Good News from China

Two pieces of good news involving China:

1. After about a year of unexplained blocking, the English version of Wikipedia is now apparently available again in China. When it became unavailable around this time last year, it was highly inconvenient (not to mention annoying). Sadly, it seems the Chinese Wikipedia is still blocked. For more on this subject, see this New York Times article (free registration required, I think).

2. Several of our friends in Wuhan recently returned from a weeklong trip to an orphanage in another province. For some of them, it was their third trip in what I see as an inspiring attempt to fulfill James 1:27 by taking care of orphans. I think hearing about their experiences should remind all of us to think about what we are doing to take care of those who are less fortunate than we are.

Here are some excerpts from their e-mail describing the trip:

... because of Steven's abundance of hair (especially on his arms) all of the kids took to calling him 'Jin Se Hou' or 'the Golden Monkey.' Very rarely did I hear any of the kids call him Steven Gege (older bro Steven). As if that alone wasn't funny enough, when Heather, Caitlin and I made up a scavenger hunt for the kids to do on our last day there, the first entry was a golden monkey hair. The reaction when the kids read their first item - priceless! They knew exactly what it meant.

Another of my favs from last time....for five days we were called Steven Gege (older bro) and Kelli Jiejie (older sis) instead of Uncle and Auntie! I'm glad that the grandmothers here in Wuhan teach their grandkids to call us something instead of just ignoring us or calling us 'foreigners,' but it sure is nice to be called Big Sis once in a while instead of Aunt!

On our first full day during the morning classes (taught by our Chinese college students that went) the local news crew came in to video what was going on! Apparently we were on the 8:00 pm news channel of a town that could be compared to Rogersville (the city, LongHui, has several hundred thousand...a village to them). The reporter asked why we came; Steven said "Honestly because God has been so good to us and we want to share His love." The reporter approved!

After a very, VERY teary goodbye which we hadn't experienced in the previous two visits and hadn't expected, our group of 17 was pretty quiet on the bus as we pulled away from the orphanage. I think everyone was reflecting over the past five days....the kids had warmed up to all of us so quickly. ... It was a lot harder for us to say goodbye this time, too. I guess it was the longer stay, maybe just more and deeper personal connections. We were definitely very proud of our Chinese friends that went. They all did a wonderful job of loving! It was definitely good hands-on experience, really understanding first-hand what J meant when he said take care of the widows and orphans and learning to pay attention to the people that the world neglects. Most importantly, these trips to the orphanage have instilled in them the desire to keep doing it!!! As His kids, we are blessed to be a blessing and our friends outdid themselves this week!

I just thought you all might like an inspiring story to start the week.