Roses Swallowed by the Pit of Hell

Storefront of our former florist

It's been one of those weeks.  Best summed up probably as "total chaos!"  Kevin came home one day this week after stopping by one of our former bright spots in our new city--the floral shop he discovered that would sell cut flowers to individuals--totally discouraged.  After 13+ years of marriage, he's discovered that a sure-fire way to brighten my day is to come home with a bouquet of flowers for me.  The floral shop, which we went to only last week to buy some birthday flowers, was completely gone.  Not only were the beautiful flowers nowhere to be found, but there was a pit in the ground and the entire place was completely gutted.  This, unfortunately, is not an unusual occurrence here, where stability is something that is HARD to come by.  But add that on to the rest of the week's events, and Kevin took it as the pit of hell trying to rob our joys, and I must say that I have to agree somewhat with his interpretation of our circumstances....

Interior gaping hole in the flowershop floor

Friday night we went to dinner with some friends.  The husband of one of the couples had been out of town for the week, so the wife said it would be fun for her and her kids to join us for a dinner out for the local staple food--noodles.  Another couple had a date night, but their 4 slightly older kids wanted to join the party, so Kevin, myself, and the one other mom ended up with 12 kids at the restaurant.  A little crazy, for sure.  But then on the walk home from the restaurant, someone must have mistaken that "little craziness" with all those kids as a lack of awareness on my part.  As I noticed someone walking suspiciously close to my side (and realized it was NOT one of the 8 kids I was herding), I turned to find myself face-to-face with a man who had his hand quite far down into my purse, attempting to remove my wallet that was wedged inside.  I was able to figure out what was going on right away, and grabbed his arm and started screaming--at him and at Kevin, who was walking probably 20 yards ahead of me at the time.  The man, speaking probably the only English word he knew ("sorry!"), finally wrestled away from my grasp and started running--luckily, straight toward Kevin!  Kevin had heard my cries and came running.  I was able to shout out that the man was stealing my wallet (not knowing at the time if he had succeeded in getting it out of my purse or not) and what he was wearing (the man was trying to blend into the crowd of people walking on the street at this time, walking quickly and cooly right into Kevin's waiting grasp).  Kevin held on to the man while I tried to get the security guards at the entrance to our apartment community to come help.  In spite of the fact that the security guard was literally yards away from the action and clearly understood my broken Chinese explaining what was happening and imploring him to come quickly, the guard sauntered over to where the crowd on the street had gathered.  The man had wriggled out of Kevin's hold, literally leaving both his shirt and his hooded pull-over in Kevin's hands as he sprinted down the street.

It wasn't until this moment that I stopped to actually look and see that my wallet was still in my purse!  Thankfully, my small, side-carry bag with my sunglasses wedged in on top had slowed the guy down enough that he hand't been able to remove my wallet quickly.  And again, thankfully, my phone was in a separate zippered part of my purse, so that too wasn't taken!  I will confess that although the would-be thief didn't get any of our valuables, we were all incredibly shaken by the event.  There were SOOOO many graces in the whole scene:  no one was hurt, there were no weapons involved, nothing was stolen, on-lookers even helped at one point by pushing the pick-pocketer to the ground as he tried to run off.  But it did leave us all with a very violated feeling.  Karis couldn't stop sobbing for about an hour, and all the kids were rattled enough to not want to sleep in their usual beds, so they ended up in sleeping bags altogether on the living room floor.  Kevin and I couldn't fall asleep for the longest time, both of us having our hearts racing long after the scare.  And the next day when I had to walk by myself past the scene where the would-be pick-pocketing happened, I felt a physiological response.  It was hard not to be jumpy and wonder why everyone was looking at me, feeling like everyone around me was suspect.  Ugh!  I hated the automatic response of fear and skepticism that followed.  But I'm also thankful that it has largely subsided over the past week.  Part of that might be due to the limited number of times I've been out of our apartment...

Kids sporting their new clothes from the latest care package--yea!

On Saturday evening, after a week of having a stabbing pain in my back, I developed a rash on my upper torso.  Strangely enough, the week before when I'd felt the pain start, my first thought was, "Could I be coming down with shingles?"  Bizarre, I know.  But I know a few people who have had the virus and the symptoms were so strange at first (not being able to determine if my pain was muscular or on a topical level like some sort of skin irritation), and although I feel like emotionally I'm doing well with our transition, I also am aware that we're in a pressure cooker like I've never been in before.  So for my body to have some reaction to the stress would not be unheard of.  Sure enough, after a call to our American doctor friend who lives in town on Sunday morning when the rash had spread to my back, he confirmed from my symptoms that I had shingles, the adult version of chicken pox that is induced by stress.  I was really disappointed, mainly because I was so surprised, thinking that my emotions and mental state were all well within the healthy range.  I've also finally gotten in a good routine of training for the triathlon that I desperately want to compete in on the Eastern coast at the end of September, finally swimming more laps than I'd ever been able to and even riding my racing bike in my living room on the indoor trainer we ordered off of Amazon China.  I'm still not sure what this virus will do to my preparation for the competition, but for now I'm on hold.  I was able to get started on the anti-viral medication that the doctor recommended (no prescription needed here in China!  just walk right into the pharmacy and make the purchase!), and I'm hoping that the meds will shorten the duration of the virus and the severity of the symptoms.  I will say that I've never taken so many pills in my life.  40 per day of the anti-viral medicine, and then another 6 or 8 a day of Tylenol to try to ward off the pain.  I've discovered that I need to finish my last dose long before bedtime or I'll be up all night running to the toilet with all the water I have to drink in order to get that many pills down (they don't put any fancy outer coatings on them here--just chalky outsides that are hard to swallow!).

Noah with critters at the plant market

So I'm super thankful for my kids this week.  On Tuesday I took them in our car (our first outing!  Our car finally arrived from being shipped from our old city on Saturday) to go to the import store to buy some tortillas (I found that making my own was fun, but really time consuming) and then to run by the plant market.  The kids were delightfully surprised to find not only fish, but also chipmunks and squirrels in cages for sale!  (These are rodents we have yet to see in the wild here in China, so they are obviously an oddity of sorts here compared to the US).  For some reason on Wednesday I could hardly get out of bed; opening my eyes for longer than an hour was nearly impossible.  So Karis and Eli took the lead with Karis teaming up to help Hud get through his school curriculum for the day and Eli helping Noah.  Besides a grammar lesson or two, they managed to get through pretty much everything!  They even started a play to conclude the semester with--the barbarians conquering the Romans and bringing an end to the Roman empire.  Remarkably historically accurate, I must say.  Noah was the leader of the barbarian force, which is no surprise to anyone who knows the Joseph kids!

Eli showing off our tub water

We've had a number of home challenges this week, as well.  Our water has been off again all day, but is supposedly coming back on tonight at 9pm.  I can't tell you how much stress this causes me!  Not being able to wash dishes, wash hands, flush the toilet, wash clothes--they all serve to show me how much I value cleanliness and order in my home.  And how out of my control it is here so often!  Because our washing machine was too big to fit into the space designed for it, which is funny because our machine can only hold a load about half the size of any Stateside one I've used, we have it on the opposite side of the bathroom than intended.  The end result is that the only place for it to drain is into our bathtub, which has been increasingly slow to drain as the filth from our clothes has been accumulating.  It finally came to a head 2 days ago when there was water standing in the tub for hours after I'd finished doing laundry.  Kevin went to work on the problem, picking away at the drain with a folded up hanger, which proved to NOT be the optimal method for improvement.  Instead, he accidentally punctured the thin plastic piece that connected the tub to the drain in the ground, leaving the two of us frantically bailing with two buckets into the sink and the toilet to keep all the water from the tub from spreading throughout the entire bathroom.  Two repairmen later, we were able to get the piece switched out for another (still a cheap, thin plastic one) to see how long we can endure the problem again.  We have an extra filter added that can be removed and cleaned, which will hopefully delay the inevitable need to change the piece again in the near future.  Oh, and our Chinese teacher just called an hour before the kids' lesson to say that she wasn't coming.  She has a new job!  She started working today and thought that it would be only half-days, but found out when she was there that they actually want her full-days for at least a month but maybe up to three.  So now the kids and I have both lost our language tutor, and we're really sad about it!  They were really warming up and starting to make progress, so starting over with trying to find a new tutor and building another new relationship is pretty disheartening.  Sigh.

This is our last official week of school.  I've told the kids that we will be doing school some this summer, partly because I don't want to loose the momentum of Hudson doing the dyslexia training program that lasts at least a year (maybe two) and partly because I'm really worried about what we're going to do with our free time!  As I've talked with friends in TX about their kids starting swim team and gearing up for summer camps, I admit to feeling a longing that we could have some sort of structured activity, some sort of swimming pool, that we could make a regular part of our routine.  We do have baseball--which several of the kids in our complex have started playing even when our kids aren't there with them!  But we also were just told by another neighbor that the bao an (the complex's security guards) told them to tell us (the lone foreigners in the complex) that we're not supposed to be playing baseball in the green patches. :(  Our neighbor agreed that we should wait to heed that counsel until we heard directly from the security guards ourself, but we might just be biding our time.

In an effort to not have this post be completely filled with the hard stuff, we have had several bright spots in the week that I should note.  Packages!!!  We had two arrive from friends in other cities in China, filled with small gifts for the kids, boxes of cereal, Doritos, and other fun import goodies that you just can't get out here on the western border.  We also had two come from the US--and we are THRILLED that they made it here safely to us and in one piece (except for the tube of Pringles that came from my mom--sorry, Mom, forgot to mention that they were pretty much dust when they got here!  But made for a great addition to a taco soup that I made:) with nothing being taken out of them.  Our closest friends here actually are missing 2 boxes from the US at the moment--ones that were sent from family and friends a few months ago and still haven't arrived.  Their poor 6 year old daughter is so upset because it had her bday gifts from her grandparents, and this is the second year in a row that this has happened at the time of her bday!  We're all still hoping for a miraculous recovery of the missing packages.  Another bright spot is having our car.  It arrived on Saturday, and even was delivered from the shipping yard (not even sure if it came by train or a large truck, I was just happy to have it here!) to the hotel parking lot that is right by our apartment complex where a friend went to retrieve it and the key for us (Kevin and I had the kids at baseball at the time).  We did discover that the delivery guy had been smoking in the car with the windows up on his ride from the shipping yard to our place, to which we firmly explained that that practice was NOT professional nor was it acceptable to most clients.  He seemed shocked.  We also discovered that somehow the driver's seat belt had been damaged in the move, making fastening the belt impossible.  Since we had to go through the whole inspection process again in order to get the car registered here in our new city, Kevin had to add this to his to-do list for Monday so he could try to complete the rest of the process.  After spending about 5 hours and going to 3 different dealerships around the city, none of them close by, he ended up with no fixed seat belt (evidently everyone was out of the part needed).  Out of desperation, Kevin returned to the car and started jamming his car key into the part of the belt that was not working.  And would you believe, low and behold, the seat belt started working again!  So he lost half a day in running around town, but the seat belt is now working properly and the car registration has even been completed (we had to hire a guy who spent all day Wednesday with Kevin going to the 5 different places necessary to complete the requirements).  Now the goal is to keep our tickets to a minimum, as we can only get a total of 4 in a year's time without having to face some major penalties (like re-testing, losing our license, or having to take extra classes on driving).

Our most frequently-crossed intersection--crazy!

So if you're of the bent to be lifting up the Joseph family, you now have an abundance of requests to place before that throne of grace!  I apologize for this being such a downer of an update.  But I should close that in spite of the bummer update in so many ways, I think that the thoughts of His people must be carrying us, because of the humor I've been able to see in all of our circumstances this week.  Certainly, a moment of frustration or two, but also an overwhelming sense of peace and the assurance that His mercies are new every morning and He is walking this journey with us, one day at a time.  Now, off to take my next round of 8 pills and start looking for the new "roses" that I know He is sure to provide.  Don't the little bright spots always shine the brightest in the midst of surrounding darkness?!  Will be sure to inform you what shape our new flowers take in the near future...

Outside Play and Inside Turmoil

Sunset out our living room window

I am amazed at the blessing of the outdoor time our kids have enjoyed.  They have local friends already!  It's unbelievable how different this culture is from where we used to live.  We would get to know the grandparents in our community who watched over their grandchild, but all the kids were younger than 3 (once they turn 3, they are in Chinese kindergarten, where they eat three meals a day!).  Elementary aged kids typically end the school day around 4, but usually stay for an additional hour or two of homework help, and then come home around 6 or 7pm with hours of homework still to complete.  All that adds up to not seeing many Chinese kids outside playing together after school, and not many opportunities for our kids to meet them and connect.  But here, education is NOT the top priority for most of these families to the same degree, so the kids finish school around 4pm and come out to play.

Kids wrestling outside with Noah on Big Guy's back!

Window cleaning taking place on the 11th floor!

Close up of the window cleaner

The people groups surrounding us love sports, especially soccer, and are much rougher in general than our previous community.  For example, it's not uncommon at all for there to be constant wrestling matches going on in the patches of grass in between our apartment buildings.  Unfortunately, this roughness has also earned the U people somewhat of a bad reputation of being aggressive and violent amongst other Chinese, but my boys think it's AWESOME!  This first picture is of my boys with one of their new best buddies.  We call him Big Guy.  One day this last week he gestured for my boys to get in on the wrestling match that was going on between him and several other local kids.  My older boys were a bit hesitant, but not Noah.  I watched him repeatedly jumping on Big Guy's back from behind, clinging around his neck and yelling, "Woohoo!" as Big Guy spun around to fling him off.  This was Eli and Hud's cue to jump into the action, and then the wrestling match was full-on.  An instant bond was formed.  Big Guy has shown up at our door several times over the last week asking the boys to come out to play. He's 12 years old, but seems to be a gentle giant.  I've been overseeing their play very closely, and each time I do I'm amazed at how rough, and yet how careful, he is with Noah in particular.  Each time we greet him in our courtyard, Noah lets out a hoot and jumps on the poor guy.  He just grins in response.  Soooooo thankful for our timing of arriving here when the weather is so warm and everyone has emerged to take advantage of the 4 or 5 months of pleasant outdoor time!  And each afternoon that the baseball equipment comes out they draw a crowd.  Ha.  I should add that our equipment is a bit modified from what you would expect at a typical baseball practice.  Kevin is paranoid that someone will get hurt or break a window (we are playing in tight quarters, for sure), so he has the boys using a REALLY soft ball (meant for indoors) that is Duct taped (multiple times, as it keeps splitting) to hold it together.  (I've suggested that a whiffle ball would probably be okay, but we're playing it safe.)  It's fun to have such an unexpected blessing of sports in community when we thought that that was truly a sacrifice we were making with the move out here.  We're excited to see what other friendships He has in store for my kids as the spring and summer progresses...

Noah and his friend finding refuge on the top bunk

The irony...Noah just came in with his best little friend seeking refuge because the other bigger boys they were playing with outside started pummeling them with some hoses that they found on the ground!  Eesh.  Hopefully we'll survive this without too many bumps and bruises--and I did discover that there is an international clinic in town (it's an hours' drive away, but still in the same city!) if my at-home skin glue isn't enough! :)

Hud's Bday lunch w friends

We had a birthday celebration for Hud (his 8th) on Saturday before baseball.  Oh, and this week there were sheep that we had to run off the field, FYI.  Not sure where the turkeys are, but we're moving up in size and number of wildlife that seem to be inhabiting our playing field!!!  Hud invited 3 other American boys over who are neighbors to have a Lego battle (which had been in the planning stages for weeks as the boys have been strategizing, forming allegiances, and even trading key pieces) and a Nerf war.  We had homemade pizza and a chocolate cake (all homemade this time, as I couldn't find a Betty Crocker mix to save my life!  Oh, and I couldn't find powdered sugar anywhere either, so we adapted the typical frosting recipe to use chocolate chips instead--a huge success!) and ice cream I made in the ice cream maker I was given back in our old city.  When one of the other favorite neighbor kids came up to invite my boys out to play, we had him join in.  I think he enjoyed the play time, but was a bit overwhelmed at the pizza and cake and ice cream (he did take a few bites of each and was very polite!).

My "happy place" where I go for reading and a cup of coffee once a week

So that's the outside situation....lots of fun play.  The inside seems to be a bit more complex, at least for the mom and dad of the family!  I'm not sure where to begin, except to say that this whole cross-cultural living sure brings out junk that seems to be deep down.  Self-confidence is not my problem.  In fact, I tend to err on the side of pride and arrogance, often thinking too highly of myself.  I'm certainly not proud of this, and it's an area of regular "work" on my heart, but it's also my honest reality. Very few people would use the words meek or insecure to describe me.  However, there's a season for everything, and this recent one I have found myself shaken in new ways.  It seems like the circumstances that leave me feeling uncertain of things or responses that are going on around me are countless.  I'm an infant in the language; I don't know why others start laughing and talking in another language, looking right at me, when I'm checking out with my produce at the market.  Are they laughing at me and the fact that I can't respond in their language when they tell me how much I owe?  I'm self conscious when I go for a jog in our community and literally have people stopping in their tracks, mouths hanging open as they gape and I jog past.  I know that we're the new kids on the block and life here is so demanding that there just isn't as much time for socializing, but should I take it personally when I have a hard time getting other families to find time to come over for dinner?  Am I perceiving accurately the perception of the other western men in the community that seem to be more traditional in their views of women--that we should be taking more of a back seat than is natural for me and my natural outspoken tendency when we are in group fellowship times?  The daily encounters of questioning "Who am I here?" and "Who am I supposed to be here?" seem somewhat overwhelming.  And I don't like it!  My sophomore year in high school was defining for me.  I had literally everything I held dear stripped away from me, and I was hurting and lonely.  But it was that year that taught me what dependence on Someone beyond myself looked and felt like, and the freedom and confidence that came from abiding in Him.  By His grace, I've never forgotten that lesson, and have faced challenges with joy knowing in Whom my strength is found.

Karis and a group of her friends having a May Day party outside

My natural instinct in the face of a challenge is to bow up and want to prove my ability to conquer.  But I've found lately that I'm wanting to crawl into my bed and pull the covers over my head instead!  Not the optimal response, I know.  I've found great solace over the past 12 hours of reflecting on one of my favorite passages that brings me back to the core of my identity--of knowing who I am without a shadow of a doubt.  Is. 43 is chalk full of relevant reminders: "...You are mine", "You are my witnesses and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know me and believe me and understand that I am he."  I've also had the new Passion cd on repeat, wearing out my phone battery, but also bringing refreshment to my soul as I meditate on Truth.  When we were back in the US, Kevin and I often talked about how many daily things seemed so much simpler, so much easier.  We could just coast and get away with it.  And now we're back where we're supposed to be for this season, and it seems like every day is a battle.  A battle to keep a positive attitude, to not get discouraged or overwhelmed, to have the energy to make it till 9pm before crashing for the evening, to keep our eyes fixed Above and not on our circumstances!  I'll be honest, it's not a battle that we win everyday.  My poor husband is exhausted.  Language study wears you out unlike anything else, and he's putting in 4 hours a day, then working for the sports company after that.  We are both feeling the strain and asking the same questions:  Do I really have anything to offer the people here?  How can I ever get to the place of being able to communicate in a way that blesses others?  Can I cut it here?  Am I going to go crazy?!!!

Whew...that's the brutally honest story.  Sorry it's probably not the Ann Voskamp edition today. Maybe tomorrow will be the cheerier version!  But for now, we're fixing our eyes above (reflecting on the beautiful sunset we saw out of our living room window this weekend) and plodding on one step at a time, trusting that somehow He uses even our most feeble of attempts to honor His name in the midst of our weakness and insecurities...