Shout outs, Short Stories, and Starry Skies

So since I last wrote to you about falling on the stair while running much has happened. I suppose the biggest change is the one in geography.  I am now in a different city again.  We finished moving apartment number 2.  Now that I have left two apartments barren and desolate, boxed up their lives and put them in storage, and packed up mine I definitely feel ready to come home.

I said goodbye to Lee yesterday.  No tears there.  I am not one to have a weepy goodbye, so that wasn’t so bad.  Here in a little over a day I will be saying good bye to the family too.  Then I will be staying here with their friends for 3 more days before I begin the trek home.  That journey will take me approximately 36 hours.

Ok.  Enough with the looking forward, I need to fill the internet world in on what has happened in the last 5ish days.  As I mentioned we moved out of the second apartment and are in another city visiting with friends for a few days.  But before that I was able to eat with Lee at our Chinese friend’s house again. This time it was a much smaller group of us.  We spent some time worshiping together again, and one of the sisters has the most beautiful worshipper’s heart.  You can just sense the Spirit around her intensifying when she sings.

I hope to have that kind of passionate love for and satisfaction in Jesus.  I hope that it can be as visible in my life as it is in hers. Also she and I became somewhat of friends that night.  We talked about cooking, school, and how I hope to live in China some day. 
This woman’s focus was so on the Lord that when she found out I had a boyfriend her very first question was “Does he know Jesus?”   She sang for a while, but she sang the scripture.  The crazy thing is that though her Bible was open her eyes were closed.  She just knew it.

Those two dinners were a real blessing to me.

Another blessing is the internet.  Thanks to the internet I am able to communicate with people back home easily, which in the last week I have done a lot of that.  Shout out to: my mom, my dad, Will, Tiff, Mel, Paul, Brooke,and Kate, and everyone else who I have talked to recently.  It is great to have your support and encouragement.  And to Tiff Leah, Kelsey, and Kevin I love reading your blogs and hearing your escapades in your own foreign countries this summer. 

As for my escapades, Gabriel has developed this obsession with looking at pictures on my computer.  Lately we have been looking at the pictures of Kate, Alex, and I’s excursions in Beijing.  Looking through those pictures makes me realize how much I miss Kate and Alex.  I loved that fellowship.  BUT thanks to the internet I can still talk with them. 
Beijing was a good experience.  I am sure these last few days will be too.  The Lord is faithful to reveal Himself to us when we seek Him.  I have done and seen a lot this summer, but I want to see more of God’s heart and glory.

I was able to see watch the world cup live on Chinese TV on the internet.  I watched the semifinal US game and the final.  Those were in the middle of the night for me.  Good thing I am a pretty natural night owl.  It was really refreshing to watch, well not physically.  It helped continue to make me excited for coming back and getting back into soccer… it is going to be brutal trying to get into shape and get my touch back on the soccer ball in just a couple of weeks once I get home.  BUT I am totally pumped for it.  I have been running some and working out a little here.  It is my senior year, and not only do I want our school to be threepeat national champs, but I want to do my absolute best for the Lord this year.

Humorous story about the World Cup.  On Monday morning Lee asked me how it went, and I replied very downcastly that Japan beat us in pk’s.  Lee’s response, “Well that is ok.  We beat them in World War II.”  HAHAHAHA

Yesterday as soon as we moved out of the apartment a Korean family (here for the same purposes as all of us) moved in.  Literally, we packed the car and went to lunch and they called to see if we were still there or not because they were ready to move in.

On the way to where we are now we stopped in Lanzhou to visit with some other friends who just had a baby.  This baby was only 8 days old and soooo tiny.  He still had his umbilical cord!  I had never seen that before.  The fact that 8 day old babies even have little fingernails confounds me.  I don’t understand how God designed us so intricately to start so small, to grow, and to learn.

The other thing that just inspired so much awe yesterday was the stars.  The stars on our late night drive were so numerous and so bright.  I can’t imagine what they must have looked like when God told Abraham to look at them, and then promised to make his descendants a blessing to all the nations. I was just reading in Galations 3 today about how through the saving work of Jesus I am one of those descendants.  To think that the promise God made to Abraham thousands of years ago is still coming true, and I am a part of it… blows my mind.  It blows my mind how creative, how vast and infinite, how powerful, how glorious, and how faithful God is.  When I see the stars they hold me captive and cause me to gawk at my Creator.   What a mighty and worthy God we serve. 

Today I went swimming… more like splashing.  I don’t have my swim suit here with me so I just waded around in the kiddie area splashing and being splashed by Gabriel.  I was completely soaked…

Anyway Chinese swimming pools are quite the experience.  There were soooo many people there.  They almost all wear swim caps. The men all wear little tight shorty shorts, or they improvise and just swim in their underwear… that was a somewhat scarring experience.  But all in all it was a pretty fun time.

Well my friends, that is all for now. I am sure that I will be writing more over these last few days and hours here.  Going to make the most of them and try to glean all I can from this experience.

Much love for China, God, and all my fam and peeps.

I will be seeing you soon,

Devra