Real Life is Struggle

I realized I never told you all: I'm a Chinese game show legend! As of a few weeks ago, I have all the fame I could ever want. Here's what happened.

I coach volleyball here at the school. After tryouts, we got our girls and boys teams (5 altogether) and went to Chaoyang Park for some beach volleyball and teambuilding activities. When we walked in, there were these big inflatable obstacles with hoses running water over them and I thought it was maybe part of the water park, but no. As we were practicing, this Chinese guy comes and asks, "can you be on our show?" Hm. Yes. So I asked the other coaches if they could do all the work while I went and played. It was a lot of Chinese people, and myself. And more Chinese people. They had this inflatable gauntlet type thing with walls and hurdles in the middle and then a big ramp at the end of it. It's all the plastic material that inner tubes are made of. So this director asks me to hold a big plastic bat and pretty much beat the snot out of the contestants as they run. Their objective was to get a bucket full of rubber duckies from the top of this ramp, and whoever gets the bucket back to the start with the most duckies wins. So I stood and waited, and every time someone ran by me, or slipped on the plastic near me, or tried to use the wall near me for stability, I did indeed beat the snot out of them. The camera was in my face a lot of the time, so I don't know if I really gave America that great of a name, because all that they can see is this rather angry looking American boy just wailing on these Chinese men as they run by. I hit them in the face, in the legs, in the belly, and though I looked angry, I was for 30 minutes having the time of my life.

Next we had to climb this big inflatable tower made of the same plastic material, but it had like gymnastics mat material on the sides of it that we gripped onto to get to the top, touch the inflatable starfish, climb down, and tag the next climber on our team. My team won! As an award, we got bottles of water. Now, keep in mind the difference between bottles of water and "water bottles." We did not get water bottles. We got disposable bottles of water. It was kinda nice I guess. I asked them the name of the show, and I couldn't understand what they said, so I asked for the channel name, and he said "CCTV." Easy enough, I'll just go and type it in online! False. CCTV is a state-run TV station with about 40 channels, most of which have some type of game show. Nuts. So I have no idea what show I was on, if my name is in the credits ("Nate the American"), or anything. I didn't even get a cut of the profit. Urgh.

Anyway, I went to the Great Wall on Saturday!

To get there, you ride this ski lift thing. It gave a gorgeous view of the mountains and the greenery up there. As you can tell, it was a BEAUTIFUL DAY in Beijing.

To get down, you ride a Toboggan, which is "a simple slide which is a traditional form of transportation used by the Innu and Cree of northern Canada" (Wikipedia). Hm. Anyway, it's a slide with this little cart type thing that you ride on. The ones we went on had a brake thing in the middle, and when you pull it back, it goes slow, forward, it goes fast. Now here's the deal. If I pay for this, I'm going to make it worth my while. Which means that I am NOT getting stuck behind anyone. So the person ahead of me went, and I waited about a minute or more, and as soon as I was out the gate and saw the "test brakes here" sign, I slammed that sucker forward. I had my iPhone in one hand taking video until I caught up to the people in front of me (I caught them in the last minute or so of the ride! Dang!). After the video was done, I tried to get a picture of Jeremy and Aunt Liz behind me so it would show all three of us. Between trying to take the picture, having my hand on the brake so I didn't hit the people in front of me, and really just having the time of my life, this is what I got:

I know I don't look very happy. That's what happens when you try too hard on too many things. But you know what? I love this picture because too often when you look at people's Facebook pictures, they're all happy clappy and Polyanna and that isn't real life. Real life is the above picture. It's struggle. I'm not smiling because I was intent on angling that camera just right to get everyone in it (and not hitting anybody). But rest assured, I wore the biggest smile on the inside. I loved that Toboggan. I almost want to go to Northern Canada to do more of them.

So we did that after trekking up and down the wall, which was after a good workout at the school and then volleyball practice that morning, so I was pooped. We went home, watched the Great Gatsby, talked for a wee bit, and went to bed. Saturday may have been one of the best days since I've been here. The day before it was great because we talked in our Friday night small group (Crossroads is the name) about Genesis 3. We talked about why sin is what it is. It's not just breaking rules. It's doing something, anything with the motive of worshipping something other than God. You steal because you feel like God hasn't given you enough. You kill because you don't think God has the power to punish those who do wrong. You disobey your parents because you want control over your own life rather than the authorities that God has placed you under. Those are just examples and generalities. You may have different reasons for doing all those things, but those are just examples. When it clicked for them, it was awesome. You know what was even better? Seeing it click when they saw that the seed that is promised to Eve in Genesis 3 is the one who saves us: Jesus Christ. He's the seed that is on the brink of extinction with Abraham and in Genesis 38 with Judah and Tamar. He's the seed that almost dies off when Hezekiah is surrounded by Assyrians. Same guy. We talked like an hour and a half on Genesis 3, and I felt like it received due diligence, which was good. It's always a scary chapter to teach, but the kids really went with it.

Well, this is getting to be long, but I'll write soon about what I saw on Sunday. It was great.