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| to anyone who might still actually look at this site, my apologies! it is nearly impossible now to access xanga from china, so i'm officially abandoning this blog for now. if you wanna see us (kate and I) and all of our fun adventures, check out our blog at: http://poemapromise.blogspot.com :) | | |
| Okay, so I've been a bit remiss here... my blogging community has been very poorly informed about the most exciting months of my entire life! While I suppose I like the idea of having a blog at some level, when given the choice between spending time with the love of my life or sitting in front of a flashing cursor and uploading my thoughts into cyberspace.... I'm gonna choose the former every time :)
As many of you already know, the month of January has been a big one for me and my beloved! After Katie's parents arrived in the last days of December, I decided to start off the new year with a bang by asking them for their blessing to marry their daughter. That was New Year's Day.... the dillemma was then how to formalize this engagement. Wheels were in motion for a diamond engagement ring back in the States, but it looked to be a while before it was set to make its journey across the Pacific and onto the naked finger of my love.
 After what proved to be a somewhat challenging search for a ring that would suit the sentiment of my love and my desire to spend the rest of my life with Katie, I finally settled on a simple white gold band with a few phrases engraved onto the surface in Chinese characters ("Beloved" on one side, and "Psalm 37:4-5" on the other). I'll spare you all the details, but let's just say the engagement ring styles over here leave lots to be desired! Providence was on my side, though, and the engraving which normally requires 3 weeks+ to complete (they have to ship it outta town) was done in approximately 24 hours. I hatched a plan to propose to her along a special little stretch of a dirty but quaint canal near where we live (we had our first long, romantically involved, talk there).
Saturday, January 6th marked the day that I became the fiancee of the greatest beauty I have ever beheld (trust me, it goes way more than skin deep... this is one beautifully whole person!). Over the next few weeks we said goodbye to her parents (and her most excellent brother Dave), started planning a wedding, welcomed my own mom and brother to China, finished one semester of teaching (at the university) and started a new one (at the international school), saw my family off... you get the picture, it's been busy!
Just a few days ago the diamond ring finally arrived via a friend who was traveling back from the States.. not every girl gets engaged twice.. or gets to marry her husband twice for that matter (we'll be having one wedding in the Chicago area and another one back here in Tianjin). So, we're doubly excited!
Now, we're just 12 weeks away from the big day! April 21st in Wheaton, Illinois... if you haven't heard the news already and would like an invite, let me know. For those of you here in China, May 13th looks to be the most likely day to celebrate the second go-round!
95 days of dating... 84 more days of engagement! Wow!
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| Under accusation that I've abandoned my blog, I offer my apologies and an attempt to remedy things a bit with this post. Things have been busy here! I've been learning to juggle teaching at two different schools, staying connected with important friends here, getting to know people that are important in Katie's life, and being fully present in a very exicting relationship with a very special lady... all to say I've felt awestruck, eager, overwhelmed, encouraged, exhausted, and incredibly blessed all at once! Not too much to report from my university classes here... things are going well. The students are into the 3rd unit of the course, focusing on using English in a problem solving context. We watched Apollo 13 earlier in the week, and they are working in groups to solve some lunar crisis scenarios! I know, it's all a bit dramatic! Whatever keeps people interested, I suppose... Our Service and Society class is entering the semester's home stretch, with just about a month left. I'm looking forward to seeing the students' presentations in December, as they report on a particular person/group of people in this community that falls outside their normal socio-economic boundaries. There's a lot of good and difficult thinking to be done about how we can really engage in service and relationship with those perceived as the "poor" in this place. Other than that, seems the holidays are just around the corner! Two weeks until Thanksgiving, then the Christmas season, then lots of important visitors, followed by two months of vacation! Woohoo! | | |
| Well, the last two months have been eventful ones. Haven't had much time to update things here, and probably wouldn't have known what to write if I did. But, it seems that some of that "becoming" has "become" a little clearer. Rather than overwhelm you with text, I think a picture might suffice: 
For a more comprehensive understanding, you might try visiting http://www.poemapromise.blogspot.com/ I'll keep you posted... | | |
| not long before i hop across the pacific again for another year in china; to what increasingly feels more like home than America the beautiful. i think i was home just long enough this time... to see friends, research future plans, and breathe a little fresh air.
i spent the last week out in denver with two good friends from college. both are married, one is already a father nearly twice over! i had lots of fun being an uncle to the "beans" (their daughter's nickname), and enjoyed plugging into their lives temporarily.
nevertheless, i think my turn at fatherhood will probably be at least a few more years in the making... it seems most of my plans are still very much in the becoming. scratch that, most of who I am is in the becoming. my ideas about purpose, faith, value, relationships, and vocation have all undergone revision in the past few years. though it sometimes seems a scary or overwhelming rewrite, it's more often a healthy process of assimilating my own person to the way truth is revealing itself around me.
i suppose i had previously hoped or believed that one day i'd awake to "adulthood", where I had more or less arrived at physical, vocational, existential, and spiritual maturity. well, if so, i guess the alarm hasn't gone off to wake me from my slumber. in fact, i've grown skeptical that such a day is ever arriving, but i'm not sure i'm all that disappointed.
so here comes china for at least one more year. still plenty of new things to wake up to and explore. after that.....? let me know if you've got any bright ideas. | | |
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