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August 24 MOVEDTo anyone who cares, This blog is done, a chapter in our online lives... closed.  These days, I find myself occasionally posting stuff at a new place. That would be HERE. As it stands now, it's a mess of a few things. In future days, I hope it will evolve into a mess of many things. Should you choose to venture over, you'd be welcome. Jason July 16 Second Semester Reading
Second Semester MoviesSummer blog-cleaning... If anyone cares what movies we've watched and enjoyed in the past few months, here's a handful. Movies Loved by Us or Our Students (Term 2) "Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" Great story, decent movie. You've got to understand: I LOVE those
books. So any movie is going to have trouble meeting the standard
already in my mind. Worthwhile, for sure, but a bit disappointing to
this fan. "Grizzly Man" Never heard of it? I hadn't either. A documentary on the life of Timothy Treadwell, who lived several months each year among Alaska's grizzlies. Strange fellow? You could say so. Odd film? Yeah. But I quite enjoyed it--interesting look into one life. "Luther" Strong movie following the life of Martin Luther, famous figure of the Reformation Movement. Enjoyable, informative, and even inspiring. A painless way to ingest a bit of significant history! "Band of Brothers" Not exactly a movie, but we've been watching it lately. WWII mini-series that shows much of the war experience of those who lived it. I cannot imagine. "Groundhog Day" We recently re-watched this one after years since first seeing it. I forgot how funny Bill Murray is. Blog Future?I'm debating what to do with this blog. Just continue on? Wind it up and move to another one? Wait until work starts and tie a blog to that new role? Stop altogether? My answer likely hardly matters to any but me. But if you show up one day to see a link to another blog or a sign saying "Closed for Good", now you won't be surprised. Summer TimeWell, it feels like forever since the last post. We're back in Canada in the middle of July. This is our month to be free for travelling, visiting family and friends, and trying to sort out some life details before we enter a new pattern of life. My job starts on August 1 at the Glen Elm Family and Shannon will begin searching for work before this month is up. Those things alone will ease us into daily routines. Looking for a place to live in Regina is also one of the more interesting things right now. We'd love to buy a place to call our own, so we've done a lot of thinking about mortgages (man, does that sound like a big word!) and have done some online browsing of Regina real estate. It's kind of fun and certainly exciting though it is a big step and one in which we're curious about God's plan. Words like "simplicity" and "contentment" hit hard in my mind, and sometimes the "grab as much as you can" feel of buying a house doesn't jive easily. I'm not saying it's bad to buy a house. I'm just a guy who hates debt and has no desire to have life squeezed more than necessary by financial burdens. So that leads to a handful of questions that we as a couple need to answer before making such a major decision about such a major chunk of our change. That's all. A mundane matter like a mortgage has felt quite spiritual in the last week of thought, and I like that. Imagine... a life where the common and the sacred mingle and mix... and it just feels right!  Today finds us in Calgary, visiting Shannon's sister Rebecca and her family. The week's allowed us to visit a handful of friends (Heather, John & Angie, Malcolm "Mike Weir" & Suzanne, Curtis & Heather) that now call Calgary home and to spend relaxed time with Steve & Rebecca and their three kids. It's been fun! Add to that a Rider victory over BC (I never doubted it for a second!), and that's a pretty decent week. June 27 Farewell ChinaWell, tomorrow is the day.
We've known that June 28 would be our day of departure for months, now it's on top of us. And I'm still having trouble getting a grasp on that. Since marrying, we've never lived anywhere longer than three years, so in that sense, Shiyan was as much home as anywhere. And the thought of leaving is still a bit tough to accept. Don't misunderstand though: We really do feel like this is the right time to return home; no doubt there. It's just going to take some adjusting.
To try to take the edge of the 'adjusting', we've been reading some articles we found along with workking through a useful booklet that a friend directed us towards. The questions in the booklet have already provided us with some useful questions to consider and discuss, and Shannon's already commented at how helpful even the first stages of such discussions have been.
So if you're in Regina any time soon and run into two spaced-looking folks, just smile and wave and realize that they may still be working through that magic booklet!
And if you think of us on Wednesday evening, you can know that we will be just arriving in Regina, Canada, to a few welcoming family and friends--that part will be great! June 25 From BeijingWell, here we sit... in Beijing.
The day of goodbyes came and went in Shiyan, and about as well as one could hope for. There were tears shed, to be sure. But there were also lots of smiles, hugs, and laughs to offset (and add to) the pain of leaving. Our week leading up to leaving had been full of activity and low on sleep, including consecutive nights of bedtimes at 3 AM, 4 AM, and 4 AM again. Note to self... this type of schedule does not contribute to greater emotional stability. But we did achieve all that needed achieving and enjoyed the people closest to us as much as possible in those final days, so we have no regrets whatsoever.
The train to Beijing was nicely uneventful, and we were both crashed within a couple hours. The night's sleep was a bit rough, but we'll get a better one tonight.
Tomorrow is not sleep-in day. We've off to visit one more section of the Great Wall. This time: Simatai, one of the less restored and more adventurous sections. We're looking forward to visiting this one since it's often almost empty and nothing like some of the tourist traps we've been to in the past.
The following day will afford us some final shopping in the land where every product on earth is made, and Wednesday will bring us to the airport. We're aiming to make the most of this 3-day buffer zone between Shiyan and Canada, so here we go.
We'll see some of you in just 3-4 days... and that seems impossible!
Much love to those who love us! June 24 Last night in ShiyanWell, it's 3:30 am on our last night in this town, and I guess we'll be heading to the train station in about 12 hours (which has me realizing just how short on sleep I'm going to be by the time I get there!). This week has been a wonderful one, full of surprise visits and meaningful last times with friends here. It has crossed my mind many times how and why loving people can be so painful though! Having to leave our dear friends here, those who we have journeyed with for a few years, feels honestly like some kind of pain! I remember back to having to leave our families for the first time and how hard that was, but I knew I'd see them again in a year's time! It's pretty tough to know that I may not see these special friends for a long while...and many things will have changed when we meet again. We can never come back to this time and this place with these people. Our hopes for them are many, and our experience tells us that He is faithful beyond expectation. We will keep asking that He continues the good things he has begun in their lives, and wait to hear the details of it!
This little town has brought us so many blessings. It all seems so surreal that tomorrow we will leave the home and culture we've had for three years and return to our homeland. While thinking about leaving and what we'll miss from China, many things come to mind... -falling asleep to the sound of thousands of croaking frogs -late April when the smell of jasmine flowers fills every corner of campus -the variety and freshness of the vegetables and fruit that can be found -heat and humidity (beats goosebumps anyday!) -being on the high end of the pay scale (when will that ever happen again?!? ) -being within train distance to anywhere in Asia -the extra status you being a foreigner and that people usually listen when you say something -walking out onto any street at midnight and meeting vendors willing to cook you delicious meat on a stick, fried rice, or whatever you ask for! -the amount of people that can be seen in any direction that you look (so much activity to watch!) -the MSG that gets loaded into the dishes in every restaurant that make them taste SO good (haha, this one was a joke to see if you were still with me, we won't miss that too much) But all these pale in comparison to how much ache our hearts feel at having to leave the 15 close friends we have here. I can't find words for it at the moment. It is purely selfish on my part, but I can't help wanting to be around to see what happens next in their journeys. They each have a unique and powerful story to tell and it is not over yet! But our part in it is finished for the time being, perhaps we will find out why in the future. He is faithful and has never failed in giving a child what is needed when it is needed. We will return to Canadian soil in one week, and there are many things we're looking forward to, but at the moment they seem a world away and hard to put our minds on. We will have a few days in Beijing and hope to try to get our minds around the changes that we are in the midst of. I will have to write a happier, more excited blog about things I'm looking forward to in coming home, but that will be in a few days. For now, I just know that tomorrow will be a tough one because loving people a lot hurts, but I will be taking comfort in the fact that no one knows this better than our heavenly Father. And He still chose to love extravagantly and never regretted it for a second. I'll end with a quote from the dear Mother Teresa, someone who followed the Great example and found one of the secrets to loving: “I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.” I'll keep working on it I guess. Goodnight for the last time from Shiyan... -s Waking UpNo, I'm not typing in my sleep, though yes, I am recovering from several too-late nights in a row. Actually, the recovery may have to wait until we're back on Canadian soil. Sleep seems to be in ever-shorter supply as our time in Shiyan ticks down. We leave Shiyan in two days. I know that sentence is just a statement to any who read it. It's just a fact. But to us, it's a loaded sentence. And it hits. And it hurts. And it's just been starting to affect my tear ducts. I'm exceptionally gifted at denial. I can block every thought of an impending event up until almost the very last moment. All year, I've known that this Saturday was coming, and I left it at arm's length--a year's worth of arm. But time moved on, and 'Saturday' started butting into daily life: I had to book air tickets, I had to plan and grade exams, June appeared on my calendar, people started emailing about our coming back to Canada. All of a sudden, there was no denying that my 'year-long arm' was a lie. The day was coming. So I shortened my limb to a 'one-month arm', and I held on to it dearly. And now here I am again, forced to admit that the 'arm' in my mind is nowhere near the reality. We leave Shiyan in two days. Our past ten days or so have been so special! I'd love to tell you about them, but I fear doing so. I'd speak of things that touched our hearts: Of notes received, memories made, stories shared, and heart-revealing moments of sharing and 'praring'. And I wouldn't have the words to express the feelings involved and the emotions that flow even as I sit here now. And then you wouldn't have the ability to 'hear' what I really meant to say... even if you really do care and desire to understand. Leaving is hard. Goodbyes are never fun. Everyone knows these things. I'm just now sitting in that funny spot where my heart is actually starting to get in sync with the reality of the situation around me, and I must admit to feeling some shock and some sadness as it happens. The blessing of it all? Such feelings suggest that we're living a life worth the trouble. They confirm that love is indeed worth giving, even though it will hurt sometimes. To use Eldredge's phrase, maybe I'm reminded that "living from your heart" is the only way to live. Anything less is just posing or playing. I slip into posing and playing sometimes, to be sure, so the beauty of such feelings as these might be simple: They put me back in touch with really feeling alive. Tearful and tough as they are, I wouldn't trade these moments and these feelings for anything. Now the long, 'likely terribly teary' train ride to Beijing... that I might trade. But I'll deal with that when it arrives.  |
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