Rainy Day Parade. The LONG HU GARDEN BASHU SCHOOL parade practice must go on...

It's April 10 in China, April 9 in USA.  Thursday now.  We live in a high rise apartment in the City of ChongQing, China, like most everybody else we know here.  High rise apartments is the only way you fit dozens of millions of people in a relative small urban area.  Density is high. We live right next door to an elementary school.  The LONG HU GARDEN BASHU elementary school. Many of the kids that go to this school also live nearby here, even in this apartment complex where we live, the Long Hu Xi Yuan.

We moved here about a year ago, and things are in flux right now, or so it seems.  Deadlines on visa looming, job opportunities outstanding and hanging out there, no final decisions made yet, and only 10 more days to go and time is UP.  If I weren't a praying man, I'd be pretty stressed by now, and have already purchased airline tickets, and made all of our preparations to leave this place, this country. But somehow, in my faithful mind and heart, I believe that there is an opportunity for us here.  You could call it a hunch, a premonition, or something like that, but I would go further and say that the spirit of revelation is at play in all of our lives if we would but listen to it. What's that scripture? Knock?  Its called inspiration, prayer.

• Matthew 7:7 ¶Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:

Those who have grown to trust in that also know that there are no absolutes on timelines or even expectations.  But hindsight is easy once the waiting is past, and it always has turned out that no matter the inspiration I got, the Lord was right and true in what He said, and sometimes I have slightly misunderstood it, but it turned out even more pleasant than expected in the end, because the Lord always wants to BLESS us... not hurt us.

He tells us just enough.  One day at a time.  One step at a time.  That's they way it has always worked in my life anyway. I have found that if I put my trust and faith in the Lord that He has always given us what we NEED and we have never suffered.  Now there may come a day when I actually do suffer, in fact the way the world is shaping up we might all count on that happening as a norm in a future world... depends on whether everybody can get along or not, and also how much mother earth cooperates by not sending tsunamis, earthquakes, lightning, and volcanoes to test and try our patience and love for one another.

On this particular rainy day the Chinese kids at the school were out in full force and colorful uniforms, practicing for an upcoming big event.  This school is in an affluent area, and it shows.  So on this rainy day, we are in our apartment. I'm working on future job prospects, even preparing for interviews. All at the seemingly last moment. Seemingly? Absolutely the last moment!  But there was not much I could do.  It came as a surprise, an unexpected turn of events for me and my family here in China.

The company I work for now has had a significant change in management at the levels that affected me and my job there. Again, its probably all fate and I have nothing to worry about, but needless to say, I did not see it coming, did not expect it... but the company formed a new company internal to the original company, that was going to become the department I was a part of.  Problem is, the man they hired to be the General Manager of it, QUIT.  Yes, he left.

So with all new players and a host of uncertainty about the future of the department and a huge marketing hole, the Vice President of the local company here stepped up to lead it. Problem is, he knows virtually nothing about Transportation Engineering and Planning. He is changing the direction of the focus of the department, turning it into something entirely different from what I was hired to come and help lead.  Now all of that is in the past. I move on to other opportunities.
I must focus on what my talents are.

I have always thought of my skill set being something in addition to merely transportation engineering.

I like the creative side of things too.  Communications comes to mind. Data Mining, marketing, visual communication, all of these, and there are some opportunities over her that complement my skill set.

The school is called LONG HU GARDEN BASHU SCHOOL.

HONG KONG DISNEYLAND

I think this page is self-explanatory. We had a great time in Hong Kong after we got our visas in hand, Which was a difficult process for us. But after we had them, we could relax a little bit, and it didn't cost us an arm and a leg to go to Disneyland so we went. About 50 bucks for kids each, and 60 bucks for adults so it's actually a little cheaper than what they charge in America. But the place is a little bit smaller, Has less rides, In some cases shorter rides, but what a memory! What a great time we had! We are so thankful that we could do something fun for the family after all of the busy government paperwork etc. It took so much time and money. In fact, each visa cost each of our six family members $200 each. Ouch. Disneyland was less than a third of that.

007 Charity Ball 007慈善舞会

We took our whole family to this large event, and stayed overnight at the same hotel. Kids swam in pool on third floor, a spectacular place on the river.

MY LOVE

HERE'S THE VIDEO. WATCH:

Comments:
SRA You guys look fantastic!

SE I see so much grandma Kate's face in that picture. I'm not saying you r old! I remembering her when she was younger. You guys look like you are having fun.

GJ we are having fun, and we are getting old, at least in the real years. When I tell people I'm 54 they always act shocked. Is that what happens when you old? People act shocked at your real age?

JRT You should have seen the young butcher's face when I told him the salmon was for my mother, at which point his eyes grew big and he gasped out...." How OLD are YOU????" So funny!!

LH What a fun looking evening.

CONSTANCE PRESENTATION:  a slide showing THE FAMILY ON A TRIP TO A LOCAL SCHOOL FOR IWG CHARITY EVENT. 

We Made the FRONT PAGE NEWS in ChongQing's Newspaper. Home School. 在重庆的报纸的头版新闻我们的家庭得到了. 在家上学

FRONT PAGE NEWS!! we made front page in the ChongQing Newspaper today. Topic is Home School, Music, and Family. If you know Chinese, read all about it!! It's also on the QQ (like twitter) and Weichat throughout China. This was apparently a big deal.

The fact that my wife was in the International Women's Group and met some ladies there, and the fact that she ends up telling them that she has 12 kids does not go lost on their memory of her.  Surely this was part of the reason that we were interviewed by the Newspaper reporter and their photographer came to the home. I was there too, on my lunch break.

 The city of Chongqing's newspaper did a story on our family's home school program this Sunday! It was very positive! We had a really nice reporter over here last week, a young lady, a reporter, who is very interested in our homeschool program and what we do as a family. She was also very interested in our upstairs creative studio. So here are some photos of the printed newspaper, the website, as well as China's biggest instant message or service, QQ and wei chat.

Here is the article in Chinese on various websites:

http://cqcbepaper.cqnews.net/cqcb/html/2013-11/17/content_1693744.htm

http://news.sinovision.net/portal.php?mod=view&aid=273217&page=2

http://cqcbepaper.cqnews.net/cqcb/html/2013-11/17/content_1693744.htm

some of the comments on those Chinese web sites that ran (and still run) the story:

wulilian 2013-11-17 10:40

自由思想，随时体现。让孩子们回归到自然社会，不要去学校被洗脑。(Freedom of thought, ready to reflect. Let the children return to the natural community, do not go to school to be brainwashed.)

引用mandolo 2013-11-16 21:03

现在一个私人的三线城市的小学都要几万。(Now a private elementary school third-tier cities have tens of thousands.)

Halloween Ship on the Yangtze River 对长江船舶万圣节派对

Halloween Ship on the Yangtze River
This video was taken while were on our way to and after we arrived to the Halloween Ship Party on the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang 长江). Christa is part of the committee of the ChongQing International Women's Group (IWG) with several other ladies in this city, and they secured a ship, made the invitations, promoted it, and got 400 people to want to pay and come to this event.  These events they hold are always benefitting the charitable causes this group also supports.  Pretty cool, and we had a great time and met some new people too. —

COMMENTS:

AHLG How cool! I love seeing the videos and seeing how much fun you're having. It's just awesome. Love you

LLC WOW! Decorating, planning and creating must be in your blood Cousin. Your MOM and DAD definitely rubbed off on you.

LLC YOU throw one HECK of a PARTY Christa!

SJ Wow.. I've got an influential mommy!

LLC Oh, and Grant - thanks for sharing with us you and yours awesome journey and experiences. Even though you all are so far away it is like we are all with you through your videos.

AHLG I saw 6 1/2 min. I love the videos, keep them coming!

NP Worked fine for me! Looks like crazy fun!

GWV How cool!

PAM That looks like it was so much fun!!! Thank you for sharing!!