: Tim Ulmer
: Involuntary MISSION In China with a Thorn in the Flesh
: BookBaby
: 9781098303907
: 1
: CHF 6.30
:
: Christentum
: English
: 410
: kein Kopierschutz
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
When I had a seizure while teaching in China, what was I to do when the university's vice president wouldn't shake hands with me because he thought epilepsy was a contagious disease? Or when a university Communist officer said I was fired to prevent a 'political disaster', what was I to do? Why stay in China when a director at a different university of law told me that my 'parents must be very evil' to let me travel alone with epilepsy? Or what would I do when my mother begged me to come home because of the SARS pandemic in Wuhan? I stayed because after a life of feeling that I'd been cursed by God for some reason. People were seeing that I wasn't what they expected of 'materialistic, obnoxious war-like' Americans. They trusted me while they were Looking for a different way of life than Communism, and God wanted me to help these people. They learned to trust me, and that I'd be patient and let them have time to digest the words God used me to speak for Him so that they would make the decision to accept him for themselves. Just as it was for me. I BECAME PROUD TO BE EPILEPTIC! That was part of God's plan all along as a key to their hearts. The seizures never hindered me from anything I wanted to do. My parents raised me to believe in serving others, and that to meant to me that I'd do something that would be big enough to make me historically popular. Before I was 18, the greatest service I could give was being willing to die in the military. However, my epileptic history meant the Armed Forces would have nothing to do with me. My life's purpose was lost! Car wrecks, unemployment, moving to my parents' to recover my witts I never would have survived if my friend Lauren hadn't called me every night and repeat that there was a reason no one was ever hurt in those car wrecks: 'It's not your time to die. God has a MISSION for you.' God hears our prayers; Just be patient, and He answers them in His own time and in ways greater than we'd imagined.

Chapter 1


When you go to war against your enemies and see horses and chariots and an army greater than yours, do not be afraid of them, because the LORD your God, who brought you up out of Egypt, will be with you. —Deuteronomy 20:1

What Did I Get Myself Into?

It felt like a dream to finally be arriving in the People’s Republic of China after all the time I spent agonizing on whether to accept the job. Once the airplane crossed the International Dateline, the calendar dates showed that I’d been traveling for three days even though it had only been thirty-three hours since I embarked on my odyssey from St. Louis. There were layovers in Los Angeles and Seoul before reaching my destination, Changchun, in the northern Jilin Province of mainland China. Since the trip had been in the planning stage for several weeks, nothing seemed extraordinary, neither the going-away party my parents hosted nor the fact that I had been awake all night long to finish my packing. My mother didn’t join Dad and me on the ninety-minute trip from Murphysboro, Illinois, because she had diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, kidney failure, and had never made a full recovery from a partial stroke a decade earlier. Actually, the relief my Dad got from me helping take care of Mom was one of the weightiest factors to be considered in deciding whether to take this job; it meant that he would return to being Mom’s sole nurse 24/7. However, with both of them having loved being teachers, they were so overjoyed at the thought of having a child following in their footsteps that they practically shoved me out of their house.

While deciding whether to take the job, I’d been having confidential conversations with Mom and Dad, individually. When talking to her, I would have usually been sitting on the floor in front of the lounge chair that she left only to go to bed or the bathroom. I honestly doubted that she would be alive whenever I would return from China. Nevertheless, I asked, “Do you mind?”

“I think it’s great!” she exclaimed without any reservations. “It going to be so fun to see you be a teacher! I’ll be very proud of you.”

Goodbye kiss to Mom

Mom knew it was ironical that I’d taken a teaching job. While I was growing up, I watched her and Dad work incredibly hard. Being a communicative and inspirational teacher at the same time there might be some unruly kids was tough enough. In addition, in recent years, society’s respect for educators had spiraled downward, as fewer parents held their children responsible for their actions; it’s more and more common for parents to claim their children would never misbehave at school nor would they evernot study enough. Therefore, they thought if anyone was to blame, ithad to be the teachers and school administrators. The older I got, I never thought teachers were paid enough to make that sort of bad treatment and lack of respect from the public worth considering a job in education.Masochist is a word that I might have used to describe anyone considering being a teacher. Mom thought it ironic that for me to have those resentments, yet accept a job for not even a third of the pay that my parents earned their first year teaching, forty-four years earlier, in 1958!

“Mom, I just want you to be sure about this, and I’ll do whatever you want,” I said. “Are you really sure?”

Taking my hand in both of hers, she pulled me closer in order to give me a hug and said, “I want you to do it. I’m just so happy!”

Dad’s treat to last American burger until whenever

Once Dad and I crossed the bridge over the Mississippi River and into St. Louis to catch my flight, Dad kept an eye out on where I could get one lastmade-in-America hamburger. He told me that it had been one of the things he’d missed most during his miss