Who are you?

Lately in my quiet time I have been reading through 1 Samuel along with Praying the Heart of David by Elmer Towns.  Today I read through 1 Samuel 30 and reflected on the life of Saul.  Towns wrote, “Remember, sometimes when things don’t happen on your timetable, God operates on His own timetable.  God is more interested in who you are than what you do.”  You know that verse in Hebrews that says, “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joint and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart”?  Well, my heart felt the word of God prick it just like getting stabbed with a sword.  It was like the Spirit said, “Wake up!  I’m talking to YOU.”

This past year has certainly been an exercise in finding out who I am, and at times I’ve been disappointed with myself.   There have been times when I have stamped my feet and thrown a temper tantrum like a small child because I didn’t get my way.  There have been times when I have shaken my fists at God in anger because things didn’t work out the way I wanted them to.  There have been times when I closed my heart to God and everyone else around me because I was hurt and wanted others to feel my pain.

I also thought about how living overseas seems to make the worst parts of me bubble up.  Call it culture shock or bad behavior if you will, but it seems to me that God using the experiences of moving/living overseas to stretch me and show me the parts of my heart that I’d rather just sweep under the rug.  The parts of me that I never would have noticed had I continued to live in the pretty, shiny, sanitized world I had created for myself back in America.  (I’m not passing judgment, just reflecting and observing.)  Living overseas has shown me that my heart finds it difficult to be generous to others (especially strangers) and that I really don’t want to love the unlovely (I REALLY don’t like dirt and germs!).  I suppose what it boils down to is that God has used my experiences of living overseas to reveal my flesh, my worldly self, and asked me to kill it…continually.  It does not go willingly, but puts up of fight.

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.  For God has done what the law, weakened by flesh, could not do.  By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.                ~Romans 8:1-4

I am who I am because of what Christ has done for me and in me, not because of anything that I have done.  I am thankful for a God who is not content to leave me where he found me, but who pushes me to greater holiness, to be more like him.  I am thankful that God does not condemn me for the unloveliness that still reigns in my flesh, but brings it to the surface to be removed to make me more righteous and pure, like refined gold.  I also need to learn not to condemn myself, but to see myself the way that God sees me, as a wholly loved child of God who is and will be a work in progress until I see him face to face and am made like him.

Hands and Feet

"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.  For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.'"  Matthew 25:34-36

I have always known a privileged life - and for that I am thankful.  I have not known what it is like to be in need and rarely have I been left in want.  I have experienced pangs of hunger, but never known what it is like to be left hungry.  If I missed a meal, it was by choice, not a lack of food.  I am grateful and blessed and should thank God more for these blessing DAILY.

While I have never experienced poverty or hunger, it does not make me unsympathetic to the plight of those in these circumstances.  Before I moved to China, I thought that poverty looked like the men and women I had served in Soup Kitchens and saw panhandling on the side of the road in America.  When I moved to China, I thought that I knew what poverty looked like when I visited JL's home for the first time.  My in-laws have worked a hard life as rice farmers in rural South-Western China to raise, support, and educate 6 children.  Yet they remain joyful, gracious, and generous.  Then we visited one of JL's sisters in the migrant community.  It utterly broke my heart to see the sacrifices they were making in order to be able to give their children a better future.  They gave to us generously and offered us the best of what they had, which is something that amazes me.  (Check out my previous post on the Migrant Village)  However, it wasn't until just a few weeks ago that I have finally seen what REAL want and need are.

It is a rare day here in Colombo that I would not be approached by a person asking me for money.  In order to not see a poor person, I would have to not leave my house.  I do not doubt that most of these people are legitimately poor and hungry.  The cost of living in Sri Lanka is increasing daily while the value of the Sri Lankan Rupee is at an all-time low.  However, there are always some who will try to take advantage of others.  In general, JL and I give our spare change to the people we come across - especially those we can see are in great need, like those who are crippled or small children.

On this particular day, I was taking the bus.  It is the route that I travel 3 times a week to go to and from volunteering.  I like to sit by the windows so I can watch the people bustling around and the action at the various markets we pass by along the way.  It's just a simple pleasure that I enjoy, especially in during the morning commute.  However, my personal amusement and entertainment was not what God had in mind for me that morning.  As the bus paused at one of the bus stops, a man caught my eye.  I'm not sure what made me take notice of this particular man as opposed to all the others, maybe it was his haggard appearance or his thick, full gray beard.  Whatever it was, I was shaken from my personal reverie to pay attention to what this man was doing.  He had hurried over the side of the bus station and was bending down toward the ground.  There, in the dirt, was a discarded rice packet, presumably the unwanted leftovers from someone's breakfast.  This man was bending down to eat it.  Before I even had time to reach into my purse for my wallet to get some money to give this man, the bus pulled away.  That memory, however, has been burned in my memory ever since.

Now, every morning when I take the bus, I look for that man.  I have seen him maybe once or twice more walking along that same stretch of road.  My heart longs to find that man, to feed his hunger and tell him that there is a God who loves him and who has not forgotten him.  I don't know if this will ever happen, but I pray that someone will tell him.

As I look around this country, I see the immense needs of the people.  It is easy to get overwhelmed by how great the need really is.  I look at what I am doing and I think, "How am I making a difference here?  I am just teaching English."  I know that the children at the preschool are needy - they come from the fishing communities (AKA slums) along the coast.  Most of these "homes" are just corrugated steel lean-tos.  I've also noticed that when we have birthday parties at the nursery for the children that some of the children pack away their cake or candy bars to take home because they may not get another meal that day.  

Lately, my question to myself has been, "How can I communicate the love of Christ without being His mouth?"  Most of the children I work with are 3 and 4 years old and their English level is LOW, so telling them that God loves them isn't very effective.  But I am a part of the BODY of Christ, not just the mouth.  So, I do what I can by my actions to show these children that I care for them and love them because that's what Christ has commanded me to do.  It has taken my words being taken from me (because I can't speak Sinhala) to focus my attention on being the hands and feet and other parts of the body for Christ.

"For the body does not consist of one member but of many.  If the foot should say, 'Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,' that would not make it any less a part of the body.  And if the ear should say, 'Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,' that would not make it any less a part of the body.  If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing?  If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell?  But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose.  If all were a single member, where would the body be?  As it is, there are many parts, yet one body."  1 Corinthians 12:14-20

Secrets, Secrets are no fun

Let's face it, we all have secrets: things we're afraid to tell others because what we're hiding just might make them change their opinion of us.  I'm not talking about the things that you don't tell your acquaintances or someone you just met, but the deeper things that you keep hidden from your parents, your best friend, maybe even your spouse.

I've never been the most outgoing person.  Loud noises scare me, and being around large groups of people tends to push me further inside myself.  Don't get me wrong, I'm no cave-dwelling hermit!  However, I tend to be one who has a smaller group of very close friends and not necessarily Ms. Popularity.  Therefore, I really take to heart the friends that I do have.

Where I am going with all of this???  China.  When you pack up your whole life and move halfway around the world, you don't exactly get to take your friends with you.  And you don't exactly have the good fortune of having friends waiting for you there.  So, when I met John & Lindsey at the first adult English Corner in our city during my first month or so in China, I was excited to know that there were some other young foreigners in my city.  We got to know each other better and became more than friends, really.  We became a family.  We even joked that the people in our city probably thought that John had 2 wives because we pretty much went everywhere together, the three of us.  We celebrated holidays together, watched movies together, shared some pretty awful/embarrassing moments together, and shared our hearts for the people of our city.  That first year together in China created an inseparable bond between us - one that endures today.

However, God had other plans for us in our second year.  This isn't something that we talk about much.  Not me.  Not them.  Not our other friends in the city either.  It is just so emotional and sad and still filled with so many questions.  John & Lindsey ran into difficulties when they tried to switch jobs from the private school they were working at to the university where I was working.  They tried everything imaginable.  I prayed everything imaginable.  I walked the campus praying the Word of God over their situation, I prayed in my apartment alone, I prayed together with them, I prayed and prayed and prayed because that was all that I could do.  I never lost hope that God would come through and make it okay and neither did they.  And then, on Oct. 11, I helped them pack their things into the taxi and had to watch them drive away with me left standing there in front of our apartment building.  It still makes me cry today remembering that day.  I didn't know when or if I would ever see them again on this side of heaven.

Then came the doubts - Why didn't God answer our prayers?  Did I not pray hard enough?  Did I not have enough faith?  Do you not love me, Lord?  What about me?  John and Lindsey have each other, they will be fine, but I am all alone.  This is the first time that I had ever experienced doubts like this.  It shook me to my core, and my faith became weaker and weaker.  I didn't realize what was happening or even what I was doing.  I just noticed that my quiet times weren't as meaningful as they had been before, I wasn't hearing from God the way I had before, my times of prayer weren't like they were before, I wasn't as passionate about being in China and doing what God had called me to do there as before.

As a result of losing my 2 best friends in China I began to pull away from everyone and everything.  I was scared to let someone else into my heart and my life.  I put up walls and closed myself off to everyone - students, friends, family, my parents.  I didn't want to get hurt again and the easiest way to do that was to simply isolate myself.  If no one was close to me, then it wouldn't matter to me if they came and went in and out of my life.  I became cold and dispassionate on the outside, but on the inside I was barely holding it together.  My heart was hemorrhaging.

Almost 1 year later I realized that I was backsliding.  I was desperate to turn things around, so I decided to do a Bible study on prayer.  I started to feel a little "better" at certain times when I was praying, but where I had once been "on fire" I was now just kind of a "dull flame" or a "flicker".  Slowly, gradually, it began to dawn on me that I was not depending on God, but was instead depending on myself.

Then came another set back: JL was denied his visa to the US to meet my family and to get married...twice.  Again the doubts came.  I continued to battle against depending on myself and instead relying on God.  I knew that He wasn't keeping us from getting married, but I couldn't understand why He didn't want me to have the wedding that I had been dreaming of my whole life.  I wondered, "After all I've given up for you Lord, after all I've sacrificed, can't You just let me have this ONE thing?  Is it too much to ask that I could get ONE thing that I want?"  Apparently the answer was yes.  Quite honestly, I began to resent God.  How can He be soooo good and soooo loving and yet not give me the only thing that I really wanted in my whole life?  Was it because of sin in my past?

Last month, in preparation for an upcoming conference, we got some materials that needed to be translated.  It was called the Prayer for Over-Comers.  It asked the person to identify a lie that they were currently believing and to name it, then nail it to cross, repent of believing the lie, and to replace the lie with a truth.  I began to think about what my lie was.  Then, it dawned on me - I was believing that God no longer loved me because He didn't give me the things that I wanted.  Consequently, I also questioned God's power to work in my life.  The truth is that God loves me unconditionally (John 3:16; Rom. 5:8, Rom. 8:16-17, 1 John 3:1).  The truth is that NOTHING can separate me from the love of God (Rom. 8:38-39).  The truth is that God loves me too much to give me lesser things (Matt. 7:11, Jas. 1:17).  That's my secret - that this woman of God has questioned His love for her and His power as the All Sovereign God of the Universe.  In difficult times like this, I can only stand on the promises of God because they are the real truth.  I have to trust that God knows what is best (Isa. 55:8-9, Rom. 11:33-34).

Do not get me wrong!  By no means do I suddenly have it all together.  God is continuing to speak to me and reveal and unravel the depths of my heart and faith that this lie has infected.  This will be a slow recovery - there's a lot to heal and work through.  But, we ALL have secrets, so maybe by sharing mine you can face yours.

Field Trips, Friends, and Fun

It has been a while since I've written a new post and an even longer while since I wrote an update about things that we've been doing.  I think the biggest reason that I don't write more updates about what we are doing is that...well, our life is not all that exciting.  We mostly do the same things day in and day out.  Boring, I know.  Hopefully, some of that may change a bit - I'll explain a little more later.

The stories in this blog will update you on what we've done in the past few weeks: a trip to the zoo, our first (of hopefully many more) rugby tournament, a new friend, an awesome new restaurant, and a project in the works.

Several weeks ago, I (Erin) went with my students (both the preschoolers and the middle schoolers) on a field trip!  Who doesn't love field trips?  We went to the one and only zoo here in Sri Lanka.  It was a lot of fun and gave me more time to build relationships, especially with the older students that I work with because they are the group that I spent the majority of my time with.  We walked all over the zoo (about 6 hours)!  It was one of the "old school" zoos with the animals still in cages, and it made me realize what a awesome zoo we have back home in NC.  It was also VASTLY different from the zoo in my city in China where you could pay about $3 to buy a live chicken and feed it to a hungry tiger of your choice (white or orange).  The kids ABSOLUTELY loved it and we constantly running ahead and shouting "Teacher, Teacher!" to get me to take pictures of whatever new animal was in the next cage.  Needless to say, I filled my memory card before we finished our day.  I also made a very concerted effort to take pictures of the children along with the animals and not just the animals or other inanimate objects (a trait which I have inherited from my father it would seem).  We ended the day with ice cream and an elephant show.

At one point on our zoo trip, I felt like I had returned to China.  We were coming up to the tiger and lion exhibits and - no lie! - every eye at that exhibit turned 180 degrees to stare not at the white tiger, but at the white lady!!!  I never thought that a white person would be more interesting than a white tiger!  I just laughed to myself and thought, "If only Amanda and Candace were here with me."

I also realized as I looked through the camera lens and followed these children around all day that I have come to really love them, and already sense the pain of having to say good-bye to them at some point.  I see the beauty that God has given each one of them as they have each been made in His image.  I consider it an honor and a privilege to teach them each week.  I am also thankful that I have been accepted into their home and family.

Here are some pictures from our trip:

These are the older students and family from the Bethel Home where I teach once a week.  Most of the boys have been turned out by their families who cannot afford to raise them.  The family cares for the boys and treat them as their own.

This is the preschool class that I help to teach twice a week along with their other two teachers.  I'm the one taking the picture, that's why I'm not in it.

The elephant show!

Me, along with the students (both from preschool and Bethel Home)

Also, since the older students have been learning about the beach in our weekly lessons - and one of the vocabulary words has been "ice cream", I treated them all to an ice cream cone towards the end of our day at the zoo.  I have also been teaching them one of my favorite songs from childhood - "I Love Jesus Better than Ice Cream" - and will hopefully have a video for that in several weeks (they are on summer vacation now and most have returned home to visit their families).


Last weekend, JL and I got tickets to the Carlton Super 7s Rugby Tournament.  This was a first for both of us since rugby is not a big sport in either the US or China.  Though I have to say that it could become popular with American women because the play (at least for 7s) is MUCH faster than American football and the rules are quite similar.  It made me miss getting to watch live sports - and realize how I took that for granted working as an Athletic Trainer.  I also had a moment of horror when one of the players went down on the field with what I assumed was calf cramps and the medical worker ran out on the field to help him but play did not stop.  So this poor man is on the field massaging the cramps out of this players legs and everyone is acting oblivious to their presence.  At one point it looked like they were going to run a play right through them, but at the last minute, they ran around them.  OMG!  I couldn't believe it.  Having worked MANY a high school football game and having to massage cramps out of legs, especially during those first few games early in the season when the weather is still hot and humid, I could totally sympathize with that medical worker.  I just cannot imagine being on the field doing it while they continued to play football around me!  I've been tackled before, and it is not fun!

I also have a made a new friend recently.  Her name is Dhanushka.  She came to the rugby match with us last weekend (that was the first time I met her) and we hung out this week - going shopping and dinner together.  She is the assistant of one of JL's friends, the friend who gave us the tickets to the tournament.

Here we are at the rugby tournament

After shopping, D asked me what I wanted to eat.  I told her that I really wanted to have authentic Sri Lankan food.  She knew just the place to take me!  It is a restaurant called Nuga Gama here in Colombo.  It is set up like a miniature Sri Lankan village.  They had all of the traditional buildings a village would have, the waiters wore traditional clothes, the cooks were women from villages (so the food was legit!), and their were musicians playing traditional music.  We sat outside and had a small lantern for light.  When the waiter asked us what we wanted to drink we asked him for a menu, but he replied that we were in the village and there were no menus.  So, we asked him to repeat the drink list again, slowly this time.  We drank Amberella (like umbrella) juice - it's kind of like a kiwi but a little sour.  Being "in the village" also meant that I had to learn how to eat with my hand like a real Sri Lankan.  There were forks and spoons on the table, but I was going for the full effect.  P.S. eating with your hand is not as easy as one might think...there is a technique to it.  I am planning on taking JL there and will take pictures then.  D also taught me some Sinhala and I taught her some Chinese.  She is both an answer to prayer and a new request.

Finally, I'm working on a video for work that shows the different projects that we do throughout Sri Lanka - feeding program, medical camp, nursery schools, disaster relief, discipleship and training.  I have finished adding all the pictures and videos, but I have some final editing to do before it's finished.  Once it is done, I will publish it here to the blog as well, so you can see!

Great Expectations

Several month ago (during the Chinese New Year) one of my best friends posed this question to me: Do you ever think about life and say "this isn't what I expected...."?

My mind has been drawn back again and again to this question since it was first asked of me.  

Considering that when I first read this question I was sitting on the porch of my Chinese in-laws house in some remote village that I'm pretty sure National Geographic wouldn't be able to find and unable to communicate with anyone besides my husband, I would say that the simple answer is "yes".  When I moved to China in 2009, I fully EXPECTED to stay for only one year, I fully EXPECTED to return to America and resume "life as usual" when my year was finished.  I NEVER EXPECTED to marry a Chinese man, though many people told me that was going to happen when I left.

When we moved to Sri Lanka and one night while we were out taking a walk and suddenly were being charged by a wild elephant that the dogs had disturbed, after running for our lives and later laughing about it, again my answer to the question was "yes".  (By the way, this has only happened once.)  Even just the idea of living in Sri Lanka, a place that most people have not heard of and definitely don't know where it is, would cause me to answer the question "yes".

When I was a little girl, my expectation was that I would grow up, be tall, thin, and blonde like our next door neighbor, marry a boy I had known my whole life, and live in my parents back yard.  Of all of those expectations, the only thing that has happened is that I've grown up, and that only in the strictest sense that I'm older (my head and my heart haven't seemed to grow up as rapidly as my age has progressed).  Genetics were stacked against me on the being tall and blonde part.  And the final nail was driven into the coffin of my childhood expectations when my parents moved out of the house that I had spent my whole life growing up in just a few years ago.

I've always been a planner, sometimes being more persnickety about managing my life than others.  China tried to beat it out of me, but I am feeling the planning instinct coming back in full force.  However, my plans and God's plans have rarely been the same.  Thus, my life verse became Proverbs 16:9, "The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps."  My heart does a lot of planning, but in the end it is what God wants me to do that I end up doing.  That's how a girl who hates to eat rice, has an especially sensitive nose that fears bad smells, and is an over-planned freak ends ups quitting her job, throwing away 2 degrees, and moving halfway around the world.  And quite honestly, I wouldn't have traded these past 4 years for anything.  If there are things that I would go back and change, they are things about myself and how I didn't do the right things in certain situations.

So where is all of this going?  Well, it has led me to think that maybe, just maybe, our EXPECTATIONS are too simple, to small.  Why stay in your parents backyard when there is a WHOLE WORLD out there waiting to be experienced?  I'm not saying that everyone should quit their jobs, sell their belongings, and backpack around the world, but what I am saying is that I think we limit ourselves and dream too small, EXPECTING life as usual.  My God is a big God and what he wants for you and your life is abundance (not necessarily in the material sense, but in a fullness and richness sense - a no holds barred sense).  What if we stopped expecting the small things, and got out of the way of ourselves and instead expected God to use us to do something according to his awesome plan, of which we are not the center?  

"Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever.  Amen."  Ephesians 3:20-21

No matter who you are or where you are in life or where you are on earth, I'm betting that if you honestly answer the question for yourself, you'd answer "yes" too.  Although many of my expectations about life have not be met, they've been replaced with things so much better than what I'd expected.

You may never be charged by a wild elephant or live on a tropical island or even come into contact with another country's culture, but that doesn't mean that God can't use you where you are.  If you let him, he'll put you right where he wants you to be to reach the people he wants you to reach - people that only you could reach.

Household Registrations

This is a guest post from JL.  Here is a deeper explanation of the Household Registration system and migrant workers in China.

Actually even I don’t really know what the "Chinese Dream" is, but I do know about the registration thing. In history, the government has employed a strategy which was meant to make some people/areas rich first then they would help others to get rich too, which has resulted in the uneven distribution of social resources. The government taxed every family in the whole country, then the central government invested in the coastal cities to implement the policy of making some people or areas richer first. So those areas have developed and, of course, have better social welfare, education, healthcare and so on. Now those cities are not willing to share their wealth with the outsiders/migrant workers and they make policies based on "Household Registration".  (Everybody is registered to their parents’ Household Registration address not where you were born; a person whose parents are from the village can’t or find it very difficult to shift their Household Registration to the city as a city resident.)  So the policy is written to grant city residents (people whose Household Registrations are in the city) the rights of welfare, healthcare, public education for children, and certain jobs, while migrant workers from the villages are not given those same privileges although they both live in the same city. So basically we can say "WHERE YOU LIVE IS NOT ALWAYS EQUAL TO WHERE IS YOUR HOUSEHOLD REGISTRATION IS". Supposing I am from a village and I am now living in Beijing, but my Household Registration is still in the village, I can’t have the same rights as the person whose Household Registration is in Beijing. My kids can’t have the same rights as other people whose Household Registration is at Beijing (They can’t go to the same school, they can’t take college entrance examination in Beijing even if they grew up in Beijing and went to school in Beijing) .  So to sum up: people living and working in the same city have different rights. They do the same job, but have different pay (temporary hire-fire anytime, taking all faults and permanent hire).

A Love-Hate Relationship

China...it is a place that holds my heart and makes me want to scream all at the same time.  For years (since 2008 to be exact) I've been trying to figure out and put into words what it is about this place and my city more specifically that has so captured my heart.  What is it about this ancient, beautiful, and famous place that keeps drawing me back to it again and again?  All I can answer is God.  He has so profoundly touched my heart for this place and these people that I am unavoidably drawn to it - an irresistible romance.

Recently, I have been thinking back on my last visit, which took us from one side of the country to the other, literally.  But in particular, I've been thinking back on our visit to JL's 3rd sister's family.  They live on the east coast of China and work as migrant workers, or "farmer workers" in Chinese.  Let me explain a little about the migrant workers in China, they are usually from poor farming families that live in villages throughout the various provinces of China.  They come to the east coast seeking work in factories and other odd jobs in the cities hoping to increase their fortune and create a better life for themselves.  They are all Chinese, not like migrant workers in America that come from other countries, yet they often live as second class citizens in their destination cities because they are not registered there, and therefore are not given the same rights and privileges as people who are registered there.  In China, you must register your residence with the government; this is know as the household register - it tracks where you live, your marital status, and any children that you have.  The migrant life is the "Chinese Dream" in a sense.

What has struck me most about this visit in recent days has not been reliving the bitter cold weather - it is hard to imagine being that cold here in Sri Lanka where I practically start sweating the second I step out the door.  Instead, what has struck me is, to borrow a line from The Devil Wears Prada, that while these people would kill to live this life, I wouldn't even deign to live that life.  Despite the frigid cold that you couldn't escape, the lack of indoor plumbing, the long distance from family, the difficult working environment, and other unpleasantries, JL's sister's family was happy, inviting, and giving.  More than I could say about myself in that situation.

Their home is a cement shell.  Walls, floor, and a staircase and two plywood walls have been put up to separate the upstairs into two rooms on either side of the staircase - one for the two children to share and one for JL's sister and her husband.  There was no bathroom, just a public toilet shared by everyone in the community - one for men and one for women.  The beds were simple cotton rolls on plywood boards held up by sawhorses.  Fortunately, we had a mattress heater to keep the bed warm, but really it was so cold, it didn't help all that much.  Lying in bed, I could feel the heat leaving my head as it stuck out from the covers and I could feel the cold rolling off the cement walls and seeping into my bones.  There was one space heater that we all hovered around and a small TV to watch.  I'm quite certain that NO ONE in America would consider this a desirable living condition.  I wasn't even sure if I was going to be able to stay there for the two/three nights that we were visiting.

On our first night there, after eating dinner and catching up as JL and I walked to the public toilet in the dark with the snow falling, I started to cry.  JL of course asked me what was wrong and wanted to know why I was crying.  All I could think of was my home in America with its gas fireplace and central heat, where if we ever feel a slight chill all we have to do it flick a switch or turn up the temperature a little, my soft comfortable bed that I have to myself and the plethora of bathrooms to choose from on any given floor of the house.  But I couldn't manage to put it all into words or describe what that was like to my dear, sweet husband of a week and a half who has NEVER experienced what that is like.  What I was thinking was "How on EARTH could this possibly be a better life?" but all that I managed to do was shake my head and continue to cry.  JL wiped my tears, held my hand, and comforted me the best that he could.

From my outsider, western mindset I cannot understand how this migrant lifestyle - the poor housing conditions, the second-class citizen status, the dangerous working environment with low pay and long hours - could be better than the life they would have in their village.  Yes, they would be doing backbreaking labor as farmers to more or less just get by, but they would have their family and a home and most likely their own bathroom (even if it is in a pigsty).  Is this what America was like during the Industrial Revolution?  Is this "Chinese Dream" like the "American Dream" or is it just a mirage - a false promise of a better life?  I suppose it would depend on who you ask.  For JL's sister and her husband, the answer is that this is definitely a better life for them and their children.

China, this huge, mysterious, beautiful country that I love, never fails to surprise me, to teach me about myself (and usually expose the parts of my heart and mind that I'd rather leave unexamined and hidden because they usually are not so lovely), and to touch my heart in profound ways.  After my first year of living in China, I knew that it would always be like a home to me.  Now that I've married JL, it really and forever will be - for better for worse, in good times and in bad.