Frustrations and Victories

First of all, I need to talk about how thankful I am.  There have been so many benefits to us moving to Beijing, primarily that our family gets to be together more.  Jeff's week to two week trips once or twice a month have turned into overnight/couple of days trips here and there.  His daily work schedule has fallen into "normal" work hours and he is getting to REST!!  Praise God, He has answered our prayers!

The other night we picked up Jeff from the airport after he had an overnight trip for a one day meeting. We decided to eat dinner by the airport in an Expat area that we had not visited yet.  A restaurant was recommended and I looked it up online to get the address for Mr. Li.  After driving around for quite a while we finally found it.  When we went inside, needless to say, it was not the kid friendly Spriderman motif that I had raved to Jack about.  It had a couple of comic book character pictures up, but of course according to the reviews, I had invisioned a Marvel Comic book reader's paradise! 

After 2 hours of barely being able to communicate with the servers, not getting the food we ordered, and it coming out one dish at a time every 15 minutes or so, I was a little frustrated.  The evening was nothing like what I had planned and it was hard to just laugh it off.  One of my new friends has told me that just when you start to get comfortable with living in Beijing, you are reminded that this is NOT the culutre you are familiar with and you are an alien.  It is a call to me to remember to always be kind and helpful to the "alien" in your area, the person who is not a local or comes from another culture entirely. 

Now for a victory!  I have started teaching a music class for children of migrant workers.  You can read all about the organization I am volunteering for at www.cmc-china.org.  It was so fun to sing and play instruments with children who laugh and enjoy some of the same parts of a music class that elementary children in the U.S. do.  I had so much fun and I'm looking forward to going back next week!