It's 2013!!! And busy!!!

I have to apologize to my followers and supporters.  I pledged last year to blog often.  I pledged that I'd blog twice a week... now I am lucky if I get to it twice a month!  On one hand I feel like I have failed you, my readers.  On the other hand, I have realized, and hope that you can see, as well, that it's actually a good sign when I find that I have no time to spend on the internet!  I definitely want to share with you what God's doing here, but I have found that lately I have been spending very little time on the internet outside of lesson planning and other work-related searches.

Life's been busy. New Year's was great.  I had the opportunity to spend some time with some friends (pictured above left), and it was a great time singing karaoke, eating hot pot, and counting down to the new year! My New Year's resolution was to stop drinking Coke. So far I've held true, but my friends know about it and have been tempting me!! AHH! :)

My birthday (January 3) went well. One of my friends surprised me with a ukulele and a birthday cake!  It was a lot of fun!  Later that day, I was surprised with another birthday cake and about 12 of my previous students (currently Serena's students) standing around a table singing happy birthday to me!  It was overwhelming to be able to have so many students and friends spend the day with me to make it very special! :)

The photos on either side of this paragraph were foods that I cooked for some students after we went to the orphanage. We've been collecting some clothing and toys for the kids at the orphanage, and we delivered them this week!  We then went to Serena's house and ate lots of food!  On the left you can see a Chinese dish that I made: hot and sour eggplant and pork.  On the right you can see a more familiar dish: enchiladas (minus the sauce!! It was added later)






On the left here you can see a picture of a creation wheel.  During Bible study on Friday, the kids and I learned about creation.  We talked about what happened on each day, and then we created a wheel.  They didn't finish, so we'll finish it this week!  It was fun to see their excitement about making a craft telling the story of creation! :)  And yes, I wrote the Chinese!  I had to get it checked and double checked before I actually used it during class, though!

These things are only a few of the many things that I have been doing in the past couple weeks.  Classes have started up again after the 'break', and we have many new students!  I was able to go to hot pot with some of my students (they had invited me to go out to dinner, which I was super excited about!) and I met up with a group of Christians in Macau, and was able to get connected to a group that I can easily relate to to help me get uplifted through Christian fellowship! :)

So many changes have been happening in my life in Macau, and I am excited.  It's great!  Change is good!

I have a guest coming soon: she is from my hometown, and I am stoked to be able to host her for a week!

Hopefully I'll get back to you sooner than February! :)

If you have any questions, please ask me!  And feel free to comment!  I love hearing comments and knowing that people are reading the posts! ;) That helps encourage me to write more often! :)