Yesterday was May's last day at SFCV. She is a university student in Beijing and has to go back to school. May, on top of helping in the clinic, has been teaching us Chinese each afternoon. She is so kind and patient with our horrible tone pronunciations and million cultural questions. One evening a while back, we had baked a batch of brownies (the mix was a very exciting find in Beijing) and offered some to May. She was SO excited to try them because she had heard that "American cake" was very good (the culture here does not consume a lot of sweets and their cakes are a lot less sweet than ours). Needless to say, she LOVED the brownies and would frequently talk about them after that night. We decided that we would make them again as a surprise during our last Chinese lesson with her.
Wendy was hanging out in the Inn so I invited her to help me. She agreed and wanted to know if "cooking cake" was hard. I chuckled and explained the difference between cooking and baking and different names for desserts (they call all sweets 'cake' ). After a quick trip to a vendor across the street for some eggs, we got started in the kitchen.
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| Adding the mix |
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| "hey, this is fun" |
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| mmmm... thank you Betty Crocker! |
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| Ready for the oven! |
Wendy did all the work, from cracking the eggs to pouring the batter, and in the end decided that "baking brownies" (we learned some English along the way) was really quite easy!
Our baked goods, turned out delicious and May was thrilled with her farewell surprise! (we took a picture with someone's camera which I will post when I get a copy)
Today some visitors arrived from Australia! 3 Teachers are chaperoning 9 high school students on a history trip across China for 10 days. They are staying the night and I am so excited to talk with them some more. I have already learned that a "jumper" is a sweatshirt and I am only mildly obsessed with their accents!
Although it's Saturday, today is considered a normal working day in China because of this week being a holiday. The children are in school and everyone is back to work as if it is a weekday.
Grace & Peace,
Mollie
Mollie Bollie! I loved reading this! It has 2 of my favorite things in it baking and you! I hope your day is lovely! I would LOVE to catch up soon :)
ReplyDeleteLove seeing that smile from Wendy as she makes brownies! Thanks for taking the time to connect with her and involve her in fun new projects...it was so hard to leave her after I felt like we were just starting to make some progress and I felt a real burden for her openness of heart in the days and months to come. It is so sweet to see amazing people like you connecting with her now too. May G0d use all of these little experiences and the contact she has with His people from all over the world to reach her heart with His grace!
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