Home Again Home Again, Jiggety Jig

Tom was all alone in the middle of China on a business trip when his sweet Mom passed away. But for the Chinese it was business as usual with not much more than a word or two of condolence. Tom had to go to the ribbon cutting of another company and be the eye candy for Waston to show off their foreign employee. A death in the family did not trump that. So he showed off for them with a very heavy heart. He didn't return to us for more than 24 hours. I was as sad for him to be alone as I was to have his Mom leave us.

We frantically bought tickets and made arrangements to be back for the funeral. Thankfully conditions here were such that we could actually make it back into China if we left (that wasn't the case when we came). It was such a crazy tight time frame and we threw things together haphazardly. We knew we would have to quarantine upon return, but we didn't have much time to put much thought into that.

We were running so far behind schedule that Jacky had to come and help us with final packing. That was super helpful. Then he went with us to Shanghai since he knew where to go for testing and all that needed to be done so we didn't have problems being outside of our city. (Travel within China is a headache because of the zero Covid policy and even traveling outside of your city is complicated.) We especially appreciated him taking such good care of us in Shanghai--showing us such a good time for the evening before our flights. He put us in a delightful hotel, took us to a nice park, bought us our favorite treats and took us to a lovely place for dinner. Completely spoiled us.

We had to leave for the airport at 4:00am and he instructed Wangjian to not only drive us to the airport but to ensure that we got inside at the right place. Jacky seems to understand how difficult it is for foreigners here. And thankfully it was all without incident.

So without hardly knowing what had happened to us, we were back in the United States! With the death, the jet lag, the lack of any sort of plans for our stay, no return tickets, we felt like we had been hit by a train. All very surreal. Thankfully we came back to life a bit so we could enjoy our time there! It was good to be back 😊!

Comments

While We Are Waiting: Temples!

I love the temple. When I first learned of the possibility of us moving to China in December 2019, one of my first questions was "How can I leave the temple?" That question was answered in part during the closure of temples in 2020. However, when the joint venture was signed and Tom was officially offered the position in China in November 2020, I began fasting and praying that I would be able to attend the temple just once before we left. Our original flights were for July 7, 2021 and just a few weeks before that, our temple opened up and miraculously we were able to get 2 appointments for baptisms and 4 other appointments for Tom and I before our departure date. I can't express my deep gratitude for those 6 precious appointments. Then when we didn't obtain a visa in time for those flights and access to nearby temples was given, I took up a new hobby. Temple scheduling. The girls teased me it was a bit of an obsessed hobby; but since we will go ...

Service Project Report + Thank You!!

First off, thank you, thank you for all of you who donated to our service project for the children's hospital. You made a really big difference! I truly appreciate each one of you! We had a few foreigners here in China who donated, but most of our $750 donations came from YOU! Right before our deadline, many Chinese people came forward with used books and by the time we counted them all, we had over 900 books! (This is not a great picture, but sadly, this is all that I have of the books.) After contacting the hospital as to whether or not they wanted more books or other things (I made several suggestions including bean bags or comfy chairs for the library, comfort items for patients, craft kits, money to support pet therapy etc.) they said they didn't want more books and decided that they wanted craft kits for the children in isolated wards in the hospital. So I spent all of your money on craft kits. The cost of crafts here is so cheap compared to the...

Very Quick Year in Review

It's been a very quiet year on my blog—not intentionally, but things are busy, and I got out of habit. So here is a very quick highlight list of our comings and goings for 2024. January highlight: strawberry picking. The strawberries are SO amazing here! Tom won some kind of award (we still have no idea what it was for) from the city government. We were informed about it 2 days before, and Tom had a board meeting that he couldn't miss. So the government allowed me to go receive it for him. He received a trophy and a large sum of money. Tom's business trip to Japan, the girls and I tagged along. One of the many amazing foods in Japan is kakigori. Shaved ice. To die for. I'd go back just for that and I'm not usually one to prefer sweets over other foods. That says something.... Chinese New Year crowds. We stayed home to avoid them. We had the amazing opportunity to be invited into the home of some Chinese people. We felt so honor...

This Great Work

Search This Blog