CHINA 2

Hey Friends,

I was very excited to hear from some of you so quickly after I wrote. It is great to hear your thoughts and encouragement. We managed to give the students some free time today, which means of course that we have some free time too! So I get to write again!

I am not sure what every one had for dinner last night, but a few of our girls were visiting the squatting quite a bit overnight. I only tell you this, not because you need to know the intimate goings on of some of our team, but to share more of my world with you. You see, I am the med person on our team. This means that I get to know about every scrape, bug bite (which was really fun at Training Camp), anytime anyone takes an advil, or my personal favorite how they spend their time in the bathroom. It's an exciting pre-breakfast conversation that I get to have with many of the students. Which leads me into a request of the father. Would you please be asking the father for health and strength on the team. It is super hot here, and the combination of our long days, long walks, scetchy food, and humidity, it is a recipe for dehydration, exhaustion, or as some have already experience, long nights in the squatty room.

Ok, real life moment for you. As I am typing this, there is a teenage girl sitting on the side of my chair, who cannot speak english, looking at what I am typing. She keeps coming over giggling, trying to use the 4 english words that she knows, and then running back over to where her friends are. Seeing Americans is not something that the people in this little town (little compared to other cities in China, bigger than a lot of ours) are used to. They are especially fascinated with our young blonde students. Today I was sitting with one of our blonde girls in front of a store (she was not feeling well) and these three ladies walking down the rode literally stopped right in front of us, and just stood there and stared. After they finally walked away, another woman brought her young son over to take a closer look at the blonde american girl. At that point, I led us away, but it is really interesting to me. Their curiosity about us is similar to the reaction of a small child when seeing something new. No inhibitions, just stop and stare. Personally, I get a kick out of it. Our students are getting used to it as well.

Some good news, one of our students bags got lost somewhere in San Fransisco. It finally reached Nanning (2 hours from where we are) last night. The school was able to send us a car and driver and 2 of our leaders headed of this afternoon to get it. I think that is pretty good. In the meantime, our "friends" here were nice enough to pick him up toiletries, underwear, and a shirt. Thank goodness we have our students keep a change of clothes in their backpacks. He has barely noticed he's missed the rest of his stuff.

Oh, I have another thing I would want you to ask father about. We are currently working out the details of the next part of our trip. Our original plans fell through due to some safety concerns for our friends there. However, they were able to line up alternative plans for us. We are grateful that the father is looking out for us, we are now just negotiating some of the costs for housing and other details. Please ask the father for us to have wisdom and discernment. The team is mostly aware of the situation, we just haven't told them about the new plans, until we are sure.

I am sorry if this email is a little ADD, I am just typing as things come to my mind. On our team we have a few students that were with us in China last year. One of the Chinese students that the team met last year came to our hotel today and is hanging out with one of our student groups right now. It was cool to watch the two friends being reunited (I watched from above and took a picture. It was precious.) It is so great to know that some of the relationships that we form here will last longer than the 10 days we are here. The father is good and faithful to his children.

Alright, well, I am going to wrap up this incredibly long email. I am sad to have not been able to celebrate Independence Day with any of you, but I am grateful for the independence that we have in America. I am begining to really understand the freedom that we truly have and often take for granted in the US. I hope that you had a safe and fun celebration!

Hugs!

Mags