Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Preparing for thanksgiving in C hi.n a!

As I sit here eyes glued to my computer making multiple tests for tomorrow, I smell the wonderful smell of homemade banana bread!!  Oh yah!  Success!!  This is for my B Study group Thanksgiving meal on Thursday.  They have chickens and mashed potatoes provided.  Not sure what else, but so far those two things sound AMAAAAZING right about now!  Our English Ch.ur ch service is having a gathering on Saturday night with entertainment for the evening.  Its mostly any talent will be accepted, they just sign up and perform during dinner.  This could get interesting!  Dozier and I will be singing a few lovely songs with our B study.

So... for the last two weeks I have been searching for marshmallows  and to little avail, I have only heard of some flavored kinds around here... oh well.  I really wanted to make sweet potato casserole and have been secretly pining for a bag to complete a traditional AMERICAN!!!  sweet potato casserole... Well, I thought all hope was lost and then.. my coworker called me a few minutes ago just to say that her family sent her a care package in which it contained.........
A BAG OF MARSHMALLOWS!!   Oh YEAH!!  And she wants me to make it for Saturday!!

Ok... So I was just a little excited! 

I will also make sweet carrots, a baked veggie dish which will probably only have zucchini and carrots and cinnamon apple bread.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!!  Enjoy a picture of my homemade banana bread here:

Whats this?  A missing piece?    :D


Thursday, November 8, 2012

Best times to call D + M in Chin.a

Hey friends!!

Some have been asking when is a good time to call so... I created a list of our available times to take calls for your convenience!  It is a house phone so obviously... we must be home to answer!  First, our number is a local number and works as if you are calling us in Birmingham AL.  

You can call us on Michaella's old cell phone number,     205-332-9865    Our calls are made through Magic Jack and works through the internet.  We bought a dinky little house phone that buzzes in our ears like a bumble bee, but its ok because we only spent about $5.50 USD on it so if it goes out then oh well.... have to get  one that's a bit better.  It was the cheapest one we could find, some range up to $120 USD!!

Anyway!!  Here are our available times that we are home; I will write the times forhe t Central time zone to make it the most clear:

(PS This is while in daylight savings time, when the US falls back; that means we are 14 hours ahead in time here)

Sunday:         5 am to 9 am
Monday:        5 am to 9 am
Tuesday:       5 am to 9 am
Wednesday: 5 am to 9 am
Thursday:      5 am to 9 am
Friday:           5 am to 10 am   ALSO 5 pm to 12 am
Saturday:      12 am to 9 am   ALSO 10 pm to Sunday at 9 am

Our Eastern coast crew, just add one hour because we are 13 hours ahead.  I hope this was not to confusing... We are home around 5 or 6 pm each night and its hit or miss on the weekends.  

We love you all!  Please eat some turkey for us!

D + M






School dayz in C.hin.a November 2012

Hello everyone!  Just a quick update on the life of the Lee family:  Life is going well, and we are just swamped with so many wonderful new and exciting experiences everyday!  Life is still hard and think it will stay a bit difficult here and there.  We are very excited about the new things taking place here for example, Doziers school is building an orphanage here that will house over 300 children.  It will be on the outskirts of the town, but on the other side of the town that we are not living on.

We take an offering every Sunday for the building of this place.  What a humbling moment, doing M work and STILL GIVING to the work of the Almighty FATHER!!!!  Last I heard we may be about a third into what we need to raise here to begin buying supplies!!  I am unable to go into much detail on the exact kinds of children, for certain censo,re.d  reasons of course.  Please join me in CONVERSATION the the FATHER that funds will come in and the bill will be filled for them!  I do know MANY in the school are ready to go build but we need supplies to build it!

I (Michaella) am very excited about this new work lined up and can not wait to see it finished!

Our classes are going well; it is very tough for so many reasons: language, culture, different ways of thinking and just learning how to respect their culture while still maintaining our own, respectively.  My 5th and 6th graders are a handful because of glorious young teen puberty... yaaay.. LOL

Last week, I had first report cards go out, family night and parent teacher conferences. WOW what a whirlwind the last two weeks have been!!  So I apologize for not blogging more!  Many nights we both have wanted to but with so many events and school we have just tried to maintain!

On Monday, my class is giving a small presentation, as every class will do in the school year.  Our skit is on Rindercella slopped her dripper.  It has been very tough and grueling trying to direct my, at times, chatty and giggly young teens to cooperate in the very minor "romantic"scenes- that is, as much as Cinderella is romantic with the prince.  I can not wait to put up some pictures and hopefully get a video AND download it!

Well, its Thursday night here and we are sitting in the campus coffee shop freezing thinking on the results of yesterdays polling results...  May the results all bring us into a deeper understanding of our FATHER and deepen our fai.th in HIM :)

So this evening we ate cafeteria dinner and the spicy Lomein warmed our bones for a time but ooh!  Its below freezing each night and my once hot tea is icy cold now!!!  He is drinking coffee and I am drinking citron tea with a little honey.   OH SO TASTY!

Last night, we were invited to a parents house for dinner, and the family spaghetti, that is a common thing to serve your child's American teacher LOL.  We had Ko.r3an cookies and home prepared Sycamore tee.  WOW it was sooo good!  We shared great laughs and a time of serious bl3ssing from the father of the house.  How great it is to be among people who truly care about what is going on in our lives, because we have our hands in their children's lives!!

Gotta run, I have many papers to grade, slow internet to attempt browsing and plus my fingers are cramping from typing and the cold in the coffee shop.  I added this picture onto facebook from instagram so I hope you enjoy!  We took this as we left Chu.ch last Sunday 11/4/12.  This is our walk in the long hallway that we all call "The great wall"  From the outside, it was built to look like the real thing.

LOVE TO ALL!!!  Please eat some turkey and some authentic southern dressin for us will ya!!


(PS... That brown BOOK is the new Bi.ble that was sent to us by some good friends of ours.  Thanks to all those who contributed to our care package!)