It’s Snowing!

Not really. In the past few days, there’s been a mixture of weather patterns that we’ve experienced. On one day it was cold (like SF-weather). On another day it was mildly warm with a breeze mixed in. Another day it was windy and the air was filled with these giant cotton balls (from the willow trees EA planted years ago), which if you were not careful could easily get caught in your hair, eyes or sometimes into your mouth. And just yesterday we had a major sandstorm that covered the entire sky making the color of the afternoon sky dull orange (see pics here).  It made quite an interesting walk with our family with the wind and sand flying everywhere. We even had to use our “rain guard” for our stroller to protect Haddon from the elements.

We expected these weather patterns, but we thought it was interesting that it happened in such a short period of time. The constant weather changes is a pretty accurate description of what has been taking place in the past two weeks. So let me update you on what’s been going on!

1) Housing

One of the bigger tasks that our family needed to accomplish was to find an apartment. It’s one thing to look for housing in your home country, it’s a completely different ball game to find housing in a foreign country. In all my time here, I was reliant on others to do all the legwork, but this time I (and others on our team) had to do all the work. And let’s just say that it was a lot of leg work. Imagine having to walk to see every rental property that fit into your price range. It was funny hearing the agent say that it’s a 10-minute walk, but it ends up being 30 minutes. Okay. Not that funny. Haha.

At first we wanted to take our time to find property so that we can be deliberate and strategic in the location of the apartment. But one aspect of living in the city is that everything is fast. The pace of life is fast, so finding rental property also came fast. So in a matter of a 10 days we found a place to call our home for the next 12 months.

We’re grateful to have found this place. And even though it is pricey and comes with extra fees (like a 5% tax for being a foreigner), we’re thankful to have this place and to start living out our lives. It may have been earlier than we planned, but we know that this was perfectly timed in his plan.

2) Mandarin

By having our housing in order, we can now focus on how to best study Mandarin. Currently, we have 1 and 1/4 Mandarin speakers on our team. Maybe even less because my Mandarin has naturally deteriorated over time. As a result, I’m sensing the need to start language school. I’m sensing an even stronger need for Jen to start language school as well. Haddon is already getting a steady stream of Mandarin from watching the Chinese version of Sesame Street. So our family and team is gearing up to study Mandarin.

3) Jobs

One of our main concerns is finding a job that will help us to make ends meet and provide a visa for our family. We’re grateful to him for opening up a path to find a job within 5 days of our stay here.

Our current obstacle is obtaining visas for those in our group who planned on working. It’s been a journey with many turns due to visa laws that we did not know about previously. You would think that it is smooth sailing once an offer is accepted. But there’s been hiccups, and every hiccup is a reminder that we are the “immigrants” in this nation.

I keep reminding myself that every hiccup we run into is an opportunity to train our minds and hearts to cling to the one who is in control. I use the word “train” because there are seasons where we cling to him more than usual. It can almost look like a graph chart with the lines going up and down, but that should not be the case for those who follow him. Whether the season is good or bad, clinging and relying upon him is necessary. So when there is a rough patch, I see it as a training opportunity to learn and know what it means to cling and rely upon him faithfully so I can continue to rely on him when the season eases up (if it ever does).