Life is too short to be lukewarm

It is already mid-May and my time at Woodlands will soon be drawing to a close. A scenario I could imagine all the time would most likely to be asked one same question again and again,

-‘Have you enjoyed your time working at Woodlands?’

-‘Errrr……’nervously scratching my head, desperate trying to come up with an easy answer.

-Blessed?

-Oh, yeah! Try holding an only weeks’ old new-born baby in your arm ten o’clock in the morning at Acorns, i’d be very surprised if you are not amazed by God’s wonderful creation and wondering the gift of life.

-Routine?

-Not as bad as it always sounds when battling on ‘Scrabble’ with some extremely sharp-minded eighty-year-old has become your unshakable routine on every Tuesday morning at Oaks.

-Challenging?

-Always, as you can imagine how miserably nervous I was to explain a new game to a gang of six-year olds at the ‘Explorers’.

-what have you enjoyed most working at Woodlands?

-The privilege to work with children. I really love them to bits. Trivially, thanks to some moms’ trust, I have developed a new parenting skill, which is also an unexpected bonus of serving as a volunteer in the past few months, babysitting. Reading a bed-time story can often be very easy until I am given a dinosaur book with all the sophisticated dinosaur names, it also cracked me up every time I was corrected by a three-year- old who has obviously heard the story gazillion times.  Usually I can be excused for being a foreigner; changing nappy is another challenge or privilege, I should say, that it really opened my eyes as what parents can do for their children. Though diaper technology has been noticeably advanced over the decades, changing diaper has never been easy.........anyway; babysitting still can be a promising part-time, varying from dead-easy to very handful.

-How have you grown spiritually during this past year serving at Woodlands?

- I am very often amazed by how much God knows me being fuzzy and lack of sense of discipline and accountability that He has used every opportunity to train me to be more organized and reliable. Most importantly, I have learned to solely rely on His strength and wisdom instead of seeking self-sufficiency as I learn to put trust in Him. This has always been hard for me but I believe as He knows my frustration, my doubt and my desire to have a closer relationship with Him. He will lead me through everything and reveal himself through his unfailing faithfulness and abiding love.

Indeed, I have been so blessed in every way in the past few months working at Woodlands, on top of which is being with God’s people. The genuine friendship Woodlands people have offered has meant a lot to me and I will definitely treasure it in my memory, for here at Woodlands, once again I was changed by His love and reminded to live every moment for Him.

Day one, overwhelmed by the sheer size of British Museum while i was roaming from one gallery to another, day two i spent almost half day taking pictures of the Dinosaur at the National history Museum, a comic explaining the extinction of dinosaur is well amusing (see pic). Day three, it was an unusual sunny day for London so i made an effort to have an early start get on the London Eye, where a thirty mins trip in a capsule gave me a smashing bird view of the whole London from 360 degrees, which was really cool. then i walked through st James Park, one of the many royal parks, to China town, had planned to have a proper chinese meal but ended up with expensive greasy dodgy chinese buffet. bad decision making.. well, my nostalgia was more or less satisfied though. after that, i spent the whole afternoon lying on the steps of trafalgar square watching passers-by and feeding smelly pigeons..Day four, i paid an expensive visit to the highly recommended Madame Tussauds. Blimey!! i thought i was early, but the whole morning, i was QUEUEING from outside to inside, from downstairs to upstairs, from the corner to the stairs. a real life experience of living in the UK. to be fair, my good patience was compensated by pulling Chalie chaplin's mustach, holding hand of the king of England, or making faces in front of the president. didn't bother to take a pix with the Queen as had to be charged extra, heehee....had a lovely time there. in the afternoon i went to have a walk at Hyde park and pretended to be homeless tramp on the bench. on my way home in the evening, i took a snap at the 9 and 3/4 platform in king cross station from Harry Porter...Day five, found chinese embassy by chace and while i was taking a pic of it, questioned by police officer if there was any particular reason i was taking a photo of it...and then he started to say what a nice building the embassy is and stuff like that...indeed, the embassy building wasn't too shabby..the rest of the afternoon was spent eating ice cream and sun bathing at Regent's Park, my personal favorite park. Day six. rushing to the Buckingham Palace to see the guard changing cememony in the morning only told there was no changing this morning...Bother!!! nobody told me yesterday. but i felt a lot better when i relized that i wan't the only one that wasn't told about the change either. with a tumbling tummy and a twinkling of an eye, i arrived at Notting Hill saturday market. felt  just like walking in a typical open market in china, it was so crowd that i had to push to make my way. Buying the book of 'Anolects' of Confucious at the travel bookshop with the blue door, which was run by Hugh Grant in the film of 'Notting hill' just made my day...btw, to rent a flat in those pretty Victorian buildings at Notting hill seems so out of reach to most of Londoners. so pricy!!!! Day seven, the blessing of all blessings came by being able to reflect upon the price Jesus has paid for me and joyfully celebrate His resurrection at a church in central london, All Souls.

have a blessed easter

Dear friends,

For the next seven months in Derby, I am gonna live with the Kings family, Stephen, Rachel and their two little boys, Matthew and Daniel. Though moving around is such a nuisance, I have been looking forward to this day for ages. Because A I am living much much closer to the church I am working at now, B I am COMPLETELY fending for myself, which is exactly what I need. The days of starvation have finally come to an end, Praise the Lord !!!!!!!!!!!!!! C most of the friends that I can really relate to are living in the neighborhood, Peter and Angela, a retired couple who have been devoted to taking care of Careforce workers for years, but they only host boys coz themselves have four boys. My pastoral carer, George and Ros are living just down the corner. Richard and Christine used to live in China for seven years and I got to know them at the Chinese Christian Fellowship. Now we happen to live on the same side of the road. I can even play basketball at their back yard with the boys. D though it’s not broadband and I have only get online after 10;15pm, now I can at least have access to internet by dialing up, which is extremely expensive. It should be okay just checking up email. So I am sorry but don’t expect me to chat on msn for long.

I will go back to work tomorrow and also have to start the long process of visa application for this voluntary work, as I am still on my student visa which is gonna run out by the end of the month. So it will be great if you could just pray for me about that.

My new address now is 32 Askerfield Avenue, Allestree, DE22 2SU, Derby, UK. Tel 00441332553145. It’d be great to hear from you. Likewise, it’d be equally great if you could just send me your address and contact numbers. I’d love to stay in touch with each one of you and keep you posted.

With love,

Shilin