Our final day as a group in China was crisp and relatively clear. We headed out by bus to the Jinshanling section of the fabled Great Wall. This section is located in Hebei Province, about 130 km outside of Beijing. Although a wall existed here at least as early as…
To start off Sunday, we all went to the Chongwenmen Christian Church. Originally a Methodist mission congregation, the congregation today has about 10,000 worshipers each Sunday, spread across 5 services. We attended the third service. Green-jacketed volunteers gave us an introduction to congregational life, and had reserved several pews for…
After locating the bus that would shuttle us about Beijing for the next few days, we stopped for a nice Chinese breakfast (porridge for some, dumplings for others) along our route. Despite cold temperatures, our first destination in Beijing was the Summer Palace. The visit here was the first of…
After our visit to Xi’an, on Friday evening, Nov. 25, we again boarded an overnight train, this time headed for China’s capital Beijing. Although the distance we had to cover was greater, the train was faster so we were looking at just a 12-hour ride. A delay enroute, got us…
On Nov. 23, we met at the Nanchong train station, bid farewell to our generous host families, and boarded a fast train to Chengdu. There we met a friend who kindly offered to babysit our luggage while we headed out to find our evening meal. Our May Term language teacher,…
On Nov. 23, we met at the Nanchong train station, bid farewell to our generous host families, and boarded a fast train to Chengdu. There we met a friend who kindly offered to babysit our luggage while we headed out to find our evening meal. Our May Term language teacher,…
Sunday found our students returning on two different buses from four service sites to Nanchong. On Monday we gathered to talk about some of our service experiences and to hear about each other’s projects. The variety of projects reflects the variety of students in our group. Some chose topics related…
Monday Jo-Ann and Joe caught a bus for Xichong—half the hour-long ride was spent getting out of Nanchong, the rest brought us to the edge of this small, prosperous-looking town. Our trio of students here seems to be enjoying the experience in the smallest of our four service schools. Among…
Our third site visit of the week was to Yilong. Located northeast of Nanchong, the region’s terrain has higher hills and deeper valleys than elsewhere in Nanchong Prefecture. As noted several weeks ago, the government has begun constructing a “new” Yilong at a lower elevation some distance south of the…
Upon leaving Nanbu on Monday evening, Jo-Ann and Joe went on to Langzhong, about a 30-minute ride to the north and checked into the same hotel we all had stayed at during our National Holiday excursion to this beautiful city. In Langzhong, our students are teaching in two teams at…
