Tuesday, July 17
We had a delicious "American" breakfast of fried eggs and (maybe Costco) ham on toast and departed for Tongtex, our team one person stronger with the addition of Jonathan, another veteran teacher with the SGV team, who flew in last night. During assembly, we sang "He's Calling My Name", joined by our ten music students who learned (but not memorized) the song yesterday. Elder Albert spoke to the students for 15 minutes about the miracle of life, citing among other things, the amazing properties of our DNA which makes us unique. We then divided into the three classes. Today, besides learning about Thanksgiving, each class got to play the "crossing the lava flow" game. The objective being to get the entire class of 15 across a wide space using only a limited (like 4) safety step pads. The catch is anytime a safety pad is not occupied, the lave flow will whisk it away. One class cleverly accomplished this dauntless task by sending the class in groups of 4, and having one person return using two pads and holding the spare pads, repeating until the entire group safely crossed. Our teachers felt better connected with the students, the lava game being an important barrier breaker, also an answer to prayer the previous night.
After lunch, we visited a music school run by a Christian musician. The school was located on the third and fourth floors of a regular school, but it was not A/C, and we all felt drained by the experience, partly because of the heat. After spending an hour there, we went to a veteran's retirement home. Because the residents were housed on three different floors of a fairly nice facility, we had to split ourselves into 3 groups, which meant the male sections were all sung by a single tenor or bass, three of whom only learned the music yesterday. Needless to say, our singing fell far short of perfection, but the smiles on the faces of these men and (a few) women made the experience exhilarating as we shook hands or gave some a shoulder message. We then returned to our nicely air conditioned home to resume our practice and correct some of the more obvious errors. But surprise! During the middle of rehearsal, the wiring of all the A/C units in the church fused, apparently due to it being the hottest day of the year and all the A/C in the church was turned on to the fullest. So we finished rehearsal using only the ceiling fans and ate (best meal at the church so far, main dish was fatty pork cooked with pickled Chinese vegetables and great pineapple and mango for dessert) with rapidly increasing heat and humidity. As we did our devotions, we were warned all the electricity would be turned off so the wiring could be replaced so we read the passage about Jesus calling Mary early Easter morning before the lights were turned off and shared and debriefed in the dark, lighted only by the glow of smart phones and tablets and a couple of candles. Thank God power (and A/C) was restored before we were done, so we could wrap up, prepare for tomorrow's lessons, and at least sleep in relative comfort tonight.
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