i prayed today...with Bill and Eva. It was a long time since I prayed... i mean. really prayed like that. Eva felt like she should tell me that i should begin the day praising and praying in tounges, cuz i've recieved it...and i'm like, okay. I felt that i should do that a long time ago, but i haven't done it. I will start to do it. My prayer was simple and i was blessed, extremely blessed while they were here visiting. They gave me some chinese bibles and one with an english part, and then the chinese part on the same page. it's so cool. if i could write it somewhat in pinion maybe i could share verses to my classes! it was really cool. it felt like having a rushing waterfall in me again...i will do what Jesus tells me, i just ask that He'd be near me.

I got some sorta chinese medicine for my skin....stupid skin. all the time, never clears UP!! ARG!! Yes, so they're pills.....and i want to know what these pills are. what kinda medicine is it for. I think i'll try looking it up on the internet...as if i'll find it. one of the places i was going to go to almost gave me Tetracycline, which is what i've taken before...so i know that one. I think i'll go back and buy that one. in the mean time, i'll use up this medicine and then it'll be gone in like a week :( I looked this stupid medicine up~ i can't believe this stupid doctors!! you wonder if they have even gone to medical school!!!!!!! Okay, this medicine is used for HERPES!! of all things, and other rashes' of the skin!! and I told the woman about a hundred TIMES what the heck is wrong with my skin and she STILL gave me the wrong stuff. I'm going back to the other place to get the tetracycline, cuz i know that stuff well. and that'll be the closest thing that I can get to what medicine i was taking. Maybe i shouldn't get braces here, becuz of the stupidity of the doctors.

well getting back to my wonderful day! Bill seemed to enjoy himself a lot over here, and they treated me to lunch--and they gave me some sorta pointers on what to teach, how to teach. I think I will start the games on Monday...after the restaurant skits are done. Like gestures, or tones of speech. I will work on that with my 1st year students and then gestures with my 3rd yr. students. mmm. yes. thinking of ideas.
I'll plan the whole next week tomorrow. I had a wonderful day all together though. very nice. God has blessed me, and i know it. He is with me, and I know it.
i will look through the Chinese bible right now though...might be fun.
this is the sweet spring song signing off, on this fine Saturday night, everyone have a warm night, filled with coffee and the good things of life.

I spent another 4 -5 hours in the hair salon, and my hair, after the 3rd attempt, finally curled! And i'm insisting it's becuz I said to use the blow dryer, instead of that stupid, red-light spinning around thing. yeah. i won't go into detail. Well, my hair looks beautiful. My name should be Bella! beauti-simo! really. i think i look really nice with my hair like this kinda curl...and i found out today that brases over here are only 2,000 yuan, which only equals about 200 dollars! Finally! i could get straight teeth! but the problem is...i will probably hafta have them on for longer than the 7 months i have left here, and i don't know if the doctors will continue to do the same work over in America...i would hafta switch to a different doct. over there, and that would be really expensive...too much for me. So, i will find out if i could do this within the months i'm here...hopefully! my bottom teeth could finally be aligned! speaking of teeth, i should get a cleaning soon!...

I just watched Bruce Almighty. and when i saw that the first time in the theaters...i really was touched. like today. i hate it how movies speak to me...like, i know God is speaking to me...through them. especialy that one. Cuz. well, he was sitting there complaining all the time to God about all sorts of things...and BOOM. he gets to be God for that one little city, for a measly 7 days! In this movie I saw how much of God i really want to know. Like, His goodness. His patience, His tenderness. His slowness to get angry, His Mercy. I want to know these things. I want to know them in Him first, and then I want to start seeing them in myself second. I don't know how i can get there....i just know for some reason, that it might take a long time! as for after the movie...i decided to take a shower....and i heard him say. "I see you, just how you are. I always have, I always will, until your dying old grey age. Your body isn't important, it's what you do with this life that is. You will get old, wrinkly, gray hair, and your sight will go, and other things will happen, but inside won't change. You will still be the same woman i brought into this world .... "---something like that. anyways. Just to think....He sees me, everyday. The whole time! and sometimes i run from that, but sometimes I cry becuz of that. He was there....even when i was hurting. He was there......period. and not just that. But He saw ME. He couldv'e said at any moment..."I see you" and that would be enough for me.
sometimes, over here in china. I feel somebody taller than me, standing next to me. I know there isn't physically. But i do know that there is spiritually. A tall somebody, that places His hand on my shoulder when I feel as though i'm going to cave in....He's tall enough to carry me! Strong enough to carry me. I remember that poem..."Footsteps" or whatever it's called. About the man who said, one day to God, in Heaven...that these footsteps in the sand were his walk with God, and then he asked God why there was only one set of steps sometimes (as if God left him alone to walk alone) and he said "Son, that is when I carried you."

MMMM.
i think i will leave with that note.
I'm suppose to be this way. i'm suppose to be how God created me to be....without sin ofcourse. i'm suppose to be April Melody.
the sweet spring song.

i can sense now that i am being put through a fire here. Although every day is a struggle I should carry on.
I am here and living and breathing. that's good enough for me. I'm thankful for the small things.

Well. I tried to get my hair permed yesturday but they took the curlers out and nothing happened! I think it's cuz in America, we do it differently---we have better stuff. And this was just a little perm kit, and she said that usually when they do it to chinese people hair, it curls it. I think that even on my hair it would have worked. So, they're gonna try again today. I spent 3 hours in the salon yesturday, i really hope it doesn't take that long again! It was cool- i found a chinese bible in the salon while I was there, i thought that was weird. I asked if Jeannie could read psalm 23- and she did in chinese! that was the coolest thing. and everyone was hearing the words...and i told them, kinda what it said in english. of course a very rough version! cuz i dont' know all the words. OOHH man, i just wanted to sleep in!! But this is my early day of the week, and I need to get up. i played hooky on Tuesday, and missed the early class, but i can't do that again! he,he,he!! My hair is more full this morning! I love it!...it's cuz it's slightly curly...well, wavey is more like it.

I've been thinking of the Two Towers, and Eowyn...the woman in Rohan with blond hair, when she talked to Strider/Aarogorn--and she said what she did fear "A cage. Where valor has gone beyond recall or desire, untill use and old age accept them." and then Aaragorn said "you are a daughter of Kings, I do not think that will be your fate.."
I think of this, and i am her. I think when the war time comes, I long to fight alongside my brothers...in battle against the greatest evil. The rest of the women might be in the cave, being protected....but i long to be in battle, fighting, until my very last breath is spent- fighting for what I believe for. I think maybe I have a cage. One that hides in the dark and traps me, when i least expect it. and there's a sneaky creature that lures me in, saying that is what i wanted all along, and he tricks me. This cage that I know as my own sin....i need to break it...i need to be delivered from it. Where is my deliverer?? He is near I know. He holds the keys, I know. He can free me. All I need is ask. But that cage always returns, and traps me once again.....and yet again, I must ask for the keys. It's a slow, grueling process. Which I hate. Becuz i must face the one I love with a face of sin again, and ask once again for the keys. He hands them to me, with blood comign out of his wrists, and down his face...cuz He's gone through the battle as well.
But He won it for US! Unto death, He walked and died for our freedom. It's ours. shoot. sometimes it's so hard to say that....

sweet spring song

I won't repost what I wrote earlier. I think it might frighten friendly eyes, as to my safety. I am safe, that's enough for me. Although, i'm living quite on the edge of death i think. Sometime i think somebody's out to kill me, and i know that somebody is Satan. But he can't kill me. I've already been made alive in Christ. But, i say these words as though i am living them...as if I AM alive- but that's a stinking joke. All I know as truth, is Jesus and everything is bull-oney. Even my life. I'm bull-oney. I can't live two lives. One, where I claim i'm alive in written words....and another where I am hopelessly struggling just to find jesus. The one whom i've know since 1998, and have loved since then. I can't pretend.....I am seriously dying here. I don't know if I'm dying to myself or dying to the world, or just dying period....where everything I've stood for - for these 4 years- falls around me. But I know Jesus can't fall. I know He will remain. Although everything will fall around me, and nothing will be constant, He is the only one who will be. He is the "I Am" after all.

Amy Neilson emailed me and that was comforting. She said of me "Warrior Woman". and I don't see it. It's nice that other people see it though. Brandi emailed me too-- she said that I didn't email her too much when she was in Taiwan....so I kick myself in the rear for that, becuz I"m sure of how hard it was for her. She is thinking about getting an apartment with two girls..one from her church and Kristie, i think....That's nice. I wish i was there to live with them too. I'd be happy to. Ofcourse, God always has different plans than I.
This song just came on "It is well with my soul"--- I can only say this in faith right now. I can't say it for where I'm at, becuz I certainly know that it's NOT well with my soul....but I can believe that Jesus has made it well for my soul. Thus, I can say "It is well with my soul" Even when there is no grain in the field, or wine in the vat, or water in my cup....it is well with my soul. These are just material things. My mother tries to convince me to be happy, becuz people have it worse off than me, here in China. And I know this. I am blessed, becuz i have a computer, fridge, TV, DVD player, water--- but all these material things don't make me happy. For they are as sand before me, because I don't have the presence of the Lord, my love. SO, I can only say in faith, "It is well with my soul."

I walked to the lunch room, for something to eat. after i ate, i felt better. i walked through misty air, and coldness, and crowds of people that said no comforting words. it echoed in me...it surrounded me, it stirred in me, "See Me...Feel Me. Touch Me, See Me"....I am here. and nobody else surrounds me. Only me. walking, always walking by myself.
I think of the prophecy of Candy-- She doesn't know....she doesn't know that she prophecied right. She said "I see you on a train and you are going somewhere really far and distant (something like that), and you are lonely. So lonely" and she cried, i remember that--- she said to me, in encouragement words--that I need to hold on to Jesus and that He will be there with me, no matter how lonely and sad I'll be. He will be there, with me. I remember that. She needs to know that her prophecy was right. She needs to be encouraged to explore new areas of God's ministry in her life. To try things that are supposedly weird to other people.

MmmM. I miss....everyone. I think of Ben, on and off. Ofcourse, but i've let him go. On his own path. I trust Jesus as the one and only....if anything else like that happens with anyone else ....in my life. I'll be sure that it's the Lord...for surely...and God will hafta smack me upside the head to get my attention to see who it is...! Other than that-- I suddenly have no desire/no thought for getting married...or go out with ANYONE at all. I'm not seeking that life out yet. My journey with the Lord is rough enough, let alone being with somebody else and having to understand and pray with them also. I'm glad. I'm where i need to be, as much as I hate it.

welp, that's it for now. I think i'll check out JC's blogger.
sweetspring song

Here I am. it's 5:39 pm.

I woke up to snow this morning. And freezing the whole day, inside my little aparment, ofcourse spending my whole day on the computer because i have nothing else to. I talked to mom a couple of times, autumn once, and Michale. i hope he can come visit me. I have been reading a story about a guy hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, he's a bit younger...and he did it in 99- so, that's a bit more like what i want to read, although i did like George spearing's "Dances with Marmots"-- it was good, but he was an older dude. i wanna know what it'd be like if a yonger person did it...actually, finding a story about a woman who did it would be good too.
I am currently typing wearing my winter gloves, and hat, and hoodie of U of O. pretty well dressed, cuz it's stinkin' cold. I've drinken lot's of hot water, but that doesn't seem to curb my coldness.
I'm digging on this christian music station online,....gettin' down with the Lord to some of the songs...that i haven't heard in along time- and songs i've never heard! it's really good for me to listen to it.

we won't get heat until the 15th, in the apartments...cuz it's controlled by the school/thus, controlled by the government. I got to hang out with this teacher- i'll call him Juan, cuz i don't know how to say his name in english...but Juan and I talked about all sorts of things-- like God, and other religions, and governments, and marriage, and relationships, and love....all these things...it's weird. Here- if they don't get married by the age of at least 30- they just go ahead and marry whoever would work with them...like, whoever makes sense with them...If they fit together as a couple. Sometimes they don't even love the person.! that made me sad. But, he also said, that mostly, they marry becuz the man is trustworthy, dependable, capable of having a home...and so on, most of those are things that American's don't really look at anymore...as qualities to have in a marriage relationship. Most of the time, people just marry cuz the other person makes them feel good, or pleases them somehow...and that's selfish---marriage is probably the most unselfish thing a person could do.

I watched Braveheart the other day-- and it was beautiful how William Wallace loved his wife...well, that woman that he married.....and only after a day of being married, she dies, becuz England's guards killed her. Then his anger began. But mmmm. It made me think, of how chivalrous men can be sometimes...but not so much anymore. WE-as women- have somehow managed to make them think that we don't want that in a man, and so they form themselves to what they think we want as women. And then, men (or should I say, media?) have somehow managed to makes us women think that the only thing a guy wants is an unstable relationship, and ofcourse a skinny, not-average, looking girl, who ofcourse, is probably blond. he,he,he....! But, seriously, how true is this? Very. WE have been molded by our society as a young generation....who accept what the media gives us. Temporal satisfaction.....something that is fading. And we're suppose to be satisfied with it?? we're suppose to be satisfied with the slop that they give us and choke it down with a smile on our faces?? something in me rises up whenever I think of these things. It actually makes me think once again about Tom, and the days of abuse i had to endure as a child......the things i wrote then. the injustice that was done to me, but is buried forevermore, along with the body of Christ. But all that, I have let go. Now something else burns in me. To pursue, even though I don't see the end result....to continue on this path of faith, even though it seems like my steps are hidden from me.

SO, i might go visit Bill and Eva Glaser for thanksgiving hopefully. If I can get out there. I finally heard from Rebecka!! i've really wanted to hear from her. know how my van is doing. still working i hope! please Lord! well, if anything, i'd get a new vehicle...maybe a JEEP!! yes LORD! I'm all about a Jeep Wrangler!
well, that's it for now. I wouldn't mind going home. If that's your will Lord, I miss home, Sharron, everybody.....i miss the things I know are true---but i know you are strengthening me in faith through me being here....and all these things that aren't comfortable, i know they won't last for long, and I will see you eventually.
I'll hold on for now.
So, here I go, signing off--- wearing gloves and getting colder by teh minute!
sweet icy spring song!