Fu Yang - Sunday

Saturday night came upon us quickly and it is amazing the appetite you can work up delivering rabbits.  We shared a huge Chinese meal back at the hotel and most everyone retired early to our typically hard Chinese hotel beds.  However, even the backboard I was sleeping on didn't disturb my slumber as we really were tired from all the walking and activity of the day.

Sunday broke to another beautiful fall day with clear skies and temperatures in the 20s (C) and no rain in sight.  Our schedule for the day had us visit a school that was home to over 500 students from middle school through high school ages.  The cost of the school is 6,000RMB (USD$900) per year and includes room and board!  The kids are from all over China as this school has an excellent reputation.  We shared about one hour of time with the students and their leaders singing, talking and praying together.  It was really a neat experience and was amazing to see how God is working in this part of the world.  Mason and Regan got involved in a pick up basketball game and Landon was the "cute" star of the morning and they were standing in line just to take his picture to which he has gotten very used to since coming to China.

Our final stop on this trip was to a nursing home.  The Religious Affairs Officers had arranged for the local media to be present and included a TV station, radio and newspaper.  We were welcomed to the elderly home with a flurry of firecrackers which is very common here.  Our South African friends upon hearing the barrage of explosions said "If this was in South Africa we'd all be on the floor right now taking cover!"  As the smoke cleared from the 2 minute continuous fireworks display we all walked into the old folks home carrying a gift bag for each of the residents.  They welcomed us very warmly and we helped them open their gifts and put on the new red scarves to "show off" for the cameras.  We had about and hour to spend talking with them and learning of their lives.  One gentleman that we met was a government official in the Cultural Revolution and made sure we knew that!  We also met a man who was visiting his mother and was so happy that we had come to spend time with them that he kept repeating the same words over and over in Chinese and must have introduced me to his mother a dozen times.  Many of the residents were very impressed to meet my three sons and they would get big smiles and say "Hen hao" (very good).  We finished the visit with a Chinese song that we had been practicing to the big smiles and tear filled eyes of the residents.  They seemed very happy to have had our diversion to their normal routines and I hope that someday we can return and see them again.

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.)

Fu Yang

Four hours on the high speed train found us in the captial city of Anhui province - Hefei.  The train station was bustling with people coming and going, street vendors surrounded the square selling various foods and sundries.  Our group numbered 25 and was comprised of 10 nationalities - German, American, South African, Singaporean, Malaysian, Dutch, Vietnamese, Indian, Australian and Taiwanese. We were hard not to notice as we waited in the square for our next mode of transportation that would take us 3 more hours to the city of Fu Yang where we would spend the next two days serving the people of the region.  Onlookers began to gather while we waited for the bus making some of us nervous while beggars with small children on their hips plied us for a few spare coins.  Westerners are rarely seen in this region of China as Anhui province is one of the poorest in the country so it was not surprising all the interest that we aroused.  Anhui is the home province of the current president of China, Hu Jintao, and it is expected that he will direct a high level of funding to build the region up before his term of office ends.  In fact the construction has already begun and the infrastructure is beginning to take shape as evidenced by all the cranes, roadwork and the ever-present dust in the air.  The Chinese government just completed the draft of their seventh 5 year plan which covers from 2011 to 2015 and one of the objectives is to begin developing the interior cities of China like Hefei, Chengdu, and others.  When the Chinese set out to do things you can be sure they will complete them and in no small way - everything is done on a mind boggling scale here with no detail omitted. 

Our bus arrived right on schedule and we quickly loaded up our belongings and set out for Fu Yang.  What we expected to be a 2 hour drive turned into 3-1/2 hours along both highway and side roads eventually leading us to the MaoGuo Hotel.  The government dictates in which hotels that westerners can stay and this hotel was the only one with such "approval".  It was listed as a 4-Star hotel but we decided that it must be an entirely different set of "stars" they were using.  However, the price was right at 220RMB per night (about $33US)  We all settled in for a good rest around 10:30 pm in anticipation of a busy Saturday in the villages outside of the city.