The Adventure Begins

Our adventure started in July 2011 when we visited the China Teacher Program offices at BYU and interviewed with the Evans. They serve as the Deputy Directors of the program. The thought of living in China for a year to teach English sounded so exotic. We had visited China in 2010 and enjoyed it very much. They even had teachers in our favorite city, Xi'an. We sent in our applications in December 2011 and settled in for the wait. We heard in April that we had been accepted and were assigned to Xi'an International Studies University. We were to report for training at BYU on July 30, 2012.

 Suzanne went to the optometrists for a new glasses Rx to take to China and received the bad news that she had progressive cataracts in both eyes.  She had to schedule surgery for each eye and wait for the followups. Things did not go as smoothly as she would have liked, but at least she can see out of one eye and can hear out of the other.

We started off from Snellville, GA on the morning of July 26, 2012 with my sister, Emily Jones, our granddog, Bella to deliver to Suzanne's sister, Charlotte, in American Fork, UT, Suzanne & I. Thirteen hours driving time later, three numb butts arrived at Emily's house in Webb City, Mo. On day 2 we toured the rebuilding of Joplin, Mo one year after the tornado struck. The community was well on the road to recovery. We arrived at Charlotte's in UT after two more hard days driving.

The training lasted for 10 days at 10 hours a day to give us the 100 hours necessary for a Teaching English as a Second Language Certification. Classes started at 8AM and lasted until 8:30PM Monday -Friday for two weeks. There was not enough time to leave campus for meals so we became very familiar with the Cougar Eat. We had classes on the theories of learning language, teaching writing, survival Chinese, Chinese culture, Chinese history, Chinese government,  the LDS church in China, PowerPoint, grading software, how to wash vegetables in Clorox to avoid the runs, bla, bla, bla. My poor old brain was in overload by about day 2. I reached my saturation point earlier each day. We were advised to bring a pillow to sit on for the classes. That was a bad sign.

We celebrated our 41st Anniversary on August 11, where it all started, the Salt Lake Temple.

August 11, 1971

August 11, 2012

We somehow survived the training ordeal and made the return trip to GA to make our final preparations for departure. We needed to clear the house for our house sitters, prepare my collection of vintage Saabs for hibernation, pack our allowed four 50 lb suitcases, hopefully hold a granddaughter from Ocie, update the will, deliver two uplifting and emotion packed sermons in church and in general get our affairs in order.

All those music lessons paid off!

We enjoyed three days of family gatherings August 24-26 with all members of the Rich & Suzanne clan present and accounted for. We swam, had a bonfire, made great music, had a baby blessing, we ate great American food, held babies and celebrated being together. We made some great memories to last until we meet again.

14 Adults, 17 boys, 1girl

We had a few additional hiccups that were very challenging and disruptive. However, with the Lord's help, we managed to overcome the obstacles to departure. Our escape was set for Sept 5 00:30 hours from Atlanta. (That's midnight 30 for you non-military types).

Next instalment from China!