April 16, 2007

Our thoughts and prayers are with those grieving the loss of loved ones as well as those wounded in ways seen and unseen in this day’s tragedy.

帅哥 Shuai4ge

"Shwhy guh"
Defintion: colloquial:
A handsome young man.
The 4 after the "shuai"
denotes what tone to use.

The boys on the night of the Spring Concert

Easter Travel

Many of you have heard me express my love for springtime in our city. The trees are blooming with pink and white puffs that create a soft, gentle "snow" whenever the branches sway or shake. The outdoors smells new and green and the breezes are playful and refreshing. Spring came and visited us for a week or so recently, and then decided it was too early. She needed a few more days of holiday before settling in and filling our concrete city with brilliant sunshine that encourages flashes of brilliant reds, purples, and yellows in corner parks, window boxes, and on balconies. Easter was a bit cool and gray.

But we had the joy of going on an adventure. We traveled about 6 hours east to another province which we had never visited before. Instead of worn red earthen mountains terraced with fields, the mountains in this province protrude straight up, only rounding at the top. All stone and moss, they have the appearance of modern art statues scattered across flat misty fields.

The highlights of the trip were visiting with some good friends, decorating Easter eggs (Since most chicken eggs here are brown, we tried to find the lightest ones we could), eating good baotze (This is steamed rice flour bread wrapped around meat and vegetables. It looks like a little, white, round sack clinched at the top), and a trip to a nearby river gorge (You can see from the pictures that it is beautiful). We have so much to be deeply grateful for at this time of year (incomprehensible mercy and grace) and on top of that we could add the gift of friendship, laughter, and God’s creation.