As we work our way closer to Chinese New Year, the city sounds more and more like a war zone. It’s like they’ve got military-grade fireworks going off intermittently throughout the day. And it’s pretty much holiday-marathon season. Last night was a holiday, too, which St., T., and D. suddenly realized after a few hours of Bible study when the explosions outside were reaching a crescendo. We made haste and ordered a plate full of dumplings and a fish dish to celebrate this nigh-forgotten holiday. There’s stands all over town selling piles and piles of fireworks. Lots of fun, but I think my cat’s starting to bald from the stress.
Then next week is the big festival, and then fifteen days later is the okay-no-more-holidays-for-a-while-so-everybody-just-chill-out holiday. Which as I understand is cause for more fireworks than even Chinese New Year. Awesome, huh? The good thing about being cross-cultural is that you have twice as many holidays as normal people! Throw in some birthdays and an anniversary or two and you’ve got some serious celebration on your calendar.
I’ll talk some more about the festival in a while, because it originated in one of the most bizarrely familiar stories you could imagine. Don’t know what it means, but I do know that it’s amazing and illustrative. More on that in a while…
Went to another Christian bookstore in town today (making two in the city that we know of). Bought about $150 worth of books for Omega’s library, which equaled like thirty-five books! Biographies, doctrinal materials, apologetic materials, really great stuff. Some of the students really like that we’ve got books for them to go through. Also saves me a lot of time if someone wants to talk about something dumb or peripheral (“hey, there’s a great book that answers that question”).
The Gospel in China 
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