Just another day...

It is weird being in China. Today is just another day in China. No big deal. All the stores are opened. There is Christmas music, but mostly because it sells items. I feel so fortunate to know that there is something better than just this life. Something bigger. Something we can look forward to! Something better than anything we will open under our trees this Christmas or next Christmas. Thank you, God. Thank you for the gift of your son. I am humbled to know how much you gave and how I did nothing to deserve your precious gift. Thank you, God and Happy Birthday, Jesus

A dry and weary land

I had an amazing quiet time with God today. I wish I could say this is a daily thing, but it is not. I was reading over Psalm 63 in the 5:00am hour and it said “in a dry and weary land where there is no water”. I realized (God helped me to!) that this whole world is a dry and weary land and even if we are not a desert; we are all thirsty.

As an American, we have everything we could ever need and more (many in my current country have much less than we could ever imagine) and we are still dry and thirsty.

There will be kids that are not thankful this Christmas because they didn’t get the present they wanted. Their whole day will be shot. They may be mad all Christmas Day. This may be my children!

Many children, even American kids, don’t even know that Jesus is the reason for the season. We are a dry and weary land. God also revealed that even though he’s in my life, I am dry and weary right now. I am not relying on him as much as I can. And it shows. It shows in my attitude. It shows in my relationships. And it shows up every morning when I am trying to get children ready for school and instead of being calm, I yell. I don’t want that. I don’t want to yell. I want peace. I don’t have it, but God does. I really want to make it a daily thing to have time with God. However, I am a little scared of this, too, if I work daily to give everything over to God and really hear from him. I am giving up control and that is not my nature. Then again, God has a better nature in store for me - if I can handle it! I have asked him to make me able to be up to this challenge.

Passion for veggies

If you know me, you know my mom grilled into me that you need to have the right foods. She always had celery and carrot sticks cut up for us and offered those first. Afternoon snacks were cut up apples and oranges. It is amazing that children will eat healthy if that's the only alternative. But who would pick cut up cucumber slices over a Little Debbie? Yep, not me either!

So you may know I freaked out when I went to have lunch with my children at their school, and there was no cooked vegetables on the menu and almost no children were eating a whole fruit or vegetable at the whole cafeteria. I stewed for a while, then decided it if it worth being mad, it is worth communicating my disappointment in a productive manner. So I wrote the following letter to the person in charge:

This past Tuesday, I went to Concordia to help volunteer and planned to have lunch with my sons. What I saw was very disappointing and I feel as a parent, I need to share my concerns and see if you are aware of something I observed, particularly because the menu selection is similar on the other days I have been there. I ended up going to the Middle School / High School Cafeteria area (where I saw many Elementary faculty, too) and had a sandwich chock full of fresh veggies and made with healthy chicken and wheat laffa. Unfortunately, my sons don’t have that option. I feel there are not enough healthy options, particularly fruits and vegetables offered to our children. I would love to see more whole grain products, too for things like bread and pasta products, but I know that is more difficult to come by in China. However, China has a wonderful, vast selection of fruits and vegetables. For example, right now, I would love seeing the delicious mandarin oranges that the children can peel themselves on the menu.

On the menu this past Tuesday, the children had the following of the hot portion of their meal to select from:

Tuna and Cheese on White Bread
Dumplings
White Rice
Creamy pasta dish with some chicken
Potato wedges (a veggie, but still a starchy one)
The menu said there was a curry dish, but I didn’t see it. Perhaps there was no more when I got there for 3rd grade lunch.

To the side on a plate tucked away, were vegetable sticks. However, children had to specifically ask for them. The salad was also tucked away in the back and you had to request that, too. When I looked around, it appeared that less than 10% of the children had selected a vegetable. That means about 90% of the children did not have either a vegetable or whole fruit for lunch (unless you count fruit juice, but it is not as healthy as whole fruit or a vegetable). At a minimum, children should get 5 fruits / vegetables per day (maximum of 9 is best). I like to shoot for 2-3 minimum (1 fruit and 2 veggies) at lunch time. I feel the meals should include at a minimum 1 hot vegetable, preferably 2, and possibly a fruit (cooked or raw, either is fine). Do you see this as a concern? If so, it is possible you can share with Eurest a need to include more healthy options for our children? Or is there something I can do to help with this? It seemed that there were more healthy alternatives last year (I didn’t have the same concern last year).

I appreciate all you do to make Concordia such a great place for children to learn. Having more healthy food options will make it even better, especially for our Elementary School children who are developing healthy eating patterns for their whole life! Please let me know if you would like to discuss this or need other information.

Thanks,
Mary Beth Goodrich (a concerned parent)
(then I gave my cell phone number here in China)

Within 5 minutes of sending my email, I received a call. They had already realized it is a problem and are working on it. Glad this will be taken care of. Meanwhile, their morning snacks will be packed full of healthy snacks! Hope their friends don't think they aren't "cool" because of mean momma MB! On the other hand, I really don't care. My job as mom isn't to give my kids what they want all the time. It is to give them what they need and should have. When they do happen to get cheetos along with their carrot circles, it really will be a treat!

Jeff's Cambodia Trip

How adorable are these Cambodian children selling postcards during their afternoon "rest time" from school. Apparently, Cambodia has an afternoon rest time like "siesta" in Spain. I like that concept! Jeff did buy some from the children. How could you resist?




Jeff and his friend, Howard, went to Cambodia. Here are a just a couple of pictures. I promise to post more!