On Saturday, we celebrated a festival Chinese people do. It is Chinese New Year! Yearly, this celebration usually takes place at the beginning of the year but since we’re not staying at VOICE this long, it took place in August.

Chinese New Year usually is a time where families gather and celebrate. So this time it’s different for me!

The day before, I helped Mrs. Chen with a few delicacies. It was such a fun time for me! Yet I was lucky too as it was the first time I cooked. No one got sick and people seemed okay with the food. I hope that this experience could motivate me to learn more cooking at home!

Alex Luk
Team 2

In Oklahoma I learned a lot. I try to speak with other people. I also try to learn another ball game. I meet foreigners. I try to act in a musical. It’s very funny. I learn some history about Oklahoma. I make a lot of friends. They are very kind! It’s very fun in Oklahoma.

Aron Fu
Team 1

My favorite evening activity we have yet had was Memorial Day. Having the privilege of making so many seasonal visits to the States, I did not ever recognize how Memorial Day is a holiday. So when this evening celebration arrived, I was confused and wondered why my family never celebrated this day the way we’d celebrate the holiday because it was a new idea to me. In fact, the beginning of this celebration was very close to breaking the record of my “worst holiday list.” It wasn’t until later that night which turned my perspective on this holiday.

When I heard a TESOL student explaining to a Taiwanese student what “memorial” means, I gasped at the very thought of people dressed like Native Americans, holding torches and dancing around a bonfire of dead people, burning to ashes. The very image sent shivers up my back. Obviously, I was being silly, and I was proved wrong for my preconception of this holiday during the dinner. Afterwards, we were brought to a cemetery and back to the Memorial Museum’s Reflecting Pool to reflect upon the holiday. On the car-ride back to the training center, my heart felt so heavy. My thoughts were unstable, and I was beginning to feel agitated with the idea of VOICE bringing us to such disturbing places. I did not want to go to sleep that night with the thought and images of a bunch of dead people. So I began singing gospel songs to myself to callous myself.

Arriving back at the training center, we were told to go back in the dining room for Prayer Meeting. I walked in grumpily, with a horrible attitude of whining to go back to my room as soon as possible.

But after sitting there, listening to Joel’s explanation of this holiday, my heart felt heavier and heavier, my breathing started turning into panting. This time, the stress is not out of disgust… it is out of guilt. The words “It was my sin that held Him there…those nail pierced hands…” from the song “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us,” won’t come out of my lips. I thought of how I was the soldier who used that hammer and banged the nail into Jesus Christ’s hands, I placed those thorns onto his head, I caused those scars and marks all over his forehead. I murdered Jesus, I murdered my friend, the Son of God, my teacher, my coach, my guide, my groom!

That night, it was very hard to fall asleep.

Tiffany Lam
Team 4

In this weekend we learned the football game. That is a very exciting sport. People who must touch them together are powerful. But I’m not interested a lot in football. We are not good at that, so sometimes we just stay and watch other people catch the ball and run. I prefer basketball over football.

Andy Liu
Team 1