There’s no place like home! We have spent the past ten days traveling, and when we returned to Langfang last night, I had just enough energy to unpack, complete my daily run, and crawled into bed. It was a sweet feeling to return home, and as I fell asleep, I thought: “There’s no place like home.”Our time in China has dramatically changed my perception of “home.” It’s strange to think that we now consider Langfang, China “home,” and yet it is not our home! This world is not our home; we are strangers in this world! How sweet it will be when we return to our true home!
Why are we grateful this week:
1) Jess’ family visited and returned to America yesterday! We spent ten days with Jess’ parents and younger brother Josh, but we missed Kristy, Karilyn, Kerri, & James. We had a great time showing them around Langfang, Beijing, and Qinhuangdao. During their stay we held an English Corner, visited the Philip Hayden Foundation, and toured the Great Wall! We also visited or friends in Qinhuangdao for an evening of their English week.
2) It has also been an exciting time for Shannon and Peter as they continue with their wedding plans. They went to Beijing on Saturday to buy some gifts and pick up Shannon’s finished wedding dress.
Please continue to “think” about us:
1) The English are coming! Langfang’s English Week is less than two weeks away, and many other campuses are either finished or in the middle of their English weeks. We will have the final English Week of the year on our campus from May 23rd to June 1st. Please remember the team coming to Langfang: Joe Paolella, Brian Kough, Tim Phillips, Jeffrey Guinn, Emily Guinn, Beth Rivera, Stephen Rivera, Ryan Betty, Laura Sauvain, Dana English, Bethany Thornton, Nancy Suter, Damond Lassiter, Jessica Samblee, Claire Hetrick, and Newt Hetrick. Chris Buda will be leading another team to a campus in Tianjin.
2) This Thursday we will invite students to an American style dinner. We did this earlier in the semester with a Mexican style dinner, and it was a tremendous success. This time we will be serving some of our favorite American breakfast foods for dinner.
3) About a week ago we were very encouraged to find out that one of our administrative advisors had asked Tony for a very special reference book! It is our hope that it will be very useful for the rest of his life.
4) Recently, we have been very concerned about a male foreigner who has recently appeared on our campus. He is not affiliated with IECS or ELT Edge, but he has been spending an increasing amount of time with some of our female students, and we are worried about his motives. He has made the trip to China to visit students at least four times this year. We are not sure how to proceed with this situation, but we are very concerned for some of our students.
5) Jess and I will be running the Great Wall Marathon this Saturday. It will be Jess’ first marathon, and I will probably run with her.
6) Our camera is still limping along. We just want it to last until we make it back to the United States in June.
Thank you for your thoughts,
Brad and Jessie
