China Trip 2007 Recap

(Last time when we went to China was in 2007. To refresh our memory, here is the recap we sent to our friends after we came back. This time it will be very different because we are with two little kids. We are looking forward to the new experience next week.)

We had a great trip to China.

We spent five days in Beijing taking engagement pictures and visiting Wendy's college and high school friends. On Sunday we attended Gary and Danita's house church. We were impressed by Gary's sermon in Chinese. After the service, we had lunch with the local Christians. Then Gary and Danita took us to their apartment and to a coffee shop for some coffee. David's Friends Speak reader's mom came to see us before we left Beijing. It was heartwarming. We stayed at Wendy's friend's apartment. She works at the Communist History department in the University. She told us that several professors in her department are Christians. We left a Chinese Bible for her as a personal gift.

We spent a week in Wendy's hometown. On the second day there, we visited Shihezi University. It happened to be the Registration day for the new students. We walked around the campus and stopped at the Foreign Language Department booth. Several students came up to speak English with us. They invited us to their PE class and asked us to come back the next day. We went back the next day and met the class leader Harry. He volunteered to line up Friends Speak readers for David. David read with 6 students in one day. We were also invited to the two welcoming parties for the new students. We broke into two small groups and answered questions. David's readers connected us to a Christian student there. Her name is Zhang Baomei. Baomei came from a Muslim city and was put into prison for her faith before she came to the University. She took us to the government church to attend the Sunday service. Our experience at the government church far exceeded our expectations. The auditorium was packed with people. The yard around the building was packed too. We couldn't help wondering: what do they do in winter when the snow covers everywhere? People were so sincere in prayers and worship. We talked to the Christians in the bookstore. We were surprised by their openness to us. They even invited us to come back and speak at their Friday night gathering. We asked what they need. They said the biggest needs are discipleship and Biblical teaching. They asked us to pray that God would send more workers to teach and disciple them.

One of Wendy's cousins came to the family reunion. He told us that his grandmother was a Christian. She inspired people because she began to learn to read at age 60 so that she can read the Bible herself, When she was dying, she requested to be cremated in her best Sunday clothes. One morning after breakfast, Wendy asked her mom whether she believed in God and whether she wanted to become a Christian. She said yes. That brightened our day.

We visited an orphanage in Shihezi. We bought some backpacks and wall clocks for the orphans with the money our friends gave to us. As soon as we got there, the director said the kids were waiting for us. Down the hallway and upstairs we found a big room full of about 50 kids excitedly waiting to perform for us. With lively music and rhythm, the kids danced and sang for about 30 minutes. We didn't expect such a nice treat. We promised to prepare something for them next time. The kids laughed and leaped the whole time while we played games together. We were impressed by the living condition and the love they had for each other. The management told us that the Buckner Children's Home from Dallas donated a van for the orphanage. Many organizations have gone there to do summer camps. The kids loved it. Sadly, when David tried to teach the kids the song "I have decided to follow Jesus", they told us not to teach about Jesus.

We also visited the largest of 18 government churches in Urumuqi. The four story building was packed shoulder to shoulder with 3000 members. We were touched by the passion of the preacher and the sincerity of the local Christians. David took some video of the service. We had lunch with a young girl Yan. She just got her new job working as a psychologist in the prison. She was looking forward to the opportunity to bring the Good News to the prisoners. While we were in Urumuqi, another Yan, who was baptized in Memorial Road Church of Christ in OKC and returned to Urumuqi, took us for dinner at a five-star restaurant. She showed us her beautiful home and asked us to tell Memorial Road COC how much she missed everyone there. Later that evening while we were walking around the Muslim market and observed a service in a Mosque, we met a guy named Aili outside the mosque. He told us he had been married five times. David began to tell him the story of the Woman at the Well and Jesus. We became his friends instantly. He insisted buying us some drinks and took us to see his wife and mother-in-law. He begged us to call him if we had a chance.

We loved the food in China . We loved the people too! Everyone we met invited us to come back often. We certainly wish that too.

Here is the link to some of the pictures.
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=qu0dq1t.2oyopqap&x=0&y=-7f0ajk
Here is the link to the Shihezi church service.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3375212824404649229&pr=goog-sl

July Update

July has been the hottest month of the year. Almost triple digits everyday! We've been staying inside most of the time, except the swimming time after dinner for Emily. Emily loves swimming. We should have taken her to the swimming lessons. But we didn't get around to do that this summer. Here is the summary of our July:

David did lots of home projects. As I mentioned last time, we put the wood floor on and sold our new carpet in early July. The floor guy came back to fix a few stripes later. Besides that, David fixed the rental house's fence as well as our own fence (both houses got the notifications in one week). He also fixed the back door. He's attempting to do more and more home projects by himself. I'm glad he's enjoying it! Emily followed David everywhere to lend a hand to him. She was a great helper.



Emily continues growing in her body, mind and spirit. She loves her Bible class. Every time after we sat down in the pew, she would request to go to her Bible class. It brought us many friendly smiles from people who sat around us. Her first memory verse was Proverbs 3:5. She often pretended reading Bible stories and narrating them in her own words "... This is the day the Lord has made ... Jesus was glad to see the children ..." Her teachers obsolutely love Emily. One teacher said she wished her daughters were like Emily. We know that it was those wonderful teachers who made Emily wanting to go to the class more and more. Emily also loves the story time in the library. We went there almost everyday since Andy transitioned to one nap a day. Actually both kids enjoyed the story time and the puzzles in the library.


It melt my heart every time when Emily gave me a hug and said, "I love you, Mama, I'll always love you!" (which she does very often) or when she complimented me with "This is the most delicious quesadilla that I can eat, Mama! It tastes really good, doesn't it?" "You look very pretty in that pink shirt - I like the beautiful flowers on it!" "You did a great job, Mama! That's a great idea!" ... She is very protective of Andy. She tells Andy to sit down on the sofa, or not to get close to the TV, or follow Mama... She gave Andy the most gentle hug when he least expected with a loving comment, "You are precious, Andy!" or "Good boy!"


She can sing over a dozen songs ("Onward Christian Soldiers" "Sweet Low, Sweet Chariot", "I'm In The Lord's Army", "My God is so Big" and many other songs) with complete lyrics and correct tunes (I learned quite a few lyrics from her already!). It often attracted big smiles from strangers when she sang in the grocery stores or parking lots. Her favorite things to do are singing, dancing, doing the puzzles, having bubble bath, and swimming in the neighorhood pool. Undoubtly, Emily has a very good memory. If we don't know where something is, half of the chances are she can tell us. She can direct us from Preston to Hedgcoxe to Moonlight all the way to our house as if she could read the street signs. She knows where all the big and small water fountains are along Preston Rd. She recognizes all the logos from WalMart, Costco, Babiesrus, Sprout, Plano library, etc.

Emily likes to eat her homemade popsicles in the back patio. Hmmm!

Emily's first memory verse - Proverbs 3:5 "Trust the Lord with all your heart!"

Pretending reading

This friendly old man loves Emily. He always smiles and talks to her when he bumped into Emily.

After Andy's shots, Emily put two stickers on her legs to show sympathy to Andy:

Andy just turned 15 months old. His height and head size are still over 97 percentile. His weight dropped to 25-50 percentile. He still has hard stools so we are still working on his diet. He gave up his morning nap completely. So he only take a 3-4 hours afternoon nap. His favorite words are: hot, pop (which is bubbles), flower, fly (which is butterfly), eat (which is food), ball, car, prune, bread, bird, truck (which he pronounced as "Kuk").... He has been walking non-stop. As a result, he had countless falls and bumps. Finally after he had several big bumps in one day, we purchased a helmet for him. I was suprised that he kept the helmet on his head. He actually brought his helmet to me to put on his head a couple of times. Wished I had bought it earlier! Andy's favorite video is the Signing Time. This is one video that we have to take on our trip to China. His favorite songs are "Patty Cake" "Itsy Bitsy Spider" "If You Are Happy and You Know It". His favorite things are bubbles and flowers. He is ready to share. He continues winning everyone's heart by his charming smiles and friendly waving.

Fred and Fang gave us some toys. Andy really enjoyed them.

It's signing time!

bath fun: Andy and Emily don't usually take bath together because of their separate bedtimes. Once they did, they loved it!

Poor boy with a big knot

Andy's first Carousel ride. Emily decided to sit and watch instead.

While Emily was doing the puzzles in the library, I had to chase Andy around. Here he is:

David and I have been busy connecting with old friends and meeting new friends recently. Our friends Dawn and Lori both had baby boys not long ago. We had chances to meet them. We also had lunch with Leslie and dinner with the Hargroves. It always refreshes us after spending time with friends. We also made some new friends during the last couple of weeks. One was a family (American husband and Chinese wife) that David and Emily met at the playground. They were looking for a church to plugin. We invited them over for a dinner and shared our stories. The other was the New Life Behavior Ministry (http://www.nlbi.net/) friends. They were looking for someone to help them to translate their courses into Chinese and put on the website for their training seminars in China next year. David knew the president of that Ministry (they went to Russia together several years ago) and this task seems to be right in my alley. So I volunteered to help them out. As a result, we got to know several wonderful people who are involved in this ministry. This brought back my memory when I was baptized. My old neighbor Bill (who did some Bible study with me when I moved into that apartment) asked me on the way to my baptism what I wanted to do in the future. I told him that I wanted to translate English Christian literature into Chinese to help the Chinese Christians to get more Biblical teachings. At that time, I didn't know how and what to do yet. It seems that the perfect opportunity didn't come up until eight years later! Five years ago, Don Barnett and I talked about starting an online Bible study with people in China. But because of lacking of resource, we didn't proceed with the idea. Now the Seeker's ministry under NLBI is doing exactly that. I can't wait to see how this ministry will bless the Chinese people in the future!

We will take our China vacation from August 15th through September 5th. We pray that everyone will stay healthy and safe during the trip; we will be an encouragement to the Beijing missionaries; God will be gloried in everything we do in China; we will be a light everywhere we go; we will find opportunities for future contribution; ... I'm sure we'll have a lot to say next month. Until then, please say a prayer for us. Thank you!