One Last Semester (More Stories of Joy and Sorrow)
First, I want to wish each of you a Happy Lunar New Year. ^_^It has been a long time since I've last written. I'm still alive and well. Having just finished my Spring Holiday, I am taking this week before the Spring Semester begins to prepare, reflect, and prioritize. This spring semester of 2008 will be my last here at Anhui Normal University. Come this summer, as China prepares to unveil itself at the 2008 Olympics, I'll be returning home to the United States for at least a year to listen and contemplate my next step.
So this semester is going to be a special one. How? I don't know how to say it all in a way that won't bore you... yet. But in the meantime please be lifting me up. May His hand be upon me in such a way that brings Him glory and brings me and my loved ones new life.
I won't overload you with too much information about my annual holiday meetings and classes in Thailand or with friends and family in China. If you are truly interested you can ask. ^_^
But what I will do is share two stories of very different natures. Stories are the heartbeat of our souls. To share these pieces of my life with you is for you to share in a part of my heart, so I ask that as you read them to please be thinking of me and my family here in China.
STORY 1:
---A Story of Triumph & Grace---
Since last semester, many of you have been actively thinking about the two student leaders who were involved in the motorbike collision near thanksgiving. Your emails have been encouraging and even more so I know the Father has heard your interventions. Thank you for everything you've done to walk alongside us.
Simply stated, Father has performed a miracle. Is His grace not sufficient? Give Him praise
Days before I left Wuhu for the Spring Holiday, JS and HJ were released from the hospital. After only a month and a half they have both recovered to the point that they can take care of themselves: walking, eating, studying, etc. No one thought such a feat would have been possible so quickly. After several surgeries JS' skull was reshaped and fixed (37 nails in his head), his liver stable after weeks of uncertainty. HJ's arms and legs and lower jaw were recovering from their breaks quickly.
Before I left for Thailand, my girlfriend visiting from the US and I had dinner with the boys. They had lost a lot of weight and appetites were large. We ate three huge platters of northeastern style meat and vegetables and talked about all that had passed. HJ was quiet as he normally is, shy but thoughtful. Several times during the meal he flipped through what looked like his journal/planner. JS was as talkative as he's always been, sharing about his surgery experience (not anything like what he'd seen on TV, he said) or his return visit to campus and the conversations with administrators and classmates.
That meal was a shining testament to me in what was otherwise a very difficult semester. I will remember it the rest of my life.
A picture of us at that dinner. I am looking forward to seeing them again as the semester begins. I hope we can continue our semi-weekly meals, as the weather warms I hope we can take walks through the park together. I hope we can continue to cast visions, serve, and strengthen one another to share and foster hope.
They themselves have been equipped with a new experience and testimony to His goodness. They know this, so keep lifting them up. May they receive wisdom and strength in this new life to bless others. May the healing process be complete. May their studies and futures continue to grow.
Praise His Name.
STORY 2:
---A Story of Tragedy and Grace---
I was in Beijing at a coffeeshop with my girlfriend and a few other friends. I was staying in Beijing just a few days during the beginning of break before going to Thailand for classes. All seemed well.
Suddenly I received a call from a teammate. She seems in tears, frightful. What had happened?
Simply stated... our campus had experienced another tragedy. One of our junior students passed away in a train accident at the Wuhu Railway station. "Is His grace sufficient?" I ask again... "Where is there the room for Praise in this?"
We knew her as "Calm," an English name she had chosen which mirrored the meaning of her Chinese name, Leng Jing. She had been waiting to go home to Fuyang for the holidays after a long semester when an unintentional push from behind in an overcrowded station sent her onto the tracks.
The following is an excerpt from China's XinHua News Agency...
"China's 'Chunyun' (Spring Holiday Migration), hailed as the "greatest human migration on the planet," is an annually hot topic. It became hotter this year after the death of a college student who was shoved off the platform at a railway station in east China's Anhui province and killed by a train. The tragedy occurred at about 4:55 p.m. on Sunday when Leng Jing, a junior student from the Anhui Normal University in east China, was waiting with more than 600 other passengers at Wuhu railway station. "
The full article can be found here: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-01/18/content_7448997.htm
In fact, the news became quite widespread and became a rallying cry amongst other similar deaths for change in China's holiday travel circumstances.
And so throughout the Spring Holiday our team carried this weight with us. The passing of this life (and many others) seems so senseless and cold. Now as the semester begins we are preparing ourselves to step back into classrooms of students who will be missing a classmate by their side. Most likely many will try and go on with business as usual. Though saddened in their hearts, they will most likely ascribe the title of "unlucky" to Calm's name and hope for the best.
But we know Calm was not just unlucky. We know she was loved by a family and by a Father above, though she did not know Him.
And now our team, our family of brother and sisters, seek daddy's will in all this. It will be a chance to share life with many in the midst of a great cost. We know not the best course of action, but we trust in His hands to move and comfort, to build up and strengthen.
What else can we do but trust? Praise His name?
Workers on the Wuhu railway. I took it when I first came to Wuhu three years ago. As I look at it again now... it's taken on a new meaning. Roads that carry millions of lives across this country each day. Roads that have also taken life away. Oh, how we long for Home!
---
Two stories... one of Joy and another of Sorrow.
Why?
Because this is life... both beautiful and broken.
Let us live well.
Love and Peace,
posted by Unknown @ 12:51 PM
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