Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone! Easter here in China is not nearly the same as in the U.S., but we can imagine what most of you are doing at this exact moment. A teacher of mine asked me last week what we do for Easter in America and I informed her that just like during Christmas Americans celebrate two different stories on Easter – that of the gospel story and that of the fluffy white bunny. Even though they have absolutely nothing to do with each other we somehow make it work. So whether you’re hiding eggs or joining a congregation – or both – we’re pretty jealous of what you’re doing either way. 

It has been a bit disappointing to see how Easter is completely ignored here. On Thanksgiving we got a day off from school and Christmas (at least the Santa part) is practically a Chinese holiday now, but Easter, the foundation of our beliefs, is completely ignored. Tiff actually had an entire class of hers tell her that she was wrong about Easter being this Sunday. In one sense they were both right – of course Easter was today but as far as those kids are concerned today was like any other day.

So what have we been up to, you ask? Well, first I’ll tell you about the big event this last week before I go onto our Easter day activities. Last Friday the principal of our school took the Edminsons, us and a few other Chinese English teachers out to go bowling and eat! This is the first time either of us have been bowling in who knows how long. The word “alley” pretty much describes the size of this bowling arena which housed a whopping 4 lanes in the basement of some random building near downtown. The actual lanes were well-kept however and made for a few good games and some good times with our friends. In this picture here you can see Kyle, I, and Wei Gong, the principal of our school (and a mighty fine bowler).

Tiff began teaching a new tutor student on Saturday which turned out to be a 14-yr old girl who seems very nice. When her mom came and picked her up she invited us to go “mountain climbing” with them on Sunday (Easter) and we agreed to go. That is basically what filled up most of our Easter this year. They picked us up in their own car – a real sign of wealth here – and drove us about 40km north to a small range of hills near a winding stream. It was a very tiring trek but the scenery was an absolutely beautiful reminder of how our Creator can take something as boring as a dry desert and turn it into a living example of His attention to detail. I wish I could say I’m so deep as to draw some sort of parallel between this and Easter, but I won’t lie – I just loved the scenery and the outdoors. Tiff’s tutor and her mother got a free English lesson out of the deal just talking with us the whole time, but I think the exchange was pretty fair.

We had hoped to make an Easter dinner tonight but were just too wiped out to do so, and when we eventually did go out to eat with the Edminsons, Tiff became a little nauseous and we’ve had to call it an early night. So Easter hasn’t gone entirely as we had planned it but that’s really O.K. Anything we could have done just wouldn’t compare to being able to celebrate with family and friends at our own chrch, especially when the rest of society that surrounds us does not yet know the joy that is the meaning of this holiday.

Well, that's all we have for now. We hope that your Easter is turning out to be an enjoyable day! For those of you in Dallas we hope that the snow flurries turned into enough warmth so you could wear your Easter attire! Ha! We love you all!