Carrie Tedder

Farewell Blog

Eccleesiates says that there is a season for everything. A time to plant, to harvest, to start, and to stop. I believe this to be true of this blog. My Typepad site was primarily started because Mark & I wanted a way to show you readers something of China. Now that our two-year Beijing adventure is over and we are back to one month in Colorado and one month of international travel, it's time to cease from regular blogging. God does all things well and He directs our steps. This change is one that I trust to be good. Different. But good. 

I'll leave the blog up because it contains precious photos and experiences of China and might be of interest to new readers. If and when blogging becomes a part of my life again, it will be announced on this site.

Be blessed today and may you culture junkies find a new and better fix!

Carrie Tedder

If Life Gives You Carrots....

Hey Bloggers. I am indeed very sorry for my cyber absence. But if I am honest, our new life of one month in Colorado - one month on the road, is an adjustment. This is not a complaint but simply an acknowledgment of a new way of 'doing life'. I've also slotted back into a world without an assistant (a great benefit of living in Beijing) and the burden of administration is sucking the creative juice right out of me! And as a result, one of the casualties has been my beloved blogging. I have lamented this. I have also missed your input and journeying with you, my fellow culture junkies. But there's good news. I think. After spending April in the UK, I hope to be back online in May. I have a serious back log of stories & photos & all things pertaining to culture...so here's hoping! 

PS. The photo was taken on a busy shopping street in Kowloon, Hong Kong. I could still kick myself for not having a cup!

Sunday Sunday

        Here are a few shots from the weekend of leading worship in Beijing. Two morning services and one evening of praise.

 

Oars and More

Friends rock. Especially friends who have great views of Hong Kong harbor! After our long train trip was nice to have a hot shower and then sit on the balcony and enjoy the majesty of the moment before beginning our week here. There is something magicall about watching boats crisscross the bay. I counted 27 of them in one scan!

The Big Engine that Did!

Mr. Theroux got it right in his latest book, Ghost Train to the Eastern Star. Train travel is the way to go! Mark and I found riding the rails from Beijing to Hong Kong completely satisfactory. We splurged and purchased a first class cabin. While that may sound indulgent it was actually more economical that flying. Two bunk beds made sleeping a breeze and an arm chair snuggled up beside the over-sized window was ideal for taking photographs. The real luxury in the whole deal was the minuscule en suite toilet, for which I am very grateful.

For the journey I had plans to cocoon inside the cabin. We needed to recover from a crazy week in Beijing. I simply wanted to read my book and not surface until the humid air of Hong Kong. But we had just found the door labeled Cabin #4 when we heard a soft voice say, "aren't you the worship leaders at the BICF?" So much for cocooning! The voice belonged Esther. A beautiful sister from the Cantonese service back in Beijing. She turned out to be a good friend of my good friend Grace. It was a welcome break to have the occasional corridor conversation with another member of God's family. The term small world is completely understated within the Kingdom isn't it?

The PEK to HKG train was label fast but the actual speed wasn't. I'm not complaining as it allowed for a bit of photography as we passed scene after scene of the Chinese countryside. Concrete and varying hues of gray made up a lot of the urban views outside our window but we also saw rural vistas. Farms complete with farmers, country folk riding bikes through mountain villages, and a few hillsides cover in my favorite plant...tea! We also caught sight of soggy rice paddies and fat water buffalo.

Training compared to flying is no comparison at all. If only the world's oceans had train tracks. 

Lighting Up

  Point taken.

Think You're Cold?

You know it's cold when you have to use the rice cooker to keep drinks from freezing solid!

The Weekend

        

       

The past 72 hours has been a real Beijing Blur. But a good one!

On Friday Mark & I scheduled back-to-back coffees with friends. It was so wonderful to catch up with their lives. Then Daniel hosted a drop in party for us Friday night. We had SUCH FUN. Chinese worship leaders & musicians, friends from the BICF, new babies, my language teacher, and even our former driver, Xiao Wang, were in the throng. We trashed Daniel's apartment but had made memorieses in the process.

Saturday we lead worship all day for BICF's spiritual life conference. The speakers for the event were Stuart & Jill Brisoce. We knew from working with them before that the day would also be a very restorative for Mark & I. And it was! Wonderful, wonderful subject matter of 'walking in the spirit'. Another bonus of the day was getting play with Beijing's best bast player and our semi-adopted son Timon from Dominica. 

Sunday was filled with services, conversations, dim sum, and a praise rally. But our biggest news from the weekend was an expected but none-the-less thrilling phone call from our son Benjamin. He's engaged! Yes. Ben & Megan are officially heading towards marriage. We are SO excited for them and thankful beyond words. We'd been anxiously awaiting the 'she said yes' phone call and was relieved to get it. Even if it came smack in the middle of a worship song!

It's now 5am on Monday morning and I'm up before the guys. Which, if you really know me, you know all glory belongs to jet lag because I'm usually the last one up!

In 4 hours we catch the train to Hong Kong. So I'll be blogging again once we arrive in southern China.

Have a great day.

Man Bags

My excitement for vacuum shopping was clearly from a feminine perspective. Daniel appears rather underwhelmed with his choice in vacuums! He opted for the yellow one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

How Dry I Am

In our quest to purchase a vacuum for Daniel, I stumbled on what is a fascinating cultural phenomenon. Chinese humidifiers. 

I too used to think of humidifiers as boring electrical appliances. Square, cream coloured machines that possess purpose but no heart. But China has changed my mind with it's colourful line of these fresh-out-of-the-factory animated appliances.

Aren't they cute? I think my favorite is the last one. It's a Chinese New Year humidifier in honour of the year of the Ox! BTW, I got seriously yelled at for taking these photos. So I hope you appreciate my near-arrest.
 

 

The Neighborhood

The first few days in Beijing are relatively light schedule-wise so we're using the time to delag and love on Daniel. It's also a great opportunity to recover from our Colorado colds before leading worship all weekend. Mark's voice is finally sounding better and we no longer circle the tissue box as if it were Mecca! That's good news!

Here's the view from Daniel's apartment window...and the laundry!

Yum Yum!

Enjoying our first lunch with Daniel! 

 

 

Back In China

Generally speaking taxi drivers either turn out to be your sworn enemy upon whom you wish to lash curses or they become your best friend. Our driver turned out to be the later. He was young and not bothered at our attempt to turn his small car into a suitcase window display. He liked Mark's guitar and was gentle with it. We hummed along to his car radio that blasted out Chinese love songs. "Women ai jungguo yin yue", we said, insuring him of our love for Chinese music. A laminated photo of his young bride hung from his key chain. She was beautiful. Then she called. No doubt asking when he'd be home for dinner. He mumbled that he had two American musician passengers. His tones we soft and kind.

Once off the airport expressway, we wove our way through Beijing's traffic and met Daniel. There he sat. Mr. Dependable was on time as usual. He looked giraffe-like perched high on his new red scooter. And I was relieved to see him wearing a helmet. The taxi driver followed Daniel's motorized path which eventually led us to his apartment. I was anxious to emerge out from under the suitcase pile and hug my boy. Nearly thirty one hours passed since I had slept and seven weeks since I'd seen Daniel.

We unloaded the car and shook hands with the taxi driver. Mark gave him a copy of 'The Door'. He reached into the car and yanked the red Buddha dangly thing from his rear view mirror. That was our present in return. He was moved by our generosity. But no more than we were of his kindness.

I love China.

Rapid Eye Movement

Sleeping off jet lag...

Feb. 9th

Thanks for your travel prayers as we cross the Pacific today. We're catching the sunrise flight out of Colorado Springs and will land in Beijing mid-day on Feb. 10th. The destination is particularly sweet this time as Daniel will be waiting for us!

If you want to see what's happening at the Beijing International Christian Fellowship where Daniel serves, go to www.bicf.org  It's a great site and shows how wonderfully multicultural the church in Beijing is. Have a look under 'staff''. There you can see Daniel and all the hard working people we love so dearly at the BICF!

Bamboo In The Round

Disappointment is the overwhelming emotion I have now when visiting Chinese/American restaurants. Sure hope I didn't offend any of you restaurant owners out there. So in an effort to recreate our culinary custom that we began in China, Mark and I have been trying our hand at Asian cooking.  My Colorado kitchen doesn't possess the typical flame throwing Beijing burner but it does have a wok and a bamboo steamer! 

My favorite is dish to cook (and eat) is Steamed Cod with Black Bean sauce. The recipe comes out of a book I picked up in Hong Kong last year. It's a simple but delicious dish. One that is obviously idiot friendly - thus my success!

If you want to see more of this cookbook, just click on the link. http://www.amazon.co.uk/China-Modern-Cutting-edge-Recipes-Cutting-Edge/dp/1856266737  Beware that the measurements are for the kilogram minded!

This Is A Test

Pop quiz! You just thought I had forgotten about the Chinese Driver’s Test didn’t you?

Well.

Think again. Today mark’s the second installment of questions.  Are you ready? Do you have your Asian thinking cap on? Here goes.

Question #1.49

Before DRIVING a motor behicle, the driver:

A.    can drink a little alcohol.

B.     Is not permitted to drink alcohol.

C.     Can only drink beer.

Question #1.89

When making a right turn, changing to the right lane, passing a vehicle and then returning to the original lane, or going to stop on the side of the road, a driver must __________in advance.

A.    decelerate and blow horn.

B.     Stretch out hand to hint to the other vehicles.

C.     Turn on the right turn signal.

Question #1.197

True or False

When a series of vehicles are traveling one after another, the safety distance between two vehicles depends upon the preference of each driver in the group.

Question #9.5

For an open abdominal wound, such as protrusion of the small intestine tube, we should:

A.    put it back.

B.     No treatment.

C.     Not put it back, but cover it with a bowl or jar, and bind the bowl or jar with a cloth belt.

Prayer Needed

  You bloggers know how much we love Iceland. We have dear friends there and have visited several times. For those of you who have a copy of The Door, the organ player on that CD/DVD is Icelandic. The body of Christreally came to our aid when we had a major crisis in Iceland many years ago. So I wanted to send out the prayer SOS.  My friend Oli, just sent this email.

Have a read. Then a prayer.

"The financial crisis has hit Iceland worse than other western countries. All our banks went bankrupt in October and everything has changed since then. Iceland went from around 1% unemployment to around 8% in January and it is still rising fast. On top of that we have 18% inflation. Also, people have had to cut their budget big time as imported food and basically everything that´s imported has gotten ridiculously expensive in the past few months. So basically people are having enough problem feeding their family these days and don´t buy any „extras“.
For the past few weeks the value of the króna has strengthened a little which gives us hope that we´ve hit bottom."

Cyber Opts

An area of conviction for me is prayer.

I want to stop saying, "i'll pray for you" and instead pray immediately. Like on the spot. That might be a bit awkward depending on the situation but still my conviction remains.

I'm also trying to do this in cyber space. Only a few moments I had a chance to practice my new

• pray now plan

The inbox brought bad news from our sweet South African friends. They are in an Indonesian hospital. All desperately ill with a parasite that is mimicking dysentery. So I prayed for them online.  It's a start.

I know how much it means to me when someone actually prays for me instead of saying they'll pray for me. That's not to knock the pray-later-types. I know many people do  pray later.  Forgetfulness and laziness and even sleepiness usually suppresses my promise. 

Is anybody else out there challenged by this prayer quandary?  What if any scriptural basis do we have for response time in prayer? What's your experience in prayer response. Particularly when confronted with a dire need.

Can't wait to hear from you on this subject!

PS. I can see you comments, though the rest of cyber world can't until March 1st. So send them in!

On The Train

Flying is faster. Dragon Air would take me there in 3 hours. But somehow 30 hours on the new fast train from Beijing to Hong Kong is more in line with our culturejunkieness. It's cheaper too.

Yeah.

We're crazy.

Chinese train culture is a force to be reckoned with but I'm still looking forward to it. The day+ gives Mark & I a little defrag time in between city visits. Leaving behind the familiar culture of Beijing (and my Daniel) we'll forego the temptation to carry another's matryoshkay dolls (ref. transsiberian, the movie http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0800241/) and instead play cards, sleep, and read. I 'm heading down to pick up Paul Theroux's latest this week. The subject matter should be fitting as it involves tales of train travel. Can't wait to blog the journey with you!