We apologize for the lack of blogging recently. It turns out that moving to China takes a lot of time…

What we’ve been up to: left Chicago on August 12 with all of our belongings stuffed into 8 bags (the max allowed); flew to San Francisco to spend a few days with friends; visited Yosemite (amazing); left San Francisco on August 17; arrived in Hong Kong on August 18; spent a week adjusting to the time zone, seeing the sights, spending time with friends, and having an orientation with our organization (Jian Hua Foundation); boarded a train from Hong Kong to Guangzhou on August 25; went with Chinese friends in Guangzhou to get our luggage shipped to Tianjin (a city in the north, where we are teaching); ate lunch; realized we were running really late for our next train; huffed it to the next train station with wonderful Chinese friends helping to run with our remaining carry on luggage to get us there in time; made it just in the nick of time for our overnight sleeper train from Guangzhou to Beijing; spent two hours in our broken down train in the middle of the night (turns out they shut off the a/c when the train is stopped, so it got hot and uncomfortable really quickly); arrived in Beijing two hours late, with less than an hour to get from the train station where we arrived to the other train station where our final train to Tianjin was scheduled to leave; got separated from each other while running with more newfound Chinese friends to make the next train on time (the doors of the subway literally closed between us, leaving Angel trapped on one side while the subway took Matt and our Chinese friends away); cried when we finally found each other at the next train station (Angel had no working cell phone and never wrote down Matt’s Chinese cell phone number and free wi-fi in China is hard to come by); of course, missed our train from Beijing to Tianjin; called our contact at our school to see what we should do; had to spend the night in a Beijing hotel next to the train station since no one from the school could meet us that night; took an 8 am bullet train from Beijing to Tianjin yesterday morning; got to our campus; had a 1/2 hour tour that we barely remembered; got into our apartment….

So, that’s the shortened version of the past couple of weeks for us. Writing it all out, I’m surprised we’re not more stressed and tired than we are now.

I’ll elaborate a little more on getting into our apartment. Our contact at our school was kind of haphazardly showing us things around campus as soon as we arrived with her yesterday morning. (I don’t think she’s usually in charge of bringing new teachers in, so the info was kind of hard to follow and very quickly given.) Anyway, when she opened the door to our apartment, I thought she had said she was opening the door to our classroom. Then I saw a bedroom with two twin size beds in the room next to the “classroom.” Inward groan. So we have to sleep in the same area where we teach.

Then through a series of questions, I realized that both rooms were ours, part of our apartment. The room I thought was a classroom is our living room/office. There is also a separate kitchen and a Western style bathroom (complete with bathtub). Way more space than either of us were expecting! Much bigger than our apartment in America. So we were pretty thrilled.

After our tour was finished and we went back to the apartment, I discovered that things weren’t quite as rosy as I’d thought. The beds aren’t in great condition. The mattresses look like they’re about 30 years old, but okay, we can get a new bed. Then I started to notice the thick layer of dust that was on EVERYTHING in the apartment. The worst section was behind the TV, where there is a layer of dust that’s probably a couple of inches thick.

Granted, Tianjin is very dusty anyway, but this is outrageous. I’m pretty sure they didn’t clean the apartment all summer. The last teacher who lived there left a lot of things for us (hangers, clothesline, dishes, etc.) and I think he told the school very explicitly NOT to get rid of the stuff before we came. (Usually when the clean the apartments over the summer, they remove things the teachers try to leave behind for the next teacher and strip the whole place of everything but furniture.) Unfortunately, since they left the extra stuff alone, they also left all the dust alone. And the toilet stains. I immediately went into anal, OCD mode and started cleaning every crack, nook, and cranny in the apartment. Only the apartment is pretty big. So far, I’ve gotten through half of one room. It’s going to be a long week.

But we did find out some good news – Matt doesn’t start teaching until Wednesday. I don’t start teaching until next Monday (Sept 5). We were initially told we would have to start teaching Monday (as in tomorrow morning).

Right now, we’re sleeping on the old gross beds, but we only have one set of twin size sheets, plus a sheet that was supposed to be used as a tablecloth for our kitchen table. We washed the sheets, and we’re using one fitted sheet to cover one of the beds, the tablecloth sheet to cover the other bed, and the flat twin size sheet to cover both of us (we pushed the beds together so the sheet would sort of cover both of us at once.) Fortunately, it doesn’t get super cold at night yet and the morning is actually pretty hot, so the lack of bedding is okay for now.

Hopefully by this time next week, our apartment will be in great condition and we’ll even have a new bed or futon to sleep on.

Here are some pictures of our place:

Inside the doorway of our kitchen

Half of our kitchen, with fridge and shelves

The other side of our kitchen, with cabinets, sink and stovetop

The washing machine in the kitchen. One side is for wash and the other side is for spin. We have to hang to dry.

Our kitchen balcony

Our bathroom, complete with Western toilet

The Western bathtub/shower in our apartment. Haven't seen one of these in 2 weeks! A pleasant surprise.

The entryway to our apartment

Our bedroom

The view from our bedroom balcony...

...but we won't be going out there until we clean off the dust

Our living room/study, that I thought at first was a classroom

The other side of our living room, with a view of the hallway leading to the bathroom and kitchen

Pile of dust welcoming us.

In college, I had an on-again, off-again relationship with a local church. I attended nearly every week of my freshman year, and at the end of the year, I felt like I knew no one.

The youth pastor was really nice and invited me to get involved in the youth ministry, but one night of bowling with teenagers was enough to prove to me that I was no longer cut out to handle groups of people under the age of 18 on a regular basis. So I looked for other ways to get involved in the church (turned out, there were none for young adults like me who didn’t want to do children’s or youth ministry), and I showed up every Sunday morning and listened to the sermon.

I still miss the sermons at that church. The pastor had a doctorate and preached amazing sermons that were both spiritually compelling and intellectually stimulating. He engaged your emotions, made you laugh, and made you fall in love with the Bible, especially the Old Testament. He could make the most random passages from the OT unbelievably relevant to 21st century life.

But with no way for me to really get involved in the church, I never felt at home. I stopped going during my sophomore and junior years because I so desperately wanted a “home church” again. I looked at many other churches, but none of them really fit.

Finally, senior year, I ended up back at the same church. I determined that I would stick it out and force the church to become my home, like it or not.

I remember one Sunday morning, I had been having a terrible week. My emotions were haywire and all I wanted to do was hide from the world. I was depressed, and I didn’t really want to go to church, but I wanted to get out of the house, and maybe, just maybe church would make me feel better.

I was so discouraged that morning, I didn’t even have the heart to take a shower and wear nice clothes. I went in ratty workout pants and a sweatshirt. Now, this church wasn’t exactly an old-fashioned, dress-up kind of church. But I personally like dressing up a little bit on Sunday mornings. I don’t think I had ever before in my life gone to church on a Sunday morning in workout pants and a hoodie. But my entire body was reflecting my emotional state that morning, and I just didn’t have the heart to care.

I showed up at church, slumped by myself in a middle aisle, and made it through the entire service without anyone noticing me or talking to me. I remember thinking that if this church really had a strong community life, if I really belonged there, that surely someone would notice how strange it was for me to show up to church practically wearing pajamas and huddling by myself. Someone would have shown concern and asked what was wrong. But people barely remembered my name, let alone my normal demeanor and clothing choices.

Fast forward many years…Matt and I ended up at Calvary Church in Naperville after we got engaged. We wanted to find a church neither one of us had attended before, so it didn’t feel like one of us had to give up our church for the other. I was pretty nervous about going to Calvary. It was much bigger than any church I had ever attended. I thought there was no way you could get to really know people in a place like that. After all, I had enough trouble in a church of a couple hundred in Wheaton. How could I make real friends in a church of thousands?

Last week, various stressors of moving were really getting to me. I showed up to Calvary late on Sunday morning, fake smile pasted on my face, wearing the right colors for Sunday morning worship in the choir. I snuck my way behind the alto section and tried to get into my usual spot in the back row of the sopranos without anyone noticing. One of my friends in the tenor section turned around and said, “Angel, what’s wrong?”

I hesitated. How could he tell something was wrong? I hadn’t come in my pajamas. I was even smiling.

“It’s been a stressful week,” I acknowledged.

“I can see it in your face,” he said.

After just a few short years at Calvary, coming there is like coming home. One look at my face, and friends notice what’s going on. There’s no hiding. But there is sharing, praying, caring. Love.

I will miss you so much, Calvary friends (family). I already can’t wait to come home and visit you next summer. Thank you for being the hands and feet of Jesus in our lives, for noticing, listening, sharing, and praying. We love you!

A lot of friends have asked what we’re doing with our dog, Peggy Sue (P.S. for short). Well, we could bring her to Tianjin, but the second we turn our backs she’ll be captured, roasted, chopped up, and served with rice.

…

Just kidding. Seriously though, if we were to take P.S. to China, she would have to stay in the luggage compartment for the entire 15 hour flight. We’d have to give her a sedative to make sure she slept the whole time, and there’s no drink or food service for dogs. Once we got to China, it would probably be fine, except for when we need to go to Hong Kong. If she ever goes from the mainland to Hong Kong, she’ll be put into quarantine for 3 months. Lastly, our apartment is provided by the school. I’m not sure what the rules are, but it’s probably safe to guess that pets are not welcome.

Jedi P.S.

This has been a huge faith struggle for us. We can’t just give her away to a random stranger, she has a very particular personality. It took her months to act like a normal dog after Angel first bought her. At best, an abrupt shift would leave P.S. with the same abandonment issues with which she came to us.We were talking about it with our former small group leaders, Darrell and Christa over lunch at Panera. Darrell mentioned it to a coworker of his, Karin. Karin and her husband, Jeff, just happened to have had a dachshund that passed away back in February. Their dog, named Elvis, was a 13 year old rescue who had been run over and suffered extensive damage to his back legs. They nursed him back to health, and over the next 5 years of his life (pretty old for a dachshund) he regained some use of his damaged legs.

Karin was thrilled to hear about a dachshund in need, especially an older and more laid back one. In fact, P.S. is about the same age that Elvis was when Karin and Jeff adopted him. As we took P.S. to meet her new owners, we were concerned: they have another dog four times bigger than P.S.! We cautiously let them meet each other (I’ll spare you the details on how dogs become acquainted), and they seemed to get along well. After a second meeting, we left P.S. with Karin and Jeff. We’ve been back to visit once, and P.S. is happily enjoying her new home.

Last night, I took Angel out to Maggiano’s to celebrate our two year anniversary. I asked her, “What are the highlights from this past year?” One of her responses was, “Finding a good home for P.S.” While we will miss her, it is a happy thing that she has a good home.

Some pictures of her. Kudos to Dan Matundan on the first few for his expert photography.

 

P.S. Waving goodbye

P.S.'s favorite doggie date spot: the McDowell Forest Preserve

"I'm going WHERE?!"

The first day at our apartment, August 9th 2009

The last day at our apartment, July 31st, 2011

I used to be a cry baby when I was a kid. I’m not talking about ‘I broke my ankle so I’ll shed a tear’, I mean all out bawling. Like, at the end of The Land Before Time in first grade, I definitely cried. Somebody took my toy? Cry. Have to practice my cello? Cry. Bad haircut? Cry.

So, that’s why, as I got older, I tried to curb the waterworks since it’s not “cool” or “socially acceptable” for a teenage boy to cry. And, for most of my life since those awkward and emotional teenage years I haven’t all out bawled. I might shed a few tears at a funeral or emotional goodbye here or there (When Po found out that his family was killed in Kung Fu Panda 2? I might or might not have sniffled a little bit), but for the most part I’ve been pretty stoic.

Well, I broke my streak on Sunday night, July 31st. Angel and I moved out from our apartment in Naperville, I had a moment (albeit a long one) of real emotion as we drove away for the last time. Granted, we had been working pretty much non-stop the entire week selling most of our possessions on Craigslist, packing our bags to be ready for China, and cleaning our apartment. Getting rid of old stuff and moving really make me sentimental. But really, that was our place. P.S., Angel and me. As we pulled into a parking spot at Walgreens – our Walgreens – I couldn’t help but let it all out. Angel asked me, “So…are you going to do this every time you say goodbye to someone this next week?”

All that to say, we’ve made a big step towards China, and it’s suddenly and surprisingly more real than before. I’m feeling better about moving now that the packing is over.  As I look at most of my day-to-day life compressed into two 50 lb. suitcases and two carry-on bags, I’m reminded about how much of my stuff was unnecessary. And, how glad I’ll be when I’m done hauling them around airports, hostels, and trains.

Enjoy some before and after pics.

Before: Our stuff all over the apartment

After: All of our stuff, compressed