How do you sum up a month of memories, feelings, ideas, and experiences into a blog? This is what I have been struggling with since I returned home a little over a week ago. I have had a hard time getting it all across when I tell people about it, using the same words “It was amazing!” every time when asked how my trip was. That just does not cut it. I know I could do more than one blog post, but even in more than one I am just not sure how to express what it is I want to.
I have yet to ask my family if they have noticed it, but I feel I have changed.
Keeping up with my normal ways, I started a journal when I went and got about one week into camp before I stopped updating it.
Anyone that got my email updates knows my flight into the country of China was an eventful one, and not all happy. Yet as soon as walked into the cafe in Xin Zheng, at the SIAS school where I would spend the next two weeks, the entire past day and a half melted away....and I was home.
The first week, I had two girls. Maggie is nearly 18 and is such a smart kid. Annie, my 17 year old buddy of the week was such a sweetie. I was not sure how the week was going to go, having two girls not even 10 years my junior, and who both spoke English! It was a pleasant surprise to get along really well as a family, and find things that we could help each other with or learn from one another even though we were not the typical BMH family group. We became so close, in fact, that we gave our family a name. Angel, Maggie, Annie, and I called ourselves the Glory Family. It was also this week that I met little Jennifer. She was one of the roommates of my girls and translator, so I spent a lot of time around her as well that week. She stole my heart, along with the hearts of many others there!
Week two saw challenges of its own, but turned out to be no less of a blessing than week one. The story of my little Brooke broke my heart and made me want to do nothing but hug her all week. That was not possible at first, as she was not comfortable with that much contact right off the bat. At our very first meeting, it was decided that instead of hugging her every time I saw her, which would have been my first choice to show my affection, I would hold her hand. You can imagine then how wonderful it felt when, by the middle of the week, she was grabbing for my hand and as she looked up to give me one of her winning smiles. Her Chinese name is Wan Jun, but when I asked if she wanted an English name she asked that I pick one for her that had something to do with water. After choosing Brooke for her name, my translator told me that her {Alyson, my translator} Chinese name meant Spring. How perfect is it then that my name means garden/fruitful? Don't those names fit perfectly? This week was really about the relationship with my translator, I think. We had an amazing long conversation after life charts one day. There were tears, lots of tears. It is something I am still in prayer over, and I'm looking forward to the program BMH has for keeping in contact with each other after. {It is set to start in a month or so and will give us topics to discuss and help us stay in touch, or at least open the door for you to start more.}
The staff at Xin Zheng, or the SIAS camp as I always called it, was fantastic! We had so much fun both with the kids and just as a group. We went on moped rides on the weekend, and hung out in the computer room, had wonderful conversations till early in the morning, and laughed a lot. When it was time to leave, I took it pretty hard.
{Stay tuned for recaps of weeks three and four.}
