Streaming thoughts and tears

Emotions were on high alert today. Am I the only one who experiences times when all day long the littlest things will make me tear up and cry? Perhaps it's because I miss friends the most on Sundays, where I'm usually fellowshipping with the most amazing people, enjoying music, teaching, dinner at a restaurant, and evenings of winning Risk. (As long as I can hold Madagascar....)

This morning started out with much difficultly as I reluctantly crawled out of bed, angry over having less than 9 total hours of sleep in the past two days. I checked my mail (Yay for fast internet again!), dressed and left for Sunday fellowship. While there I contemplated many things, including the greatness of a being that has so many disciplined and devout followers that they will sit in a cold building perpetually decorated for Christmas, on hard and uncomfortable benches, listening to an amazing choir that sadly sounds terrible due to the primitive sound system. I then sickened myself with thoughts of a particular fellowship in Edina that spends more on tea -light candles in a week than we would here in a year. When did my father become a media experience? How soon will it take our generation to strip down this sugar coated advertisement of a convenient and comfortable savior to the bare truth? Am I even ready for such an enlightenment?

After such tiring thoughts and emotional swings during this morning's fellowship, I joined John and Mary back at their apartment for lunch. I had anticipated a nap, but instead chose to run to the store for some snacks I had been craving for days. Two snickers and some peanut milk later, I returned to John's apartment for an English study.

Typically, I will be spending Sunday afternoons working, but due to the lovely Spring Festival (when will we develop a month-long holiday in the US!?!) I was able to ponder a passage with these students. I am continually surprised at how much I can learn from a similar story. Among other things, we discussed the symbolism of black clouds. In China, just as in America, a dark cloud often evokes feelings of depression and difficulty. Amazingly though, in this passage and throughout the rest of the books, any time a cloud appears (dark or otherwise) it is the presence of the Father. Therefore, clouds should evoke feelings of safety and support. Such a revelation reminds me of the footprints story where, in our moments of greatest weakness and despair, we were not left alone as the footprints in the sand suggest, but rather we were then carried. I am challenged to change my perspective of the 'black clouds' which threaten to cause difficulties and steal my joy from an outlook of despair to that of appreciation with the knowledge that my Father is present and dwelling among me, trying to teach me and mold me to His will. I am quite intrigued with this whole cloud concept so I think I will start a word study focusing on clouds.

I postponed my Sunday nap even longer when, after the study, John needed to go shopping downtown. I'm not one for passing up shopping opportunities (especially when dependent upon a translator) so I headed out again with John and our translator, Lydia. We ordered some tables and carpet for the camp and then proceeded to look for a converter for me. I ignorantly used my hair dryer in my first converter that wasn't quite strong enough for the power of hot air, so I was in need of a new one. After first looking for the correct conversion, John advised me to simply buy a new dryer and straightener since they'd be cheaper and easier to find. So, we switched our target and began looking again.

I don't know how to accurately describe my shopping experiences and the utter chaos and inconvenience of shopping here. Nothing seems organized and each counter is run by a different person causing paying to be a chore. We finally found something suitable and left that mall in search of yarn and a crochet hook. While at the camp, I noticed a wife of one of the worker's crocheting. The affirmation that China did indeed have crochet hooks made me giddy. Finding the yarn was quite simple, but it seems that knitting is much more popular and if any crocheting is done, it's for projects such as doilies since the only hooks were small ones. I purchased the largest hook I could find, which will hopefully satisfy me until my beloved Bates arrives in my mother's care package. By this time all the shops were closing so we headed back home.

Although I really just wanted to crash and sleep when I returned to my apartment at 7 pm, I remained responsible by putting away my purchases, starting some laundry, checking my email, and creating this post. But now the lack of sleep is really starting to wear on me so I'm going to bed. I have noticed that my post times are being registered as if I were still within the US, so as not to confuse you, it's 11 pm on Sunday night and I'm signing out.



***Apologies for the possibly disconnected thoughts of this post. I was recently encouraged to write in steams of thoughts with less corrections and perfections. And I'm sure you're confused, thinking I've been doing this all along...