encouraged the hard way

Maybe the most frustrating thing is just feeling LAZY. I get a jolt of conscience that I should do something, like clean the bathroom, mow the lawn, check my credit card balance, go feed the baby, make a list...but then I'm so exhausted and find some reason not to do that. It's probably the thing about myself that gets most on my nerves, because it makes me look so irresponsible; bad with money, dirty and uncommitted to serving others. So this week I've been working really hard to act on convictions no matter how tired I am, and not just letting things slide. When I look back, all of my powerless and most miserable moments happened when I just let things slide.

Clean achievements

My big accomplishments this week were washing the cat and cleaning the house. My long-term goals are ticking along because I've developed several accountability and other motivating systems. My big need right now is to find a good couselor.

Walmart bringin it back

It would take a lot of long to stories to explain the following:
hotpot, duilians, fried-rice, mooncakes, Chinese massage and various Chinese folk-tales remind me of America. (I first encountered them here)

Lost, Prison break, Alias, (some other shows) Banana bread, hip-hop dance, telephone pictionary and Walmart all remind me of China.

My team associates Walmart shopping with intense cross-cultural adventures.
Yesterday I went to Walmart with a three-week-old. It was more intense than shopping in China.
After the bathroom in the back turned out to have no changing station, my sister and I split up. She had to get the groceries. I opted to go find the front bathroom. My powers of observation clearly deactivated somewhere along the way. I was in the midst of changing the baby when I finally noticed that I was facing a row of urinals. My first thought was, "How nice, they have changers in men's rooms, too, so dads can change babies, too. nice." Rather than being embarrassed, I just thought it was hilarious, and picked up the pace and rehearsed what I would say to the first man who walked in. It ended up being an attempt to say, "You didn't make a mistake, I did, but I was too far in and decided to finish." to which he said, "Oh, I'm just washing my hands."
As I left, I noticed that the women's room was taped off, so if I hadn't strolled into the men's room so brazenly, I never would have changed the baby, so it was a strange moment of grace.

Just to be honest.

There's another amazing thing about God. I think you've probably discovered this a few times, too. That he reaches through and shows you he cares even when you're actively trying to be unfaithful.
I was very committed to being unfaithful today. I didn't do my devotional. I only read one chapter of the big book so I could eat breakfast. I did the housework and spent the rest of the day on Spore and the baby. My to-do list is untouched. I blatantly disregarded what's good for my health. So you wouldn't think that I would be blessed today, but I was. When I read my friends' status, most of them were encouragingly spiritual.
People who know me know that the one and only struggle I actually have is the war with self-destruction. So the miracle of the day and really every day for me is God overcoming that. I've seen other people battle with other things and I've been so offended to see him helping them out, too. I've thought things like, "But she's so selfish and disobedient, how could so much just get handed to her? She's consciously sinning! She sins against me," years ago. It's still difficult mediating between my convictions and understanding of other people.

it was great to find out that both Laura and Jodi made an impact last weekend sharing about China. I'm glad Jonathan made it home and Shannon and Aaron are handling the transition well. I think Joelle's ok, too. Who knows.
I'm pretty sure the devotional for the day was about how he is for us and I can't argue with that.

I did have one thoughtful moment during my walk as I was thinking about the anguish of the people in my home state. When I think about what it's like to live in Michigan, I imagined a bunch of peasants, like blue-collar serfs bound to the automotive industry. My understanding of the system is very limited. I imagine our feudal bosses were bad at governing, kind of spoiled and kind of selfish, and the people paid for it. I know what modern poverty actually looks like, but on top of it I see plagued, tortured and angry medieval peasants.

Day of much needed encouragement

There you go. Three random pictures from China. Today was a successful day. Today I didn't succeed in finding a fellowship to call or a place to get counseling. I didn't make my video and I didn't upload my infamous PRC video to facebook (but it was because of copyright issues. I reworded that from something else. Some word combinations really shouldn't come right after PRC)
But I did accomplish greater things. I excercized, finally. I did a quiet time, and most importantly, I was encouraged. Not only was I there with the big guy during my quiet time, but I also got to hear from my Platypi and be encouraged by them.

I replayed the mini-hope from debriefing for my quiet time and asked some big questions. Mainly, will I go back to China as planned? Rather than getting a long-awaited "yes" or even a devastating "no," I just tried to be quiet. And I tried to say it was ok if it was no. I imagined him saying no. If I had to stay in places where I was miserable or not feeling useful or welcome or safe. I finally said it would be ok and I just wanted to be where I would be closest to him.


that's never really happened before. The other great thing that happened today was being able to talk to my team mates. And finally, today I answered my mom's email. I still feel a little sick from the stress that always surrounds communicating with my mother. I'm going to bed soon and it doesn't feel like a failure of a day.

What are you going to do with your life?

I remember what I was told about setting goals. I still have the same goals I had before I got back
1) find a fellowship
2) find a counselor
3) get certified to teach English
4) keep learning Chinese
5) get ready to go back

Why does autosave keep failing?

It's like life disintegrated

Nothing big lately. I dreamed about my team. I don't remember what I dreamed, but they were all there.
Today's devotional was about being a citizen (from Eph2:19) which was really encouraging, because the commentary talked about how we're no longer outsiders or strangers, but we have a citizenship somewhere. And it also talked about wanting to live like citizens and honor what we're part of.
It's a good way to remember the source of strength for anyone who (like me) totally feels like a stranger and an outsider.

blueberry break

It's a little unnerving to get so little done every day, but it could just be that I need to get very little done.
I tried to go for a walk with my sister, taking into account that nothing can be done in under two hours when you have a baby. But we did change out the car-seat and clean out the trunk of her car. So maybe tomorrow we can drive somewhere and take a walk.
So her husband's eight-year-old sister and I went to the neighbor's house and picking blueberries. There was no big realization, although every day things are clear in a different way. New things about people like how to understand them and when people will be kind and when they won't and why.

this is very bad

The photos don't mean a thing. I just miss China. And I miss my team. For fear of launching into a whine-fest of complaint, let me just say this is really hard. Going from one place to another is hard in itself, and there are a lot of layers that make it harder.
I've been having to spend a lot of time asking for help from the one true source.

(lace at the wholesale market in Nanchang)

Can't say there's been emotional improvement over here. This is pretty typical of leaving something I like and entering into something I don't like.

I miss Shannon for her musical skills, tough independence and sense of humor. It was also significant how Shannon and Joelle connected so much from recruitment on.

end of a handrail to a stairway at the Tiantan. They are also like this at the Forbidden city.
Also a good illustration of how I feel. Anyone else feel like this?

There's an intense drive to make myself miserable and resent everything and everyone around me. The healthiest thing I have discovered right now is to write myself a devotional like I always do and preach to myself what I would want others to learn.

essentially that it's ok to feel out-of-place in yet another setting, but to seek out and understand the reasons why I feel out-of-place. Not like a sewer-rat invading a fresh linen closet, but more like a strong and healthy person among the sick. It's like isa44, 2tim 4 and several better known verses I couldn't find about being in the world but not of it.

more

Fun with the lack of schedule

I can say those forbidden words now, eh? (guess where this picture came from)




I miss Jodi. Not only is she the baby expert and queen of fun, she can out-burp both the baby and the Dad.

Since I couldn't go to Church today (I said it. Whoohoo.) I listened to a sermon on tape. I was planning on doing a quiet time to ask if I should go back when I plan to, but I gotta admit I didn't do that. whoops.

There's no schedule here. I have a list of things to accomplish and I wake up and try to accomplish them. It often entails doing some three to forty things at once. It's fun.

made it to the East Coast, straight to the Hospital

Nanchang->Beijing->Shanghai->L.A->Dallas/Ft. Worth->Norfolk Airport->Norfolk Hospital->Suffolk.

There are advantages to jet lag. I can work the night shift with the baby. She was being born as I was flying across the country. When I arrived at midnight she was 11 hours old.

Anyway, it's the parents that care most about the painstaking details.

So far no culture shock. It's more the predictable but still demoralizing jolt that comes with leaving celebrity/sideshow status and the most supportive and encouraging community I've ever known and coming here to where most spoken sentences include an obscenity and it's really stupid of me to expect anyone withing a mile radius of this baby to care where I've been, what the great shepherd accomplished with his sheep, how much I've slept, how I feel or whether this is a difficult adjustment for me. (not that I'm going to expect anyone to neglect a newborn to listen to me tell stories) My own sense of whiny bitterness is probably the biggest problem right now. Don't worry, though. I don't fell totally angry, depressed or even disappointed, just inevitably frustrated, rejected and out-of-place.
There's good news, too, but it's hard to condense it into a summary. The baby herself is good news. Making it safely here is good news. Receiving sufficient grace to keep on going without any recognition from people is good news.

Coming to America

For the past month I have been in the process of going to America. Now that I am here, the verb switch to coming to America. In Chinglish it would just be "Back to America," as in, "Teacher, when will you back to America?"
Some things I have noticed:
1) I haven't cried yet and I'm not heartbroken to not be in China.
2) No culture shock yet. Flushing toilet paper, drinking tap water, and being able to read and understand what people are saying haven't make a a dent so far.
3) little things like, "hey, a dishwasher...hey, you open a door to get into a restaurant..." have been unfamiliar but still not shocking.

I'd like to know about the experience of my fellow returners. To summarize what I feel right now, it's like I flipped a switch and am completely comfortable with $5 meals, public drinking fountains and people who don't look Chinese. Before I switched it, I was as comfortable as outsiders get with pickled breakfast, throwing trash on the ground and public baby butts. I think I switched on that setting when I arrived in China, because I didn't feel any culture shock there, either. I might have to check in my journal if that's a true statement.

So I look forward to seeing how the rest of you are feeling, even those of you who spent this year--one of the craziest years America has seen in my lifetime--in America.

Peace,
Rachael

P.S. Jonathan hasn't reported any culture shock either, other than how expensive everything is.