Not One Day Less

Time is going quickly and while the amount of days left in China are slowly dwindling, work on the Hua Qiao campus is not! Rather, things on campus, especially the temperatures are speedily increasing!

In the past two weeks, we have had two additions to the family!! Can we just take a moment to SHOUT in thanksgiving from the rooftops and JUMP for joy at the His faithful hand?!  Both have incredible stories and incredible design of the Father in their life to safely bring them to this point! Both are students whose names have been on our hearts and on our lips over the course of the year in our time before the Father, and it is such a joy as a team to celebrate together before Him for answering these requests!

Let's begin first with the boy's story. He is a student dating one of my teammate's students. My teammate's student became a sister about a month ago after another sister had been pouring into her the past few years. After conversations and encounters with other brothers & sisters, she came to my teammate seeking answers and eventually their weekly meetings led to her accepting His Hope! It was an incredibly quick, but protected process for her and she continues diving into the Word with my teammate on a weekly basis. So this girl has been dating a boy for a few years now, and they have marriage in their future as they are both are seniors this year. While he was very excited about this new change in his girlfriend, he did not have the same opinions on beliefs. He actually grew up knowing Truth but then somehow in growing up decided against that way of life and just kept it as a part of his past. Well, two weeks ago, our team has introduced students around the team encouraging more relationship-building. This boy quickly built a relationship with one of the guys' on our team (Side note: love how He uses the body) So... this guy began meeting with the boy. Now, probably about the second time they met (last week), he became a brother! Now, here comes His craziness blowing in! Last week, we had heard that our sister (or his girlfriend) was fasting. Having not discussed this discipline, my teammate met with her. Turns out, she had chosen this with specific purposes of seeking Father on behalf of her boyfriend. And the FATHER GAVE HER THIS GIFT!!! Wow. Now, that is loving a person right through forever! This is hope! This is love.

Now, let's turn to our new sister. She is a student of my teammate's students! As always, the Father knows our ripeness and sent in my teammate to harvest. In light of this, my teammate arranged for me and this girl to begin meeting! And Friday was our first meeting. I met her and her friend on Friday at 5 pm for dinner in dining hall 2. Her friend is not a sister, but also has my teammate for a teacher and came because of questions she had. For the next 2.5 hours, we all talked about so many different things. We shared some personal 'get-to-know' you stories, and discussed questions. Flora wondered about the relationship between death, life, and hope. And I was given the gift of explaining to her using the Sword. And much to my encouragement, my new sister was able to fill in many of the gaps leading us to tag-team answering her questions. It was truly an incredible conversation and experience for me. Thank you Father for this gift! The Father knew I needed the encouragement. I had recently been discouraged by my inability to have really deep & fruitful life-changing conversations with students. With low-speaking level students, deeper convos are not the "norm". Anyways, this little gift of meeting with this girls is such an incredible experience, and requests on our behalves are always cherished!

As relationships with students & work with teaching on campus are not slowing down, I have found myself personally battling in a new position with emotions. The past week or so, I have reached phase two in my "transition" season: pulling away as a defense mechanism. It is easy to pull away from my team, from students, from work here in hopes of miraculously somehow avoiding the eventual goodbye awaiting me in 5 weeks. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, my first stage was shock. Now, my shock has turned to withdrawal. I am as or more involved now as I have ever been before with students, but there is this internal wall building as I spend time with people here. Because deep down, I can't shake the reality that soon none of my life now will be the same. My teammates will not live within feet of me. My mornings will not be filled with dozens of Chinese students smiling up at me. My evenings will not be filled with grading assignments and logging them manually in my paper gradebook. My weekends will not be filled with student hangouts eating gou bao rou, or hot pot and singing my lungs out at Karaoke! So as most things in life, we come to the crossroad of fight or flight! And it's easiest to do the latter. But, in my one-on-one with Val today, I began to put some of these pieces together as I verbally processed. I DON'T want to be the one that avoids the inevitable through the flight reflex. No. I am a DIXON... and by golly, we choose to FIGHT! Not only is this true, but I am more importantly a daughter of the King. And if there is anything I know, it is that he did not give us a spirit of fear or timidity, but one of power, love & self-control (2 Timothy 1:7)! So, as His warrior, I take this scripture to heart, and write this out because I need to hear myself say, "I will choose to fight. I will choose  to stand here loving my students, my teammates, my job with all that is within me despite how painful it will be to eventually surrender it all & let go by saying goodbye. Because when I committed to coming here over a year ago, I chose then to come with all my heart and with all that is me for the full 11 months. Not a day less. So, I will love with His love for all 331 days that I am on Chinese soil. Not one day less!"