good grief

my teammate steve let me borrow his kindle with a newly purchased "booklet" book (about 30-40 pages) called "good grief". why am i reading a book about grief?

the other day i came home from my afternoon class and checked my email like normal but received an email from my brother telling me that my uncle has passed away earlier that night. i was shocked.. i knew he was sick for a while but i thought he was getting better. the past couple days have been filled with lots of tears, questions, and heartache of a loss in the family and for my aunt, cousin, grandma, and the rest of the family. at times like this i wish i wasn't so far away in china. at times like this i'm at lost of words of what to say or think... but i'm thankful that He is here and my Comforter.

i never experienced a family member dying before this and could not fully understand/relate to what that loss feels like when others experienced death of someone dear. now i understand and it's painful and just plain hard.

i just finished reading "good grief" tonight and it was encouraging.. to know that these feelings, processes, and stages of grieving are normal and how to learn from it. the preface about the author sums it up well- "it's written with the heart of a pastor, the insight of a psychologist, the humanity of a father and husband, and the hope of someone who has seen so many survive the process of grieving..."

i miss my uncle, the last time i saw him was last summer when i was in america. he's was a hard worker, a faithful son, husband, brother, uncle, and father, and fought a good fight with his illness... we love you Uncle Frances and miss you.

it's a process and i'm reminded that my hope is in Him and his mercies are new each morning... please remember my family during this time.. thank you for your thoughts!!

baking 101

i'll be the first to admit that i'm a pretty terrible baker. haha why? i don't like to read and follow directions! hahaha... which is key and essential for baking well! so on that note, hui and i had our first "sunday night" with students (a night for them to come over and take part in different activities- ei. baking, game night, movie night...), last night was baking night! it was super fun- we had 9 sophomore girls (our sophomore classes are quite different than typical energetic, enthusiastic students- but last night they were estatci to learn how to bake!) and we made the 3 things that i (sorta) know and had ingredients for: banana bread, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and peanut butter oatmeal cookies!

recipe for a good ol' baking 101 night:
9 chinese sophomore girls
18 hands eager to whisk, stir, open the (toaster) oven, and wash your dishes
2 foreign teachers that look chinese ;)
1 chinese song to sing, just for fun
3 recipe sheets for them to follow and try on their own (with a little supervision)
1 bag of tissues to wipe up all the mess and greasy hands
and 2.2 hours of fun :)

hui and i before the mess, i mean baking night :)

taking turns measuring, beating, mixing..

eating the fruits of our labor :)

guess who the foreign teachers are? haha love these girls and so thankful for opportunities to hang out with them outside of class and build relationships :)