Here's my co-facilitator and good friend Geoff.
He really likes this face.
It's not quite the Zoolander “Magnum” face, but its still pretty dang good. :)
Here is Ed. At 79 he is our oldest facilitator, and has lived an adventurous life doing missions including 25 years serving in Liberia during the civil wars. He is our TIP Grandfather and tells amazing (and intense!) stories.
The students sang Christmas carols for this session's talent show.
Syrena played guitar, and Dot joined in the singing.
Then, on Christmas Eve we went carolling to our students' dorms.
Dan was quite excited.. and hungry?
We were absolutely mobbed by hundreds of Chinese teachers (Many of them 40-50 year old women!) It was like being a rockstar!
The cameras flashed continuously
A good portrayal of how we felt with so many cameras flashing
They lined the balcony
And, while it was cool being like a rockstar, it was really awesome because we were able to bless so many students who had never experienced anything like this and will probably never experience it again. It really made Christmas meaningful and redeeming especially since I am so far from home. :)
Another example of how hard it is for the Chinese to get my name right. This was a Christmas card from Peking University. Unbelievable!
A nice card though.
A picture of our half of the session. I'm on the outer right.
A picture with Joshua - a strong Christian who was an amazing class monitor in Dot's class and a great leader and light for the other teachers.
This was Frank. He was a gentle giant from Tibet who was a very high speaker and enjoyable to talk to. He knows Tibetan dances too, though I of course didn't ask him to teach me. :)
Our students came up with quite creative vocabulary words for our “Great Wall of vocabulary”
Geoff and I were baffled as to how all these words ended up in the same part of the wall.. or where they found some of them!
Especially this “mack daddy!”
Graduation banquet Chinese style
A lot of food. A lot of meat. I loved it.
Also a lot of toasting. We toasted to just about anything. It was a fun afternoon.
Here is Annie. Another Tibetan student who was in our class. She was awesome.
Here is Power Lee (awesome name!). He was our class monitor. Take a second to make a guess at how old he is.
Annie again. She gave Geoff and I a traditional Tibetan scarf from her hometown. We were thankful.
Did you guess? You probably thought 35-50 right? Power Lee is 23!!
Here is Emma. She was our party planner and helped us put on a birthday party for the students. She was great.
On Christmas morning we made french toast and bacon.
Riley, a 28 year old facilitator from West Virginia and a huge New York Giants fan, donned a Christmas penguin while making biscuits.
I enjoyed a hearty meal our kitchen.
Delicious.
Here is Peter and Laura. They will be leaving this month to get married! They were both second year facilitators and were an amazing blessing to training and supporting us during the last 5 months.
A group of us enjoying Christmas morning.
Then, I took “family” Christmas photos with Geoff, Abby and Syrena during the evening on Christmas.
These were taken in our prayer room.
Notice the vintage Chinese communist coat I have on - this was a present from a Chinese friend from church. Her dad had it and didn't want it anymore - its literally about 20 years old!
Yummy snowball?
A bit cheesy, but lots of fun.
Geoff and I co-facilitated together this session. He's a champ!
The cigarrettes were all for show... dont worry, we didn't smoke them. The polluted Beijing air is more than enough for our lungs to handle. :(
Syrena on the left was here last year. Her Chinese is pretty dang good, and we will be working together next month to plan a Mandarin TIP. Abby and I co-facilitated last in October together!
Smiling
Gang signs. Geoff went with “blood.” Syrena and I went with “West side” because she is from Cali and therefore we are both from the West Coast, and Abby - who is from Indiana - went with “Middle Side..?” - the Midwest
