Recap of China Trip May 2010

Hello everyone,

Finally, here is a recap of my trip with the highlights. I apologize for the length and I tried to cut it down to the pertinent parts. There is just so much to tell and I want you to feel what we do, not just read a few facts. Corresponding pictures are attached through the Shutterfly link below. Scroll to the end of this post to view a video featuring the children of Hong Tu Shan. I hope that this post, photos and video will bring you into our work and that you feel a part of it. Thank you for caring about us, thank you for all of your prayers!

http://thresholdministries.shutterfly.com/pictures/10

Day 1- Shopped the wholesale markets in Shenyang. Found the cutest pillows: Ladybugs for the girls and Tiger Paws for the boys. Then stuffed teddy bear key chains for all: Boy/Girl couples dressed up for the girls and Pirates for the boys. New umbrellas for all. New quilts and quilt covers for all. It is always a long day of shopping and we are tired, but it is so worth it to find these wonderful gifts for our children.

Day 2- Left for Linjiang. The 7 hour drive is long, but the view is gorgeous. The mountains are green and the new spring growth is evident everywhere.

Day 3- Went to visit our dear paper cutting man. He always seems happy to see us and he had many more paper cuts to sell to us. We are so grateful to help him in this way. He creates all of his paper cuts by hand with the traditional tools. They are exquisite. Now to find a way to sell the paper cuts!

Next we visited Pastor Zhao who has a house church in a small nearby village. He is bent over completely at the waist due to illness, I think it is rheumatoid arthritis. But the gleam in his eye when he talks about Jesus is unmistakable.

Dinner with Mayor Wang – it was a very pleasant dinner. We must keep up our Public Relations when we are in Linjiang.

Day 4- Went to see a new boy, Yu Guang Yi, in Si Dao Gou village. 11 years old (10 years old in U.S.). It took about an hour to drive up the winding mountain road. At least it was paved. We reached the top of the mountain to see this small farming village. This young boy’s dad had committed suicide in April, and his mom had gone crazy and left Guang Yi to fend for himself. He has three uncles in the village who would help him when they could. We asked one uncle and aunt to take Guang Yi into their home and we would find a sponsor for him as well as their young baby. They refused. At first I was a bit upset. I could not understand. I was overcome with emotions, constantly holding back the tears. This 10 year old boy had to learn on his own how to cook rice, he told us how he sleeps with the covers over his head at night because he is scared and all alone. How could they not take their own family in and care for him? But God revealed to me, and to my heart, the poverty they live in. I soon understood that they are so poor that the thought of another mouth to feed is incomprehensible to them. They just cannot do it. So I told Hai Yan we need to take him to Hope House. He was happy we said that and he was ready to go. Our mamas took him into their arms when we arrived at Hope House and got him cleaned up and fed and a brand new bed was assigned to him.

In the afternoon we visited 3 unsponsored, waiting children. Cao Xin Yue is a 15 year old girl who lives in a small apartment with her mom, dad and grandparents. She has diabetes and must take medicine every day. The mom has extremely poor vision due to cataracts. The father has TB. We gave them some food and left them with a promise to find a sponsor so she can stay in school. I also worry about the medical costs for all of them. It must be overwhelming. Next we visited Wu Wenjia. She and her mother live in one small room together that they rent. There is literally only enough room for the 2 of them to stand between the furniture and the bed. But they are happy and smiling and bright and full of hope. Wenjia is very smart and showed us her school awards. She also sang a couple of songs for us. (Since coming home, we have found a sponsor for her!) Lastly we were on to visit Lu Mingtao. He was born without a cerebellum. He has full brain capacity, but is stuck in a body that is small, tight and twisted. His mom told us he had been practicing his English for us. After walking down the long back alley next to the railroad, we then turned onto a smaller alley to find our way to his home. He greeted us with “Welcome” in English. He was so happy to see us and also told us “thank you” in English. His body would contort and twist and spasm with excitement. We found out it was his actual birthday (31 years old) so we sang to him. His mom gave me a tiny little paper boat and told us how he makes them with his tongue- yes, his tongue! We were all amazed. He used to make one in 10 minutes, but he is getting weaker and so now it takes him about an hour to make one boat. He obviously cannot go to school, but this family needs financial help. His mom’s full time job is caring for him. They have such few resources out there for people in his condition. I am reminded how blessed we are.

Day 5- Today is Sunday and it is the Annual Birthday Party. Today will be a good, fun day. But first: One of our Baba’s at Hope House tells me that Hope House has no running water. WHAT?? Apparently the water had been trickling over the winter so they thought it was just frozen pipes. Nope. The construction company broke the water pipes and now, today, there is none. So we assessed the situation and we will pray, pray, pray for an answer. We ate lunch at Hope House with our orphans before the party. Guang Yi sat with us. He ate multiple bowls of food. I asked him what the best part was so far about living at Hope House. I thought he would say food. He said it was being able to sleep at night and not be afraid. All I could do was hug him and tell him I love him and try to not break down in tears. We were ready for the party now. Obviously our university students and some of the children who live in villages too far on the outskirts of town are not able to come. I made my welcome speech to all of the children, encouraged them to do their best in school and in their lives and reminded them how much all of us love them. Bob read his latest children’s book with Hai Yan translating. Then some of the children performed songs and poems for us. Three of our older children each gave inspirational speeches to help encourage everyone to stay in school. They talked about how their lives have been changed through the love of their American sponsors. Next it was time to hand out the gifts. All of the children were eagerly standing in line to get their goodies. Finally, it is time to eat cake. Although I did make a mental note for next time, that we need to do cake first and then gifts. The poor children had their hands full with gifts and then we are trying to hand them these large pieces of spongy cake on the tiniest, flimsiest paper plates I have ever seen with teeny tiny plastic forks. What a balancing act for the children! But they managed. Next time we will do it in a different order though to help them out a bit. The cake was gorgeous and I always love seeing the cake topper. It is a plastic flower that opens up once lit. I think it plays music too but it is so high up on the cake and the laughter and chatter of 150 plus children and adults drowns out anything else. Cake ended up on faces and in hair. The laughter is infectious. I had cake on my face and in my hair. One of our newest orphan girls came over and gently tugged my arm down. I bent down to her level and she carefully and gently started cleaning my face and hair. The sweetness of it almost brought me to tears. She will be good mama one day. The other thing that is amazing; with over 150 kids, cake on faces and hair, running around, there was hardly a speck of cake or icing on the floor to be seen anywhere. They are all trying so hard to be such good kids for us. Today my heart is happy and lighter.

Day 6- Today we traveled to the town of Wei Sha He. We are visiting some sponsored children who could not come to the party and we will give them their birthday gifts. First we stopped at Zhang Rui’s home. She is around 6 years old and lives with her mom and grandmother. The mom’s boyfriend raped Zhang Rui last year and he is now in jail. The mom is handicapped and unable to work. The sadness in this little girl is evident upon meeting her. She was fascinated with the toys we gave her. She does not have many toys. She sang a song for us at the prompting of her mother. My reward was as we were leaving I told her how much I loved her song and told her I love her and gave her a hug. She finally showed a big smile and Yu Shu Mei was able to catch it on camera. It was the only time we saw her smile. I pray for more smiles in the future for her. We visited two more sponsored girls who are doing extremely well. Li Ran is probably one of the happiest people I have ever met in my life. The hope that Threshold provides is evident in these sponsored children. Although we have to walk across muddy, trash strewn ditches to get to their homes, they are happy because they have the opportunity to go to school and they know they are loved. We took the afternoon to go to a beautiful park and enjoy the beauty of the Linjiang mountains. Pastor Zhang joined us at the office for dinner tonight. What a blessing to hear him talk about how the Linjiang church is growing and that he and his wife are setting up more house churches in the small villages. The spirit of God is moving in this area. We cannot preach ourselves, but we can encourage the local pastors!

Day 7- Today we went to the city of Baishan. It is about an hour away. We met with the Director of the Red Cross and the Director of the Blood bank, along with two top employees and volunteers. We have agreed to help them by providing 1000 ducks to the poor villagers in their area. We hope to partner more with them in the future and to spread the outreach of Threshold Ministries. It was an afternoon with good conversation and good feelings. We pray that continues. On our way home we stopped to visit two more of our sponsored children who could not make it to the party. We gave them their birthday gifts and they told us how happy they are and how well they are doing.

Day 8- Today we visited the village of Hong Tu Shan. It takes about 3 hours to drive to this village. It is extremely remote and poverty is rampant. Cindy and Hai Yan found this village a few years ago. Now we have many sponsored children there and we work closely with the school director to help this school and the children in any way we can. The difference shows. These children are well behaved, clean and focused. The children were sitting at their desks out on their playground waiting for us to arrive. They had many songs, poems and skits to perform for us. It was incredibly delightful. The best one was the fashion show! Those kids strutted their stuff walking “the walk” across that dirt playground. I was able to get everything on video so we hope to get them translated and up on YouTube. After the performances were done, we handed out cake to every child. They each got their own individually wrapped cake to eat at a later time. I am guessing the teachers will gladly send them home to eat it so the parents can deal with the effects of the sugar rush to come! Our staff will deliver the gifts to the sponsored children at a later time. We did not want to do it in front of the other children.

Day 9- Today we are visiting more unsponsored, waiting children in villages outside of Linjiang. The first young boy we visited, Chen Xin Yu, had never seen Americans before. He was so scared that he took one look at us and turned and ran back out the front door. His patient father coaxed him back in and then it did not take long for him to warm up to us. He started bringing out all of his awards from school to proudly show us. He is a bright young boy. His father has leukemia and is not doing well. His grandfather is sick as well. The next young man is 12 years old, Wang Qian. He is very smart. His mom has heart disease and cannot work. I promised to find him a sponsor so he can stay in school. Next we visited the Zang family triplets. The father has cystic fibrosis and he is homebound. The mom was out farming when we visited. Again, the promise to find a sponsor was made. It is heartbreaking to see these people, living in these small homes, no larger than our garage. To hear the stories of divorce, abandonment, illness, disability…the weight of knowing the poverty they live in and how it could affect their ability to attend school, to have healthy meals each day and yet it can be changed with a sponsorship. We have over 40 children waiting to be sponsored. I need to come home and find many sponsors……

Tonight was dinner with the Director of the Welfare Department, some old “friends” and some new “friends”. The dinner went very, very well!

Day 10- Dinner was so successful last night that this morning the owner of the construction company called (our new friends from last night) and are buying new clothes for all of the orphans. Good, good news! The example Threshold has been setting for 13 years is reaching more people. We toured Hope House more carefully today. Our beautiful building is showing the effects of the weather it must withstand each year. Parts of the building are breaking down. So we have documented, taken pictures and we will search for donors and grants to help us maintain our building. The safety of our orphans is of the utmost importance. Our Hope House staff has the old water pump working to pump river water into Hope House to use for bathroom and kitchen facilities. We will buy bottled water for the children to drink. Since being home, we have just recently found out that the water company has agreed to pay for the repairs of the water pipes! AMEN and thank you Lord for answered prayers. Pray they follow through on their word. This is such good news!! We were concerned after our problems with the heating company last fall. Tonight we had our last public relations function. The top three mayors joined us throughout the evening. It has been a long time since the number one mayor took time to meet with us. They all spoke about the wonderful work we do and how they should follow our example. The best part…they followed through! The mayor told the Welfare Director to buy some gifts for the orphans for the upcoming Children’s Holiday. We still need a lot of financial help, but the fact that the local officials are stepping up and helping us is truly tremendous.

Day 11- We are on our way to Beijing and the final leg of our trip. This will be our time to decompress and see the sights in Beijing for a couple of days. We will find a few more treasures to bring back to the states to sell and help provide a bit of income for us. It has been an incredible journey once more. We see things that are heartbreaking, but we see so much hope as well. I am encouraged and hopeful myself. The task to find funding and find sponsors is big, but my God is bigger!! I can’t let those sweet faces down. They need our help and they need hope. We saw more signs of Christianity in homes, crosses hanging on walls, the growth of the local church. China is changing and we have to do our part to help them. Acts 1:8 states “…and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” May we all be living witnesses of the love of Christ every day, all day, wherever we are and may the glory of God and His love encourage us and fill us with joy.

In His Service,
Erinn Copeland
Executive Director