We have entered the home stretch. We are a mixed bag of feelings. In some moments we are longing for the day and other moments we can’t seem to help but feel time is moving too fast and we aren’t anywhere close to being done yet.

We recently were told the English teacher is having to make up more lesson for Catherine because her English is more advanced than the other students. That is a good thing. Catherine, however, was appalled. She thought she should just be able to skip the class and call it good. Until we told her since she was here to learn English, it was a very good thing she was advanced and that if she decided not to learn anymore her choice might to go home to China early. She quickly decided it was better to be smart in America than go home to China early.

We recently received the china cabinet that had been in Mr. FullCup’s family for a few decades. It, he believes, was purchased as a set with the dining room table and chairs we also have.  When we put the China cabinet in the kitchen I was asked repeatedly what I was going to put in it. I kept telling everyone, “China.” I don’t know, it just made sense to me. Imagine poor Catherine though, every time I’d say I was going to put China in there she thought I was putting her whole country in the cabinet.  We had to explain to her about China dishes.

I have been asked a few times in recent weeks if Catherine had made a decision for Christ. The most recent time was this past Wednesday when an AWANA worker asked. They had noticed a marked change in Catherine’s attitude. I responded with doubt and that we had heard about an attitude change from others but we had yet to see any evidence of this change at home.

When she asked though I thought maybe there was something we were missing, since we are so close to the situation. I thought maybe our past experiences were coloring our current reality and obscuring our true vision.

So on Thursday morning I told Catherine I wanted to ask her a question and I wanted her to tell me the answer even if the answer was “no.” She said she would do that. I asked her if she loved Jesus. Without a moment’s hesitation she emphatically declared, “NO!!!!”

So there you have it.

Almost every night at supper we spend some time reading from the Word and a short devotional. (You can read what we are doing here.) Every devotion has some questions at the end, we read the questions (or at least one of them) and then go around answering the questions. We’ve skipped Catherine knowing she didn’t believe at all. But last night I thought I’d include her. She told us her biggest problems (Math teachers in China) and her biggest fear (Math teachers in China). When asked what God could do to help  in the problems and fears her answer was “none.” She said she would rather be alone in problems and fears than ask God to do anything.  She still, also, maintains she wants to go to hell and not only does she want to go she wants everyone to go.

Sigh. It’s sad.

But she often walks around singing praise songs.