Part three
We are coming to the end of our teaching. Today (July 30) is the last day of classes with the closing ceremony tomorrow morning and then a party at the school that Jane, Sonia and I will host for all of our teachers.
The weather is cooler and, the last couple of days, wetter. We have umbrellas so we can keep fairly dry; the real problem is you have to be extra careful crossing the street.
Last Saturday, our liaison, Mr. Ni took us to the Egret Island International Echo Park, about two and a half hours from here. It is truly beautiful with a big lake and walkways and a lookout building where you can see hundreds of white egrets. There is a building development along the lake that is very nice. After lunch we went to the hot springs.
Sunday morning we headed to church. As you enter, there are a number of people selling on the street. There is everything from food to shoes. They know there will be well over 1,500 people coming to the service. Following the service there are a number of poor people outside begging for money. Before worship, there is a time to practice the hymns for the day. The service itself has some hymns I did not know. However, they have Holy, Holy, Holy and the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostle’s Creed. During the service, we had many people offer us hymn books and Bibles. They were in Chinese but it shows the universality of the Christian community to reach out to the stranger. The pastor provided us with a Chinese-English hymn book and Bible. During the service one of the pastors sat with us and explained the service. Although I did not understand the Chinese, I did feel that it was a great experience to worship with so many people who have a real Christian commitment. Following the service we met the pastor and a couple of the elders who were organizing baptismal certificates.
I found the Chinese very gracious and warm to us foreigners. People from all walks of life acknowledge us and say greetings to us. It is nice to be so far from home but still see warm smiles.
As part of this new Amity program, we are asking our teacher-students to be more involved in the classes. Last week, each student prepared a short lesson to deliver to their classmates. It was great. This week, today, each student working with a couple of others prepared a full lesson of 30-40 minutes. It was a great ending to the classes. In China, it is important to note that they have large classes of 40-75 people with 45-minute periods. There is a great deal of concern about this matter and work is being done at various levels to lessen the load. Overall, the teachers we worked with have been extremely professional and willing to work together in learning from us and teaching us as well.
It has been another wonderful experience with just one day to go.
Good-bye for now from Ma’anshan, China.
