Be Joyous and Chairful!

What do you get when you combine skiing, ice skating, and sitting? A a glorious recreation only China can come-up with! I am going to call it chair-ice skating for lack of a better name.
A week or so ago the whole Baoding team got really pumped up to go swimming in a hotel across town. We arrived ready to swim in our "bathing suits" and with the idea of staying all day, until we found out the dreaded news...you had to wear a swim cap (that we didn't have) and the boys had to have real swim suits! Even if the boys did have the "proper" swim wear, look to the right for an idea of what the men wear here, it still was going to cost us each 100 yuan! No thanks! We resorted to plan B, ice skating. On the way back to change out of swim suits into ice wear, we stopped at the local park with ice skating to check it out and discovered chair-ice-skating! It basically consists of a wooden chair with sled like bottoms. You have a little place in front of you to put your feet and two poles to push yourself on the ice. I think mostly children do it in China, but aren't we called to remain child-like? There are also options in the chair, well...you can either go solo or get a chair with someone and slide all around the ice. The solo chair offers a faster take-off, but the double chair offers a faster top speed. Look to the left to see the little ham demonstrating the chair.

After one look at the chair-ice skating we knew we had to return! After changing, we gathered back together and grabbed the 29 bus through the rush hour traffic back to the park. Their were people out riding the chairs and people ice-skating as well, but as we approached the booth the pay for our chair, their was rope wrapped around two columns five or six times indicating it was closed. Bummer! Dismayed, we stood there for a moment trying to collect new ideas of what else we could do, when a Chinese lady breezed by, ducked under the rope and went out onto the ice. A moment later, we did exactly the same thing. For the next hour and a half we raced, pushed each other, made trains together, became friends with a seven-year old named Tom and generally didn't act too much older than him. It was a magnificent close to the day.

Me riding on the chairs! So fun!

Morphoo

How often I take second best! How often I will settle! Emily and I stood waiting for the 39 bus to come our way to take us to the Honeypool for a refreshing cup of whip cream-covered coffee, and started to chat about the movie we'd just seen. The team made a deal on New Year's day off right with a movie marathon together, that happened to turn into watching only two movies: Little Women and Braveheart. The latter was the main topic of discussion. "Yeah, it may have seemed okay at first for the men to take the land and take what the English government offered them. They were getting land and protection, but they also were being deceived. It was not the true freedom they desired, but a false imiation of it, that left them prone to abuse and a life of fear." Emily said along those lines. As we continued to talk about it I couldn't help but think of all the times I settle for what the world has to offer me, which can seem great with "land" but never brings the true freedom I desire. It is only through the true freedom from Him that I can really live life.

When you know the taste of freedom you can help, but desire to share it with those around you. I am finished with my exams and grading now and am blessed to have a flexible schedule to hang out with the students before they leave for their winter holiday. With both the New Year and the Chinese New Year on our minds it is easy to chat with the students. What do they desire for the next year? Do they have any new goals for their lives? Is there something they would like to differently? I've gotten a lot of study more answers, but my hope is some of the students are really thinking about how their lives could be different in the upcoming year. The same goes for myself as well. I never desire the place of stagnation! In a study I do in the mornings I came across the Greek word morphoo, which means "the inward and real formation of the essential nature of a person." It often was used to describe the embryo in a mother's body as it forms and grows. My hope for myself in 2009 is as I am being more conformed to the image of Him, that the complete essences of my nature will be changed. I want to be a person who will not settle!