Last night in China!

Well, tonight is our last night in China. We have had an amazing time for the last 38 days, but now it is time to go back home. The last week has been a whirlwind of tracel and meeting with Christian leaders in Zhoukou, Xi'an, Lin You, and Beijing. Seeing more of China was exciting and interesting, but being able to spend the last few days in Beijing, without moving around, has been nice. We hope you have enjoyed reading our blog posts and seeing the pictures we have posted these last few weeks. It has been a pleasure sharing our adventure with you all.

~ Erik and Kim Free

The music class at Zhoukou's Gospel Church and Bible school

All of us at the Great Wall.

Our group at the Yinjing Thelogical Seminary in Beijing.

Erik and Kim in Tiananmen Square

Tour with the CCC

            This week has been going by so quickly. It was a new hotel every night for a few days as we ended our time in the SEP program and began our journey with the China Christian Council (CCC). Meeting so many new people for the first time, and then saying goodbye, has taken it's toll and I have gone to writing things down as my memory for names and places is becoming jumbled.  Still, I am learning so much about the situation of the church in China and the CCC.  It was a delight to visit the Gospel Church in Zhoukou with Pastor Jiao. There was a music class in session during our visit and we got to see their agricultural training center. It was also a surprise when our group got invited to tour the Gospel Hospital that was opened a few years ago on the church property. It has been steadily growing and has a specialist for respirator and gastrointestinal medicine. They also have an emergency room that services the community and sees around 100 people a day.  They were proud to report that 80% of the hospital staff are members of the church. The doctors' and nurses' uniforms had red Chinese crosses embroidered by their names and above the doors in Chinese was a saying about God's love and the hospital's love for the patients. 

            The church and training center has also been seeing growth. This is a unique Christian Bible school and training center, as the government recognizes the certificates earned there because of the computer technology and agricultural technology classes that are included in the instruction.  They teach this way because most of the people attending the school are coming from the surrounding farms. These classes help them to be able to live a more self-sustaining life by farming the land they live on.  The school also provides continuing education courses for the lay leaders of the surrounding churches in a program that lasts 5 years. Most of the churches here do not have their own pastors and rely on lay ministers and elders to lead the church. The program offers training on running a church and Bible knowledge. This course helps to prevent heresy and cults from developing in the church by increasing the standards of religious education of the church leaders.

            We still have a few more days here, more places to go and people to see. I am excited that the church is doing so well in China and look forward to coming home and sharing what we have learned.

 

~Kim Free

The former President of the China Christian Counsel, Pastor Cao, standing with us in from of the Grace Christian Church that we attended Sunday morning in Shanghai.

welcome to Shanghai and the city lights!

Ya'an at night on the river, the last night walking and saying goodby

Ya'an, we'll be missing you.

We have finished our last days teaching in Ya'an, and have said our good-byes. Our last week in Ya'an was a very memorable one. I don't think we realized how much of an impact we were having on our student teachers until it was time to say good-bye to them. In fact, we did not say good-bye at all, but rather, taught them a final English phrase, "Farewell!", which we all decided was a much better way in which to depart from one another. We were both glad to have completed our task there and a bit sad to have to go. Thankfully, we live in a digital age teeming with social-networking options for staying in touch with friends in far away places. For that is the best thing that we both gave and received during our time in Ya'an, friendship.

Thursday night we celebrated with another round of Hot Pot for dinner followed by ice cream at our friend Nancy's favorite place. Afterwards we were somehow convinced to go to KTV, China's version of karaoke. Some of the students rented a private room and we all sang our hearts out. Kim was even able to convince me (Erik) to sing a couple songs. In the absence of any Johnny Cash music I opted for Elvis' "Blue Suede Shoes" and could only keep up for about half the lines. We both sang the Ting Tings "Shut Up and Let Me Go" to everyone's wonder and amazement. (our first duet!!!) Friday was a nice meal with all of our assistants, our host, and his family. On Saturday we were driven to the airport and ushered through the departure process by Mr. Li, his son, and Nancy. As we went through security I looked back to see them waiting behind the barrier, hoping for a last glance and a wave which we all cheerfully provided. The last I could see, they were still waiting there, seeing us off to the last moment, just like in some old black and white movie. What wonderful memories and friendships we have from our adventure here!

Today (Sunday), we have reconnected with all the other Amity teachers and shared our stories with one another. We all shared some good and some not so good experiences, but we all shared happy memories, despite the struggles of living in another country even for a short time. Along with our new Chinese friends, we have also made new friends from Canada, England, Ireland, Germany, and various states in the US. What a rich experience this has been!

Tomorrow, we embark upon a week of travel with our new host, David, from the China Christian Council. We will visit, Zhoukhou, Xi'an, and Beijing to see some more mission projects, tourist sites, seminaries, and churches. Stay tunes for more pictures and descriptions of our experience!

Erik's Classroom

A picture of my class performing some role plays.

White Horse Spring

This is the ancient spring inside a Buddhist temple that we visited on Sunday afternoon.

my country and yours

During a time called "my country and yours" we like to share different things about about our culture. I got to share about the American culture around camping and summer camp. They were quicker than us at the game, but I think they may have had the advantage of home turf.

~Kim

one week to go!

     We just finished up our second week of teaching and only have one week left to teach before we head back to Shanghai. I am starting to get used to some things in China now, like the food and lack of iced beverages. I think the people here are starting to get used to us as well. We have been walking the same path every weekday, twice a day. At first we got a lot of weird looks and nobody really tried to talk to us. Now, people seem ready and are waiting to try and sell us breakfast. The kids run up to show off their mastery of the English greeting. They laugh and run back to the doorways they came from when we answer with an awkward "ni hao". This Saturday we went to the tea mountain of Ya'an. It is said to be the birthplace of tea and the first tea tree's are hidden somewere  in the tea tree and bamboo covered slops of the mountain. We rode a gondola up the mountain to tour the different temples and tea gardens. We were able to see the historic tea garden that grew the tea for the Chinese emperors. As we descended the hundreds of steps to get back down the mountain we kept passing all the Chinese people who were taking the steps up and who would later ride the gondola down. I learned that some of them make this trip on a monthly basis as a way to refresh their mind and body. We drank tea on the side of the mountain with a view of the valley below. It was fun teaching our Chinese friends a new card game, which is a common way to relax after a meal here. And we had a lot of fun as they mastered 31 and very quickly started beating us.
    
     We are more than halfway through our trip now and are starting to turn our thoughts back to home. Some questions are in the order of " what is the first food we want to eat?", or "how fast can I buy a ice cold diet coke?". But we also are wondering what impact will this trip have on us and how will it change our life when we get home. I wonder who many people I will be able to keep in contact with and for how long. I guess we don't really know what impact this trip will have on us, but this is a life changer for sure.

~Kim

End of Second Week of Teaching!

This has been a busy week for us in China. I have been teaching my class a lot of games that they can use to help their own students learn English and have more fun. One of the major concerns of the teachers who have come to learn from us is how they can inspire their students' interest in learning English. I have discovered that a lot of the games I use at summer camp and youth events are easily adaptable to help with learning English vocabulary and oral skills. Yesterday I led half the participants in a Pictionary competition and believe me, there was some serious competition! My hope is that these teachers can take these new games back to their schools, along with the stories we have shared about life in America, and make their English language classes more fun and engaging for their students. We are surely starting to have some fun in our classes here. I have been able to reach a level of comfort and friendship with my class in a relatively short time, mostly thanks to their abundant hospitality and eagerness to learn from us. Tomorrow we get to go visit the famous Tea Mountain of Ya'an where legend says the very first tea came from. Expect to see pictures of that trip posted soon!

p.s. The picture is of some of us hanging out at a tea house along the river learning Chinese card games from our new friends.

waterfalls

One of the larger waterfalls in the Gorge had a long, steep staircase. I was very surprised to see some young women climbing them in high heels! It was very wet and very slippery.

Play Day

This is Daniel, one of our fellow teachers, crossing over the Dragon Bridge as we near the end of the hike at the bottom of the Gorge.

Play Day

This is a picture of our group together near the entrance to the panda reserve.

Pandas!

Hot pot fun!

Hot Pots, Pandas, and Waterfalls!

Today is our 5th wedding anniversary! Some of the teachers we are working with got us some very nice gifts. We are now the proud owners of a couple of beautiful Chinese hand fans, his and hers panda-shaped plush cell-phone cozies, and some delicious and famous Ya'an tea. On Friday our host, Mr. Li took us to experience a traditional Chinese hot pot dinner. Basically, this entails a pot of boiling oil spiced with hot red peppers among other spicy things sitting in the center of your table. You then fill the pot with meat and vegetables and proceed to fish out what you want to eat when it is ready. Mr. Li requested a mild version for our benefit, but we surprised him by asking for more spice. We were all "glistening" by the end of the meal. I was downright sweating. It was great fun.

Today, we had the privilege of visiting Bifeng Gorge, which is near Ya'an and is the home of a panda reserve as well as a beautiful trail through the gorge. The pandas were fun to see and take pictures of. The gorge trail was very steep, slippery and breathtaking in more ways than one. We followed the river and witnessed many spectacular waterfalls. After all that exercise, I think we will definitely sleep well tonight. The plan for tomorrow is simply to rest and prepare for our second week of teaching. Blessings to you all and good night.

~ Erik

English Corner

One of the classes we get to teach is called English Corner. It is usually a place were the student teachers can practice what they have been learning in class. On of their favorite things to do so far is to play Cocktail Hour. It is where we tell them to go around and try to talk to 5 people in 10 min. Sometimes we put a twist in it by getting some of the students to pretend to be someone else. The other students have to find them and then ask them enough questions to figure out who the person is pretending to be. All of them are very interested in learning new teaching methods to bring back to their own classroom. On of the problems they say is hard to fix is that the kids are sometimes lacking in interest during English class. They want to make it more fun and engaging. It has been a lot of fun teaching them new games, and making them laugh, and to have fun together. One thing that has prepared me for teaching in China was the years that I helped with summer camp. I really feel like I am back at camp teaching people how to work together. That made me real happy because I was going to miss not having the camp experience this year. Now I just get to experience it in China   Kim

Our first view of what will be Erik's classroom.

Lisa outside the school at which we will teach, at which she also teaches English.

Our group with our host, Mr. Li and his three assistants, (from left) Ri, Lisa, and Nancy.

Ya'an - First Day Teaching!

As you surely surmised from the title of this post, today was our first day of teaching in Ya'an. Yesterday we interviewed all of the students and placed them in groups. They were very nervous, but so were we, but we made it through the interview process without much trauma. This morning started out with a few short speeches by the headmaster of the school; our host, Mr. Li; and our team leader, Dick Cayton. Like all first days of anything ever, we started out a bit rusty and awkward, but were able to successfully oil the gears and get things running close to smooth by midday.

I am so grateful to be having this experience with my wonderful wife, Kim. I can't imagine doing this without her, especially since it was her idea in the first place. We have settled into a comfortable routine in a short amount of time: devotion, breakfast, teaching, lunch, teaching, debriefing, dinner, laundry in the sink, and lesson planning. Our days are full and blessed. We were able to attend church on Sunday and were warmly greeted by the Christians we met. A few were excited to see us and practice their English. We have been trying to pick up as much Chinese as we can, but it proves difficult as people here are understandably more interested in practicing English with us. It is the reason we came, after all. We thank you all for your continued prayers and will continue to update you on our experience. I will post some pictures of the past couple days as well.

Blessings,

Erik

Choir Practice at the Amity Foundation building during our service before we left Nanjing

Walking around in Nanjing the night before we left to Ya'an

Our group at our hotel in Ya'an

Ya'an China

It is great to say we are in Ya'an China. It is a place famous for Tea, Pandas, and fish, in that order it seems. To get a sense of the climate the town we are staying in is also know by its other name which translates to Rain City. Lucky for us it has been sunny so far. It is also about 5 to 10 degrees cooler than Nanjing as it is higher in altitude and in the foothills. I was fun meeting our leaders here and today we are going to go shopping to buy supplies for our class. Our First Assistant who's english name is Nancy went walking with us last night after dinner. I really got a sence of the community here because during our walk along the river we met a lot of her family and friends. It was really fun when her students, she is a chinese english teacher in primary school, would come running up to her to say hi. The children from her class were eager to test their English with us, and although they were shy I was very impressed that they did so well. We also met her family and her brothers wife has a little baby girl about 8 months old. She insisted I hold the baby to take my picture. In china babies don't usually were diapers because it is to hot, and they  just have pants open to the air in the middle. So I didn't hold Cute (here name in english) for very long.

~Kim
Picture,
they don't waist any space on the buses here. this was our bus ride on our way to get to the Plane.

The Chinese word of Coca Cola ( which sounds the same as the English ) stands for delicious and refreshing!

Nanjing City Museum

Visiting the Drum Tower Hospital

Today in Nanjing we were able to visit some sights. Erik and I were asked to go and talk to the mission partners who have been working at the Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital. During our visit we learned a lot about the the Hospital and how it has been serving Nanjing for almost120 years. The hospital was started by a Disciple Missionary who saw a need for medical care in a country were people were dying from preventable infections and illnesses. Now the hospital is one of the top 3 in China. it has 1500 beds and will soon grow to 3000 beds as the construction of the new buildings has been completed. It was almost overwhelming to grasp the idea of how fast the hospital is growing to keep up with the demand of the communities that surround it. Another stop we made was to the Amity Christian Art Center. There we were able to see local artist display their work. It was interesting to see how the Chinese Christians have expressed their beliefs through their artwork. The rest of the day was spent doing more work to get ready to teach our classes. I really hope that we are able to get some of our classes ready before they start next week!

~Kim

The picture is of the door to the old hospital building and the words above the door announce the hospital to be a Christian Hospital.

First Day in Nanjing

We have successfully arrived in Nanjing with the help of the stalwart Amity staff and local volunteers. There are 42 participants in the Summer English Program here from all over Canada, UK, Germany, and the US. We have been enjoying hearing all of their stories about how they came to be participants and sharing our own. Some people have been doing this program for more than ten years. The next few days will be full of workshops, location visits, and many wonderful conversations with new friends. I can easily see how the many return participants consider coming to China as an Amity volunteer like coming to visit family. There is a strong sense of camaraderie amongst them along with a joyful sense of welcoming and encouragement for us newbies. Kim and I both look forward to counting ourselves amongst such a talented and passionate group.

We also braved the horrendous humidity this afternoon to explore Xuanwu Lake Park, which is just next to or hotel. Xuanwu Lake is one of the three most reputed lakes in southern China and includes five islands. Many local people enjoy walking and exercising around the lake in the morning and evening. The picture is of the lake with the city center of Nanjing in the background.

~ Erik

So we made it!

Hi everyone,
With the help of our friend from the China Christian Council, "Nick", we were driven straight to our hotel with no problem. Nick was born and raised here in Shanghai and now works for the CCC in their public relations and works with their international guests like us, fielding emails and the all important job of meeting them at  the airport to make sure our first experience in China is a good one. We also met three more teachers when we first arrived at our hotel. We are looking forward to getting started tomorrow. As of now we are having fun watching Chinese TV and getting ready for bed.

Good Night
Kim Free

Well, Kim and I have officially started our trip to China. We are now in Vancouver, Canada waiting for our connecting flight to Shanghai. The day started early at 3am at our friends Jim and Carol Cure's home in Beaverton. They were kind enough to invite us to stay the night before our early flight from Portland, during their large family reunion! Thank you Jim for getting up super early and driving us to the airport!!!

The plane to Vancouver was tiny and prop-driven and the one to Shanghai should be a huge jet, so I get to spend the day traveling on the smallest and the largest airplanes I've ever been on. Kim and I are super excited to arrive in China around 2pm on Sunday. (2am Sunday morning for most of you) Hopefully we will get to relax some and see a bit of Shanghai before leaving for orientation in Nanjing on Monday. Not much else to say just yet as we are just traveling and waiting for planes. More to come soon!

~ Erik

working out the bugs

So we are starting to pack and we are really working on packing as light as possible. Erik even purchased a travel size iron! It is cute and small, lets just hope it is worth its weight. I am having fun making lists and organizing what is necessary and what is neat. We have been hearing back from our two mission partners Lura and Richard Cayton who are already in China. It sounds like they are having fun although they did confirm what was rumored about the heat and humidity. We are looking forward to this trip and are getting really excited!

Only 10 more days to go!
Kim Free

Erik and I are getting very excited. Only 17 more days till we leave for China! We still have some reading and planning to do, but I think that we will be ready for China. We are so blessed to have so many friends and family, and to have been picked to be part of Amity Foundation's Summer English Program (SEP) this year. Erik was ordained this last weekend, and we also found out that our trip has been successfully funded. This has truly been an awesome week. Also we found out that Erik was offered a CPE residency in Portland OR, so he has a job waiting for him when he gets back. We are really excited and will be keeping regular (as possible) posts while we are in China. We are truly thankful to all who made this mission possible for us and there are many to thank, so thank you all so much.
Faithfully Yours,

Kim and Erik Free