Reflections

2 weeks from today I'll be on my way back to Asia!

In some ways it is pretty amazing to realize that this will be my fourth trip to this unique part of the world. Especially so when I remember how I felt about my first trip. So let me take you back 11 years ago to my first trip over the Pacific...

I was a college student when I first got information about teaching overseas for the summer. I wasn't the least bit interested when I first was presented with the idea. Who...me? Go to China? Why would I want to go there? However, my roommate was interested and begged me to go with her to the informational meeting. I went to make her happy (and to get the free pizza). Guess what? I was the one who ended up feeling called to go to China to spend that next summer!

So what did I love about my first trip? My classroom of high school students! It was so much fun getting to teach in my very own classroom for the first time and establish relationships with these students. I loved seeing them each day and getting to introduce them to new ideas and help them become better at their English. I also greatly enjoyed getting to see new sights around southern China that were completely different than I'd ever seen before.

My 1999 class

And what was it that I didn't love so much? Though I had been overseas before, the whole Asian culture took a whole lot for me to get accustomed to. It was so vastly different than home! The food that was so different from American Chinese food, the proper ways to deal with problems that arose, squatty potties, the different food, the language that I truly could not understand or speak (and still cannot), the crowded cities, the smells of different things, the food...Plus the weather of Guangzhou was extremely hot and humid. Not my cup of tea!

By the end of the summer, I was greatly relieved to return home. There was no longing in me to go back to China ever again. I was thoroughly happy to stay in my comfortable surroundings forever!

Yet 9 years later God created in my heart a certain longing to return. There was no catalyst to identify for the change, except that God wanted me to go back and so created that renewed interest. After my trip to Shenyang in '08, I will always have a special place in my heart for Asia. I don't understand how it all has happened, but my heart for Asia is completely different now than a decade ago. I fell in love with the people and that area of the world! You will now find me pulled to certain sections of the bookstore which have resulted in me owning books about Chinese art, history of the Forbidden City, Chinese memoirs, Chinese food, and missionaries to China. [I might have the same for Mongolia, but I can't find much written about that area...though it was on Travel Channel's Bizarre Foods recently!].

I'll be returning to Asia in exactly 2 weeks. I can't wait!