1 year, 4 months and 12 days later...

so its time for the weekly china post. ha ha. For as much as I'm thinking about it, i'm really suprised it only comes up every now and then. I just got an email from my good friend, and old teammate, merry. She's 4 months pregnant and absolutely adorable! Anyway getting her email and seeing her picture brought everything back so clearly and vividly. Like I can smell it and see certain instances like I had just walked off the street and up the 3 flights of stairs to my apartment. And I got to thinking that if I could re-live any part of my life it would be my time in china. Don't get me wrong, life is good right now and I'm learning a lot and excited about what God's got in store, but I'd trade it in a heartbeat to just be with those people in that place again. I can't explain it. I wish i could make sense of why I feel how I do and put it in a nice box wrapped with a bow, but it's not wrapped up, or even near a box. a year and a half later i'm still as torn as when i stepped off the plane.

Here is meredith as a rockstar and a mom.

waiting

So I'll be the first to admit I'm not the most patient person. I always end up in the slow line or in the right lane wanting to turn right on red when the person in front of me is going straight, multitasking like crazy to get on to the next thing. But recently God has put a spirit of waiting on me. And I LOVE it.

This Sunday at church I just got really excited about the waiting process. Not about what I was waiting for (because I don't really know what that is and I'm sure at some point I'll be excited about it), but just about WAITING. And how beautiful it is. Looking forward to waiting, it goes against all my internal wiring, I don't get it, but it's good. It reminded me of a poem I had read by Rabindranth Tagore.

Tagore was from an influential Bengali family and was the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in literature (in 1913). His poems are phenomenal. Oh my goodness. I don't know much about poetry, but his collection "Gitanjali" is incredible. Every poem is like a deep breath that you hold in for a second just to taste the sweetness.

I just love how this poem captures what my heart feels in this time of waiting.

"This is my delight, thus to wait and watch at the wayside where shadow chases light and the rain comes in the wake of summer. Messengers, with tidings from unknown skies, greet me and speed along the road. My heart is glad within, and the breath of the passing breeze is sweet. From dawn to dusk I sit here before my door, and I know that of a sudden the happy moment will arrive when I shall see. In the meanwhile I smile and I sing all alone. In the meanwhile the air is filling with the perfume of promise."

play

i love snow. I love the beauty and stillness of it. I love how it transforms everything and everyone. I love snowball fights. I love how they bring out, the kid in us. The long stifled voice that goes back to recess on the playground days and organizes teams and makes up rules on the fly. "single elimination, if you hit someone on the other team, one of your teammates gets to come back in", "1-2-3-4-5-turn-throw", "five throw?", "no five turn throw", "how do I get up from this snow angel?" "you totally just put a boob on our snowMAN" I love it. I love that for 30 minutes one sunday we just forgot that we were adults with jobs and responsibilities and just played. Thanks friends!



i love snowmen.


isn't this the most sculpted snowman face you've ever seen? And it seriously took the girls no time to make it. incredible.

weird

so my favorite candy used to be sweettarts. I could eat A LOT of them. All at once. Now i don't so much like them (i've moved on to the more mature candy of nerds), but i got some for Christmas so i took them to work. after eating probably a 5th of the amount I used to be able to eat, my face started to get really hot. And my eyelids started sweating. I'm not sure physically why, or how this happens, or even that your eyelids can sweat, but it's so weird. I've never heard of anyone else's eyelids sweating. No other candy does this to me. only sweettarts and only my eyelids. this isn't new, it's happened since i was little, but i had forgotten about it until five minutes ago when my face got really hot...

breaks my heart

lately I've been thinking about what breaks my heart. What are the things I'm so passionate about that I would lay my life down for? I'm sitting here watching a PBS program on life inside china. This episode is about freedoms in china. When you live there, you hear the "party message" and experience the red tape every day, but you almost become used to it. Just start to think of it as life as normal forgetting that it is not normal, or just.

They just showed a clip of a raid on a house church. The police (psb) take those who were meeting out into the street and start beating them. They then bulldoze the house. Just because they were choosing to worship in their homes and not in a registered church.

I never experienced persecution. Some of my friends did. Getting pressure to join the party, and stop meeting with us (second to needing to study, joining the party was the answer we most often got when our friends stopped calling us). Those who did choose to study with us would have to hide their bibles and study in secret. They know the cost of following Him. It is so real to them but still they shared His truth with their classmates. Trying to feel out who would be interested and who would turn them in to the class monitors. They share boldly knowing what will most likely happen if anyone finds out they're a Christian. And their friends are believing, and telling others, and they are believing and the Church is growing. And it's beautiful.

China definitely breaks my heart. Everything about it. The people, the language, the culture. The void in their eyes and their answers when you ask them what they love, what they're living for. How can you not love them? How can you look at them and the smile they're pushing through and not die inside at the hopelessness of their lives without Jesus?

genius

Holy cow! Last night was the best episode of 24 ever. Seriously. I sort of pride myself on knowing what's coming next in 24. After watching it for a while you start to pick up on the writers subtle hints and what's going to happen, who is the mole, when CTU is going to get taken over, when Jack is going to get captured etc. And the premiers started like that. Milo is back (which is random because I can't remember how they phased him out, I'll have to go back and watch). And I was making my predictions to how stuff was going to fall. And then at 9:53am...Yeah...The writers are genius. I NEVER would have thought they would have what they did the last 7 min. of the show. It's going to be an incredible season!!!

know

I've found recently (well I've known it for a while) that I "know" a lot of things. like it's almost my standard response. Pose any thought, idea or question to me and most likely the first words out of my mouth are "oh I know..." But do I? I think that my mind knows these things. I know that God is going to provide for me. I know that His timing is perfect. I know that He will blow me away with what He's planning on doing in and through me. I say it, and I think it, but I totally don't live my life most days dancing in this knowledge.

so tonight at the gathering we had just a beautiful outpouring of the spirit. And I was praying for this girl in front of me all sorts of things and then I pr'd over her eph 3:16-19. And all of a sudden I was just repeating these words over and over "that she would KNOW". When I finally realized what I was saying, I was struck. That although I was prying for her, that was the cry of my heart as well. That i would KNOW, really, truly, deeply KNOW how much God loves me. That I would KNOW it's width, and depth and height and length, though I can't even begin to understand it, that I would still KNOW it. And through that knowledge I would be able to pour that love back onto Him with out of control passion!

"I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God's love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God."-eph 3:16-19, new living

brilliant.

They're married!

This last weekend I got to go down to Texas to see two of my china teammates get married. Their story is such a great example of God's faithfulness. Amanda is probably one of my closest friends. I seriously could not have survived China without her. I remember the first time she told me she liked Brent, then sat with her while her heart was breaking thinking he liked someone else (which coincidentally was the same week he decided that he REALLY liked Amanda), screaming over the phone when she told me about their "not a date" date, laughing with her about all the various rules they had to follow, holding her hand as he got on a train to leave the country. Praying while two second delay skype conversations were happening in the other room, getting an amazing voicemail from Brent telling me he needed to ask about "jewelry". I am so excited to have been along for your ride my friends! I'm way excited to continue to adventure with you through this next stage.



It was also really refreshing to see about half of our wh team. I didn't really ever expect to see some of them again. Like Rob who just happened to be in Mexico during December (he lives in Australia) or nate who just got back from the field last month. I figured this would happen, but we all just sort of fell back into step when we got around each other. Amanda and I couldn't stop cracking each other up (and talking REALLY loud). I had almost forgotten what it was like to be around people who know all the nooks and crannies of my heart, and yet they still love me. The highlite (aside from the wedding) was us getting to eat dinner together after the wedding. In China, every Sunday after church, we'd always go out to eat. Some of the funniest things happened at our meals together. This one was no exception. It's been a long time since I've laughed that hard. AND thanks to my stellar guys, I got a birthday song and sopapila. The wait staff came out singing happy birthday and bearing softserve with a candle in it. I was so surprised, I almost asked whose birthday it was. I don't know that I've ever really been surprised on my birthday before. Way to go guys.



After dinner stace and I had to leave to drive back to Kansas city. It was really hard to leave. We kept trying to stall, anything to stay around them longer. It was like the airport trips all over again. I am so thankful for the time I had with them, but it didn't make it any easier to walk away. It felt like I was re-entering America all over again. Leaving those who knew me so well, who I could let it all out with, and entering a place that I'm not for sure accepts who I am at my deepest level.



I sure do love you guys and can't wait until the next of us gets married so we can all get together again! zaijian!