Lap Around the Sun

I’m pretty sure today marks the end of our first year in China. Supremely hard to believe – the changes that have happened in our lives seem to have happened over a much longer time. On the other side of the coin, though, I’ve been near oblivious to time passing. Especially the last six months. Guess I have to blame the old equation: perceived speed of time is directly proportional to amount of enjoyment procured from said time. And I’ve honestly had an amazing time. It’s almost worth doing again – except maybe without the language school.

The most obvious marker of the passing of the year is the wonderful “no-water” day in the city. Once a year, they turn off the water citywide. I forget why. Cleaning something or other or conserving something or other. Anyway, we didn’t get the memo, so yesterday wasn’t a lot of fun. Nothing compared to last year, though.

After almost two days of flying and layovers, my wife and I arrived in the city. As anyone who’s made a trip like that knows, when you finally arrive, there ain’t much you want more than a hot shower. Unfortunately, we got here on “no-water” day morning. So we went another day water-less. We were staying at some little hotel on the other side of town. They told us there’d be water the next morning. Next morning we didn’t have water… or electricity. We were running out of utilities fast, so we were getting worried. About mid-day though the water came back on – apparently piped from Siberia – it was freezing. I guess I shouldn’t complain, though – that was just our first couple days here – some families pretty much live like that everyday on the field.

Anyway, thanks for your prayers for us the first year here. Please keep praying for us through the second, too. My original plan was to focus hard on the spoken language the first year, on the written the second. Though my spoken language is hardly perfect, it is about time for me to switch my focus. So here we go…