yeti speak…

  • they asked for this…

    Over the weekend I was "volunteered" to make up a team-building game.  I am not sure why I was chosen for this.  Probably because I wasn’t at the meeting when these tasks were divvied out and it was easy to delegate.  One thing you should know about me is that if I am given a…

    ·

  • you gotta love this place…

    Today has already started out in true Xining fashion…     This morning when I was getting ready to go to school, I looked out our front window onto the "lawn" area below.  I saw a women (probably in her 40s) exercising…with a hula hoop!  Round and round she kept that circular ring a-spinnin.  It…

    ·

  • shooting spree

    Yesterday, I read about the horrible shooting in Capitol Hill (a neighborhood of Seattle).  As an isolated event this type of thing is tragic and disturbing.  What’s worse is that we know this is no longer an isolated event in American life. Do I feel safer living here in China?  In many ways, I sure…

    ·

  • living and active

    In our Sunday gathering today the main speaker was talking about all the changes that happen in our world. He was relating these modern changes to the changes that the nation of Israel was facing before and during the Babylonian captivity. By doing so he was trying to show us how some of Jeremiah’s prophetic…

    ·

    ,

  • what it’s like (shangwu – morning before noon)

    "See the world in green and blue, See China right in front of you… It’s a beautiful day, Don’t let it get away." U2 "Beautiful Day"   (I am in Xining) I squeeze through stone arches and onto campus. I have joined the flow of students; we are like salmon swimming upstream. They seem to…

    ·

    ,

  • why i’m a second first language student

    Here’s a passage that I liked from Newbigin. I replaced that pesky "m-word" with "long-term tour-guide." Hope you figure out what he’s talking about: Traditions of rationality are embodied in languages. A rival tradition cannot become a serious threat to the adherents of an existing tradition unless these latter are able to learn the language…

    ·

  • a man named Lesslie

    If you enjoy Brian McLaren’s works (e.g. A New Kind of Christian, A Generous Orthodoxy, etc.) I would like to recommend a book by one of the thinkers who seems to have greatly influenced his works.  His name is Lesslie Newbigin and he was a fellow "tour-guide" (wink-wink, nudge-nudge) in India for forty years or…

    ·

  • what it’s like (morning)

    When the early morning dawn sets our bedroom a-glow, my eyes touch on the things which surround me: a commissioned bookshelf half full of books that were mailed across the ocean; a large warddrobe that guards the left side of our room (because closets do not exist here); a creeping mold that has wedged its…

    ·

    ,

  • best friends of the week!

    One thing we have REALLY been missing from the homeland lately: Breakfast cereal! Oh sure, cereal is available here in Xining at the infamous Import Store, BUT they only carry a few varieties (no telling how fresh!) at extremely expensive prices. Ouch. We treated ourselves to a box of cereal for Christmas morning this past…

    ·

  • they like to move-it, move-it

    The other night we were having dinner with some friends.  After the meal Sarah was sitting at my lap at the table. Without warning she started to shake her little tush a bit and (for all to hear) sing, "I like ta MOVE-IT, MOVE-IT!  I like ta MOVE-IT, MOVE-IT!" We all about died laughing.  If…

    ·

    ,