Food and Seth

Seth and a little buddy at a feeding site in Boracay

No valentine treats for Seth today. The eighth graders at Concordia are doing a project this week entitled "The 50% Experience." Their task was to purchase food for themselves for seven days with only 70 RMB, the US equivalent of about $10. They also had to turn in their personal electronics, and will need to take cold showers this week. The required journaling about their experiences this week must be written by hand, in cursive. Who writes by hand anymore?!

I let Seth do his food purchasing on his own. He went to Carrefour with a buddy, and came home with two loaves of bread, three carrots, 6 kiwi, 2 chicken breasts, 2 packages of instant noodles, 15 eggs and a bag of bulk rice. He had 7 RMB left over, about $1. He decided to keep that in reserve for when he might be desperate towards the end. Seems like a fair amount of food, but it's not really.

He chopped up all three of the carrots yesterday and put them in the blender with some water, thinking juice would be a good way to consume the carrots. Just raw carrot and water didn't turn out to be as tasty as he'd hoped, although he did drink some of it. Last night we brainstormed an idea to cook some of the leftover carrot juice with the broth from cooking his two chicken breasts... maybe if we throw in a little cooked rice and put it all in the blender again, it could pass for carrot soup. Necessity breeds invention, right?The idea behind the project is that 50% of the world lives on less than $2 per day for food. Interesting for this project to be happening for Seth on the heels of our Boracay trip, where we were feeding impoverished children. Hoping he makes the connection.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Gwenny's handmade valentines, ready for her classmates

A Priceless Gift

The beautiful feet and dusty flip flops of some of the children at a feeding site.

Every late afternoon while we were in Boracay, our group helped at several of the feeding sites the ministry runs for impoverished children. We sang songs with them, acted out Bible stories, provided basic first aid, distributed vitamins, did a little craft, and helped serve them a simple meal. If there was the room to do it, we turned a jump rope for them and even played a little basketball.

At one of the sites an older girl, maybe 11 or 12 years old, befriended me. She asked my name and told me hers. It was Micah. She smiled a lot and hung around near me. I was helping lots of children make bracelets and rings out of colored pipe cleaners as our craft. When I slid the fuzzy, flower shaped pipe cleaner ring onto her finger, I noticed that she had another ring on, a metal one with a little purple jewel in it. I complimented her on it and she beamed.

As twilight fell, we prepared to leave and the leader encouraged the children to go back to their homes. We waved and called good-bye to the group of children, high-fiving, hugging, and tousling hair as we began to walk away. Micah ran up to me and pressed something into my hand, closing my fingers around the object and grinning at me. I opened my hand to find her pretty little ring with the purple jewel. I immediately objected, saying I couldn't take it. "Why?" she asked, a hurt look on her face.

I was conflicted. Should I keep it? I didn't need it. This little girl lived in a village of shacks. She had just finished the rice gruel supper provided by the ministry. Her feet were dusty in her flip flops, just like the other children's. Had she given me the only pretty thing she had? I knew the ring was cheap. It wasn't worth much. But I think she loved it. She had obviously been pleased when I had complimented it earlier.

But she wanted to give it. She had placed it in my hand. How could I not take what she had given so willingly?

"Do you really want me to keep this?" I asked her. She looked into my eyes and smiled and nodded.

"Thank you so much." I hugged Micah and smiled back at her, then walked away with the ring in my hand, following the rest of our group back to our hotel and our supper at a restaurant on the beach.

Back to my comfortable life, a life with no material needs unmet.

Year of the Rabbit Celebrations

Chinese New Year is being celebrated in full force! We arrived back in Shanghai this morning, just in time for the loudest fireworks night of the entire holiday. It's the night of the money god... so according to legend, if your fireworks are the longest and the loudest, the coming year will be one of prosperity. The explosions have been going on now for several hours, and will likely continue through the night tonight.Below is the picture of the ship I promised in another post about Chinese New Year decorations. This was constructed completely of white styrofoam outside a small mall near us, then painted red. It stands about twenty feet high. It's fairly impressive, for styrofoam!
The day before we left for the holiday break, Gwen's class had a CNY party, complete with dumplings, oranges, lantern making, story telling, and red envelopes with gold chocolate coins inside. One of the well loved traditions of CNY is to distribute red envelopes of money to children, unmarried young adults, and employees.
Gwen and her friends display their lanterns... some a bit creatively!
I am mulling over lots of things about our CNY trip to Boracay and what we experienced there. The beautiful faces of the many children we interacted with at the feeding sites are going through my head. Hoping to post about some of that soon. In the mean time, I'll be listening to fireworks!

First Grade

I have a first grader. Gwen has 17 students in her class, and I often marvel at how well her teacher handles all the students, how organized she is, how effective a communicator. She does her job really well.

Yesterday we visited a local public school here on Boracay, one of the 7000+ islands in the Philipines. We have returned for a second year with several other families to work with a mission called Boracay for Christ. This ministry is run by an American couple in cooperation with a local Filipino pastor and his church. They have been fostering a relationship with the principal of this local school, and he allows the ministry to come into the school a work in a few classrooms a day or two each week. Last year we didn't get the opportunity to participate in one of these days, but yesterday we did.

Madelyn, Gwen and I, and another mom and her teenage daughter were given a first grade classroom to work in, along with the Filipino pastor's wife to translate for us. The classroom was small, and contained 66 students. They were packed like sardines around long wooden tables, five of them filling the classroom with just an aisle at the front for the teacher to stand by the chalkboard. We started out with songs, including "He is the King of Kings, He is the Lord of Lords, His name is Jesus, Jesus, JESUS- Oh, HE IS THE KING!" We taught the children songs proclaiming the name of Jesus, in a public school, yes we did! We acted out the story of Daniel in the lion's den, making clear the point that Daniel worshipped the One True God. We had a picture for the kids to color of Daniel and the lions, and then we passed out beads and pipe cleaners and helped the children make bracelets. We gave each child a vitamin, and then served the students a meal before they left for the day at 4:30, sort of a rice congee with bits of meat in it.
It was amazing to be able to speak so freely about Jesus in a public school setting. It was amazing how many kids were packed in that little cement floor classroom. It was amazing that the principal welcomed us and welcomes this kind of ministry in his school. It was amazing how well behaved the students were, how bright eyed and eager. It was amazing to have my daughters sitting at the end of those wooden tables, coloring a page about Daniel in the lion's den with Filipino first graders. It was amazing to lead a prayer of thanks for the meager meal on behalf of 66 children to the God of Heaven. It was amazing to take photos of so many little beautiful black haired children and then see their happy faces when I turned the camera around and showed them their own pictures. It was amazing to thank that teacher of 66, with tears in my eyes, for doing her job so well. It was amazing.

So I am thankful for Gwen's spacious classroom, the many books, games, and the myriad of other resources that are available there. I am thankful for her wonderful, kind, organized teacher. Now though, I am also thankful for a woman who's name I don't know, but who's patient smile I saw as she shared her 66 students with us for part of the afternoon yesterday. My hat is off to her. She is amazing.

The Clock is Ticking...

Caleb is in Manila this week for the varsity basketball tournament that concludes this season. Scott and I were able to join him in the fall for the final volleyball tournament in Hong Kong, but couldn't make it work to be a part of this basketball tournament. So for days now we've been texting other parents who are in Manila with the team, trying to get as much of a play-by-play report as we can. It's amounted to just a couple of texts a game, really. Not enough.

Scott, who isn't in Shanghai this week but rather on a business trip in Hong Kong, has emailed Caleb a few times as well. He forwarded one of those email exchanges to me last night with his thoughts about this week with Caleb playing b-ball in Manila, thousands of miles away from us, included. Scott said that he's seeing flashes of little league baseball and junior basketball going through his mind. Back then, we felt like there were hundreds of games ahead of Caleb, more than we could count, really. I remember those days vividly, loving watching our boy from my chair on the sidelines but sometimes feeling that we'd been to SO MANY of these very amateur sporting contests, and wasn't it time to go home?

Well, now the season is over. Caleb has one season of his high school career left to play basketball. One season. Sure, he'll probably play intramural ball in college, and maybe join a men's league's later, but it won't be with the fanfare and crowd support of high school varsity ball. As his parents, we won't likely be there watching. So now the number of games that started in the hundreds have dwindled down to one season. How many games is that? Twenty? Maybe a few more, with tournaments. But it's a finite number, one we can clearly see the end of.

There's the rub. We can see the end. Ten years ago or so when this all started, we had games and seasons stretching ahead of us, and now we don't. We have one season left with this guy.

Can someone stop the clock, please?

A Moment

Scott and I were having one of those days with the kids where we felt like we were managing things badly and no one was getting along... more like a zoo than a family. Then we had this sweet little moment happen. Ahh, there is hope! :-)

Classic

I love this picture... I love you, Mom!

Sleep Over Birthday Party!

We had so much fun at Madelyn's first slumber party last weekend. She came up with the idea to have a hotel theme... so we moved the table in our dining room over to create a lobby and registration desk. We took the girls' bags at the door, then sent them to register with Madelyn. She checked off their names and assigned them all to room #202- which was her bedroom, of course!
Later, dinner was served with Chives the Waiter attending the girls. Scott was Chives, dressed in an outfit of Madelyn's choosing (white shirt, red tie, derby hat) and wearing a white towel over his arm. I don't have a picture of him, but he was quite handsome!

The after dinner activities included jewelry making and painting fingernails and toenails. The "hotel kitchen" also sponsored a special cooking class~ making hot pretzels. The girls shaped the dough, then after they were baked, dipped the pretzels in melted butter and cinnamon sugar and ate them up!

Shaping the dough

About to eat the finished product!

During the down time in between activities, the girls called room service (cell phone in the bedroom that called the house phone) to order snacks. Gwen answered the phone, told me the order, I put it on a tray, then she delivered the snacks to the bedroom door. There were at least a dozen calls for room service! We concluded the evening with a showing of "Ramona and Beezus" before bed.

The girls were all in bed by 11 or so, but the chatting went on for a while! It was a great night! Madelyn and I evaluated the party later in the weekend, and she said she wouldn't have changed anything. :-)

Towels

Sometimes I wonder about all the boxes we have in storage somewhere in a warehouse in the Chicago area. We have many, many boxes in storage, packed up years ago now. What is all that stuff? I've thought about the day that I begin to open those boxes and what I'll find. I have a feeling that I'll feel a little silly that I even saved some of those items.

Tonight as I hung our bath towels, still warm from the dryer, on the the towel bar in the bathroom, I thought again about the stuff in storage. I know there are bath towels in storage. I know because I didn't bring a single one here. I purchased a towel a piece for us once we got here. Scott and I have used the same two IKEA bath towels since our first week in Shanghai. Part of the reason I only bought us each one towel was for the simple fact that we have really limited storage here. Actually, no storage. No linen closet, no pantry, no coat closet, etc. But really, how many towels can you use at a time? One has turned out to be plenty, and it's kind of nice to be streamlined in this way.

However, having only one towel causes the towel to wear out more quickly. As I hung the towels tonight, I noticed little signs of wear. A few random bleach spots, a bit of fraying. It relieved me in a way. I will have good reason to dispense with these towels when we leave. I have decided that when we move from Shanghai, we will not be taking our towels with us. Why should we? They will have been used literally daily, aside from vacations, for five years. I think they will have served their purpose.

Besides, I have all those lovely old towels in my storage boxes. Maybe those will go on their way as well... I think I might plan a bath towel shopping trip now, for the Summer 2012. :-)

She's Pretty Wacky

And she's pretty cute, too! Friday was Wacky Day in the elementary school. Madelyn helped Gwen put together this wacky ensemble, complete with mismatched shoes, crazy socks, wild hair and fun jewelry. :-)

It's beginning to look a lot like Chinese New Year...

The Chinese Lunar New Year is only a couple of weeks away, and the decorations, mainly red, are showing up everywhere! I snapped these pictures on my phone in Carrefour last week.
I'm sure you can guess from the picture below that this coming year is the Year of the Rabbit. Rabbits of every style and shape are appearing on coffee cups, as stuffed toys, on sets of dishes, signs, and as huge figures standing guard outside of establishments all over Shanghai.
There is even a rabbit on this new reusable shopping bag for sale at Carrefour.
Loved this group of workers gathered in a little shopping mall close to us... they were smoking and chatting, surrounded by the CNY red lanterns they had been hired to hang. I guess I should get my lanterns out at home. Seems we've just put Christmas decorations away. And I still have a few Christmas photos I want to post!
A huge styrofoam ship has been constructed as a CNY decoration outside this same shopping area. Workers spent last week painting the entire thing red and mounting figures of children and rabbits on it. I'll try to get a photo of it this week. It's quite impressive!

St. Patrick's Cathedral

Love this shot inside St. Patrick's Cathedral, 5th Ave, New York. Even with crowds of tourists milling around inside, the feeling of reverence and awe for the Creator for whom this magnificent structure was built was not lost.

She Ate A Shoe

It happened to be made of dark chocolate and filled with truffles. The best kind of shoe to eat, if you're going to be eating shoes.
She considers, and finds it satisfactory. :-)

Christmas Twosomes

I was looking through our many Christmas photos today, trying to come up with a theme of sorts. So many events and so many people, it's hard to condense them into one post. Since I've already posted about a few Christmas happenings, it's too late for one post anyway. :-)

For this post I decided on pictures of two people. Some of these I created by cropping other people out of the picture, but most of them were twosomes to begin with. They span our whole Christmas break in the US.

One niece cuddles another... Maggi and Adelaide.
Uncle Brad gives Naomi a cuddle at our birthday ice cream outing for Seth.
My dad displays the enormous scroll the Chinese painting I did somehow morphed into... I gave it to my parents to let them figure out what to do with the monstrosity!
Nannie and Pa check out the gift certificate to a B & B in Amish country their kids gave them.
Madelyn gets her cuddle time with Adelaide.
Uncle Beav and Gwen give each other a squeeze!
Madelyn and I snuggle up together for warmth in Times Square!
Emma Clare is impressed with something Seth said!
Caden, ever impressed with his older cousin, is pretty pleased with Caleb's gift to him, a cap gun.
Meredyth makes an observation while Madelyn licks the candles of her early birthday cake.
Mark uses Mindy as a human statue in our charades game.
Will and Seth at our Christmas Eve brunch together at Cracker Barrel.
Look at Gwen! Almost as tall as the tree at Rockefeller Center.
My beautiful sister and her boy.
Not sure what Caleb gave Brad, but it earned him a bear hug!
Uncle Andrew dispenses wisdom to Seth.
Last one... and, oops! There are more than two people in this one, but so cute, with Isaac trying to remember this big cousin he hadn't seen since the summer, and my mom and Gwen looking on. Love his hand on Caleb's shoulder.

Morning and Lunch

The kids are slowly getting over jet lag. They've been up quite early for school every day this week, which has had some real benefits. One is that there is plenty of time for us all to have breakfast together, another that there is plenty of time to get school lunches packed.

This morning I came into the kitchen to find Gwen's lunchbox out and ready on the counter. "Gwen, you made your lunch already?" I peeked inside to find four marshmallows, a drink box, the rest of the gummy bears left from Christmas stockings, and her favorite, a packet of plain tuna.

I amended the contents only slightly. :-)

Friends

One of many great moments from our time in the States. We stole away on Christmas Eve morning for a long breakfast with our dear friends the Stevensons at a Cracker Barrel restaurant off the highway somewhere in eastern Ohio. Our visit was all too short, as it always is with them, but full of laughter and great conversation. We posed for pictures after breakfast in the gift shop. :-)

Look Who Came For Christmas!