Busy Days

Lunch group on Women's Day

Wall at the DIY Garden

Tricia, Shane, and Geoffrey cashing in our 373 tickets!!

Jade and Geoffrey and Tricia playing at the Arcade.. good fellowship.

Jade and Tricia cheating at the kids game.

It seems that Spring is always busier. I take on a little more and try to keep myself moving. The weather motivates me... once Spring weather kicks in. So far it hasn't. We had a day of sunshine today and a little on Friday. It was wonderful.

Saturday was a long day... The school took the women on an outing to celebrate Internation Women's Day. They took us to the newly opened Ningbo Museum. It was interesting. The architecture of the building was the coolest part. It is very modern contemporary. Lots of angles and things. There were 3 Greyhound busses worth of us women from all over Ningbo doing the tour, making it really easy to sneak away from the group. After the museum we went to the planning office for the New Ningbo Eastern City Center... because one center to a city is not enough.. they need to build another one. Then on to a fabulous lunch at a famous fishery restaurant. It was special Ningbo seafood.... quite delicious. We sat at a table of women from Tiawan. They were cute and funny and didn't speak much English. I actually understood a lot of what they were saying. It's always fun to realize you speak more and understand more of a language than you thought. It was a great lunch. Then we went on to a small village outside the city to a Confucious Temple, and then to the DIY Garden.

The DIY Garden was so interesting. It is a center where Chinese and foreign volunteers are working to build up the Arts and Creativity in China. They make all kinds of art and different things that are traditional Chinese.. and also are doing some western Art. There are a couple foreign companies that are selling art supplies... real supplies. Real paints and canvases and things. It was wonderful to see real supplies. Then there is Prim that does sewing and quilting. Real fabric scissors, thread, yarn, needles... etc. It was great to see. It was very nice to see someone bringing original thought and creativity back into this culture.

After this long day... I met Jade and the downtown family for some great fellowship. We had a nice dinner of Mickey D's double cheeseburger... and then on to an arcade. Much like fast tracks or celebration station. Minus the go carts and batting cages. We played and laughed and cheated at children games.. and won tickets and ended up with one pencil each, and the girls got a hair tie. That's what we could get for all of our tickets. It was great fellowship and just learning more about each other time. They really appreciated us making the trip downtown just to spend some time with them.

I enjoyed it so much more. With the busy life I lead here sometimes, and my focus on the seekers and the family out at campus.. it's hard to do more than spend all day Sunday with the downtown family. I am going to make more and more of an effort to be downtown during the week. That can be difficult because of classes and the long trip to town, but so worth it. I am making that more of my focus for the time being. The new boundaries in our team, and the work we are doing is going very well. We all know exactly what to do and how to do it. We all have the support we need and the meetings and time we spend together is going well. This is all because of you and your emotional, financial, and spirit*** support. Thank you.