Sadness and Joy

 This was a very sad week for us and for our dear friends and family in Raleigh. We lost a beautiful friend this week, Rosalina Rodriguez. She had a great zest for life, and she always made you feel important to her. We celebrate her life, but she is missed.

We ask you to join in our prayers for her and her dear family. God welcomes her with open arms.



 We hope you all are doing well. Baoding has been very cold these past few weeks, and this week we've had some snow. We have been battling colds, but we are doing ok. We have a few weeks to go until the end of the semester. Christmas season is a little different around here. There are occasional Christmas trees decorated in front of some stores, but not very much. We have been playing Christmas songs in our classes this month. They are very curious about how we celebrate. Some of them exchange presents on Christmas, but that's about all they do. The American teachers do our best to share some Christmas spirit with them. There are some Christmas parties next week for our students. I'm playing Santa, and at the church we've been attending has asked us to do a performance of some kind for them. We'll come up with something.

   Last week, the students had some talent shows and we were invited to attend. Gangum Style is a popular dance here in China.

Here are four of my students reciting a poem. Their English name are Abby, Aida, Aggie, and Syval.

Marianne's students are performing a skit. Their English names are Daniel, Olivia, and Drew.

Here is some of my students doing what looked like a Robert Plante song. Logan played the part very well. 

And here is one of my classes doing a group song. I know we've said it on eariler posts, but our students are really nice kids. They are a joy to teach.

There is a student club called English Corner that meets each Tuesday evening. The foreign English teachers, that's us, usually attend. We have activities that give them more practice with listening and speaking English. Last Saturday they wanted to make traditional Chinese food for us. So they rented a kitchen, bought the ingredients and made all kinds of food. We all helped too.

Marianne and Michelle and making dumplings. They were pork and cabbage and they were very good.

Amber, Michelle, and Marianne.

After a hour of cooking, it was time to starting tasting. Amber and Raphael are enjoying the the food.

They made a very delicious oyster dish. I'm not a big oyster fan, but this was very good. It was very spicy...I mean three-alarm spicy.

   We made a couple of American things too. We made some omlettes, Amber made some cooked apples, and Michele made some french bread pizza. It was an interesting mix of foods. We all had fun cooking, eating, and talking. And the best part was that we didn't have to clean up. We survived the meal...didn't get sick on anything.

    Doing activities with the students is really enjoyable. There is not much to do here in Baoding. With the cold and sometimes wet weather and the often bad air, there is not much incentive to venture outside. But it's good when we're with the students or our colleagues. 

   We hope all your Christmas parties are fun. Christ's peace to you, friends this Christmas season.