As planning is being examined; we assume Taiwan is our first stop; then maybe South Korea; Japan; and the Philippians on the tail of the circle. We thought about Thailand but maybe not. Anyway lots of maybes have bothered us in May and now in June. But if you consider that I can’t remember most of the past; why would I want to remember the future?
I have two other interesting stories; the first about a national teacher Raymond. During lunch Sue and I usually arrive before most other teachers; we pretend to look forward to our lunch of white rice, green things; sometimes vegetables, tofu, and a thumbnail side piece of unidentifiable meat. About half way through lunch, our assistant Dandan and her roommate Nicole (another teacher that we have had to our apartment for ice cream) joined us. Moments later came Raymond. Before he started eating; he asked “Do you believe in God?” I wasn't ready for that question. Yes, why do you ask? Are you interested to know how or why? Yes but first I want to know; do you have a Holy Bible? I answered yes; and he asked do you know what is in it? Some; yes. I see you have another question. Yes is one of the 12 disciples a woman? I am watching a movie about this. We had follow up conversation at our apartment that evening. I think he is about 25 and when I showed him my Bible; he said this is the first one he has seen.
****This prompts the question; when was your Holy Bible used other than as we did during my school years; used it to press dried flowers. He opened it to Genesis glanced at a few pages and asked where does it say about the Trinity? Approximately an hour later when I knew he would have to leave; I asked what proof would you need in order to believe what I explained? I knew he wouldn’t believe the Bible or the God / Man form of Jesus. I answered my question saying first you must trust God by faith; second for physical proof examine me; it is a bit of a self challenge when you direct someone to see God through yourself. But it should work that way…if they don’t look too close. This certainly does add to the interesting journey that I have had especially if you go back 60 years plus.
Next is Nicole and Dandan; we talked with each to offer them to understand more and get questions answered. Nicole said no thanks although I was explaining as she said no. Dandan is curious but doesn't want to look too deep. We left her with the simple explanation that religion is man trying to reach up to God while Christianity is God reaching to man. The sad news is that we will soon be leaving these 3 friends; the good news is we have had an opportunity to talk with Min one of our interviewers. So we have another open door.
This part of writing and life in general was interrupted Wednesday evening. We were informed we had to move immediately; some problems with our paperwork. We packed Thursday and left Friday WOW!!! If our penmanship is a little rough; we are writing this during our 7 hour bus ride. Our goodbyes were very quick. We will stay in Zhengzhou for a few days doing paperwork and waiting for our things to catch up to us. A very surprising event; here in Zhengzhou. We saw our shadow both Saturday and Sunday.
Have you ever had the thrill of a bus ride for 7 hours with the driver tooting his horn every 5 minutes; maybe more? I am not certain at times what he is tooting at; maybe a leaf blowing across the road; or maybe the trees themselves. City driving is even worse; I counted 37 times in a 5 minute span, that about every 8 seconds. You might expect the horn to wear out with overuse; actually the button wears out first. Some of our city buses have a replacement button.
Well it’s Sunday June 15 and we are on a bus headed to Zhengzhou; we have an interview with our new school. The interview will be teachers and staff watching us teach. They were very impressed and said we were well qualified. Who would have thought that a girl from a small town Brimley and a Kimberly graduate with a GPA of 0.4 would be teachers? (This isn't a typo for the grade point average.) The city’s name is Handan and it will involve a 30 minute bus ride when we need to go to the big city. There we can connect with a fast (bullet) train to connect with most of the country. Fast train is not an exaggeration; it travels approximately 300 KM an hour; that 180 MPH.
Reminding you that we are on this 7 hour bus ride; we do strange things to occupy ourselves. For example calculating this speed, I know that Kilometers are divided by 100 to make meters; meters divided by 100 to make centimeters and so on. Why hasn't someone invented an easier way to tell time? The problem exists with a non consistent year, so we add a day every so often, and then divided by 12 you still come up with inconsistent. A month is anywhere from 28 to 31 days. The next divide by a very inconvient number like 24; take that and divide by 60 and divide by 60 and you have a second. I think that we could do better.
I told you a bus ride was boring and when the mind wanders there’s no telling. We are in a wandering situation right now; physically rather than mentally. Mostly settled in to our new apartment and mostly done with some vacation although we still plan to travel to a preserve to see the Pandas in the wild. We’ve found 2 reasonable sized grocery stores apparently there are 2 more; I found the post office but they said it’s not a post office although they had package, stamps and other things. We are adjusting to our new city although for several days they decided they don’t want to hire Sue and how is that going to work. Some very slow negotiations and even slower resolve; we may have to move back to Gushi. At this very moment, we think not.
We will try to do another section about our vacation but for now I guess we will end this and get it posted.
Dennis and Sue
