One Week to Go

In one week we’ll be done. The classes will be over, the student and professors in the program dispersed, and the gifts given and received. We’ll be packing our bags. So quickly it comes to an end.

But before that happens we have a very full final week ahead of us. As of Friday afternoon we were told that we will be in our lovely, favorite building for another week. Of course, that could change, but meanwhile we’re relishing the prospective.

Many people have lifted up petitions on a regular basis. It’s as if there’s a giant invisible hedge around this high rise building in the center of a campus where there is construction, digging of trenches, scaffolding, on ever side. We climb past piles of rubble, duck under poles, and dodge workmen and trucks coming and going to class. But life goes on in our building as if it were an island in a storm – and it is.

Lots of good things are happening on that island. There are deep relationships forming between teachers and learners. Long conversations about English, culture, and most of all, about life and why we live the way we do. This next week the lessons go deep into issue of life, love, forgiveness, and trust.

Yesterday I stood after class with three of the English teachers in the class where I am assisting our lead teacher. One young woman probed our reasons for coming to China and the educational program we run on this campus. She is a teacher of the university from another campus. She was simply horrified to learn that we are all volunteers. “You give up four weeks, provide these high quality teaching sessions for us and for students, and the university doesn’t PAY you at all. That’s terrible.” I assured her that it wasn’t terrible at all. We are here because we want to be here and because giving back what we know is part of the ethos of our lives.

In a number of classes this week the topic of giving of oneself to others rose to the surface. Of course, it’s imbedded in the curriculum in many lessons but it’s a new idea to many of these young people and adults who are the only child in their family and who in many ways are the kings and queens of their own lives.

Giving without expectation of getting back is a new idea. Of course, we know it’s a biblical idea and is the foundation of all we believe. And it’s a good starting point for conversations that will go deeper.

Tomorrow is another Sunday. You can focus your intercession on getting learners to join us for services. Many have been invited, including the young woman I wrote about earlier this week. If they come, there are lots to talk about! And that’s what we’re here for.

If they are speaking English, they are learning English. We know what topics we want them to discuss while they speak English!