Missing China

On Friday I will have been back in America for 3 months. Things have been going pretty well. I have been busy and have had many opportunities to make friends with Chinese speakers and speak Chinese with them. Last week I attended debriefing and it was a great time to hear what has been going on around the world and to spend time with people like me. But now I am home. Just a few minutes ago I was standing in the kitchen cutting a nectarine and I suddenly got an image of the streets of China in my mind (strange considering they have no nectarines). It was at that point that I realized that I am not going back (at least not for a few years) and tears started to flow. I loved China, not just a few things, but pretty much everything about it. I loved the city, the sights, the sounds, the smells, the food, the activity, the people. I loved walking down the street and buying fruit and vegetables from roadside vendors. I loved talking to a dozen strangers everyday, learning something new about them and getting to share a little bit of Christ. I am in America now, and that is strange. I have not so much experienced culture shock, but perhaps I am a little homesick.

I look Like My Momma

This is an old picture, but it demonstrates my point.

Although I am shorter, paler, blonder, and my hair is curlier, I look like my mother and there is nothing I can do about. It isn't that I mind looking like my mother- I have always considered her to be a beautiful woman, but after living at college and then in China where no one knows my mother, it has been interesting coming back. I can walk into a place I have never been before and a complete stranger will come up to me and say "You must be Patti Cable's daughter!" At which I respond, "Yes I am. And who are you?" Actually it is a great thing. It reminds me of what it is supposed to be like as a child of God. I may not have His eyes and His smile, but I should be able to go places and have total strangers say, "Hey, you're God's daughter!" I was just thinking about that as I enter back into American culture and materialistic Plano. I pray that I am being a reflection of Him in everything that I do and say, and praise Him that He disciplines me and gives me another chance when I am not.