Returned from China in one piece

Dear friends and family,

I just returned from Kunming, China, a city of 6 million people located at 6,000 ft above sea level and maintaining a climate similar (at least for the week I was in China) to Arequipa (at least for the 6 weeks I was in Peru). There were many times that i walked down the street thinking to myself, man some of these Chinese sure look like some of the indigenous Incas of the Andes mountains (maybe this land bridge idea is legit).

While in China, my group (8 students, 7 adults and one 2 year old) was able to teach english at the Yunnan University of Finance and Economics. We were scheduled to teach 6 classes a day for 4 days, but on the first day a mix up in the schedule only permitted us teaching 3 classes. We split into three groups, and each group presented 2 classes each day, except for monday when we each only taught 1 class. The classes were Volleyball, Bhangra (Indian Punjabi dancing) and Whist (a popular and fairly easy card game). Each class had anywhere from 40-50 students in it, which means we taught a total of 21 classes at 40-50 students each class, meaning that we taught 840-1050 students over the course of 4 days. Each of the students were invited to an Easter program (tuesday and thursday night). On the first night approximately 120 students showed up and on the second night approximately 250 students showed up. Currently my voice is a little raspy because I was the loudspeaker for both of these nights. The first night we were able to play some games in groups of 12, however the room was completely full on Tuesday, so on thursday we were forced (happily so) to improvise. However; both nights some students were able to paint easter eggs, all students attempted to find 24 resurrection eggs hidden somewhere in the small room and both nights were performed the resurrection story through a narrative skit, we also ended the night with the song "Christ the Lord is Risen Today" (which none of the young students knew; thanks to my dad I knew it).

If you have any further questions about this trip please e-mail or leave a comment. I would love to tell you more about this awesome time and let you know how you can help Noelle and i continue to do the Lord's work in Asia.

IN Him,

Sam

Dancing all day.

Today at Singapore Expo I attended a conference about world peace. Although I am all for world peace I did not attend for the content of the topic. My dance group Sher e Punjab was a special performance to show northern Indian dance and harmony between the races. Yes I am used for my white skin! :) It was a great evening. The minister or foreign affairs was there along with a crowd of 4,000 people. The highlight was one of the stunts. There is nothing better then being swung in circles like a rag doll! It was quite a show.

Four more school days until spring break. We are feeling the need for some rest. Please keep Sam in your prayers as he will be on a relational trip to China over the holiday. Please also pray for Noelle as she shares the good news message with some of her students on Tuesday.

Blessings,

Noelle