I haven't been able to do this as much as I had hoped, so I'll try to give you a shortened summary of what we've been doing here in China. Day 3: we cleaned out a huge garage all day. We had to take everything out, organize it, then put some of the stuff back in. The rest of the time was spent with the kids here.
Day 4: We played with the kids in the morning, then we walked to the village right down the road from the Hope Foster Home. Hannah, Katie and I went off down some little side streets. It was really neat to see that no matter how poor all of these people are, they're all making an effort to make everything look nicer. Later that day, Wes, Julie, Stephanie, Rianne and I all went out for a bike ride through the same village. It was so much fun! For dinner, we headed to a restaurant for some traditional Chinese food. Very good! When we got back, there was a nice surprise for Abby and me. They had a birthday cake and everyone sang happy birthday. That made it a lot easier for me being away from my family.
Day 5: My 18th birthday. This will definitely be one that I'll remember forever! Not only did I get to spend it in China, but we went around to home that are taking care of a foster kid. At one of the houses, the family gave our group ice cream...vegetable ice cream. I got lucky and had chocolate ice cream. The other flavors were corn, sweet potatoe, and peas. Very interesting. That night, we went out for Mexican food in the city. It was really good, but the restaurant didn't even feel like China any more. One of the best things about that day, was the bonding of the team. For some reason, everyone seemed to come together that day. After we had Mexican food, we headed to the train station for the overnight train to Louyang, which is where Maria's Big House of Hope is. That was a very interesting train ride, but fun!
Day 6: We got to Maria's on the 7th. We had lunch there, then sorted a bunch of medical supplies for the nurses and doctor. The rest of the day was spent settling in and resting up. Everyone was super tired from the train ride!
Day 7: This was a busy day. We brought down some big cabinets from the roof down to the third floor. In the process, Wes and I kind of broke the tile frame around the elevator. We didn't have much clearance taking the cabinet out of the elevator, so we hit the top coming out and it fell off, hit me on the shoulder, then hit the floor and broke. Oops... After that, we did some more sorting. After lunch, we painted the wall surrounding MBHOH. That was an interesting time. That night, we went into the city for dinner and some shopping.
Day 8: We were gone for most of the day. In the morning, we drove about 2 hours to this hiking trail in the mountains. It was really fun and pretty, but also very tiring! We ate a late lunch there, then headed back to MBHOH for devo and dinner. That night, we all hung out in our room. Great bonding time! :D
Day 9: In the morning, we went to a state-run orphanage...I can't really talk about that. We headed back for lunch, then we went to get foot messages. It felt so good! For dinner that night, we went to this fondu place. There was a bow of water in the middle of the table that was boiling. They brought out a bunch of raw meat, which you then place into the bowl, pulled it out and ate it. Very interesting dinner. After dinner, we all took a cab back to MBHOH. Fun stuff!
Day 10: This day was spent packing up, saying bye to the kids, and headin out to the train station to go back to Hope Foster Home. The train this time was a bullet train!
Day 11: Yesterday, we went to Bethel, which is a foster home for blind children. Very impressive place! On the way, our bus broke down, so we were sitting on the side of the highway for about an hour. Finally, a replacement bus came, so we loaded onto that one, only to load back onto the previous bus again. We finally started on our way...2 hours. It seems everything takes 2 hours to get to here. We spent the majority of our day there. On our way back to HFH, we stopped to get some dinner. Late last night, a bunch of us laid outside, watching for shooting stars. This was our first night of seeing the stars the whole trip. It was so exciting!
When I get home, I'll get some pictures up on here. We leave in 2 days...I can't believe it!
Showing hope -
~Katie~
China. We left in the morning to go see Tienanmen Square and the Forbidden City. There wasn't much time to stay there and look around, so we just walked through them. After that, we went to the Pearl Market. Very similar to the Silk Market, only a little smaller. Dinner followed where we had Peking duck. I surprisingly liked it! The last thing we did that night was go to an acrobat show. This was very cool! Since that was our last night, a few of us decided to try to stay up as last as possible...we made it to 2am. Not too bad.
