires an answer! In spite of the fact that I didn't understand a tenth of the detailed lesson in proper tea service that the store owner gave, I walked out with tea and tea pot in hand, and good practice at least in hearing a lot of Mandarin early on in the day!
I came home from class this afternoon to find a happy home. The older kids had their "tanks" totally filled after such a fun day with Ms. Barbara (and some M&M's that they found on their Easter egg hunt; oh, they each only found two, but it's amazing how little it takes to make them happy!) and Noah had gotten some time in with our ayi, who is one of his most favorite people! (She is shown in the photo with him from when he was keeping her company while she folded laundry.) I continue to sing praises that even in the midst of feeling the frustration of lots of challenges and some circumstances we would change if we could, we are blessed beyond measure in so many ways!
