A Parting Poem

As school winds down and only two days remain, I have been reflecting on what life lesson I want my students to take away from this year. While I hope they have learned that Chinese is a fascinating language and a beautiful culture, I more importantly want them to understand that hard work trumps talent any day.  The Chinese language is challenging, but with hard work it comes easily. This translates well into everyday life, too! What may appear difficult and overwhelming simply requires diligence to overcome.

At any rate, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow agrees (and he says it so much better than I). So instead of my ramblings, here is his poem:

A Psalm of Life

Tell me not, in mournful number,

Life is but an empty dream!

For the soul is dead that slumbers,

And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!

And the grave is not its goal;

Dust thou art, to dust returnest,

Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,

Is our destined end or way;

But to act, that each to-morrow

Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,

And our hearts, though stout and brave,

Still, like muffled drums, are beating

Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,

In the bivouac of Life,

Be not like dumb, driven cattle!

Be a hero in the strife! 

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!

Let the dead Past bury its dead!

Act,— act in the living Present!

Heart within, and God o’erhead! 

Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime,

And, departing, leave behind us

Footprints on the sands of time; 

Footprints, that perhaps another,

Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,

A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,

Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,

With a heart for any fate;

Still achieving, still pursuing,

Learn to labor and to wait. 

If poetry is not your thing, here's a clip from Sword in the Stone with some excellent lyrics towards the end of the song... but watch the entire thing because the whole song is pure genius.

Hurry Up and Wait

Want to know a helpful tip about life in China? Here you go: nothing happens until it happens. Living in China requires flexibility and patience- two traits that do not come naturally to many Americans. So be prepared for things to happen slower and differently than you would like, then grin and bear it. Daniel and I love to hurry up and wait, so this is a bit of challenge for us, but we hope to grow from it and grow to love it. 

Before we return, another way that we can practice our patience is by waiting for all the paperwork to get processed. Here are just some of the steps that we need to take before we can fly on our merry little ways: 

1. Our school has to get our résumés approved by the government.
2. The school has to mail us a Letter of Invitation, saying they want us to work at that school. 
3. We have to take the letter of invitation to the Chinese consulate so that we can get our visas. 
4. We also may have to get fingerprinted by the FBI, but I'm not sure where that fits in the timeline; I've just heard it is a 2 month process in and of itself.
5. Sometime after we get those valuable work visas, we can then get our plane tickets. 
6. (Head off to China, register with the government, and get our year-long work visas.)

So although we would love to hurry up and get all this paperwork done so that we just have to wait, I'm afraid that it's going to be the other way around: wait around for a month or two, and then hurry up and get all the paperwork done within the last few weeks. Oh well. As the Chinese say, "C'est la vie!" (Wait... that's French...)

The "Waiting Room" at the train station in our city.

Finally, the Far East...

Admittedly, the Far East was never all that appealing to me. I always thought that the Chinese/Japanese/Korean cultures were nice, but rather strange. So I would secretly tell God, "Send me anywhere... just not Asia." I was thinking more along the lines of South America or Africa; obviously God had different plans.

Right before graduating college, Daniel and I had to decide what we were going to do: work, or grad school? Daniel did an online search for jobs in Indiana, and one of the results was for a position teaching English in South Korea (I think they need to work on their geography...). Because it seemed like nothing else was panning out, we looked into teaching in South Korea. We applied to a school, but something was a little off, so we didn't go through with the interview. That was that, and we thought we were done with the whole Asia-thing. 

We renewed our efforts in searching for jobs and grad schools stateside, yet to no avail. Indiana Wesleyan held a teacher recruitment day, and Daniel signed up to talk with several schools- we were hopeful that something would work out! It just so happened that one of the schools Daniel signed up to meet with (not because he really wanted to work there, but because he wanted to get interview experience) was a school system in China. His "practice" interview went really well, and to make a long story short, that is how we got connected with our school in China.

Our decision to go to China in 2010 came about because it was a neat opportunity, and we knew we both would have jobs. Shortly after arriving there, we fell in love with it. We returned to the States, but China was already infused in our blood, pulsing through our veins. This time, our decision to go to China is because of His calling. So now we are heading back to the place that we never imagined God would send us to, and we are extremely grateful.

Of Fog...

Mmmm, fog.

All that I ever needed to know, I learned in Greek class. Yet I have forgotten most everything about the language, aside from randomly singing the Greek alphabet every once and a while. So what is it that has stuck with me these past few years?

Fog.

My professor summed it up so well: "You will always be in a fog while you are in the midst of learning something new about the language. Then after a few weeks, what you thought was so difficult and confusing will become clear as day." Yes, this applies to language-learning– I tell this to my students quite often, and I tell this to myself as I study Chinese– but it has much broader implications, much more than just struggling with verb conjugations or complicated vocabulary.

In every major decision we make, there will be fog. Whenever we feel He is leading us, doubt will rear its ugly head– Is this really God calling me or is this just what I think God is calling me to? And the fog is relentless; it won't lift until weeks, months, or even years after it's all said and done.

It is just a fact of life. Our knowledge is finite. In fact, Paul addresses this in 1 Corinthians 13, when he states, "Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely." Paul's taking things a step farther! The only time we will wholly understand anything will be when we are face to face with God. So it seems that fog will always be with us here on earth. Such is life.

As Philip Yancey wrote, "Faith means believing in advance what will only make sense in reverse" (Disappointment with God). And our journey testifies to that. It didn't make sense for us to go to China only two months after getting married and three months after graduating. It didn't make sense for us to decide to return to the States without having a job lined up. And it doesn't make sense for us to head back to China after coming back to the States for only a year. 

Yet onward we march, pressing through the fog, having faith that He will guide us through that which shrouds our view. And it will all make sense... someday.

Of Frogger...

Our favorite "game" to play in China is Frogger. Not the fun and addictive arcade game that you are most likely thinking of... I'm talking about real-life Frogger.

Where we live in China, the main roads are four- and six-lanes wide. After getting off the public bus, we must weasel our way in and out of four steady streams of traffic to get to our school. Sometimes there are no cars in sight, and so we take our time crossing. Yet other times we get trapped on the double yellow, with cars zipping by us on both sides. Being located on top of a hill only adds to the fun- what type of, and how many, vehicles could be hurtling toward us?

At the very least, playing this "game" reminds us that we are "but a breath," (Psalm 39:5) and that He could call us Home at any moment.

Running in the middle of the road? Why not?

(And we've heard that by October, the four-lane roads will have morphed into six-lane roads. They say it is to ease congested traffic, but Daniel and I know it's because the local government deemed our Frogger skills worthy enough, and they're taking our favorite game to a whole new dimension. We see this as the ultimate level-up.)

What's all this about Froggy Far East Fog?

First off, welcome to our blog! Since we obviously failed at sending newsletters the past few years, we are trying a new avenue of informing the general public about our happenings. Though we are still in the States for now, we want to keep you all updated (and get in the habit of regularly updating this blog) as our departure date draws nearer and nearer.

Our goal for this blog is to frequently add snapshots of our daily lives, whether that means bizarre photos, a journal about the day, or a reflection on what the Father is doing in our lives. We can't guarantee how often we will post, due to internet connection and whatnot, but we will try hard to post something every once in a while. (Under-promise and over-deliver, right?)

The title of our blog, "Of Frogger, Fog, & the Far East," was solely my (Marta's) idea. Both Daniel and I agreed that we wanted to keep our friends and family in the loop while we moved to China for the second time, but we could not come up with a good title. After much deliberation, we came to a stalemate, deciding that all the titles we had come up with were cheesy. So that is when I, out of desperation, penned this title at an hour way past my normal bedtime. It may still be quite the cheesy title, but I have grown fond of it. My goal is to slowly but surely explain my thoughts on the title and why I chose the words that I did. I don't want to overwhelm you all at once, so I'll spread out my oh-so-intelligent interpretations of the title over the next few blog posts.

Enjoy! 我们欢迎你！