Saturday-Spring Retreat

Here is day 2 of the Spring Youth Retreat.
Saturday morning we woke up and came together to eat some morning singing and amazing homemade breakfast (thanks CLP!).

After breakfast, all of the students split off for personal devo times.

After devos we came back together for a game, a leader skit and session 2.

We had subway delivered for lunch-mmm good.


After our wonderful meal of Subway, we walked over to Huaqiao for the Olympics! Everyone got in their teams and painted faces!


We played 3 leg soccer

Then a jump rope competition.

Then an insane game of bopping people's water balloons! (then of course a water balloon fight)

That afternoon we came back, had a snack and the students practiced their skits. We had another great Chinese meal. One of my favorite things about dinner that night was definitely the game a bunch of the students played where they played rock/paper/scissors to decide who had to eat a bunch of spicy peppers. Hilarious.

After dinner, we had the night session. The students performed their skits (story from the Book mixed with a different time period)

After dinner we had a great (REALLY hot) bonfire complete with smores! (Though we didn't get too close to the fire because it was soooo hot!) The Chinese men really enjoyed making a fire (I don't think they do it often) so it was HUGE. They also built it really early and I had to tell them to slow down on the firewood!


After the bonfire we did a fake "blackout" in memory of last year! (Last semester all the electricity went out during the retreat). We tried to do it again by turning off all the lights and acting all surprised. The students "said' they knew all along. However, there were also a lot of "I can't believe it happened again" and "It's like a tradition!" We had fun though playing mafia before turning the lights back on for bedtime! (to the leaders' relief!)

Spring Retreat Day 1

So I am going to try and post three separate posts for the Spring Retreat to make sure to have enough space for all the awesome pictures and stories. We all had an awesome time last week at the Spring retreat for the Changchun youth group (the cool place). We had 21 students and 8 incredible leaders! Our theme for the weekend was from 1 Timothy 4.12. We all met last Friday at my school to load up in 2 11 passenger vans to head to the retreat site!


When we got to the retreat site, we headed to eat dinner. After the leaders did a little "If I were not a leader" skit we ate some delicious Chinese food.


After dinner, we had our first session. Us leaders started it off with some greek statue water fountains (we dressed up in togas and spit water to music). (The weekend was greek themed as we talked about being a "Tupos," the greek word for example in 1 Tim 4.12). We then had a great time of singing led by Chris and learning from Scott, our guest speaker.


As we were going greek, we of course had to have Olympics! After small group time, we came back together to get everyone in their teams. Once in teams everyone came up with a team name, decorated a team flag and made a chant. Teams had chances throughout the weekend to earn points for their teams (including stealing other teams' flags!)

A very full day...

I enjoy writing little summaries of my days sometimes on here. Many times people ask me what I do on a normal day. Today wasn't really a normal day but it definitely represents the last few weeks for me-very busy. Here is a rundown. (rough times, of course)

9.00 Meet at McDonalds to have Core (and coffee) with Bridget (time of accountability)
10.00 Go to school-talk to classmate trying to plan a possible trip in June to visit where I may live in the fall
10.10 Class
11.50 Eat an apple for lunch
12.00 Take a taxi to Subway to order lunch for the youth retreat. When I arrived there I see that it is being remodeled.
12.30 Take a taxi back to where I live to a closer Subway (I originally thought they could not deliver). They say they can deliver. Order 40 subs and give directions to the location of the retreat.
12.50 Pick up t-shirts
1.00 Return home. Check emails, drink another cup of coffee, work on paperwork for the retreat
1.30 Head out and pay water bill then taxi to school with big bag of tshirts
2.00 Hang out with my classmates and take part in the international students' tug of war contest. (Our class did pretty well the first round-won 2 out of 3-tug of war is tiring!!)
2.45 Leave with my tutor for the international health inspection place
3.15 Arrive and precede to take pictures, pay money, copy passport (my new one!!!), health inspection (eyes, blood pressure, ultrasound, xray, blood taken, etc)
4.00 Leave and head home. On the way home I bought some nice strawberries
4.45 Arrive home-eat my strawberries and yogurt. Work on youth stuff.
5.30 Leave for school. At school I bought drinks and gave supplies to friend who will take some of the supplies to our retreat site for me.
6.00 Walk home, buy some Gluten/corn free cereal at the import store
6.45 Make dinner, watch some Chinese tv, do laundry and work on retreat stuff on my computer.
10.00 Write this blog and then to do research for my class tomorrow

there it is. now to research and hopefully bed soonish!

China's Northeast in One Week (Liaoning Province version)!

China's NE (Dongbei) has three provinces. I hit all three this last week! I live in Jilin so of course, that was no problem.

Wednesday, I had to make a run to Shenyang to go to the US consulate to get a new passport. (It is really sad to have to get a new one-all those stamps and visas all gone.) My friend Lisa came with me to keep me company and enjoy a day off from school. We took a train there in the morning and then another one back that night (about 2 hours on the fastest train).

arriving at the train station (yeah, we have awesome hair)

it's going to be crazy getting on the train!

everyone's in a hurry to get on

lisa can't get through!!!

we made it on!!!

The passport part of the trip was quite successful. Just received email today that my passport is on the way in the mail! We also were able to hit up Starbucks after wards as well! A good day.

mcflurry!!! new as of this month in china!

starbucks-delightful

we are so tired. are we back to changchun yet?

Recent happenings

There hasn't really been a lot of exciting happenings lately. Though I seem to stay very busy it is sometimes hard to pinpoint where my time goes. I know a majority of it goes into school and tutor time. However, at this point that is just life-not really that much to report on school. I'm learning Chinese. I hang out with my tutor and Chinese friends.

Otherwise, here are some random pictures from the last few weeks.

Lisa and Mandy with my first success at Curry during our study night

not happy about snow again (April 13)

chefs out shoveling snow (April 13)

Heat was turned off April 10 in Changchun. It is really cold inside now

Megan and Lisa's Day of Fun last Saturday. (this is us post-massages-so relaxed)

printed out picture of my desired haircut

stopped at McDonalds for a little refreshment before haircut

handing out advertisements. meow

A Xin cutting my hair

kinda gross, I know. that's a lot of hair cut off tho!

Changchun's Dunkin Donuts! (Not really but it looks like it-fresh coffee, smothies and donut looking pastries)

After dinner and movies with Huaqiao guys. Fun day!

dance dance revolution at cyndie's house after youth group

not happy to be having my picture taken while dancing