Back From China

I've been in the midst of jet lag all week so am later posting this than expected.  Just want to let you all know that I am back safely from a 2 1/2 week trip to visit Andrew in the interior of China.  He is doing well and we had a wonderful time.

Here we are at the entrance to a "dong bei" restaurant where we ate with the members of his English Corner - a "club" where people can come to practice their English.  The display behind us represents how China has come a long way because of their hard work.  And the video below this photo is us eating with the group.  Note the common bowls!

The Great Wall.  We are looking at a copy of the newspaper published locally by Mike's two sisters here at home - They print pictures of people reading the paper at faraway places.  Guess this is about as faraway as you can get.

A dumpling party at the home of a teacher at Andrew's school, who is also in his English class (as are the others pictured).  Chinese love their dumplings!!

This is taken on the street right outside the gate of the school where Andrew lives.  Notice that people wear all kinds of clothes, even on weekdays - everything from shorts to what we would consider formal dresses.  The barricade at right is blocking the gate, because the road is torn up for some kind of repair. There is always construction going on.

Andrew has great connections with the people and can communicate fairly well.  Once a taxi driver asked him, "Are you an American?" and Andrew responded, "Yes, are you Chinese?"  And the man thought that was hilarious.

You can uplift him this next week as he is in charge of a camp that is an outreach to many questioning college-age students.

There are a lot more detailed pictures and commentary at my blog.

It was so good to see where he lives and what he is doing.  And it was so good to get home.