Mission Journal Day 9

I woke up feeling quite bad. I had slept very poorly and when I woke up, I felt like I had just gotten out of surgery. Everything was sensitive and achy. I just took a hot bath and that helped somewhat. I drank lots of tea, took lots of vitamin C, and ate lots of fruit. We left the hotel around 9:30 for the kindergarten where Jane works. Peter went with us as well.

We got to the school and the entire place was decorated and built for children. This school is for ages 3-5 and there are roughly 800 students total. We walked in and saw some girls practicing traditional Chinese dance. It was absolutely adorable to see their proud little poses. We then went to Jane's class. The children had drawn their own pictures and were coloring them with oil pastels when we got there. We could not believe how good these children were for being only 5 years old. Surprisingly, they knew some English. We got to take pictures of them and talk a little bit. Their faces capture the beauty of China entirely. They are absolutely beautiful. My heart was softened again as we interacted with them.

After a short time, we left for a small village outside of Hoi Ping (Lon Boui?). We stopped at the house of a little Chinese woman and sat on some stools in the cold and dark, concrete house. It was there that we met her grandson Sing. He went with us as we traveled to see the church that David Crane refounded after his father had evengelized in the area some time ago. It was great to see the ministry that Rollin and David Crane both had.

We drove back to Hoi Ping for some McD's for lunch. After that, we went to Liyuan Gardens to tour the beautiful grounds there. At one point, we fed the coy fish there. I swear there were a thousand of them that came to eat the little cookies that we threw into the water.

We then drove to the next village over where we climbed the watch towers that are so popular here in Hoi Ping. In the 1910's-1920's, about 3000 of them were built because the Hoi Ping government did not exist. From there we traveled back to the hotel for a dinner buffet in the same restaurant we always eat breakfast. It was the first time that I had heart. I mean, I ate the heart muscle. It was terrible.

We finished dinner and MIka, Jason, and I went to a youth outreach at the Sun Churn Christian church where we had gone to the college/career fellowship the night before. There were probably 70-80 kids there. It was a great time. I was able to play table tennis a lot and was able to keep up with the high school players. We came back to the hotel around 10:30 and watched Unbreakable in Jason and Jon's room. I was feeling better by the end of the day. I slept very well.