Jun 29 2011
Leaving Hong Kong for Japan and a grieving brother
Today was the last day of the ISI conference in Hong Kong. This time together was very sweet for us. To be able to share with friends who have a passion and love for the same things, for the same people, it was as if we were suddenly put in the presence of over 200 kindred spirits. It was such a blessing. We learned so much from each other about international students and the best ways to serve them. There were quite a few ideas that we will be taking back with us when we get back to Texas. One of the special things about this particular time was that we as a Dallas, Texas team were able to contribute in many ways because we were able to share what God was already doing in our midst. Praise the Lord that we could make a difference in even other ministries through His grace.
While we were here though, while we were here there was a great tragedy back in Arlington… but this illustrates the importance of this conference and the networking and partnering it brings. During the breakfast of the first day, our co-worker friends from Michigan asked if we knew a young lady from Taiwan that moved from their area to ours. Lisa and Charis had been meeting with her and her daughter for some time now and so we did. Well, our Michigan friends told us the sad sad news that she just passed away via a stroke a couple of days earlier in Arlington. Wow… that was a total shock. She was only 35 and left behind her young husband and three year old daughter. Well, we weren’t sure what to do but we wanted to figure out a way to minister to her husband whom we met one time when he visited for Thanksgiving. All we had was her contact information and not his and we were thousands of miles away.
Our colleague Ron had to stay home due to Doctor’s orders in recovering from prostate cancer surgery. It was a struggle for him to be home. Anyway, we decided to Skype him early Sunday morning in Texas from Hong Kong to see if he could muster someone to visit the husband. Ron was much more recovered that we thought and was able to visit the husband… but we still didn’t have his contact information. We tried several avenues and in the end it was a volunteer from Michigan who closely interacted with the couple who sent us the information. Armed with this information, Ron was able to visit the grieving man and his daughter and prayed with him and encouraged him. The husband also requested information about the process of becoming a single father after death. Several of our staff had gone through a similar situation and we were able to let Ron know about another of those who happened to also be “stuck” at home because of illness from New Jersey.
It was certainly a tragic situation and Lisa and I are both touched by everything that happened but because of conferences like these we were able to pool the resources necessary to help this hurting brother from Taiwan that way HE needed to be helped.
Tomorrow we leave for Japan. We are just about finished with the Sino side of our trip. Two more stopovers in Shanghai left… but first a week in Japan… Looking forward to visiting our friends there!
Since arriving in Southern China, our trip has been a whirlwind. We met in Guangzhou with the first Chinese student that we were friendship partners with Jack with his friend Phillip. Jack has a daughter the same age as our little girl and they were friends when he was a student at UTA in 2005. Jack took us around Guangzhou and saw us off on a train for Hong Kong.
On arrival to Hong Kong, I exited the subway and I felt like we just came into a new world. It reminded me a lot of the day that one hikes out after a backpacking trip. The trip is wonderful and beautiful and full of wonders, but when you get to the snack bar or store you are suddenly overwhelmed with the stimuli that you encounter. It felt that way in Hong Kong. So many lights, so many shiny buildings, so many bustling people, so many non-Chinese. It was truly and experience. We also realized a lightness in a sense as restrictions on things such as internet are suddenly gone. BACK ON FACEBOOK! Yeah.
We then had the distinct pleasure of doing Church with a very good friend from college and his family. After Princeton and after some jobs and degrees while in the states, he moved back to his native Hong Kong to help with the family business. At first he was not a believer but was married to a Taiwanese believer. but in the 6 years since we were last here, God got a hold of him and he chose to follow Jesus and he was baptized. This Friday, he and his family will be traveling to Africa to do mission work. I really saw a difference in him. I really felt like our friendship also went to a new level as the most important things in our lives, thing things that drive us are now the same.
I am sitting in the front of a projectile moving nearly 340 km per hour. We are sitting in in China’s newest class of high speed train jetting away from Wuhan on the way to the southern city of Guangzhou. Because of trains such as these, what used to take 19 hours takes only 5 hours. This is truly a symbol of the new China. You may recognize the name Wuhan because of the recent serious and deadly flooding there.
We leave Anhui province with a smile on our face. We were able to see Charis’ orphanage before it was torn down, we were able to see the hotel where we first met her. We were able to see the place where she was found and learned of the noble history of the people an the land she came from. We were able to see some of the unique animals from her country. We are so thankful to alwaysforever.us agency for setting up the trip and for our guide/interpreter Cherry and driver Mr Youn for making it so special.
Today we are off to Guangzhou where we will meet our very first Chinese friendship partner Jake and his family and our other friend Phil. It marks the last stop in our extended stay in China. Tomorrow we travel to Hong Kong to stay though with a day trip to the Chinese cities of Shenzhen and after a weeklong excursion into Japan an overnight stay in Shanghai before flying home. We are about half way through.
Today was a very special day for our little girl. Today is the day we went to visit the orphanage where she spent the first year of her life. In addition, with the help of our special guide, Cherry and our driver, we were able to find the place where Charis was found abandoned bundled up in a very easy to find box 8 years ago.
It was quite a day as we left our Hefei for the 1.5 hour trip to Chaohu. We took backroads to get a sense of what the countryside is like. And while driving through fields of rice and other crops, watching people plowing their fields with oxen and riding to town in the back of small trailer’s behind small three wheel tractors, I was reminded of what my grandparents’ farm in Japan was like back in the 70′s when we visited them.
The orphanage was just as we remembered it. They were moving in a few weeks to a new “storybook-like” facility, but the old place had many of the same pictures and whatnot that where there when we first visited back in 2004. After meeting with the assistant director and seeing Charis’ old documents and pictures, we were re-introduced to Charis’ favorite nanny and the doctor that treated her so long ago. She was a bit shy… she was shy when she met us for the first time too…
After playing with some of the kids in the orphanage… there were a couple of babies with cleft palates and several others with other special needs… we traveled deep into the countryside to see where Charis was originally found. In short order we arrived. It was much like it looked in google maps. It was basically a fork in the road in a very remote and small village in the middle of much farm land. An old woman and a man with a baby came out, curious as to why these foreigners were standing out in the middle of nowhere snapping pictures. I couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps one of these were Charis’ relatives or perhaps knew something of her story… Maybe next time when we visit we will make more inquiry but our girl isn’t ready this trip. Still, what a blessing to be able to do these things… It was emotional for Charis and for each of us in different ways.
After our visit and a delightful lunch with our guide, Charis’ difficult deed done, the kids were fixated on the idea of swimming in the hotel swimming pool. After that, we went out for a walk and found a park… While there, we saw some bounce houses and people doing Chinese Yoyo. Also, as is common all over China, we found community members working out in a small workout area in the park. Lisa was invited to play ping pong with the locals (Roy looked too much like a local to get asked) and Timothy as well. It was really fun and we really felt a part of the local community.
I think one thing we really see in China is the huge importance they put in living daily in community. In just about every community we visited, there are parks with weight equipment, ping pong tables etc. and invariably, there were people using it, people from all ages and states and walks of life. Some did community Tai-chi. Other were learning how to dance. It was almost as if the park was a free community center and full service gym all wrapped up in one. It was everywhere. It also seems that the culture puts less emphasis on filling their homes and more on spending time doing stuff together. (When they aren’t busy competing in their work etc.) It really was refreshing.
Hi all. I just wanted to let you all know that we are posting ALL our pictures from the trip on our flikr account. You can access it at 
We did not plan on it but we took an unexpected trip to Nanjin to visit my UTA friend Elvis. Great city. Good to see him. His nephew Russ came with his parents all the way from Wuhu (1.5 hours from Hefei) to pick us up to go to Nanjin and they drove all the way back the same day. I am really touched! The sacrifices they had to make to make it work.
As I write this, I lie in a sleeper train car from Beijing to Hefei, settling in for a 9 hour ride. At least we will be sleeping most of the way and so the trip should happen quickly. While Lisa and the kids have their own stateroom. I am sharing with three others. One cool thing, while waiting for our train in the waiting area, Charis made friends with a young lady who wanted to practice English. This young lady was so touched by Charis that she gave her a special wooden fan.
Last night we met with Catherine and her husband Vince for dinner. We know her from over 10 years ago when she was a graduate student at UTA. She has since written a book and hopes to do further study in the university. They are doing very well. She is very special for us because when she was here she suffered a very serious accident where one student was killed and her recovery took nearly a year. Roy will never forget driving out to Abilene to visit her in the hospital. She is clearly recovered. They took us to this incredible restaurant where there is a huge almost football field sized courtyard where the entire ceiling is a huge LED video panel projecting, videos, messages you can put us by texting a number, etc. It was truly incredible and special.
Yesterday, another former student, Ted, took us around on the subway all over Beijing. We visited the Olympic Bird’s Next and Water Cube and the Summer Palace. We took the subway because in Beijing, you can only drive 6 days a week based on the numbers on your car licence to cut down on congestion and all our guests had numbers that prevented them from driving on that day. It was the first subway trip for our kids and they did well considering this was the first time they moved around via subway.
After three consecutive days of more walking than we’ve done in years, we had a relatively light day today. We visited the home of the Beijing Opera, we had a very good pizza lunch in HouHai, a regular hangout for many westerners in Beijing and we visited Prince Gong’s Hutong house. Then we had dinner with our hosts, Willy and his family and then Jonathan had the treat of seeing a live concert of music from Hisayo Miyazaki movies performed by the local Beijing orchestra while Roy and Willy drove around Beijing to see the lights and the sites.
Of course what made this day special was the people we were with. Maria, Mickie & Al took us around all day. They are great friends from a very recent graduating class form UTA. They shared so much of themselves and sacrificed much to spend time with us. Maria even planned the whole time in Beijing. What a blessing they all have been.
Trae took care of us too as we walked the many steps of the Great Wall. Honestly, we haven’t walked as much as we have in the last couple of days in years and except for a little stomach discomfort by the littlest one, I have been amazed at how the kids have held out. Every muscle in my body is sore right now and my feet have that good kind of hurt.
We are learning so much about some of the pressures these students face and the desires they have and the difficulties they face as they integrate their times studying in the states and the new skills and perspectives they have into their lives.
Today was a very special day for our family. One of the things we have been most looking forward to in our trip to Asia was going to the orphanage near Beijing (http://harmonyoutreach.org/425567.ihtml) Our daughter has been doing fund raisers for our time there, friends from our faith family had donated items and funds for our time there, this part of our trip meant a lot to us as we take seriously our father’s mandate to take care of orphans.
Lucy and Garrett’s driver drove our family the 2 hours to the orphanage this morning. It was a hazy day and I honestly felt very tired from the many things that have happened on this trip so far. When we arrived, we were welcomed by the orphanage director, Lilith and she ushered us all in to meet the children. When we arrived the 20 or so kids, were watching television in the living room area. This particular orphanage specializes in special needs kids and the kids had various anomalies including one child, Jeremiah, who had no tone in his arms and who had to do everything with his feet. (He was incredibly smart and could draw, write, and even eat with his feet) We were able to break the ice with the kids by taking their pictures and showing them to them. This caused them to smile and it really warmed our hearts and theirs too. We sponsor one of the kids there and we found Martha, the girl we sponsor, to be very shy… but we found that just by being silly and stooping physically to the level of the Children, even kids as reserved as Martha responded.
Among the babies were three newborns who arrived just in the last few days. They were a month old but they seemed incredibly small and fragile. Much smaller than our boys were were they were born. As Roy held one of the little babies, it was amazing to watch how much the baby seemed to respond to the touch and warmth of being held. We also met Blossom, a young girl with Cerebral Palsy. Even with her broken body she seemed to light us when she saw us.
After our whole family and Lucy played with the kids for a time many of the kids were loaded up onto a bus and we took them with their nannies to McDonald’s in the city. It was quite a site watching all these tiny kids marching in a row into McDonald’s and seeing the reaction of the other patrons. You should have seen the kids faces though when the happy meals we were able to give through the generous gifts of you all partners who gave to the trip. Smiles every where as the kids ate french fries and even hamburgers. Our friend with the limited arms seemed so natural in eating with his feet. If you didn’t know better, you would have sworn he was eating with his hands. Lucy was a huge help as she translated for us and helped Lisa order the food, get us good seats and serve the food. 
Garrett’s driver was also getting into the action as he sat with a group of three kids and fed them, even spooning ice cream into their mouths from the tiny cones that came with the meal. Being a veteran of many happy meals, we expected the toys to be the centerpoint. Not with these kids. The food was what they were excited about with the toy being almost an afterthought for them.
After McDonald’s, we drove back to the orphanage with our hearts deeply knitted with the kids and the orphanage helpers. Most of the kids went down for naps but Charis and Jeremiah made paper airplanes together. It was clear that Jeremiah treasured these small folded creations as he put them in his “special” bucket.
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