Fu Yang - Saturday

We began the day with a hearty Chinese style breakfast (which is code for "there was nothing I recognized at the buffet") and headed off for the two buses that would be transporting us for the day.  We had to divide into two groups as the roads in one part of the village could not handle the full size bus in which we arrived.  Our first stop was to the site of a future college that is being started.  They have already secured the land (which has a couple of partially erected structures) and are looking for the additional funding to complete the transaction.  The school will offer three majors - music, English and cross cultural translation (Chinese interpreters)  The first classes are slated for this spring and ground breaking will occur next month. We spent about an hour touring the grounds and walked up into one of the structures to get an overview of the property where we prayed for the future students and all of the work that would be taking place in the next several months. 

We then met up with the Religious Affairs officers in the small town center where we enjoyed lunch at a local restaurant.  We came to learn later that the government officials bought lunch for our entire team.  While we were having lunch we learned about our "project".   Joshua (our leader) informed us that we would be delivering rabbits to several pre-determined families.  Now, I was not thrilled by this news as I am TERRIBLY allergic to the long eared critters.  The other groups from last spring got to deliver baby ducks and even a couple of cows - I'm not allergic to them - but nooooo.... it had to be rabbits.  God truly has a warped sense of humor.  The rabbits arrived via - by what else but -  a 3 wheeled scooter (although this was gas powered and super sized).  In total there were in the neighborhood of 250 to 300 fully grown white albino  bunnies divided into fours - 2 mating pairs for each family.  The program is one that has locals raise the rabbits and then harvest them for their fur which is then used in the manufacture of rabbit fur lined gloves and other accessories.  The company provides the rabbits at no charge and then in one year will pay the families for all of the pelts.  The locals gain a source of food and income from the program.  So in effect I guess you could say we were delivering the rabbits to death row - "Dead bunny hoppin'!" 

In the village area we had lots of kids gather around us while Mason, Regan and Landon handed out small toy cars, balls, crayons and other gifts.  There were several in our group who spoke Chinese and they would interpret for us and we would try to pray for each child or group of kids.  We all got the opportunity to deliver the rabbits and just as I could have guessed it would have to be my family that wanted me to pick up the rabbits out of the cage and put them into a new pen.  I did this haltingly and made the transfer but suffered later with a rash on my hands and a stuffed-up nose.  (Okay, I will get off my pity wagon now. But I really don't like rabbits.)