Day 3 in Beijing

I am ending my third full day in Beijing tonight. What a ride it has been thus far! Yesterday we got to enjoy our first time out in the city. We went to Tiananmen Square during our activity "the Amazing Race". This was cool because we got a taste of the local transportation by using bus and subway. The subway was an experience because my card wouldn't let me enter in, while all my teammates passed through. I was on the outside of the gate with no clue what to do. I was so frazzled with the amount of people and I was frantic to be the only one on the wrong side of the gate! My leader helped me out though thank goodness! The day was super hot and we saw a new trend where middle age men tuck their shirts in and allow their midriff to be exposed. LOVED IT! haha and then we found a local Starbucks! Just amazing! But back to today, I have come to love eating with chopsticks every meal. I look forward to my mornings beginning right before 6 am where me and another girl, Megan, have created a running club of about six other girls. We take a route east, west, north or south we're not really sure and follow where our feet lead us. This morning we were blessed to find our feet move toward a dirt trail alongside what appeared to be a manmade river. As we jogged along the smoggy city, there are many of the locals well into their day already. We pass bikes, carts, zipping by us, and we catch a glimpse of a morning market opening. Although the air quality isn't the best... this morning ritual has become a treasured time. I love running- I always will. The day progresses with a morning meal in the hotel- typically delicious! Then we carry on into our morning meetings learning the ropes of this new country we have decided to live in for the next year! When lunch comes around, we are very aware of our grumbling bellies and quickly exchange our books for our wallets and hit the pavement for a new local restaurant! Our team has already established a quick/strong bond and we enjoy spending our free time together. There are 11 of us total. We have two team leaders (Dan and Val) a recently married couple who have been serving in Asia for about 5 years now. Then we have four great guys and five awesome women! I am blessed to be serving this next year with them. I can already tell it will be a difficult goodbye at the end of the year... we are already a family. Hard to avoid that in a completely new culture and life. Anyways, the restaurants typically have one HUGE menu they give to a table and the menu is amazing! It has SO many options, and it comes with pictures!! So fun! One person typically orders for the table and after a couple meals with our leaders ordering, my thoughts have moved from hoping I find one dish I like into excitement to try everything! (Although I am still not fond of the spicy stuff haha thanks dad!) Anyways, the day carried on after a huge communal lunch with more meetings. Then we had some free time where our team went to the local "wu-mart" :) and then we went to a local "work-out" park and played around on the equipment. Finally we organized ourselves into two kickball teams and begin playing at the small park. There are locals gathered around and I took notice of one man seeming to laugh at everything us crazy Americans were doing. We became a spectacle and decided to pursue dinner and avoid drawing attention to ourselves. Megan and I chose the frugal route and shared this interesting spicy potato egg thing... neither of us could handle it for long. So we discarded this and began to have a great conversation about the reality of our pasts, the pains we have, where we have come from, and the reality of our present. We sit in a room on the sixth floor of a hotel in Beijing. WHAT?! We discuss our hopes and aspirations for the team, and the relationships we will be making with our students. Despite such different backgrounds, our conversation shows us how clearly the Father has orchestrated our journeys to this point. We are on the same page going into this year. We have confidence and hope in something bigger than ourselves. PTL. We topped of the day with two magnum chocolate ice cream bars and a great movie called Shower.