November 1999

Dear Friends,

As we mentioned in our last letter to you, our assignment in Hangzhou has ended, and we have been invited to teach at Northeast Normal University, which is located in the city of Changchun in the far northeastern part of China. One of our friends told us that Changchun is "the best kept secret in China," and strange as that may seem for such a remote place, we are finding this to be a nice place to live in many ways. The sky is usually blue, with little air pollution most of the time. The weather is very cold, but the sun shines brightly. These northern people are warm and friendly, and they have made us feel very welcome. Our apartment is in the hotel that belongs to our university. The building is only four years old, which means that it’s in pretty good shape. We have a southern exposure so that the apartment is nice and warm.

We are enjoying our new students as well as our new city. We arrived here on September 3 and began teaching immediately. Our university is part of the nationwide system of normal schools, which means that many of our students will go on to be teachers in high school or college, and we feel that it is good for us to work with future teachers. Jay is again teaching for two departments, the law school and the school of management. He is the first foreign expert that either school has had, and they are delighted with what he is doing. He’s teaching 10 hours per week to three groups of students (a total of 150 students). Susan is teaching composition for the English Department; her students are juniors, seniors and graduate students, and she has about 200 in total. She has eight Tibetan students in her classes, and there are also several students from Korea. One of the Korean women has shared that she is a believer. One of the Tibetan women is reading the Bible and has been particularly moved by Paul’s description of love in I Corinthians 13. We are both gradually beginning to know our students, and they seem to be appreciative of what we’re doing.

We have been attending the Chinese church. The main church in this city has a new building, and it’s packed for both of the morning services on Sunday. There is no English-language service; many of the English-speaking foreigners meet in small groups at home. We sometimes attend these, but feel called to support the Chinese church with our presence on most Sundays. We were surprised a couple of weeks ago to walk into the church and find that they were celebrating Thanksgiving. There were performances by groups from all the house meeting-points (this church has started 25 neighborhood meeting-points). We heard "Bringing in the Sheaves" at least four times in Chinese that day! They also gave away bags of fruit and sweets to many in the congregation.

We appreciate your prayers and support as we begin our time in this new place. Relationships take time, and we ask that you pray that the Holy Spirit will enable us to draw our students and colleagues into friendships. We wish all of you a wonderful and joyous holiday season. May your Christmas this year be filled with the Spirit of our Lord. Please do make a note of the new postal and e-mail addresses. We enjoy hearing from you.

Blessings,

Susan and Jay Boone

The 1999 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, page 163