From China, With Love

Wherever they may find you, these words are originating somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, in between the two continents that hold virtually all of my past, and much of my future. Things have been slow on the website for the past month and a half (and by slow, I mean slow like watching a video in slow motion of molasses running down the back of a turtle. In the North Pole.) Everything has been given away, prepared for storage, or packed into our four suitcases – carefully planned not to exceed the designated Asian weight limit unit of “one elephant”. We have said our goodbyes to many, many people. We have changed our addresses, sold and donated our cars, trained our work replacements, and left Pepperdine University, which has been home for longer than any other place I have lived. And we have answered the question, “why are you moving to China” approximately one quintillibillion times, which, as anyone who has studied theoretical math knows, is almost twice as much as a bazillion, and four times as much as the number of news reports about Mel Gibson’s meltdown 3 miles away from our now former home.

Life has been busy since my last update. For one, just over a week ago, we met our new sister for the first time; her name is Kylee, and boy is she a firecracker. Kylee was adopted through fully miraculous circumstances by Corrie’s parents; she will be six in just a few weeks, is from central China, and, because she speaks mostly Mandarin still, is able to scream in each of Mandarin’s four tones – rising, falling, biting, and ear-drum-splitting. Honestly though, I can already tell that she is an exceptional kid – and she has handled the transition from orphanage to BIG family very well.

As I have mentioned in previous blogs, Corrie and I have finally completed our move to China; we will be living with the Zacharia pack in Hong Kong for the fall – in part to have a soft landing in China and a bonding experience with Kylee and the Zacharia family, and in part to begin our goal of becoming fluent in Mandarin (which we will be working on for the next several millennia). Granted, Hong Kong isn’t exactly the perfect place to be getting our start in Mandarin, as it is a Cantonese speaking city, but it’ll do for stupid beginners who currently only know Chinese phrases like, “Kung Pao” and “Knee How Maw.” In the spring, we will make another move – to a large, and yet undetermined major Chinese city – more than likely Shanghai. From there we plan on starting our own empire of Panda Express franchises, which, shockingly, no one has thought of doing in China.

There is a lot that we don’t know right now. Frankly, I’ve never had so much peace and confidence in a decision that entails so little information at this point. At the end of the day, God is with us – right here, right now. As strange as it feels, it is incredibly exciting not to know all the answers, or have a fully formed comfort zone, or to be able to ask the man next to me whether he prefers to fold or scrunch his toilet paper (currently, my attempts to communicate this question through the international language of charades is only being met with nervous stares.) We’ll be studying Mandarin for at least the next year full-time, but beyond that – the world is literally wide open. Well, China is, at least – which is 1/5th of the world. So here’s to the future, my friends, and – as a dear friend of mine would say – life abundant, with abandon.