On Friday, October 31, I went to the school for the parent/teacher
conferences. In 6th through 9th grades the school has student-led conferences,
where the students create a binder with a selection of work from each class.
She then fills out a form which discusses her strengths and weaknesses in that
particular selection, and also talks about her progress in the class. I heard
from Rachel and Jessica and was very pleased with their progress. I also heard
wonderful things from Michael and Maddie’s teachers. But the thing I wanted to
share that encouraged me the most came from Rachel’s English teacher. At one
point in our discussion, she shared with Rachel and me, how thankful she was to
have Rachel in the 9th grade class. Miss Richards told how all the staff had
been praying, since last year, for more Christian students in that particular
class. She shared how Rachel was an answer to their prayers. She exhorted
Rachel to be courageous in sharing her faith with her fellow students. I was so
blessed and inspired to know that all last year, during our decision-making
season and preparing to move, there were people here praying for the arrival of
my students.

Some of you may be wondering…where do you live? What does your apartment
look like. Here you go. We live in an apartment building with nine floors. Our
unit is on the 8th floor. We are so blessed to have an elevator to take us up
the 8 flights of stairs. Most in our community live in 6-story apartments which
do not have elevators.

When you get off the elevator our door is just to the right. We have a metal
security door in front of our main entry door. There are multiple locks on each
one. During the day when I’m home I leave the metal door opened and lock the
main entry door.

As you walk in there’s a small entry area. This is where we take our shoes
off. [ We never removed our shoes like this in America, but it’s unbelievable
the kinds of waste you see on the sidewalks here, leaving your shoes quite
unsanitary.] As you walk to the right you enter the kitchen.

There’s a door going into the kitchen, that can remain closed if it’s too hot
or cold. We do not have an AC or heat vent in the kitchen. So far it’s been
fine, we open windows if it’s too hot, but I’m not sure what we’re in for this
winter…it might be very chilly and I might be doing a lot of baking. The
kitchen is a rectangular galley shape. On the right is a counter top with
kitchen sink, and a two-burner cooktop with cabinets above and below. In this
picture below you can see a silver mixing bowl on the left, that is sitting on
the cooktop. Behind where I’m standing is the kitchen sink (don’t be fooled by
the looks of lots of counter space, they use cabinet door fronts to hide pipes,
for example, just above the kitchen sink, those areas do not have storage space
in them, they’re just hiding the water pipes). Just behind Rachel is the
doorway to enter the kitchen. To the right is our refrigerator, which has three
doors; one for the freezer, on bottom, one in the middle, which opens up to two
produce drawers, and one door on top for other refrigerator items. The lady in
the picture is our Chinese helper, She has been a huge help to me with learning
how to shop, cook and manage a household here in China.

Here’s a view from the opposite direction, coming in through the kitchen
door. On the left hand side of the kitchen Sean put up a free-standing
counter-height table, with two shelves below. He also installed a shelving unit
above that matches. We purchased these from IKEA. These two items gave me a lot
of much needed additional counter space. You can see the coffee thermos on
the top shelf, and below that the microwave, and below that the stove. Most
Chinese do not have or use ovens, but thankfully, our agency provides one for
us. So as a bonus, we have a two burner cooktop on the right hand counter
(mentioned above), plus the four burners on the stovetop. I’m currently not
using the stove burners, there is a glass “lid” that covers them for more
counter top area, currently holding our coffee maker. I mainly cook on the
two-burner built-in cooktop.

Along the back wall of the kitchen there are windows. They begin about
chest-high and go up to the ceiling (I think we have 9 or 10 ft ceilings). Sean
installed a second IKEA counter/table there that seats two which is great for
morning coffee. (See Rachel and me sitting at the table). A small nook extends
to the right of the “coffee table” where we have our stackable washer and dryer
and some more cabinets (like a pantry). However, it’s pretty tight, you can’t
have the washer door open and walk by to the pantry.

As you walk in the front door and go left you would enter the main room. We
have a little sitting area where we put the small settee brought from home.
(pictured below)

Off of that main room on the left, there are three bedrooms. One for
Michael, one is a “hangout/tv” room, and one is our bedroom. To the back right
of the main room is the fourth bedroom, which is where all the girls sleep in
two sets of bunkbeds. Their room has a built-in desk along the far wall
(parallel to the back kitchen wall) that has windows all along. On the wall
between our bedroom and the girl’s room there is a small bathroom. Sean and I
also have a small bathroom in the our bedroom, which had a small portable
bathtub in it. But Sean decided to move the tub into the kid’s bathroom. It
was pretty interesting to see. Now the kid’s bathroom door doesn’t quite open
all the way, but that’s okay.

In the main room we have our kitchen table brought from home along with our
“tiffany” chandelier that came from our Old Dominion house (above the booth) and
on to Kansas and now to China. It definitely keeps memories of home fresh when
we sit together for meals.

There is a jut-out from the main room which is the “living room” area. We
purchased a sofa here in Tianjin and area rug for that space. We also decorated
that area with a few floor lamps and wall hangings from home, which gives a
familiar feel. At the end of that room is what the Chinese call a pin tai
(Chinese for porch). Most of our friends have doors that open up to these
porches, but ours does not. This is where we hang our clothes on drying rods,
mounted from the ceiling.

Sean carved a small storage area out of Michael’s bedroom by using wardrobes
as a partition or fake wall. This decreased Michael’s bedroom size by about a
third, but it really helped to have a place to put our suitcases, plastic bins,
and miscellaneous items. The standard Chinese bedroom does not have clothes
closets and there is no such thing as a self-storage facility in our area. (The
Chinese people do not buy so many things as Americans, thus no need to store it
away. We hope to follow their good example here!)

Hope this little blog and pictures give you a little idea of our living
quarters here.

Today I read in Exodus where God provided manna from heaven with the
command: “gather of it every man as much as he should eat; you shall take an
omer apiece ” Then it says, “some gathered much and some little. When they
measured it with an omer, he who had gathered much had no excess, and he who had
gathered little had no lack”

Here is my take away:

1. God provides — should not forget that it is God who sends the manna even
   while we sleep.
2. Sometimes we gather much, and sometimes too little; but in the story that
   didn’t matter — God provided exactly what was needed for the day. Even in
   uncertain times [of global financial crisis]… even living in China, I can
   trust Him: He will provide what we need for the day.

On Sunday afternoon Megan fell asleep in her stroller on our way home from
lunch. When we arrived at home, I took off her shoes and put her to bed.
Usually she rolls right over and goes back to sleep. A little while later, she
got up and wandered into our room. Daddy put her back to bed and we thought she
went on to sleep. Actually, she had found a pair of scissors left lying on the
counter by one of her sisters and brought them to her bed. Later on I heard
her talking in her bed, but thought she would soon drift off back to sleep. I
ran out with one of Jessie’s friends and her mom, to a local market. Soon after
I received a call from home saying that Megan had been lying in her bed, not
sleeping, but cutting her own hair. Many moms throughout the years have
stories of kids doing the same thing. I know it will grow back, but it still
makes me sad when I look at her now, and see her somewhat “shaved” bangs.
Here’s a couple of pictures from Friday aftenoon at the school playground.

Now here she is with her new hairdo…

October 1st is China’s National Holiday, like July 4th for us. But the
Chinese don’t just celebrate the one day, they often take the entire week. We
planned a one night trip to Beijing at the end of that week, Oct. 3 – 4, hoping
to visit the Forbidden City and Tian’anmen Square, with the kids, and do some
shopping. A new fast train just opened up on August 1st, which is a direct
ride from Tianjin to Beijing in 28 minutes. So our day started at 8:30 am, when
we left our apartment complex by taxi for the Tianjin train station. After
arriving and getting to the platform, we boarded our train which left at 9:30
am.

We traveled with our friends, the Bevis’, who also have a son Michael’s age.
Part of the reason for the trip was to celebrate the boys’ 16th birthdays, which
are five days apart. We arrived Beijing, then had to take a bus to the nearest
subway station (2 stops away). This part of the commute was a little
frustrating, many here say it would be nice to have the subway connect directly
to the train station. Anyway, we arrived at the subway after a crowded ride on
the bus, and then took it to the Tian’anmen Square stop. By this time we were
all getting a little hungry and were a little tired out from all the
transferring of transportation types. When we came up from underground we
entered into swarms of people. It seems that our hopes of a nice day of
sight-seeing were going to be shared with the thousands of people still in
Beijing for their National Holiday. We squished our way through the crowds,
trying to stay together, to get to Tian’anmen Square.

However each time we stopped to try to take pictures, we were quickly
surrounded by Chinese who wanted to take pictures of Megan and all of the kids.
It was difficult to even begin a conversation as to what to do next. Here’s a
few snapshots of the Great Hall, Olympic Mascots and Tian’anmen Tower, amidst
lots of people.

So we made a decision to make alternate plans and save the Forbidden City for
another trip. We decide to take the kids to the famous Pearl Market, where they
could barter and buy stuff. We had told them about this place after we were
taken their last fall, and they really wanted to see it. First we had to get
out of the crowds and find taxis. The roads were barricaded off for a couple of
blocks surrounding the Forbidden City and Tian’anman Square, so we did a fare
amount of walking before we could even locate taxis. Soon we were on our way.
Cell phones come in handy at this point, since we have to ride in two taxis
(they only allow 4 people per taxi). We had lunch at a little bakery then
headed to the market. Megan fell asleep during the shopping trip.

That night we planned for dinner at a special restaurant which Sean and I had
visited last fall with friends. Then we spent the night at a Chinese hostel.
Now some of you may be thinking…hostel!! What kind of accomadations will that
be? It actually is very basic, but really nice. The girls stayed in one room,
and the guys in another. We had three sets of bunkbeds, which had comfy
mattresses and even feather pillows! Since all we were going to do was sleep,
it made sense to stay at a hostel and save the expense of three hotel rooms
(two, which our large family requires plus one for the Bevis family).

The next morning daddy treated the kids to Starbucks and later we ate lunch
at Peter’s Tex-Mex restaurant which our friends told us about. The food was
yummy, enchiladas, queso dip, hamburgers, fajitas. We got a taste of home. So
for those of you interested…you can get Mexican food in China!

We did a little more shopping on Saturday, then made our way back to the
train station to get tickets for home. However, when we arrived at 6:30 pm, at
the ticket kiosk we discovered that the only train with tickets left for that
night wasn’t due to leave until 11 pm! So we spent the next four hours sitting
in the train station. The kids did really well. We ate at McDonald’s, played
cards, (they even got creative and played the familiar Spoons card game with
staws from McDonald’s) and they played hide and go seek. Megan found friends
where ever she went.

Finally on our way home…

But when we arrived at the Tianjin train station at 11:30 pm, it was pouring
down rain and no taxis were to be found! Life in China!! I’ll save that story
for another day.