I'm writing this on Friday night as I sit at home while The Man is
performing. I have the documentary
Wild China playing on Netflix. Even though it's talking about nature and the more remote parts of China, it's making me nostalgic. I lived in northern China for a year, from June 2002 to May of 2003 and yes, I was there during SARS. There are days that I think about it and I have a hard time realizing that it was almost 10 years ago. That just blows my mind. Where have the past 10 years gone? When I think back to where I was 10 years ago (finishing up my junior year of college and already thinking about what I would do when I graduated) I am amazed to see where my life has gone. If you had told me 10 years ago that I would be a stay at home Navy wife with a home based business I probably would have laughed at you.
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| The Great Wall |
The time I spent in China (plus the two years in Viet Nam) really do seem like a different life. I was younger and single, just out of college and ready to take on the world. It was an adventure. It was an amazing time in my life and I am so thankful I had the experiences I did. They helped shape me into who I am today. There is absolutely no way I would have been able to handle the crazy schedule of the Navy if I hadn't had to deal with the schedule craziness in China (& Nam).
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| Chinese Friends |
I also had an amazing team of women that I worked and lived with in China. They taught me so much about living in community...they made such an impact that I still think about those things 9 years later. The nice thing is that I'm still in touch with them (thank you Facebook for making it easy!) I am very much looking forward to catching up with them when we all arrive in heaven. I'm also looking forward to seeing which of my students will be there as well. God brings some of my students to mind from time to time and I am burdened to pray for them. After all this time I am still their teacher. I know that God will continue to work in their lives and I pray that any seeds I was able to plant are being watered and are growing. I'm also looking forward to seeing the teachers I worked with. They were (an are) some amazing people and I miss them.
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| The teachers I worked with |
I'd love to go back someday. There are still many places within China that I would love to visit, like Xi'an and Kunming. There are still times when I have a hard time believing that I've been to the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, Tienanmen Square, The Temple of Heaven and spent several weeks in Shanghai. I'd love to visit them all again. I'd love to gorge myself of real, authentic, delicious Chinese food too. What they eat there is so much better than the fake Chinese food we get here! If I didn't have the pictures and memories as proof, I would think that I dreamed I lived overseas. It just seems so far away...
What were you doing ten years ago?
Are you where you expected to be?
