Moon Festival

 

In China they celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival, or Moon Festival, every fall.  It’s the closest holiday to our Thanksgiving.  Families get together for a meal, they look at the full moon, and eat moon-cakes.  This year it was on Monday, September 12.  That day was a great day for me. 

 

First off, I’d been cooped up in the house cleaning, unpacking, and settling, and I was ready to get out of the house and see friends.  The other reason why it was a great day was because one of my very best Chinese friends came to visit.  For safety, I will call her Shelly. 

 

I met Shelly the first time I lived here in 2004.  At that time she was 15 and in the sophomore class I taught.  We became close quickly because she spoke English very well and she was one of the sweetest girls I’d ever met.  That fall I had a birthday party for her at my house when she turned 16.  At Christmas, my mom visited and gave her a porcelain doll because Shelly had never had a beautiful doll before.  You should have seen Shelly’s face.  She acted like a little girl in awe.  It was so sweet.  She was at our house often to visit, bake cookies, and I even helped console her through the death of her grandfather.  As you know, Adam and I share openly about the Hope that we have, so naturally Shelly heard all of this over the years.  This past spring Shelly graduated from college and on September 9 she moved here to Wuhan to do her master’s degree in English Literature.  So you can imagine that she and I are both thrilled to be near each other again.

 

So on Mid-Autumn day she came to visit since there was no school.   Soon into the conversation, Shelly asked why we came back to China, so this was a natural opportunity to tell her the truth of why we really do love China and the people.  She listened intently.  She then went on to ask more specifically about my beliefs.  I shared very directly about the Son, our eternal home, and about the hope, joy, and peace for life now.  I’ve talked to enough Chinese people about these things that I can read them pretty well as to what they think of the subject, and I could tell Shelly truly was interested.  So I pressed a little further and told her that she could go to chrh with me.  She happily took me up on the offer.  She had to leave soon after that.

 

I was so happy after she left, because honestly, for all the time we’ve spent in China, I haven’t seen as much “fruit” as I would hope for, so I was so encouraged to realize that even 7 years ago, I was planting seeds that I believe are starting to take root in Shelly’s heart. 

 

We haven’t gone to the Service yet, but when we do, I will take her to a legal Fellowship so we can go together.  So please pray for Shelly.  I really believe she is ready for The Answer for her life!

 

I’m also excited because as a master’s student she has a fairly flexible schedule, so I’ve talked to her about babysitting Elise so I can do a few hours of teaching either at Sophia’s preschool or at the preschool a block away.  I’ll keep you posted as that develops, but as for Shelly, I look forward to hopefully having her in our home weekly and getting to teach her more.  Also, I’m thrilled that she can speak Chinese to Elise for a few hours while I’m away!  

 

After a fantastic morning, we celebrated the Moon Festival by getting together with our family here in China – some of the members of our team.  We live about 4 miles from six of our teachers who teach at the Wuhan No. 1 High School, so we went to their place to eat out Chinese food ;) and then we went back to Rebecca’s apartment to eat moon-cakes and also cupcakes!  She and Mandi made them and decorated them really cute for us to enjoy.  They even made one cupcake with an S for Sophia and one with an E for Elise.