I can't sleep in since my mind is actually telling me it's almost Natlie's bedtime.
I'm sitting on the red couch in my living room. The table is set for breakfast. We'll have lots of relatives over for pancakes in about three hours. The clock ticks steadily. And I'm thanking God that none of the people in my family are six-year-olds and that everyone is a sleepyhead in the morning.
The TV next to me is ten years old. The piano has layers of brown tattered oldies and freshly printed test-runs. The zig-zaggy printed upholstrey of the armchair next to this couch is fading while the seat of it becomes ragged and stringy. My dad's thick maroon Bible sits next to the conc shell I used to always put my ear up to so I could hear the ocean.
Call me nostlagic. I'm just glad I'm home. All the glory of Shanghai could not make me happier than being in a place so familiar and so filled with Jesus.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Little Helper
There are Shou-Wu-Ai-Ee (forgive me for my made up pinyin) and Da-Wu-Ai-Ee in our house - Little Helper and Big Helper, respectively. Da-Wu-Ai-Ee lives with us. She makes breakfast, sleeps with and bathes Natlie, and at night gossips on the phone between segments of her favorite Chinese soap opera.
Little Helper comes every morning to meticulously clean and fold laundry, wash the floor, organize, and scrub bathrooms. Our house always look nice because of her. During her little breaks throughout the day - when I'm home - she'll pull out some English book or ask me to teach her a few words. She's a fast learner.
One day she flipped open her phone to show me a photo of a sweet little girl crouching to stay in view of the camera. It was her daughter. Then a few weeks after I arrived here I realized that all the pictures that Natlie and I drew together sat around or were thrown away completely unappreciated. So the next time I drew a swirl of flowers and dots and serpentine stripes I asked Little Helper to give it to her daughter.
Now we are good friends, and I think part of that is because she realized that I have so few reservations for who I am kind to. I put Natlie and Little Helper's girl in the same boat in my mind. That's refreshing and hopeful to her.
Last Friday Little Helper sat on my bed as I recited vegetable and fruit words with her. She explained in Chinese, "You go home and I am very...(she indicated tears on her cheek with her fingers). I miss you very much." Oh. I ache knowing I probably will never see her again.
Little Helper comes every morning to meticulously clean and fold laundry, wash the floor, organize, and scrub bathrooms. Our house always look nice because of her. During her little breaks throughout the day - when I'm home - she'll pull out some English book or ask me to teach her a few words. She's a fast learner.
One day she flipped open her phone to show me a photo of a sweet little girl crouching to stay in view of the camera. It was her daughter. Then a few weeks after I arrived here I realized that all the pictures that Natlie and I drew together sat around or were thrown away completely unappreciated. So the next time I drew a swirl of flowers and dots and serpentine stripes I asked Little Helper to give it to her daughter.
Now we are good friends, and I think part of that is because she realized that I have so few reservations for who I am kind to. I put Natlie and Little Helper's girl in the same boat in my mind. That's refreshing and hopeful to her.
Last Friday Little Helper sat on my bed as I recited vegetable and fruit words with her. She explained in Chinese, "You go home and I am very...(she indicated tears on her cheek with her fingers). I miss you very much." Oh. I ache knowing I probably will never see her again.
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