Refrigerator Tetris and "Bag o Beans"

I am sure you remember the game tetris-where those little blocks in different shapes would come down from the ceiling and you had to find a place to fit it in with all the other blocks already down at the bottom? Each one has it's own shape and size and you have to fit them all together like a puzzle, not leaving any space. Well, that's kinda like what I do every Monday and Thursday morning with the stuff in our fridge. Our refrigerator is about half the size of your American monster fridges (with as many or more condiments as the average American has-we love our condiments) Many Chinese don't even have refrigerators and the ones that do certainly do not fill them up. Most people go to the market everyday, sometimes multiple times a day to buy their meats and veggies fresh. They return home and cook them almost immediately. No need for that middle man, the refrigerator. But that doesn't work for us for many reasons. For starters-we have a lot of condiments, many specially brought over from home to give us the authentic American flavors we love. Also, I shop at a grocery store about 30 minutes from my house for many non perishable items as well as imported items (so I do some serious stock piling). And finally, with a one year old I just don't have time to run to the market before every meal. So, we have a little system: Xiao Li our helper goes to the market on Monday and Thursday mornings to buy all the produce and meat we will need for the next few days. Therefore, Monday and Thursday mornings are a little tricky when it comes to fitting everything in my fridge. And things just got a little tighter in these parts-Emma Grace has started to drink whole milk instead of formula which is wonderful for our budget (fresh milk is WAY cheaper) but not so great for my game of tetris. Now between the 3 of us we consume 9 cartons of milk a week. (see 2 of them beside tea and one in door) The milk grandma, as we call her in chinese, delivers our milk daily now. Without thinking about my tetris issue I told the milk grandma to bring one carton a day except on Mondays and Thursday, when I told her to bring two! What was I think telling her to bring two on those two days???Ok, this is funny. As I was writing about my refrigerator space issues guess who just rang my bell? The milk grandma-but this time she was coming over to visit and happened to bring a bag of beans she had just made for me. Doesn't she know she just clogged up my fridge with her milk less than two hours ago? You know how tetris gets faster and therefore harder the better you get? And then you start to feel really nervous and you're not sure where your next block will fit? That's how I felt when she handed me said bag-o-beans. Here's a picture I just snapped of Milk grandson and Emma Grace playing during their visit. These two are less than two weeks apart in age. He sat quietly the whole time and played with one or two toys while EG on the other hand crawled every inch of our floor and touched every toy in our living room, stopping only once or twice for a few seconds to actually play with something. She's a wild child. Now that you know all about chinese refrigerator habits let me tell you a little snip-it about Chinese weddings. They are way different than American weddings in more ways than I even know but just one little interesting fact-They decorate their cars with flowers for the drive to and from the wedding. (which is more like a big party and a performance than a ceremony) This weekend we had two friends (girls) graduating from college and we, along with some other friends celebrated this special event with a big dinner for them. We even sent a driver to pick them up and bring them to the restaurant. We decided it would be fun to have the car decorated for them like they do for a wedding. Now I have no idea if this was cool or just weird in their culture because I am pretty sure they only decorate cars when people are getting married. But the two girls felt really honored and special. It was fun to see them driving up in a sleek car decorated with red roses on their big day!

here we are waiting for them to arrive...
And here's the car. Usually the car with the bride has a HUGE bouquet of flowers right in the center of the hood of the car and the wedding party and family all follow in black cars decorated with red roses. (just like this one)

Ok, one final note- God uses the Chinese people around me to bless my socks off sometimes. So not only did the milk gmaw bring me beans when she and her grandson came by just to say hey, but the driver of this car (our uncle Qi, seen in pic above) just came by and brought Andy and I a big bunch a roses-he was concerned for us because he thought we paid too much for the flowers yesterday and he said he saw some today that were a great deal so he decided to buy them for us. Sometimes I don't totally understand the "love languages" of this still-foreign-to-me-at-times culture, but I know one thing: Beans and good priced roses=God's love poured out to me through these precious people around me. It's funny to think about people from two different cultures trying to love each other-I mean, my idea of flowers on the car for the girls' non-wedding event was way outside the box for them, but I really think they felt honored and loved. And today was certainly my first day to recieve love in the form of a bag of beans, but in our own American and Chinese ways we are trying to show our love for one another.

It's so humbling how God uses these people to care for us and show us his love and abundant provision! Please pray for our neighbors and friends-they are such a blessing to us and I pray we too could bless them with the best gift of all-the good news of Jesus! Hope you have a great day!