再见, RuYi!

One month to the day since we bid adieu to our home in Jacksonville; tomorrow we get to unpack our suitcases for the first time in our new base of operations... Apartment A311 on the Liang Xiang campus of Beijing Institute of Technology!


Florida-family may recognize the young mother in the picture below...

Grace and I worked with Erin's brother, Mark Smith, at Chets Creek in Jacksonville, and were all part of the same fellowship in Gainesville in the 80's! (Westside)... Still having fun "connecting those dots"!

The hotel staff insisted on a picture of our whole group before we headed out to teach all over Asia!

Wheaton College Classes

Universities in China require that its English instructors all be certified TEFL (Teachers of English as a Foreign Language); for most of us that means taking three graduate-level classes through Wheaton College, which has been kind enough to offer them in Beijing to help us adapt to our host culture while we're at it. Last week was "TEFL Methodology"; beginning today, "Asian Culture and Communication"; and finally "Classroom Dynamics"

Amazing Reunion

Sometimes I feel like my life is a game of connect-the-dots, where the Author delights in showing me snap-shots of the big picture...

"Tina" Wang remembers me as the principal of her high school in Asheville, North Carolina the year she became our first foreign exchange student from China...

Her mother teaches English at the very campus of Beijing Institute of Technology where Grace and I will be employed the next two+ years!

The Great Wall

Neither one of us is really into the tourist thing, but this was a must and it did not disappoint... After all, it is one of the "7 Man-Made Wonders of the World".

The other 6?
*Chichen Itza (Mexico)
*Christ the Redeemer (Rio de Janeiro)
*The Colosseum (Rome, Italy)
*Machu Picchu (Perú)
*Petra (Jordan)
*Taj Mahal (India)

Visits from Family!

We have been so blessed to have family from the US and Germany visit us in our first week in country...

These four as part of a group from our home fellowship in Jacksonville, Florida... "just happened" to be dining a five-minute cab ride from our hotel four days after our arrival...

Sabine Brauer is a cousin from Germany that I (Greg) had never had occasion to meet... until last night, our sixth day on the other side of the world!



"Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He Who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another -and all the more as you see the Day approaching." -Hebrews 10:23-25

Life in a New Lane

Grace was kind enough to allow me to post this picture of her struggling with her chopsticks during our first restaurant meal without interpreters... not really sure what we ordered; the beans were delicious, and we think the meat may have been donkey... perhaps it's better we don't know!

您好, Beijing!

We left the campus of the University of Northern Colorado at 6:15 p.m. Monday; arrived at our hotel in Beijing 4:15 p.m. Wednesday... with a 14-hour time difference that's a total travel time of 32 hours!
Here we are ready for the 14-hour hop from Newark-to-Beijing...

...and our hotel room, "home" for the next four weeks!