Zizi Asfour's Colleagues

View All

Zizi Asfour's Blog

Going to China

Posted on June 24, 2008 at 7:59am 1 Comment 0 Likes

I cannot believe that in 2 days we will be leaving to go on our mission trip to China!!! I am in the process of packing and making sure that my bags do not go over the weight limit.

Zizi Asfour's Page

I have been having a blast in China! Yesterday on our day off we attended a Christian Chinese Church. The female pastor spoke for 1h 30 min with not stoping to breathe or drink water. The church was full. In order to get a seat in church you need to be there super early to "reserve" your seat. After all the seats are taken, people are offered to sit on tiny plastic stools, like the ways that Fiesta selss for kids. The place was packed and then some!
After the service, we were able to meet the senior pastor and ask him about differences between their church & ours. It was very interesting!

Comment Wall (59 comments)

You need to be a member of Classroom 2.0 to add comments!

Join Classroom 2.0

At 8:53pm on August 23, 2008, gustavo de Dios said…: hola zizi como estas soy gustavo de Dios de Buenos Aires

At 2:56am on July 19, 2008, Zizi Asfour said…: Yesterday was our last day with our students! It was a sad day for everyone. There were no dry eyes all day. The students each brought a covered dish to share with us during lunch. All the dishes were delicious! I learned to make new foods!
At the end of the day we handed them their certificate for finishing their training with us. At the end we all got our pictures taken. I have never had so many pictures taken of me in my entire life. I felt like a famous star (a poor one of course!)
Last night, one of my students & I went out for dinner to celebrate her b-day, we had a lot of fun trying out a new restaurant & their dishes.
Today we visited the ZhengZhou museum, which had beaautiful historical artifacts. Now we are finally home, getting ready to back so we can leave at 8AM to Xian. This is my last posting till I return to Houston. I will no onger have acccess to the internet.
I will miss all the wonderful new friends that I have made here & hope to one day soon return. On the other hand, I really miss all my family and friends at home.

I thank God, my family & all my friends for making it possible for me to come to mission in China! I know God is pleased with our work here. Please keep these wonderful people in your prayers!

See you all in less than 1 week! :)
Zizi

At 10:16pm on July 17, 2008, Davidius Leith said…: What were some of the differences? (Apart from a sermon that lasted as long as an entire service....)

At 3:24pm on July 17, 2008, Sue Blackmon said…: Zi, That is so awesome! How exciting to share Jesus with someone who has never heard of Him. I know that was really a special time. You and the others in your team have planted seeds that will make a difference for eternity.

Tomorrow is my B-day and Clint and I are going to the Astro game so I probably won't get a chance to talk to you anymore until you get home. Have a safe trip and call me when you get back on your time schedule!!!!

At 7:03am on July 17, 2008, Zizi Asfour said…: I cannot believe that it is already Thursday night & that we only have 1 more day with our students, tomorrow!

All the students are starting to feel that it is the end and they all want their picture taken with us. All we get from them are wonderful & beautiful compliments, they are so giving! I know that they will be missed by all of us!

This morning we watched the Christmas production put on at Champion Forest Baptist Church in Houston in 2007. They loved it! Some of our stuents had never been exposed to our religion and they were interested in learning about it. We had people request a DVD, but we only had 1, the one that we brought!

After the performance, some students approached us to ask us about Jesus/God. They were interested in knowing why we believed in only 1 God. Many of them were also moved by the message the pastor had on the DVD. Before lunch, some of my students & I went to the computer room so I could show them the site of our church. They were excited that they would be able to listen to the pastor's message weekly. It was exciting to see that people came to see the Lord for the 1st time ever. After lunch we listened to Christmas music, made crafts and talked about the "Christmas Story".

Tomorrow we will celebrate Easter with them and wind up the day with a good bye party :(

In our classes today, teachers read parts of the bible that talked about the meaning of Christmas. The Chinese stuents were happy to be able to follow along in the bilingual bibles that we brought with us.

It was a very special day indeed at school today!

At 5:14am on July 15, 2008, Zizi Asfour said…: Today was great, we made all kinds of foods including homemade vegetable soup. They had never eaten soup that way. They liked it with noodles! They also made zucchini casserole, mushroom casserole and coconut pie casserole. They were a hit!

I think I have gained 20 LBS eating in china!

Tomorrow after school, one of my students, July will take me shopping at an open market where they see all kinds of traditional chinese items ( & cheap).

I am exhausted! The cooking was fun, but making new friendships was even better. All of them are wanting to get their pictures taken with me. I will miss all of these wonderful people, I learned a lot from them in the last 3 weeks. I am sorry to go! It will be very hard saying good-bye on Friday :(. I hope I can cope with it!

It has been confirmed! We are leaving Zhengzhou 1st thing on Sunday morning to go to Xian. The bus trip is 6 hs long. We will stay there for 2 days & then fly into Shanghai. I cannot wait to see more of China!

Miss u all
Z

At 4:39pm on July 14, 2008, Zizi Asfour said…: Please note that after Saturday I will not have access to a computer, so I will not be able to update the blog nor email you. We will be on the road to Xian and from there to Shanghai.

Need to get ready for school this morning, bye
Z

At 5:09am on July 14, 2008, Zizi Asfour said…: Tell your son that the moped only went 30 mph and NO I was nor screaming! One of the teachers got a great picture of us riding into the sunset! hahaa

I am sad to say that this is my last week to teach. The group of students I had today, I will not see again! :( I hope they email me when I am gone.

It rained very hard all night, so parts of the city was flooded. This caused delays in our day, students could not get to school. Students took pictures on their cell of the flood where they live, it was BAD! None of them wanted to miss class because they all wanted to cook. They are too funny.

This group was ok with mashed potatoes, but loved hashbrowns with onions and freid eggs!!!! They said that it was yummy! Then 1 of my chinese students, Anna made a chinese pancake, which is almost as thin as a crepe with green onions and sesame seeds in it (1 cup of flour, 3 eggs, fine chop. green onion, salt and sesame seeds and oit to cook in or butter). In china, they use oil, because nobody can afford butter nor margarine. I promise to make these wonderful pancakes for you when I get back!

I also learned that when chinese people are making pancake mix, they use 2 chopsticks to mix, they do not use a spoon nor a mixer. I think we could add sour cream to their pancakes and have a wonderful meal.

The dumplings in this area have a teaspoon of broth inside the dumpling with the meat. It is yummy!

Tonight I cooked dinner for the team and for the administrators of the school. I made baked potatoes with everything on it. Remember, I am in china & people here besides restaurants do not have ovens! The school bought 1 for me to teach cooking! It is a tiny commercial grade oven, it has 1 rack and no window to see in. The door is very heavy & takes 2 hands to open it. You must also put the top part and the bottom of the oven to cook, unlike our ovens. It takes a while to get used to.

This was a huge treat for many of them and for us! We imporvised because of the price of dairy products and because they do not have sour cream. Nobody could tell that I had used other products to make their dinner yummy. Some of our toppings were: ham, mushrooms, green onions, 1 slice of cheese, margarine & plain yougurt.

Tomorrow I will be making breakfast items for the team (for dinner).

It is very tired and hot! As soon as you walk 1 step you are covered in water from the humidity and heat. A cold shower is all we need after work!

I am glad that many of you are keeping up with my fun and wonderful trip. I will be back home late on July 25th, but I promise to call you on the 26th!!!

Miss u all
Good night/good morning to all!

At 8:23pm on July 13, 2008, Sue Blackmon said…: Zi, I can only imagine you riding around China on the backa of a moped!!!! Clint wants to know if you were scremaing!!!!???? I hope someone got a photo of you. It sounds like you and your students are getting along famously. But I already knew that would happen. Well, if you are considered super fat, what does that make me? Elephant size? I'm glad you found something to wear. I saw Anna at church this morning and we can not wait for you to get home even though we know you are having the time of your life. Love ya, Sue

At 5:49am on July 13, 2008, Zizi Asfour said…: When we walked out of KFC to catch a taxi, there was my student passing by on her moped. I was on my way to meet her so we could go to a store where her boyfriend works. Her name is Cissy and we both have the same chinee name! That made her happy.

So, instead of getting in the cab with my friends, I got on the bike with her and we toured the city! It was the best time of my life. on these bikes you go 30mph and because of it I was able to see everything and to take pictures while she drove.

The store where her boyfriend worked is huge. It is 3 stories high and all they see are items needed for hotels & restaurants of all sizes and class. They sell huge appliances to teaspoons, from fine china to robes and pillows. The things he had were amazing and beautiful. I bought a couple of things there @ wholesale prices. Then, Cissy took me home.

I cannot believe that this is our last week with our students :(
On the 20th the school bus will take us to Xian to see the terractota museum and other cites there. Xian will be even more crowded because there are 8.2 million people there (unlike 4.2 here in ZhengZhou)

I know you all know that I am a kitchen freak and that all I wanted to do was buy kitchen stuff, but I didn;t. You would have been proud of me! I did get a beautiful pair of PJ's that fit me. According to chinese standrds I am super fat. It is 100% egyptian cotton, cream colored and has light pink accents. It cost me less than $8

I also ran to the open market to buy the vegetables that I will be using with my class tomorrow. We will be making mash potatoes, hashbrowns, french toast & vegetable egg casserole. I am sure this group will also love it!

Good night/good morning to all :)
Z