As I sit here thinking tomorrow and the fact that this room will no longer be my home makes me sad. I am happy to be going home, but then again, whenever I think about leaving the kids or when they ask, are you going to America tomorrow in their broken Chinglish a knot starts to form in my throat. I have gotten to know the kids pretty well over the summer and I am so blessed to have had the opportunity to meet the people I did and form the relationships I now have. This experience has been very informative for me and it has, I believe helped me grow in ways that I didn't really expect. I have gathered a lot of insight through it all and I would never trade this chance of a lifetime. I have been able to meet some really cool and interesting people from all over the world and been able to share my experiences with them and they with me. That is one of my favorite things about missions trips.
Back to saying goodbye. Today I had my final class and that was sad, but fun as well and it was a great way to sum up my time here as the English teacher. I got to do some face painting, hangman, play dough and of course eating of candy, or (tong) in Mandarin. For dinner I got to take four of the kids out for dinner which was hilarious and blast! Tomorrow (wednesday) will be my final official day here at SFCV and trust me I am not looking forward to getting in that taxi to Beijing. Before I leave however, I will be running around the campus making sure that I get to say goodbye to everyone as well as doing some last minute tasks and packing up the few straggling items in my room. This trip has gone by so fast, I still remember when I first got here and now I am watching new interns come and see them in the position I was once in. I am now the seasoned veteran now that I have to leave, figures, but I am glad to see the willing volunteers lining up to work at SFCV. I will miss this place a lot and I know that the kids will be on my mind often! So many of them have become my little buddies and I wish I could take them home with me.
Another sad farewell, it that of saying goodbye to the staff and the other interns here. I have gotten to know these great servants over the summer and it will be weird not to see them everyday. Life here has been fun and interesting and I don't know what I'm going to do with myself going back to a house with only four people in it, at least my brother is back from school so that fourth spot can be filled without me having to start counting the fish tanks and my cat. Aside from all of the silliness, I can honestly say that this this opportunity has blessed me in so many ways and I have learned so much about myself, and God's plan for me as well as my friends and the kids here. He is working in China and it has been an honor to have been even considered to be a part of the work which is being done. I can't wait to share more about my experiences with all those who want to hear about them. I have a lot of things to talk about! This has been a whirlwind of an adventure and I am glad I got to spend it with my lovely friends Melissa. Going through this with her has been so great and has brought us closer together and for that I am very glad. We have been friends for so long that our families have become one and we even have a last name to prove it. We are the Russlinskys and proud of it! Friends are great to have but as they say family sticks around even through the roughest of times and I am blessed to have Melissa as family and to have been in China, which is her heart land and see through her eyes this place which has become an intricate part of her life and who she is. I am excited to see what the future holds for the both of us and I will be glad to say that this trip to China has been influential and a simply unforgettable experience. With that I will end and say as the kids here say, "see you last time!"
This has been M&M Adventures-China Edition, this is Mari signing out China side.
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Feeding and washing the SFCV dogs :)
Nope, I still have no idea.
Maybe it was because Philip asked me so nicely if I could have this role. So being the sucker that I am, I would help Philip put leftovers in the lunch bowls, give them to the dogs, wash the dishes, and then take it home. We would do this everyday Monday through Friday. Elizabeth and Joseph came along most of the days to call out for the dogs to come out for lunch.
When Philip left with his forever family, Joseph started feeding the dogs after his lunch. Hopefully he will keep up with it when I leave.
Whenever the kids would want to wash the dogs, I would have them come by the inn after school and then I would have some of the kids at least help with some parts of the showering process. It was a great activity to do with Elizabeth, Joseph, and Philip and I will never forget it. :)
Taking one day at a time.
Do you ever have those days when you think to yourself, "This was such a fantastic day! Could it get any better than this?"
That's what I felt about Thursday July 5, 2012.
I had a great day with my therapy kids, awesome fellowship with my dad's church team, and I will never forget the memories I made walking home after eating lots of food at Hot Pot.
As I was about to get ready for bed, I glanced at my IPOD and noticed a text message from my mom.
It read: Attention-Stephen Shaffer (my cousin) is not breathing. Start praying. Paramedics are working on it.
When my mom said that the paramedics were working on starting up his heart, I had utter peace that everything was going to be fine until my mom wanted me to log on to Skype.
I had never seen my mom wail as loud as she did that night. She begged me to wake up my dad even though he was sound asleep. (Back story for this: See my dad's team had been quite busy that day and so he went to bed right away) I don't know how but by the grace of God, my dad woke up to me saying " Mom's on Skype crying and Stephen stopped breathing. Come up please!"
Then started the longest, most difficult Skype time I have ever experienced. My mom was trying to get a hold of my cousin's family to see if there was any new news. There was even a time in the beginning of our Skype time when my mom read a text saying: Stephen may not be with us anymore. When you experience a tragic accident in your family, everything flashes before your eyes. I remember at one point of the time, I was just lying on the ground as my dad was trying to comfort my mom through Skype and Mari was on the couch praying. I lay on our dirty apartment floor thinking, This is not happening to me. Are you kidding Lord? This is so not happening right now. At the end of that Skype date, they told us Stephen had experienced a cardiac arrest and was in a coma. I then went to bed wondering what was happening to my cousin just across the sea.
The next morning, I was completely numb. We all handle grief in our own different ways don't we? While I was lying around in my apartment, skipping my therapy time, and gluing myself onto Facebook to see any updates about my cousin, my dad needed to be in action so he ended up playing with the kids around SFCV. I couldn't possibly handle the idea of playing with the kids while across the ocean my cousin was fighting to stay alive!
As I was sitting on the couch trying to figure out if the night before had really happened, my friend came walking in to tell me this:
" Do you want to hear more bad news today?
"What?"
"Melanie passed away this morning."
This was a tribute I made to her the day of her passing. During my time here at SFCV, I saw her every afternoon and I couldn't believe I would never see her in the blue little wheelchair again:
Wish I had taken a picture with you this year and the fun times we had together in therapy. I will never forget the last day we had where you would scoot around in your little blue wheelchair and I would make you eat smarties by placing the
I could tell you a big fat lie that I was OK and moved on through the day with a big smile on my face. But I didn't, I had my friends distract me the whole day with watching TV shows as a way of getting me out of the reality that my cousin was fighting for his life and one of my therapy kids just passed away. But to be honest, it didn't really help as much.
Later into the night, Mari, our other friend, and I decided to have a prayer time for what had been going on through the day. And I realized how much I had been bottling up all these emotions....
I realized that I wasn't giving all of this over to God. Yes, I would be praying throughout the day saying: " Jesus, heal my cousin." But was I earnestly praying for him or just being anxious about the situation?
Luckily, a couple weeks later, God performed an amazing miracle and healed my cousin. He is now currently back to work after a month from having his cardiac arrest! Can't you believe it?
God used this situation in my life to help me understand how much I needed to trust in him even when I was thousand miles away. I am suppose to grab hold of God because He is the rock in which I stand.
I want to leave you with these verses: Romans 8:28-29. God showed me this to remind myself that He is in Control! Thank goodness I can rely on him!!
Posted by Mel
That's what I felt about Thursday July 5, 2012.
I had a great day with my therapy kids, awesome fellowship with my dad's church team, and I will never forget the memories I made walking home after eating lots of food at Hot Pot.
As I was about to get ready for bed, I glanced at my IPOD and noticed a text message from my mom.
It read: Attention-Stephen Shaffer (my cousin) is not breathing. Start praying. Paramedics are working on it.
When my mom said that the paramedics were working on starting up his heart, I had utter peace that everything was going to be fine until my mom wanted me to log on to Skype.
I had never seen my mom wail as loud as she did that night. She begged me to wake up my dad even though he was sound asleep. (Back story for this: See my dad's team had been quite busy that day and so he went to bed right away) I don't know how but by the grace of God, my dad woke up to me saying " Mom's on Skype crying and Stephen stopped breathing. Come up please!"
Then started the longest, most difficult Skype time I have ever experienced. My mom was trying to get a hold of my cousin's family to see if there was any new news. There was even a time in the beginning of our Skype time when my mom read a text saying: Stephen may not be with us anymore. When you experience a tragic accident in your family, everything flashes before your eyes. I remember at one point of the time, I was just lying on the ground as my dad was trying to comfort my mom through Skype and Mari was on the couch praying. I lay on our dirty apartment floor thinking, This is not happening to me. Are you kidding Lord? This is so not happening right now. At the end of that Skype date, they told us Stephen had experienced a cardiac arrest and was in a coma. I then went to bed wondering what was happening to my cousin just across the sea.
The next morning, I was completely numb. We all handle grief in our own different ways don't we? While I was lying around in my apartment, skipping my therapy time, and gluing myself onto Facebook to see any updates about my cousin, my dad needed to be in action so he ended up playing with the kids around SFCV. I couldn't possibly handle the idea of playing with the kids while across the ocean my cousin was fighting to stay alive!
As I was sitting on the couch trying to figure out if the night before had really happened, my friend came walking in to tell me this:
" Do you want to hear more bad news today?
"What?"
"Melanie passed away this morning."
This was a tribute I made to her the day of her passing. During my time here at SFCV, I saw her every afternoon and I couldn't believe I would never see her in the blue little wheelchair again:
Wish I had taken a picture with you this year and the fun times we had together in therapy. I will never forget the last day we had where you would scoot around in your little blue wheelchair and I would make you eat smarties by placing the
smarties on your elbow and having you eat them. Even though you were here on this earth for only 2 1/2 years, you were such an inspiration to me to never give up and keep on trying. Love you Melanie. See you in Heaven.
I could tell you a big fat lie that I was OK and moved on through the day with a big smile on my face. But I didn't, I had my friends distract me the whole day with watching TV shows as a way of getting me out of the reality that my cousin was fighting for his life and one of my therapy kids just passed away. But to be honest, it didn't really help as much.
Later into the night, Mari, our other friend, and I decided to have a prayer time for what had been going on through the day. And I realized how much I had been bottling up all these emotions....
I realized that I wasn't giving all of this over to God. Yes, I would be praying throughout the day saying: " Jesus, heal my cousin." But was I earnestly praying for him or just being anxious about the situation?
Luckily, a couple weeks later, God performed an amazing miracle and healed my cousin. He is now currently back to work after a month from having his cardiac arrest! Can't you believe it?
God used this situation in my life to help me understand how much I needed to trust in him even when I was thousand miles away. I am suppose to grab hold of God because He is the rock in which I stand.
I want to leave you with these verses: Romans 8:28-29. God showed me this to remind myself that He is in Control! Thank goodness I can rely on him!!
Posted by Mel
Friday, August 3, 2012
When it Rains, it Pours
Being a native Oregonian, I have always loved the rain. It is the perfect state for weather to be in because in the summer it keeps things from being too hot and in the winter it keeps things from being too cold. I also just love the gloomy sky and the self reflective mood that it puts me in. So because of my love for the rain it was no surprise to me that at the sight of it here in smoggy, humid, hot China that I would be thrilled. Everyday it rains brings me joy. I never thought I would be so happy at the sight of wearing pants in the summertime. It has been raining a lot here this summer, even more than it has back home in Oregon.
Although I am glad to see the rain, not many people share this feeling with me. One reason is because the rain here is a bit harder than in Oregon and in larger amounts which makes life difficult for a place with no drainage system. In Beijing as I'm sure many of you heard back in the states, there was massive flooding in the city and over 100 people died as a result of the flooding and other causes connected with it. Back here at SFCV, we had some flooding problems of our own as our laundry room flooded and a storage room which was filled with 10 new refrigerators had almost 2ft. of water in it. Along with that the river across the street rose to ground level and filled the streets with large puddles of water. We were all fine here thankfully and now things have been able to dry out for the most part, even though we have still had some rainy days here and there.
The greatest part about the rain here in China and the part I as an Oregonian do not understand is that when it rains all scheduled events cease. You would think it is like acid rain here the way the they break out the umbrellas for one drop of rain. Or how school gets cancelled if the rain is too hard, and most sickness here is blamed on the rain. If these people lived in Oregon they wouldn't get anything done. Just another one of those cultural things that I will never understand but am content in just going with it.
Posted by Mari
Although I am glad to see the rain, not many people share this feeling with me. One reason is because the rain here is a bit harder than in Oregon and in larger amounts which makes life difficult for a place with no drainage system. In Beijing as I'm sure many of you heard back in the states, there was massive flooding in the city and over 100 people died as a result of the flooding and other causes connected with it. Back here at SFCV, we had some flooding problems of our own as our laundry room flooded and a storage room which was filled with 10 new refrigerators had almost 2ft. of water in it. Along with that the river across the street rose to ground level and filled the streets with large puddles of water. We were all fine here thankfully and now things have been able to dry out for the most part, even though we have still had some rainy days here and there.
The greatest part about the rain here in China and the part I as an Oregonian do not understand is that when it rains all scheduled events cease. You would think it is like acid rain here the way the they break out the umbrellas for one drop of rain. Or how school gets cancelled if the rain is too hard, and most sickness here is blamed on the rain. If these people lived in Oregon they wouldn't get anything done. Just another one of those cultural things that I will never understand but am content in just going with it.
Posted by Mari
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Paul Simon
My Boys!
It was bound to happen. The time when your mind rationalizes the packing of a child in your suitcase. This moment has come to me before and will probably happen again. I have come to love these kids over the course of a little over a month that I have been here and I can't bear the thought of leaving them. I will miss them a lot. I have enjoyed the time I've had with them and I will surely remember this summer for years to come.
As you can imagine, there are a few kids here that I have been able to form extra special bonds with and these are the ones that I will be packing in my suitcases, good thing I brought two!
First is Luke. He is a precious little 5 year old who has stolen my heart. He is the cutest little thing. I though he was Filipino the first time I saw him and he had an Aztec Indian hair cut until they buzzed it off. He has one of those wind up laughs that comes out when you tickle him or spin him around in circles. We have fun dancing together and playing karate kids together. I have been teaching him the basic Mr. Miyagi moves. We always start and finish our battles with an Asian bow.
Next is Eric. Eric is in my Primary class and he is 7 years old. He is smarter than he will let on and is a little charmer. He is one of the craziest, dramatic yet sweetest boy here. He has his moments of terror like any little boy would, but he can turn right around and be holding hands with the two younger girls in his house while escorting them home. It's no wonder why the girls are all little princesses here, the boys even if they are just 1year older than them, all act like big brothers to them and give them kisses and such. It is so precious. I think that is one good thing that orphanages can provide is a good family dynamic among the kids themselves. They take care of each other. Eric's English is pretty good and he enjoys art time as well.
There is however a catch with these two boys however. As much as I'd love to beg my parents to reconsider the amount of children they have ;) these two boys cannot be adopted by foreign families because they were dropped off at their orphanages and have no papers and therefore cannot be adopted unless they are adopted by a Chinese family. I would love to have these two boys become apart of someones family if not mine, so please pray that they will be able to find a good family here in China, or that the government might reanalyze their policies. :) I know it is going to be hard for Eric in the next few months as pretty much all of the kids in his class and around his age are matched and are going to be going home to America with their new families.
I love these boys and I am glad to have been able to spend my summer with them!
Here are some pictures of the boys and I.
Eric being Chinese Bruno Mars at BBQ.
Luke at VBS with the Panda team.
Eric and I making our usual faces for the camera.
Hands up and ready to Ninja fight, don't let the cute face fool you he is deadly!!
Posted by Mari
As you can imagine, there are a few kids here that I have been able to form extra special bonds with and these are the ones that I will be packing in my suitcases, good thing I brought two!
First is Luke. He is a precious little 5 year old who has stolen my heart. He is the cutest little thing. I though he was Filipino the first time I saw him and he had an Aztec Indian hair cut until they buzzed it off. He has one of those wind up laughs that comes out when you tickle him or spin him around in circles. We have fun dancing together and playing karate kids together. I have been teaching him the basic Mr. Miyagi moves. We always start and finish our battles with an Asian bow.
Next is Eric. Eric is in my Primary class and he is 7 years old. He is smarter than he will let on and is a little charmer. He is one of the craziest, dramatic yet sweetest boy here. He has his moments of terror like any little boy would, but he can turn right around and be holding hands with the two younger girls in his house while escorting them home. It's no wonder why the girls are all little princesses here, the boys even if they are just 1year older than them, all act like big brothers to them and give them kisses and such. It is so precious. I think that is one good thing that orphanages can provide is a good family dynamic among the kids themselves. They take care of each other. Eric's English is pretty good and he enjoys art time as well.
There is however a catch with these two boys however. As much as I'd love to beg my parents to reconsider the amount of children they have ;) these two boys cannot be adopted by foreign families because they were dropped off at their orphanages and have no papers and therefore cannot be adopted unless they are adopted by a Chinese family. I would love to have these two boys become apart of someones family if not mine, so please pray that they will be able to find a good family here in China, or that the government might reanalyze their policies. :) I know it is going to be hard for Eric in the next few months as pretty much all of the kids in his class and around his age are matched and are going to be going home to America with their new families.
I love these boys and I am glad to have been able to spend my summer with them!
Here are some pictures of the boys and I.
Posted by Mari
M&M sandwich!
One day, Philip wanted to take a picture with Mari and I. Right before we were about to take the picture, I (Melissa) looked over at her to motion a kissy picture. Here are the results:
We then decided to do it to Joseph. :)
And then after seeing Joseph's reaction, Eric wanted a turn as well. :)
We definitely have had precious memories with these wonderful kids. Please continue to pray for us as we finish our last week here. We are both dreading saying goodbye to our kids.
Thanks!
Thanks!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)