Love in the Details

Hello again, thanks for dropping in.  It has been over a month since my last post. Life has continued uninterrupted of anything out of the ordinary. You are maybe wondering why I am posting if I don't have any awesome stories of adventure and trial or laughter and joy. Well I hope this opens some eyes to the beauty that they have been missing.  I know I more often than not miss it.


When living in China it is so easy to try to focus on the big picture. Focus on what I will have accomplished in 3 or 5 years down the road. To live a step ahead of the present. Eyes always on the horizon.  I usually live this way, always looking across the fence.  Well today I am going to tell you what matters most in our lives, at least in my tiny perspective.


I go to school everyday for 3 hours. I take the exact same route everyday. I come in contact with almost the same people everyday, for the most part. Really not to exciting. Don't get me wrong learning Chinese has been amazing in a lot of ways. But when I look back at what I have done since coming to China, it hasn't been that much. In my tiny perspective. Flash back, when i was doing a leadership school in Denver in 2009, one of our last speakers spoke on attitude and living in the moment. It quite frankly rocked my world. Because I always was living in the future. If this happens then I will be able to do this, if only I was in China then I could really make a difference.  If only I was married then life would be so much better, haha.  Your getting the picture.  This truthfully is a poisonous way to live your life. Focusing on the future worried about what could be.  I am not saying being responsible in planning is bad. I am saying 'living' in the future is.


 If we don't live our lives in the present we miss everything. You miss out on all that the Father wants to teach you, maybe through a difficult time or through a hidden blessing. You miss out on all the amazing relationships around you.  You miss out on loving people that are alone and lost. You miss out on helping a neighbor on a rainy day. You miss out on giving something to people that they might not have. You miss out on showing a love that people rarely see. We must stop worrying about the future and live our lives in the gift of today.


Throughout my day to day life I could have the perspective of all the details are pretty meaningless. Or I could live in a way that shared love whenever I had the chance. I could show love to my teachers by telling them how much it means to me what they do. I could show them that what they do is significant. I could love the students I teach even if they misbehave to the point where I want to yell. I could smile at the person that blares his horn at me everyday. I could try to start a conversation with the store clerk, ask him how his day has been. Even though my Chinese is horrible. I need to show love in the details. The father I believe is often concerned with the things that we pass by everyday and don't think about them for one second.  He is concerned with the little things in life. The more I can live in a way that is patient enough not to miss the details the more He can use me in ways I would have never Imagined or dreamed.


It's the little things that matter in life friends. The things that we so often pass by without a second glance or thought. It's the relationships that we so often look past.  The chances to love that are all around us if we would open the eyes of our heart. If we would slow down and try to see how He sees.  I don't want to live my life worrying about what I could be doing, when there are chances to show love all around me. I need to work on this just as much as anyone else. This post was inspired by my buddy Jia Ming.  He sent me a text this morning that read "It's not about the great things we do, but the small things with great love". Thanks Jia Ming. Thank you all for taking the time to read this. I hope it helps you slow down for a second and see the beauty around you. 

Unworldly Perspective and Thankfulness

Hello again, I hope everyone is having a spectacular week. For those who aren't, stay strong.  Time has really flown by since I have arrived in China. I feel like no matter how hard you try you just can't ever get it to slow down. Enjoy the journey friends. The important stuff is always in the little things we to often look over.

Growing up I was told so often to be thankful for what I had.  That there is starving children all around the world with no place to call home. No parents to love on them.  I never really bought into it. I acted like I did. I tried my best to believe it and out of that belief live a life of thankfulness.  We all know it is easier said than done.  The older I got the easier it was to appreciate everything I had. From amazing parents to to the shoes on my feet.  It's one thing to appreciate the things we have but it is another to live a life that flows from the thankfulness in our hearts.  I have realized more and more through living and growing that thankfulness is so much more than speaking it out.  When one is truly thankful for everything he has been blessed with it comes out in actions.  Who among us can't talk the talk? There isn't any value in speaking out that we are thankful unless our lives and day to day actions don't concrete our words.  I have more room than you know to grow in this area.  Thank God I have parents that did their best to show me what it looks like to live a life of giving and outpouring into others what you have been given.

I have been teaching for the last month.  I didn't realize how much of a challenge teaching was until I did it myself.  I teach small classes of kids from the age of 4 to 6 a couple times a week.  The kids, most the time, don't behave super well. It is very tasking to try to hold their attention for a half an hour. Especially at seven in the evening.  I have had a super bad attitude about this particular opportunity.  For selfish reason's only. I don't like teaching, it's too hard, it stresses me out, I am not cut out for it.  I am going to throw some truth at myself real quick.  If I was to sit down with my Dad and tell him all my complaints I am pretty sure he would greatly help me with my perspective and attitude on the situation.  He would tell me that I am blessed to have this opportunity, that growth doesn't come unless we are stretched outside our comfort level, that i have a chance to show these kids love. That for me to overlook it would be a huge mistake. I have learned that the hard way.

If we could change our attitude from ungratefulness to thankfulness we would see life in a whole different light.  When we are thankful for what we have it opens us up to be able to give back what has been given to us.  We have to allow blessing to flow through us.  As humans it isn't super natural to want to give. We have a selfishness in us. Just admit it, we all have it.  When we overcome that through a strength not our own. Our eyes can be open to what life really is about, giving back what you think you deserve.  It's not easy. I sure havn't even come close to understanding it or living it.  My parents have showed me the value in living in thankfulness and giving.  When we live for other's we grow in ways we don't even see.  We bless people with out knowing that it might have changed their life forever.

Living with Matt and Heather has been such a blessing for me, in ways i don't always see. It has given me the opportunity to serve in ways I don't feel like. To build relationship when it's not easy. It has shown me that it is never easy but always worth it.  Seeing how they have changed Lilly's life.  Not because they thought they had the time, energy, or money to do it. But because they chose to live life outpouring what they have to bless and help others who can't help themselves.  This is the picture that I want and need to follow for my life.  Giving when it hurts, loving when it's not easy, being thankful when you have nothing. Because life isn't about us. It never was, it never will be. The sooner I can live that out the more blessed I and others around me will be.

The more we can live life with the perspective that this life is too short. Every second needs to be treasured. Love those around you like today's your last. Give to others out of the love you have for them. Use every trial in your life to grow in perspective and truth.  Don't stop, the value isn't in what you can see with your eyes.

One last story to wrap it up.  I go to school with my friend Jia Ming who is Colombian.  His life has inspired and challenged me in a lot of ways.  Just last night Jia Ming, Jenna, another friend of mine, and I were at Mcdonalds downtown. What started as a joke turned out to be a blessing.  Because of Jia Ming's perspective and attitude.  It was ten thirty or so at night. There was a guy sleeping in a booth. I thought it was a little amusing. So i told Jia Ming, who is very crazy in his own way, to go over and sit with him. So sure enough he grabbed a used tray and put some empty coffee cups on it and went over to sit with the sleeping stranger.  I was a little worried at this point, because Chinese people sometimes have an explosive temper. This guy wakes up looking really mad. He walks away from the booth and goes and grabs some food off another table. Then he comes back and sits in the booth behind Jia Ming. Then Jia Ming taps this guy on the shoulder. Now I am pretty worried that this guy is going to give him broken nose. Jia Ming talks to him, in Chinese. Jia Ming then heads downstairs to the ordering counter and this guy follows him. I have no idea whats going on. So we wait for a few minutes and then head downstairs. We find Jia Ming ordering this guy a meal.  It might not seem like much, but i guarantee you it blessed this guy way more than we knew.  Jia Ming gives everything he has back to others who have done nothing for him. That is the way I want to live my life.  It's the way we all should live our lives. Blessing others whenever we can, even when they don't deserve it. Well that is all I have for now. I hope you got something out of this. I know I have.  Thanks for reading!

The Great Wall Bike Ride Dragon Boat Race

Hello everyone. Thanks for dropping in.  I have been pretty busy the last past three weeks or so. Out of that business has come a lot of amazing adventures.  I think you will enjoy them all. So here goes nothing. John i promise I will do my best to keep the grammar sufficient. My brother is a little crazy when it comes to that stuff. It's not my thing. I am sure you already knew that. haha.

The first adventure was to the great city of Beijing to see the Great Wall!  There was some friends here for awhile checking out Xi'an. They blessed me with a fully paid experience to one of the most incredible things I have ever seen.  We took a train there and back. On the way there we had a hard sleeper. Basically there are six beds in a space that is 5ft wide by 8ft high and hardly enough room to fully extend your body. Depending on how tall you are. It was "hard" to sleep. I was by myself with five other Chinese people and one of them snored louder than i can describe. I wanted to hit him with my pillow. So we got to Beijing at like 9 in the morning and headed off in two vans to the Wall. Once we got to the wall we made our way up to the chair lift that took us all the way up to the Wall. The Wall was so incredible and mind boggling.  Over one million people died building this structure that was built to protect people. It's crazy to think about. Definitely was the most amazing thing I have ever seen.  The real highlight was getting to luge from the top back down to the bottom.  You get on this sketchy looking plastic sled thingy with one hand brake. So I take off, then realize I got the slow luge cart. That always happens to me. It wouldn't hardly move and I was getting so upset. Then the track got more steep. I started hauling. There was little checkpoints where Chinese guys would stand and make sure you were going slow. At everyone they yelled at me to...who knows what, haha. In America I would have had no excuse but since I truthfully didn't understand them I continued at my wild pace. It was so much fun.  Big thanks to Darren Mcarthy for making it happen. 

Thats the Bagota.

The second adventure was definitely the most challenging. So my friend Aaron from Britain tells me like 3 weeks ago that he and a few friends are going to go on a bike ride out to a village. He tells me in the most convincing way that it is only 60 km, or 37 miles away. I am thinking I could to that, it might be a little challenging but i am up to it. I have never rode over 20 miles at a time. We take off from Xi'an at around eight o'clock on Friday Morning. The plan was to ride there then camp and ride back the next day.  Oh and he said it was flat the whole way there. Shame on you Aaron, haha. Anyways, the first hour was all up hill, slightly. We had rode about 15 miles and we had made it to the base of the Ching Ling Mountains. I was feeling good, not to tired not to hot. We make it to a spot to eat some amazing Chinese street food, haha. No it wasn't bad. We had prob gone 30 miles by now. It should be seven miles away right, no. It ended up being 55 miles.  To anyone who rides seriously that isn't that much. For your average out of shape joe, that is a long ways. It was almost all up hill. My legs were so done. On top of it all I had Aaron, my British friend, who rides 1000 km in six days, telling me to man up. I love you Aaron. Him and another American guy Jake had all the gear on there bikes, and they could have done the ride in half the time. I felt so out of shape.  So we get there and ride up a side road to the Bagota, look it up, It is kind of hard to describe. We end up camping right at the base of it. Sleeping didn't work out so well. With four grown men in a little tent and rocks digging at your back it just doesn't happen.  So the next morning we pack our stuff up hike down and load our bikes.  We stop at a convenience store and get some snacks and water, both necessary.  One kind of scary thing slash blessing that happened on the way back. We were headed down a big hill going probably 23 mph. And some of Aaron's load fell off his bike, and at the time we were drifting so we were all really close together. Definitely a miracle that no one got in a wreck. Most of us didn't have helmets on. We made it home. 105 miles in two days, yikes. When i got home I felt like I was paralyzed. It was rough. I am so glad I went though. So many good memories. There was a lot more little fun details that I had to leave out for time sake, I I will tell you the story sometime if you ask. Thanks Aaron D.

Thats Aaron. Enjoying every second of my suffering.

The last, but not least adventure was a school paid trip to An Kang to watch Dragon Boat races. A city south of Xi'an about 3 and a half hours.  We were told that we would get athletic clothes and shoes for free. Sounded a little fishy. And that we would be able to sit in a dragon boat and have our pictures taken. Sounded like an amazing time. Learn this in life and you will go far. Nothing is ever what it seems.  So we took a bus there and drove through the mountains, literally through them. We went through a tunnel that was prob pushing ten miles. It was so long the Chinese put trees in some scenic spots in the middle, haha. We got there and checked into our hotel. Then they tell us that we have dragon boat practice. Whoa, hold up a tick. Dragon boat practice, they must be joking. Nope, they were shooting us straight. So we walk down to the river and see all the Dragon boats and all the lehi(intense) Chinese guys that were going to row them. We end up having to sit and wait in the scorching heat for about an hour. Then our captain a sixty year old Chinese guy that had smoked a million to many cigarettes, tells us how to row the boat in Chinese. To me it means nothing, just an old guy waving flags and ores around in a crazy way. haha. So we board this boat, about 20 of us. There is a massive drum in the middle that is pounded so the people row together. I was lucky enough to sit right next to it, yay I will be def by the end of this.  We start to row to the beat, well we thought we were doing it right. Our over zealous captain was waving his flags with an intense look in his eye screaming something along the lines of row row row. While he was probably thinking, these pathetic foreigners couldn't tie their own shoes, let alone row this majestic boat. By the time we had rowed a quarter mile upstream and back down he was waving his flag like he was asleep. He had given up on us. I don't blame him. It was hard work.

So the next day we are supposed to lead the boats out in front of a crowd of a few thousand. No big deal, we were doomed.  So we led them out, slow as ever. Then they started blowing off fireworks off all the boats. They were like colored smoke grenades that were falling all around you. You can only imagine. People cheered us on like we were special, they forgot it is never what it seems, haha. So we get forced to the bank in front of all the people, because we couldn't steer our or control our boat, yeah we were pretty pathetic.  So we sit there while they perform up on the stage for awhile. Then all the boats started coming from the other side of the river, as fast as they could. While they were in the middle of the river five or six speed boats came out up stream from the dragon boats and started throwing ducks out there boats.  Then what I thought would happen did happen. Each Dragon boat had two divers with speedo's on. They dove in and caught as many ducks as they could in a frenzy of quacking, flapping, and choking. Once this insanely crazy spectacle was over the boats rowed by the crowd holding the ducks in their hands screaming wild chants. You can't even imagine this. It was so funny.  That was the gist of the trip. And let me tell you it is one I will never forget. I think that is all I had to say. I hope you have enjoyed my stories. Until next time.

Not Following Feelings, Feelings Following.

Hello everyone, i would put big money on that you are wondering what the heck this title means, or why i called it that. You will soon find out.  I have mentioned in the past that i have been going to an English corner once a week.  It has been amazing going to the corner, the relationships that have come out of it are priceless. This week I got really crazy and decided to attend another English corner at a university that is very close to the other one I go to.  This particular one was a little bit different in that it was outside and that there was roughly twelve students just listening and asking me questions.  That is a lot, and not everyone gets a turn to talk. Whether that would be because they don't feel confident in their English or that there is one or two Chinese that dominate the conversation because they have very good English.

 Getting to the title of this post.  The conversation got to why I am in China, why China.  I gave the usual answer of, I wanted to experience Chinese culture and visit my sister and whatever else.  I might have said feel a lot, like "I felt like it". I felt like coming, I felt like learning the language, I felt like traveling. This brought one guy to tell me that I do what I feel. Man did I want set him strait. Him saying this made me think on that, do I really follow my feelings a lot?  I really could say that everyday i follow my feelings less and less. Some maybe are thinking why wouldn't you follow your feelings. I would tell you that my heart or feelings are deceiving above all else. We must not give power to our feelings.  If we all did what we felt, where would we be today?  I really don't feel like staying in China, I don't feel like learning a language that is more stretching than you can know, I don't feel like leaving my family, whom I miss dearly.   We must be driven by a far greater cause than our feelings.  We must be driven by love.  Love doesn't give up when you feel like quiting, It serves when you don't feel like it, Love waits when your inpatient, Love gives when you want to keep, Love listens when you don't feel like it.  Love overcomes when you give up.  Love provides when you don't feel like you can. The list goes on and on.

 I was challenged when this man said this to me "so you do what you feel", challenged to take a look at my life  and really examine how often I do what i feel and not what I should.  Our feelings are majority selfish. I know there are some out there that would argue this point. But if we are honest with ourselves we would agree.  If Matt and heather did what they felt they wouldn't have taken their foster daughter Lilly in. My mom and dad wouldn't have adopted two beautiful twin babies after having ten children of their own. I am using these examples because they are real and close to me. I know the more i choose love and put my feelings in the back seat the better off I will be. I know it is a very hard thing to do, I would challenge you to look at your lives as well, and see where your being held back from the good you could be doing because of your feelings.  Thats all, sorry this didn't have very many good stories. I struggle with detail, so I am not good at telling stories. Thank you for taking the time to read this, even though you might not have felt like it. ;)

New Friends and Old Lessons

Hello everyone, it has been awhile since my last post.  Not too much has happened since then, but i will let you in on what has aspired to the best of my ability.

School has been going well. Frustrating at times, I know in the end it will be so worth all the time and effort that i will put into it.  I just starting learning some sentence patterns.  It took two and a half weeks to get through the sounds and tones of the language.  At certain points it has been a little discouraging.  I am super thankful to have some routine in my life here. If i didn't have at least a little bit of routine I think i would go crazy pretty fast.  I have recently started playing ping pong at the break between classes with some other foreigners, and let me tell you it has helped a lot with dead brain syndrome, I don't think that is a legit diagnoses.  All in all class has been a real blessing.

I have been going to an English corner every Tuesday.  An English corner is where a foreigner, most likely, sets up a place to meet and practice English.  It is set up so Chinese people can practice their English with native English speakers.  It is a really awesome opportunity to build relationships with people.  I met a guy named Luke there. He is 29, and about to get his PhD in bio chemistry. Pretty intense if you ask me.  Anyway, i gave him my number and told him any time he needed anything or wanted to hang out just to call.

He did call a few days later and asked me to play basketball. If you know me you know i wouldn't turn down an opportunity to play some ball. So we met at the university where i attend to play. I was expecting it to be a shoot around with Luke, Rick, a friend who is my class, and myself.  When we got there there was like 20 courts and they were all full with chinese guys.  So we got a game going with another five guys, we played four on four. I was astonished with how good these guys were.  The worst part is they don't play by points, they don't keep score.  So after awhile after i felt like i was going to have a heart attack, they brought two new guys.  Yao Ming and Nate Robinson, for those who don't watch the NBA, Yao Ming and Nate Robinson are both in the NBA.  Seriously both these guys were so good. Rick guarded Yao Ming to the best of his abilities, and i tried to guard super point guard. They told us that this time they wanted to keep score, sure wear the Americans down to nothing  then pounce on them with two of your best, low blow China. So we ended up losing like 12 to 6. I know pretty sad.  It was a really fun time though.

Back to Luke. Luke and I were talking after the English corner about a week ago. The conversation was going well, we were just talking about life and school. I told him that i was in China to travel and visit, and learn the language. The convo turned to a topic that I was hoping for. Lets just say it was super encouraging to here what he had to say. I gave him the book Purpose Driven Life, and I will discuss it with him very soon. So some really encouraging things have happened lately. Truly the only thing that matters in this life is the relationships we form with other people. I thought i should share that story with you all, i am sorry details were a little blurry. That is some of what has been going on in the last 3 weeks. Hope it wasn't too boring.