This Great Work

 For now, this is my favorite photo.  It was taken after at least 3 minutes of this, and continued for a few minutes more.  And after this darling little girl had a good look, she went and got her mom and then her sister and then kept coming back for several long stares. Yes.  This is what it feels like to live in China.  Parents point us out to their children. Children point us out to their parents. Old people can't seem to get enough. Sometimes they do it openly and sometimes on the sly, and obviously it happens more than we see.    We are watched. We are stared at. We are photographed. It is why keeping our light on is so important. I hope we reflect the light of Jesus Christ.  I hope the people can feel my love for Him! It's all I can share for now. (Greta did smile and acknowledged her, but the stare continued and continued and continued.....)

I'm still puzzled by how it actually happened. ⬜ Communication issues?   ⬜ Culture issues?   ⬜ Translation issues? ⬜ Me being willing to help whenever asked? ☑All of the above. Here's what I do know.  One of my Chinese teachers (Penny) asked me to help someone learn English. I said I would.  At my next lesson, Penny asked me to help another person, something about 8 times and some other thing that I can't remember because what she said didn't make sense to me.  It seemed like a bigger time commitment than what I had, but she kept talking and talking and while I could understand her words, I couldn't understand what she meant. (This is so common--yes, she was speaking English.)  So to quiet her down, I said that I would think about it.  Later, she came to dinner, she told us about a conference at the university and mentioned three topics:  e-commerce, vocational education and teaching styles.  I told her a little about how teaching styles here in China were vastly di