Zandy

It is past my bedtime, but I have to write this post before I can go to sleep.  Lately I have been missing my good friend Zandy so much.  I met Zandy a year ago when I was in China.  His dad was a hot shot in the school district and sent Zandy to Yongzhou #1 so he could spend time with the foreign teachers and improve his English.  Lucky for me, I was one of the foreign teachers at Yongzhou #1.  I had been warned that people would use me as a foreign teacher and I knew that this was one of those situations, but I was definitely the one to benefit from it.  In exchange for us letting Zandy hang out at our apartment, he cooked meals for us and showed us around the town and quickly became our best friend there.

The beautiful flowers Zandy left for me when I was gone one afternoon.  They looked perfect in our Coke Zero vase.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I had most of the morning off while the others taught class.  Zandy would come over and we would run around the track, maybe do a little P90X (ab ripper X), then he'd teach me how to cook.  Whenever I'm standing at the stove now, I imagine Zandy by my side yelling, "Fry!  Fry!  Fry!"  I can whip up one mean dish of stir fry cauliflower now thanks to the Z-man.

Fry, fry, fry!

When I met Zandy, he asked why I wouldn't drink at dinner and I explained it was for religious reasons.  Because of the strict religious laws in China, that's all I could say.  It killed me a little that I had to give vague answers to any questions he asked.  He always told me, "I wish I had your Bible so I could read it."

The past few days have been so great because I finally heard from Zandy!  I haven't talked to him since I left China and was missing him so much.  Some of the things he says are just great, like, "do you have a handsome, thoughtful, and cut BF?" or, "so be my best man, OK!  pretending a man!" or there's always, "I am desired to receive your email back!"  If my grammar in this post is terrible, it's Zandy's fault!

I opened the door on my birthday to the best birthday surprise holding flowers and a cake.  The cake went to great use when he shoved it in Shawn's face :)  tee hee hee

Our last message was about Easter.  On Easter last year we met at the Changsha train station where he had a bag of candy and a little stuffed bunny for me.  He had never heard about Easter and had no idea what the holiday was about.  I explained a little bit about the Easter bunny, baskets, and eggs, but that's all I could say.  Now that I'm out of the country, I can finally explain a little more about the holiday.  I can't wait for the day that China completely opens up to the church and Zandy can have a chance to read "my Bible."

Zandy was a trooper and "pretended" like he didn't know what I was doing while I painted his nails with a face mask on

The finished product!