Jenny

KIA is sharing a campus with a local Chinese school. I am on the second floor, and on the second floor down the hall, 1st and 2nd grade Chinese students are also learning. Jenny (one of the first grade teachers) has become one of my friends recently.

Our friendship started by just saying "hi" in the hall. Due to the fact that KIA took over most of the campus...which included the bathroom section, the Chinese school uses our bathrooms. They will soon have their own to use, but they're not quite finished yet. Jenny would walk her students down the hall in two straight lines. They were quiet, until they saw me, and then they'd all burst out into "hello! hi! hello! hi!" So I of course respond back, "ni hao." I acknowledged Jenny one day and she responded with a load of English. I was a little surprised, so we talked for a bit and then I went into my classroom.

A couple days later, I gave her an old Chinese book that was for learning English. She accepted it and expressed her thanks. After that, we were just kind of friendly in the hall. Until...last Friday! I walked down to her classroom around 6pm (I know, why was I at school still at 6pm on a Friday?!). The Chinese schools eat dinner at school too. So, they don't officially get out of school until 7pm. CRAZY! They start school before us too. Insane!! So, I walked down to her class and I spoke with her. I asked her how she'd been...just catching up. She offered to teach me Chinese, so I readily accepted. More than anything, I just wanted to become friends with her, in hopes of sharing parts of me that mean so much (you know..).

We met on Sunday for my first lesson. It's great learning Chinese from a 1st grade Chinese teacher. She taught me the vowel sounds, the tones, and then she taught me to read some characters (about 16) and then the pinyin (the phonetics for Chinese). It was quite entertaining to me when she held my hand to show me how to write the letter 'a'. She asked me to continue to write it for the remainder of the line. Then she looked at me and was like, "oh...you do this all the time. Sorry!"

Monday morning we met and I gave her some tea (apparently some really nice tea), and she gave me a Chinese book. I'm really excited about this new developing friendship. It will be difficult to meet up because of the lack of available time. She is at school M-F from 7am until 7pm! Keep her in your thoughts and lift up future times that we'll meet to the Father who makes all things clear and new. May she find new purpose in her life very soon, and joy that comes in the morning.