November 14, 2005

Dear Friends,

As the American Thanksgiving approaches, I have not really been conscious of it, but I have found myself to be more filled with gratitude than I can recall being any other year in my life. Maybe it was the rampant commercialization that always accompanies this time of year, or the crazy choir schedules, end-of-term study sessions, and inevitable road trips to visit family, but over the years it just became harder and harder to find the joy that had flowed so freely from my spirit when I was a child.

This past weekend the other Amity teachers from our province came to Lanzhou for our fall regional conference. It was a truly marvelous experience. On Saturday morning we each presented our favorite lesson plans to date, and two of the returning teachers gave longer presentations about teaching in China. We ate lunch together, then split up to go shopping and sightseeing. That evening we all enjoyed a fabulous meal at a Xinjiang restaurant. The best part of the conference for me, however, was the Sunday morning devotional.

After 10 weeks of struggling to understand Chinese church services here in Lanzhou, the experience of fully participating in a service brought me to tears. Until that service, I had not realized how much I needed fellowship and open, honest communication with other Christians. Rather than feeling depressed at my deprivation, however, I was filled with joy at the opportunity to worship again in a setting I could understand. As one of the other Amity teachers, Kate, said during the service, “Here, you almost have to fight for your spiritual moments, but that makes them all the more precious.”

If I were in the United States right now, I would probably still be juggling three or four jobs, helping my mother with odd jobs around the church, preparing for the Thanksgiving eve service, maybe figuring out how to fetch one of my younger siblings from their college, and planning how to travel to my uncle’s for Thanksgiving. Instead, I am on the other side of the planet, teaching four classes with a combined total of 239 students, and I am far from my family and my home church. Yet I have found more of a sense of purpose here—and have grown more in my faith—during the past three-and-a-half months than I can recall having grown in any previous time in my life.

At the worship service this past Sunday, we discussed our personal struggles and played the song “Place in this World” by Micheal W. Smith. In the song, the chorus is: “Looking for a reason/ Roaming through the night to find/ A place in this world, my place in this world/ Not a lot to lean on/ I need Your light to help me find/ A place in this world, my place in this world.” Truly, in the past few months there have been moments where I felt I was stumbling in the dark, crying out to God to help me figure out what to do with a class, how to communicate something I needed to the school, or just feeling depressed, and every time, something would happen to give me the encouragement I would need to keep soldiering on. Whenever I most needed them, small reminders kept cropping up that God was still with me and had brought me to China to teach for His purposes.

The lyrics in the song at the worship service really touched me. In spite of my “bad China” days and my (many) shortcomings, God has allowed me to see glimpses of how this assignment here in China really is the place God wants me to be in this time, in this world. If that is not enough reason for me to be filled with gratitude and joy, what is?

To close, I would like to borrow a phrase from my teaching partner, Kendra. In her meditation for the service this weekend, she said, “My hope is that each of you will find your place in this world.” I wish the same for all of you. Have a very blessed Thanksgiving.

Rachel Sterrett