"Wo yao yi tong shui." ("I need water.")

Well, this week has been fairly quiet.  I continue to spend as much time as possible with Yi Feng.  I'm reminded of something that C.S. Lewis wrote.  He said that if a man loves a woman, he wants to stay with her and never leave her side, but normally the necessities of life (like earning money) keep tearing him away.  But, if he is somehow able to arrange his life so that he has no outside responsibilities, and spends all his time with her, then the fascination grows stale.  I hope I never get to that point.

In other news, I accepted the job offer from Hy-Lite English.  I will continue on my current status until September.  Then, I will sign a full-time contract for one year.  My schedule will also change.  I'll be working mostly nights and weekends, unfortunately.  I'm pretty sure I can get Sundays off, or at least Sunday morning for church.  That's life when you're working with schoolkids in a private education business.

The main thing I wanted to write about was the water.  That is, my drinking water.  For reference, here's my water dispenser:

Water Dispenser

In China, as in Korea, the normal tap water is not considered safe to drink without purification, although we use it for everything else (except brushing teeth).  Most people have water dispensers in their homes, like the one pictured above.  This works fine for me, until the water runs out and the jug needs to be replaced.

I have asked around, and no one seems to know of any place where you can go to purchase these water jugs.  When it runs out, you need to call the phone number on the barrel, tell the person on the other end that you need water, and what your address is.  Then, they send a delivery guy with the water.  Same-day service, apparently.  That works fine for most people here, I guess, but for me (since I don't speak Chinese), not so much.

When I was spending all day at Wuxi International School, I just filled my small bottles from their dispensers, and I managed not to use mine very much.  (I did the same in Korea, only with larger bottles and filter machines.)  Thus it was that this week was only the second time that my dispenser ran empty and needed a refill.  The first time, I took the empty jug down to the guard shack and showed it to the guard.  After some protesting in Chinese, he showed me the phone number.  Then, when I asked, "Do they speak English?" and after some more Chinese, he got out his phone and made the call for me.  (I wrote down my apartment number for him.)  Fortunately, I had nowhere I really needed to go that day.  So, I went up to my apartment to wait, and later, the water guy came.  It cost 14 RMB (if memory serves) to replace the water.  More than the 10 RMB I had been quoted earlier, but quite reasonable.

This last week, my water was running low again.  So, instead of having to bother the guard, I asked Yi Feng to teach me how to call for water myself.  She wrote down in my book what I would need to say, and drilled me on pronunciation until I had it right.  On Friday, the water ran out.  Saturday, I planned to leave by 10 a.m. to catch a bus and meet someone.  So, I made a call at 8 a.m., figuring a local delivery shouldn't take two hours if I called early in the day.

The call didn't work out quite the way I planned.  After an hour or so, I got a call back from them.  Someone spoke a little English.  I tried to tell them my address, but it ended up that they said I should find a Chinese friend.  So, I called Yi Feng.  She said she would help.  She said she enjoyed doing something for me.

It turned out that, since I was using the area code on the jug, I was getting the water place in another city, where (I guess) their main office is.  Yi Feng said she made the correct call, and that I just had to wait.  Well, I waited until 10 a.m., but then I had to leave.  However, I had a plan that I thought would work.

I took a rubber band, and a 20 RMB bill, and attached the bill to the neck of the empty jug.  I then placed the jug outside my apartment door before I left.  I figured that if no one stole the money, and if the delivery guy was intelligent, he would take the empty, leave a full jug, take the 20 RMB bill, and maybe even leave my change on the full jug.  That would require both honesty and intelligence on the part of everyone involved; two things that are not always guaranteed in China, apparently.

Well, something went wrong.  Either he didn't show up, or he wasn't sufficiently intelligent or observant to notice the bill on the jug and figure out what he was expected to do with it.  The jug was exactly the way I had left it.  No one stole my 20 RMB, but I didn't get my water refill, either.  (I have a small reserve, so I'm not going thirsty just yet.)

What I really want is a way to buy one additional water jug.  I want to keep a full one next to the water dispenser.  That way, when one runs out, I can replace it immediately, without waiting for a delivery.  Then I would have plenty of time to figure out how to get water delivered at a time when I am present to receive it.  I think I just figured out how (based on my scanty understanding of Standard Chinese), but I'll check with Yi Feng first.

What I'll probably have to do this time is get help.  Yi Feng texted me this afternoon (as I was riding home on the 766 bus) that she is free all day tomorrow.  She has some places that she wants to take me to.  Well, I'll take any excuse to spend time with her, doing anything.  Lord willing, I'll meet her at 8 a.m. tomorrow.  That afternoon, I may have to take her to my place, where I can call for water, with her present to help if something goes amiss.  Then we can sit and wait for the delivery, and I can take her out to dinner after the water arrives.  That's the plan, anyway.  There's plenty we can talk about while we wait.

Prayer Requests
These past few weeks have been a little surreal for me.  Spending hours almost every day with a beautiful young woman, going out for meals with her, holding hands, sharing dessert, etc. never happened to me in the U.S.  Yi Feng actually wants to spend time with me, and even welcomes physical contact.  How could this happen to me?  It feels like I'm living someone else's life.  As one of my colleagues said to me, "It looks like you've got a girlfriend."  Well, she denies it (in both English and Chinese), but I don't really care how she defines our relationship, as long as she continues seeing me, and letting me express my affection for her.

So, thank God for bringing Wu Yi Feng into my life!  For the first time in my life, I have real hope that I'm not destined to live like a monk.

In addition, I just heard back from Jane, the vice-principal at WIS.  She says I don't have to move out right away.  She'll tell me how to pay the rent on my current apartment.  It's about 1400 RMB/month, which, considering the location and quality, seems quite reasonable when compared to others that I've seen.  So, praise God for at least a short-term solution to the housing issue.

The only thing that's really bothering me right now is my lip.  On Wednesday, I took Yi Feng out to dinner (as usual), at a restaurant that was new to both of us.  The meal involved a boiling pot on a hot plate right at my seat.  Taking something out of the pot, I misjudged the temperature of some mushrooms and burned one spot on my lower lip rather badly.  It's got a scab now that's quite noticeable.  (Yi Feng was very cute about it, wanting to touch it last night, when it started bleeding from trauma.  She doesn't mind how it looks.)  So, please pray for infection-free healing.

Also, Amelie's mother had an accident on her bicycle last week.  (Of course, she wasn't wearing a helmet.  Hardly any Chinese people wear proper helmets unless they're on something motorized, and even then not always.)  She seems to have suffered a rather bad concussion.  (Worse than the one I had when I was 10 y.o.)  She's been in and out of the hospital, and Amelie has been busy helping her.  Please pray for healing for Amelie's mother.

Well, I've got to get to bed now if I'm going to be well rested when I meet Yi Feng.  ("Go to bed early," she would say.  Apparently, in Chinese, it's like our "Sweet dreams," or something similar.)  So, thank you for reading, and thanks for praying, especially for Amelie's mother.  God bless you all.