When you are desperate...

You have heard of what crazy things people do when they are desperate, like rob the bank, kill their wives for insurance money, or drink your own urine when you are totally out of water while you are lost at sea. For me, I decided I am going to cut my own hair.

Well, today started out as a very different day. When I woke up at 7:30, looking into the mirror when I washed my face, I could stand my hair anymore.  I need a haircut!

With no proper hair-cutting tools, I took Kioni's craft scissors, a mirror and the extra shower curtain out to the backyard.  It was cold, my fingers don't work very well, but I was determined to conquer the mess.

Four hours later, it's done!  I am happy with it, and will definitely do it again.  I saved myself some money, and most important of all, I got the satisfaction of creating something on my head, that was a great feeling.

Gadget

We received this today from a Freecycler, made a bit of popcorn and they tasted just as they should, minus the butter and salt, clean up is just an easy wipe. Though I like grease and salt, this is good for Kioni because she tends to eat too much popcorn whenever she gets her hand on them.
This gadget is real easy, just pour some popcorn kernel in there, turn it on, and they came flying out of the chute after hot air pops the popcorn.
They have a gadget for anything you do in the kitchen. Some of them are plain waste of money, but this one is agreeable to use, because it is MUCH better than popping popcorn in a pot with oil and mess.

How many weeks?

676 weeks. That's how many weekends we have with Kioni before she turns 18 and heads off to college. Well, in fact, less than that, I have to minus the weekends when she will be out with her friends, going to camps, etc. So what are we going to do with the 676 weekends? I would like to have lots of memory-making activities. Just like what my parents did with us, beaches, hiking, dinner at grandma's, playing with cousins, special restaurant treats. Wrecking my brain how to do so in the rainy Aberdeen weather, limited budget and absence of families.

Gloomy

Aberdeen winter is gloomy. The above picture was taken at 9:20am on December 30, 2008. That was not a rainy day even, at noon, the sky was actually bright! So you can imagine when it is a rainy day, the whole day will be like the picture above, and worse, because it will be raining. This certainly does not help when you are mourning the loss of a friend, (see the entry below).

We cannot hang laundry outside, the laundry will just stay wet and cold after hanging out for a whole day. We don't use the dryer, though there is one in the garage because cost of electricity is high. So we use the radiators that we have turned on in the house. Don't worry, these are the kinds that have hot water running through them to heat the house, no worries of fire. So on laundry day, we will have clothes all over, back of chairs, over shelves, on the arms of the sofas, anywhere that would provide hanging ability. The real challenge comes when I have to wash bedsheets, ah..... The bed we sleep in is queen size, there really is not much room anywhere in the house that would allow us to hang a queen size sheet. So I fold the sheets up then hang them, they take a whole lot longer to dry, but they do eventually. God made us to be creative.

I always have things to complain about, don't I? It was the heat in Cebu, now it is the gloominess.
Honestly, I would much rather be cold then hot. I can wear 5 layers here in Aberdeen, but I couldn't take off my skin even if I wanted to in Cebu!

First Christmas in Aberdeen. While we don't have much money to buy gifts, the good Lord has provided everything we need. We were able to find Kioni gifts from Freecycle, plus the multiple gifts from the U.S., we have a wonderful gift-opening time. And of course, we have good food too.

While Dan and I didn't exchange gifts, we each got food we like, for me it's ham, for Dan, a big chunk of cranberry cheese from Costco, and for Kioni, she really wanted smoked salmon. So we had a feast!

God is good, and the best of all, we get to remember while we receive so many blessings, the biggest blessing of all is Jesus, who came to bless us till eternity.

Why we actually come to Aberdeen...

Well, with a disappointed heart, let me tell you the true reason why we come to Aberdeen - a hope of inheritance! OK, you know this is just a joke.
Well, not totally pulling this out of my head. Dan's father, who is deceased, told Dan that Dan's great-grandfather (on Dan's father's mother's side) was an immigrant from Northern Ireland. Before he went to Northern Ireland, though, he was from Aberdeenshire, Scotland. His last name was Simpson. When Dan did some research, he found out that in Aberdeenshire, only one clan in which the name Simpson is related to, that is the Fraser clan of Aberdeenshire.
Interestingly, Castel Fraser in Aberdeenshire is only about 10 miles from where we live, we went there last Saturday to see the 'family root'. It is a huge piece of property, hen we were talking about Dan's family heritage with the lady in the gift shop, she pulled out a book that is written by one of the 20th lady of the Fraser clan. In the book, sure enough, they found the last name Simpson. But new information was added to the already known fact - the Simpson side of the family actually stems from an illegitimate relationship. Oh, well, that's it, no hope for inheritance.

Roundabouts

There are a zillion roundabouts everywhere you go in Aberdeen, unless you are going down your street to two houses down, then you won't be dealing with roundabouts. While others find it fun to go around roundabouts, I find it extremely challenging, even though I am not the one driving.

Roundabouts are not for those whose ear water easily get imbalanced. Every time we go around them, I feel like someone is squeezing my stomach, pretty soon, something is up my throat ready to come out. Due to genetic makeup, Kioni has my problem with going around roundabouts. One time, she actually threw up in the car.

Yet, you cannot do without roundabouts living in Scotland, or in the UK for that matter. Cest' la vie.

5 precious souls

God gave us five precious souls tonight, not a crowd, but five.

It was pouring rain when we loaded our car with the guitar, song sheets, a big bag of books for Kioni to read, 5 heads of cabbages, carrots, oil, salt, meatballs, sauce, tea eggs, a big bag of rice, rice cooker, steamer, steamed buns, 2 heads of garlic....

When we were on the road with the blinding rain and gusting wind, I grumbled, "Nobody will come tonight in this rain and wind."

Dan was silent, then he said, "We'll see."

I went into the kitchen right away and started cooking. With the help of our five volunteers, we started to get everything ready. I was in the kitchen frying up vegetables when I heard Dan said, "Ni Hao!" I knew, our first guest or guests had arrived! "Good, at least one person came," I thought. I didn't go say hi fearing I might burn the cabbage if I leave the stove. Suddenly, a head poked inside the kitchen, a big smiley face said, "Ni Hao!" to me, that's a Chinese face I have never seen before.

"I just arrived a week ago from China."

When I finally went out to the gathering room, there they are, the five of them, 2 girls and 3 men.

The girl who just arrived from China picked up one of the steamed buns and said, "Where did you buy these?" "I made them." I said, a bit worried that they didn't taste like they should. "You made them?! I miss eating these so much, I didn't expect to have these here. Thank you." Tears filled her eyes a bit. "It feels so good to eat these."

Everything went as planned, except the eating part took a little longer. They sang for the first time "Joy to the World" and "Silent Night", and in Chinese, too.

After Dan's talk about True Freedom, there were good discussions.

Out of the five people, one is a researcher, he is a professor of Petroleum Geology in China. He is leaving in a month going back to Beijing. He gave us his Beijing mobile phone number and urged us to contact him if we were in Beijing.

Three of the other four indicated that they would like to meet individually to discuss the Christian faith. The girl who just arrived and loved the buns wanted an English partner.

We are extremely delighted with the responses and we are sure that we will host another Gathering in a month or so. I just need to have the catering part run a little smoother. Need some more planning.

We have a great night. Kioni was a bit unhappy that I was in the kitchen too long. When I put her to bed two hours past her bed time. I thank her for being part of the "team", she held my hand and said, "You are welcome, I just had to sleep later, that's all." She has been a trooper all night.

Steamed buns, etc...

We are getting ready for the first Oil Lamp Gathering. We are excited, though we don't know exactly how many will come. Patrick sent us the newly designed Oil Lamp logo last night and we will use it for the first time for in our power point. (The website has not been updated at this point.) Dan and I have been thinking about the menu, (yes, we are making our own food), we bought 5 heads of cabbages, 4 large packages of meatballs, cooked up a large pot of sauce, and I made steamed buns! How about that! The steamer comes from a Freecycler, I am so thankful to be given such nice steamer and put it to good use. By the way, in the video below, you will see a Christmas tree, decorations and a sofa (with two matching chairs, that you won't see) all come from Freecycle. If you look closely, there is a tube of ornaments leaning against the fireplace, we will give those out tonight as gifts to the Chinese students who come to the Gathering.

We also practice songs this morning. See below Kioni and daddy practicing a song we are going to sing tonight, we are also going to sing Joy to the World and Silent Night. We hope to bring the true meaning of Christmas to the Chinese students. Christmas is not just an old 'western' holiday when people just set up Christmas trees, give gifts and feast. Christmas is about Jesus' arrival on earth, so that we will be free.

Scottish birthday

We would love to make a cake for Dan's birthday, however, without an electric beater, it is really hard. So we made Scottish scones instead. Kioni suggested we put a chunk of Toblerone on top of it to make it sweet, that what we did. We didn't have small candles either, so a big white candle stood beside of the 'cake' instead of in the cake. A mini heart shaped scone complete the birthday celebration. Then came the birthday song and warm hugs. I think Dan has a good birthday.

Did we beat you in the U.S.?

Did we beat anyone in the U.S. of having snow this early? Yes, we have snow on the ground this morning when we woke up, first time in the past two years to see snow, reminds me of Chicagoland in early spring.
It has been cold in the past few days, but what a surprise to see snow this morning when we woke up. I thought I heard someone outside this morning brushing off snow from their car windshield.
Also see Kioni's blog for her reactions towards the snow this morning.

Photo story

Kioni and Dan working in the backyard of our rented house, try to lay some grass.

The thing in the middle is for drying clothes. There is a dryer in the house, but electricity is expensive, therefore, a lot of people dry clothes outside. One downside though, there are always little bugs stick to the clothes, therefore, always shake them before gathering them inside.

Looking out from our second floor window to the back. You can see our neighbour's yards. In the far background is rolling hills. The sun was just rising.

Looking from our house across the street, our house is very similar to these houses. There are two big bags of rocks in our front yards. Our landlords wanted to lay those in the backyard, but Dan wanted grass. He will still use these up in some ways in the backyard. By the way, each family owns half of the building, not the whole thing.

An old building around Kings College, University of Aberdeen

Kings College, University of Aberdeen

The North Sea in the background

A pasture next to the North Sea

A lighthouse at Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, Scotland

Mansize Kleenex

It is always fun to strode along the isles of supermarkets in a foreign country, because you can always find something you have never seen in your life.

I didn't expect to see too many interesting thing in Scottish supermarket, but when we went to the paper isle to pick up some toilet paper, I saw this at the shelf:

Kleenex Ultra Soft mansize 1PK
for 1.95 pound (which is about 3.44 US)

Mansize Kleenex? You think in Scotland men have bigger faces that requires larger contact surface? How interesting.

A whole bunch of things you have to read

You might think something has gone very wrong with me, I have simply disappeared into thin air. Someone who will write and write suddenly stopped.

Well, it is all a combination of various factors that have me stopped for such a long time. We have lived in 4 countries in the past 5 months, that is sort of disruptive, don't you think?

Anyway, I am back. This time, I am in Aberdeen, Scotland, borrowing our neighbour's wireless internet signal (with his consent) writing this entry.

We have visited families, friends and churches, many of them, in the past 6 months, it feels great to see them again, however, it is a bit sad that we know we won't be back to see them in a few years, at least.

We have arrived in Aberdeen for two weeks now, though we have quite a bit of challenges, like because of hurricane Ike in Texas, we missed ALL our flights coming to Aberdeen, slept on the floor of New York JFK airport (well, basically, only Kioni slept), ran through London Heathrow airport with 6 bags of luggages, three hand-carry bags, a car seat, three blankets, a stroller with a 4-year old in it so that we could catch the last plane to Aberdeen, then cramped all our bags and ourselves in the tiny B&B room before throwing ourselves in the beds. Oh, we took showers in the little cubicle that fits Kioni perfectly.

Kioni sleeping on the floor in the arrival level of New York JFK, we got kicked out of the departure level by an extremely stern security guard.

Kioni relaxing in our tiny B&B room

We viewed a number of houses in the first few days, trying to decide which house to rent. At the end, we rented none of those houses. A couple who wanted to sell this house, decided that they wanted to rent it to a divinity student, and at the right moment, we walked through the door.

After we looked at the house, we asked them about the rent, she said, the leasing agency said it should be around 750 pounds to 800 pounds (x2 for U.S. dollars). But then she said, 'I though it should be more like 700.' Dan and I looked at each other and raised our eyebrows, never have I heard anything like that, lowering the rent without asking?

Anyway, we moved into this house, which is a bit tight in the U.S. monster house standard, but in fact is enough for the three of us.

We don't have a land line yet, it will have to be a week or so from now before we will have it, which means the internet is not available either.

We found out very quickly you pay twice the amount for similar items in the U.S., we were trying to save on lunch one day and went to McDonald's, BIG MISTAKE! Didn't go back a second time.

But what I really want to say, is how our faithful and loving God takes care of us all along, here are some examples, well, a lot of them, and a lot of them didn't get recorded yet, I am too sleepy right now to write them all:

1) When we knew we couldn't fly out of Detroit on our departure day September 14, a 24 year old Northwest staff spent an hour with us trying to call various airlines and ticket issuing companies to try to work out our tickets. Remember, all flights were affected, she had a long line of customers waiting for her help, but for some odd reasons, she decided that she would go above and beyond to help us. I have never experienced this before, usually, they will just tell you, "Your plane is delayed due to weather condition, come back tomorrow, sorry about that, and by the way, we don't provide a hotel room."

2) When we arrived in London Heathrow, the customs officer is obviously of Hong Kong origin, he is very concerned if we can make our flight to Aberdeen, and he said, 'You will have to run for it.' And we did.

3) When we arrived at the London to Aberdeen terminal, both Dan and I were huffing and puffing, , I sensed that people here move much slower, maybe the Scottish culture is more relaxed, and I thought to myself, not a good sign, maybe they just work too slow and we will miss the last flight to Aberdeen and we will, again, have to spend the night at an airport. When we got up to the counter, again, a Chinese looking staff helped us to reissue our tickets, and he charged us only the reissue fee, though we actually had to buy all three tickets all over.

4) We rented this house, but couldn't get in until the owner moved out, we were able to book another hotel for two nights, but after that, all the hotels and B&B were all full because of students coming to start school. James and Allison Merrick, fellow American student and his wife, opened up their house and allow us to stay with them for two nights, and cooked up some good food, plus quite a number of tips for living in Aberdeen, including where the Chinese grocery store is located and where the Charity (thrift) stores are.
Talking about Chinese grocery store, 'it just happens' that Allison has a Chinese co-worker, who tries to teach her how to make Chinese food all day long, and of course, Allison knows where the Chinese grocery store is, she even call her co-worker up to confirm the location, 'it just happens'. So I was able to get the most important condiment - soy sauce, several big bottles of them when we moved into the house.

5) After serious calculation, we decided that buying a car will benefit us more than not, especially on the ministry side. We need a car to drive students around, bring them to grocery stores and such. We were told by James Merrick of this Christian car dealer guy. We went to see him today. We had to take two different buses in order to get there, and all we had for the address was "the motor company in Newmachar'. We needed to use the internet this morning, so we could sort out our finance before we get to the car dealership. But we don't have internet access at home. Dan caught our next door neighbour getting ready to leave the house for the day, he agreed to let us use his wireless signal! He gave us his password and we are online! We were able to sort thing out before leaving the house!

6) We had to take two buses to get to the car dealership. We went on the first bus, get to the exchange stop, got off, then successfully got on the next bus. But we were a bit not sure after we got off, how we can get there. Dan said he would call the guy when we get off the bus. While we were sitting on the bus, an old gentleman must have saw our 'we are clueless' expression. He asked us where we were going and told us he was getting off at the same stop. So we followed him off the bus. Where we got off was like a little quaint town, there was no business in sight! He walked half way with us, and then pointed up a road and told us the car dealership was just up there, which we couldn't see from where we stood at all. We walked for another 3 minutes, and we found it, without making a phone call!

7) The fact is, we would not be able to make a phone call, because at the moment we arrived at the car dealership, Dan realized that he has forgotton to take his planner off the bus! And all the car dealership's phone number and a whole lot of stuff is inside. He was so focused on finding the car dealership that he forgot his planner. The lady in the car dealership's office, (turns out to be the owner's wife), was very kind, she immediately made phone calls to the Lost Property departement of the bus company and left Dan's name and contact number with them. I thought to myself, she could have cared less, the most anyone would do was to give you the phone to make the phone calls yourself, but she made all the phone calls for us.

8) We test drove the car, an 8-year old Ford Focus, silver in colour, very pretty and solid looking. The price is 2950 pounds. When we came back to the lot, a tall smiling guy welcomed us, Brian, the owner shook our hands. He didn't talk about the car for the first twenty minutes of the conversation, rather, he told us how God found him before he found God. How God has blessed him all along, even he became a Christian 5 years ago, how God, within a few weeks, saved his whole family, his wife and his two grown sons. Then we started to talk about which church he goes to, it just happens to be the church that has been mentioned to us at least 10 times, even from when we back in the U.S.. "By the way, the pastor is coming for lunch with us, he will be here in 20 minutes."

Then we get into the office to talk about the buying of the car, he pulled the paperwork for the car out and said, "I will sell it to you for 2500 pounds, you will need to pay about a hundred or so more pounds for the various paperwork with the government, I hope lowering the price will help you will that. I am here to help anyway I can. I see myself as God's transport manager."

"What?" "This is the second time this happens to us, lowering prices before we ask for it. Do they do that a lot in Scotland?"

I don't think so, and I know who did it for us.

9) The pastor walked through the door of the office, "Daniel Bush", he said, "Mike told me about you." Mike is the ReachGlobal (our mission agency) Europe director, 'it happens' that Mike and the pastor are classmates in the same PhD program!

10) Since we cannot drive the car back home with us today without the proper paperwork, we had to go home by bus again, which will take us another hour. But Brian said, "My driver will drive you home, it takes about 12 minutes." "By the way, do you need someone to pick you up for church on Sunday? We will come pick you up and take you to church. How about we should up around 9:00 at your house?" God knows how depressed we were last Sunday when we couldn't go to church because we didn't know which church to go to, and when we decided on a church, we couldn't get there because we don't know the bus routes, and we couldn't find out because we don't have internet access.

Brian also asked, "What do you need? Do you have furniture? We have a pine table and chair set sitting in our shed, do you need it?" I almost pinch myself for that, we just spent 99 pounds buying a set from the store! His wife offered pots and pans, and other household items. Either they are not kidding about the Scottish hospitality, or God is fast at work here.

11) The pastor said, "We have lots of Chinese students in our church." Dan and I looked at each other, and in my heart, I am already at the church, I want so much to meet these Chinese students. How I pray that this church will partner with us doing this tremendous ministry. Oh, by the way, the pastor's degree is in Missions.

12) Some of you might know, Kioni loves horses. Can you believe this: A hotel down the road from our house owns a horse. There is a path leading to where this horse lives just behind our house. It is a grand total of a 2 minute walk if Kioni wants to visit the horse walking down that quiet path, which also leads to a huge playground, complete with swings, slides, see-saws, and a zip line. The horse, Milly, is very tamed and loves to eat from people's hands. She always comes over when she sees us walking down the path, hoping for some carrots or whole wheat bread.

I don't know what you call all these, 'it just happens..."? I would rather say we are well taken care of by the Almight One, our most loving God.

Where in the world?

In the past few months, we were in Asia, now we are in the U.S., and a month from now, we will be in Europe!

With all these changes to adjust, it is hard to leave mental energy to write on my blog. Although I have not written for a few months, I do THINK about writing often, but all the traveling we do left me with little energy to even sit down and think.

After a whirlwind visit to Hong Kong, we are back in the U.S. staying with Dan's mom. This is still not our destination yet, we are heading to Aberdeen, Scotland in just over a month's time for Dan's PhD studies at the University of Aberdeen.

After we left the Philippines, so many things have happened. One of the most important changes is that we are switching from ReachGlobal Asian team to ReachGlobal European team. We were going to separate from ReachGlobal and set up a new ministry to serve the Mainland Chinese students and scholars in U of Aberdeen, however, when Dan talked about our vision with the Asia Director of ReachGlobal in Hong Kong, he saw the strategical value of the ministry and asked us to stay with ReachGlobal.

This is a wonderful confirmation of our hope to serve and minister in this capacity.

Will I miss the heat?

Only 23 days to go before we will leave Cebu and go into the next phase of ministry, that is teaching in China. I have been looking forward to the cooler weather in Hong Kong since it has been roasting hot here in Cebu. We don't deal with heat very well, the humidity and heat combination often send me into a very bad mood.

It is snowing today in Aberdeen, Scotland, where we will spend the next 3-4 years, I am just wondering, just wondering, if I would actually miss the heat in Cebu when I sit in front of the heated room looking out to the constant cold rain in Aberdeen.

Are we all like that? Women, when we have long hair, we want short hair. After we cut it short, we immediately want to grow it out. Men, the to grow beard or not to grow beard question is always lurking, even though you think you are pretty clear about the answer. Wondering, just wondering, what would I look like, or other's response will be, if I grow a beard....

Scholarships

Though we are 'millionaires' in Cebu, we are going to be poor students again in just over a year when we go to Aberdeen for Dan's PhD studies. Life will be quite different, as you can imagine, living here in Cebu versus living in Aberdeen. Though we look forward to living in cooler weather, the cost of living there is not what we look forward to.

Dan is looking into applying for several scholarships for the PhD program now. It is daunting how much money a PhD program and the living cost in Aberdeen will cost us. Without scholarships, we will be in heavy debt when Dan emerges 3 years later with a Dr. attached to his name.

The bottom line is, we know that God is in control, if PhD is in his plan for us, we will get it done one way or the other.

Aberdeen, here we come...

Dan received an email this morning from the University of Aberdeen, he has been accepted into the PhD program in the School of Divinity!

This is much faster than we have expected, he sent in the application just over a month ago, and we already recieved the official acceptance email, an official acceptance letter will come later, to Dan's mother's home.

We are of course delighted, to say the least. Though there are still many details to take care of, like housing, scholarships, etc. We are looking forward to the 3-4 years in Scotland.

You may wonder if this will change our duration of stay in Cebu. Well, we know before we came that we are comitted to be in Cebu for two years and we will also apply for the PhD program in January 2007. Our plan is always to apply for the program, if accepted, we will ask for a one year extension before we actually go to Scotland.

So the answer is, we will stay in Cebu until summer of 2008 as planned, then we will pack up, go back to the U.S. for a few months to visit our supporters, and off we go to Scotland. Unless the extension request is denied, which we don't see that happening. If the request indeed gets rejected, I guess the Lord REALLY want us to go in 2007.

We have started praying about scholarships, yes, we need multiple scholarships in order to go to Scotland. It will be impossible for us to pay the tuition and living expenses if there were no scholarships granted. As a student's spouse, the law allows me to work full-time, but with Kioni's requiring more and more attention each day, it will not be the most ideal if I have to work to support the family again. A lot to pray about, don't know what God is going to say at this point about that.