A HOWE'S WEEK IN REVIEW

It has been a week since I last blogged. We have been so busy and when I have time to blog I'm too tired. So I have a little time now and would love to share with you some highlights of our past week.
A team member introduced us to a young College guy last Sunday evening. He was in our area on winter break and agreed to come to our apartment to teach our children Chinese. So he came every morning this past week except Friday. He seemed to enjoy the children and using English. The children enjoyed his company and each day he stayed and ate lunch with us. He lives a couple hours away and doesn't have the means to come here very often, but we invited him to stop by anytime he's in our town. We hope we see more of him.
Jim finsished his second week of teaching and is getting used to it. He has made plans to meet with his students next Saturday at Jim's favorite dumpling restaurant. I accuse Jim of "using" them because we can't go there without a translator to order for us. I look forward to meeting his students...and I must admit....the dumplings too!
This past Friday we invited two boys from my English class to our home. They loved to play our wii and we ordered pizza and spaghetti. They were very well behaved and when they left they said they had a "great time". We didn't even plan much, and the boys still loved being in our home. They were such good guests that I look forward to their next visit. I'm trying to have each student over to our home.....it's fun to get to know the children one-on-one.
Tuesdays is our regular night at the orphanage. The directors invited us to roller skate with the children instead of English class. We had a wonderful evening of watching children skate. What a blessing it was to watch children enjoying a treat they rarely get. My kids had a good time and didn't want to leave. Thursday was our other evening to teach at the orphanage, but we had to cancel. Jim and I have been having headaches and we both had one Thursday night. I have been having them daily....if I don't wake up with one, then I usually go to bed with one.
This morning (Saturday) Jim spoke at our weekly meeting and I helped with the breakfast. I hated not hearing him, but then again I got to pick what everyone had for breakfast. We had biscuits and gravy, egg casserole, fried potatos and fruit salad. I don't know what the Korean team members thought of it, but the Americans loved it! This evening we met a family who lives outside of our town. This family is from Virginia and they run a dairy farm. We have heard alot about them and we get our milk from them, but we had never met face to face. We met tonight at a restaurant that you cook raw meat at your table over hot coals....it's probably Jim and Jameson's favorite place. They have 5 children ages 11 years to 7 months. The man will be a great help to Jim, as far as knowing where to buy tools and how to build things the Chinese way. They have been here for 5 years. They also home-school their children. The restaurant we went to was a little noisy, so I look forward visiting with them another time when I can hear a little better. They are currently managing a dairy farm, but hope to help feed orphans some day....and we hope to provide homes for orphans some day so I'm sure we'll keep in touch with them. When we met they gave us a huge block of mozzarella cheese that they make. YUM!! It was frozen, so Jim cut it in half when we got home so we could eat some now and save some. We are all pretty excited about the cheese...now only if we could get some butter!