the saturday before christmas, i went with people from my fellowship to this village outside of beijing. its a place where kids of incarcerated parents live. our fellowship had chosen this place for our 'giving tree' this year. so we had a christmas party and took all the presents people had bought for the kids. it was wonderful! we taught them a few christmas songs and played a few games. the kids were so friendly and so loving towards each other. hopefully i get the chance to go back to this village a few times in the spring!

 

my team spent christmas weekend in beijing at our company headquarters. it was nice to get away from our school campus for a few days and be in a "foreign" place that was decorated for christmas. christmas morning we had breakfast together by the chrismtas tree then they went caroling while i went to the international post office to pick up a package that had gotten stuck there. i'm so thankful for the internet and phones because i was able to talk to some of my family and a good friend on christmas!
 

our primary school had a program for the new year this past week. there were a lot of different traditional type dances. the kids here are pretty talented. they practice a lot too so i guess that helps. kids have randomly been missing from classes lately because they were working on the performance. mostly they do dances but there were a few songs too. a 2nd grade boy sang.. that was pretty great!