Gracious Snow

Perhaps you could characterize our Sunday afternoon as 'War,' but you would be mistaken. Jon and I, accompanied by an unidentified male student who came behind us as are inforcement, found ourselves constantly retooling for retaliation against the aerial onslaught we faced. Yes, indeed: the three of us were throwing snowballs at a group of six girls huddled beneath umbrellas and water buckets on their porch of the dormitory behind ours as they screamed and threw our snowballs right back at us. What else was one to do on the first snow-day of the year, coinciding with the first day of November? 

I thoroughly enjoyed the interactions that this type of "frivolity" encouraged, despite the cold. Frivolous, that is, unless we're given the eyes to see and ears to hear that this was another profound manifestation of the seams of eternity ripping open, affording us the opportunity to see Grace worked out in the circumstances of the day. By grace, indeed, we were able to pelt these across-the-street friends with snow (and they, in turn, pelt us); by grace we received the gift of the One. I didn't think it would snow that morning when I woke up, but received a text message from a student at 7 AM reading 'It's SNOOOOOOWWWWWWING!'. 

"Here. This is yours. You didn't ask for it, but I choose to give it to you because I love you." 

Snow, yes...I like snow. Here, though, I found the great delight that is reveling in Grace in the merciful view that it doesn't matter what the circumstances confront us with (snow, classes to teach, people to visit) as much as it matters that I'm viewing Grace first. It's tough to convince students (and teachers...and bus drivers...and teammates...and myself) that this is the case. 

"I don't know what it is. Sometimes, I just get frustrated that when I can't do what I want, there's some 'Big Man' holding me down, but then sometimes I'm the 'Big Man' whenever I get the chance to make decisions for a group."

Robert (Hu Bo), Bethany, and I sat around a table of gung bao gi ding gai fan (chicken over rice) bowls chatting about our circumstances in life. He seems to share a lot of similar ideas with students here, which I told him was typical in the sense that his problem isn't a Chinese problem or an American problem primarily, but one that stretches out as a human problem...a problem of the heart. Tangling with Robert's heart can be messy, but it's the greatest joy  continuing to walk through life so close to the heart of Robert and other students like him. 

This upcoming week, my school (Hebei College of Finance) will be hosting it's first ever English Week! We will have six visiting Americans to come blitz the campus with their presence. I am excited to see how this will fuel our interactions with students these upcoming months and set up the work of the Spirit in this time.