Many Miles Behind us and Many More to Go
Neil Taylor Christian Care Center Was Our First Stop


One week ago we left Atlanta and we have traveled many, many miles. Trips to China with Ron are challenging and not for the “faint-hearted.” But it’s a great adventure and experience if a person is flexible and does not expect a “luxurious tour.” It is anything but that! We go days without a shower or bed and have many meals of nuts and fruit in-between hotels. Don’t worry, we have not lost any weight!

From Shanghai we flew to Guilin where we met John Li, our worker over the foster care children in that city. John brought Lilly, a fellow-Christian and his English teacher, to meet us. She helps John with the visits to the orphan children. We had lunch together and then they saw us off at the train station as we left for Rongshui.

Rongshui is the city where our Neil Taylor Care Center is located. Most of you remember that King was our first burn patient to the U.S. and lived with Ron and me for 19 months. When he returned to China, he chose to go to this care center.


King came to meet us at the train station and had dinner with us the night we arrived. We did have a decent hotel that night and good food in the restaurant. King came back the next day about noon and went to lunch with us before we left by train for Nanning at about 3 p.m. King looked really great. He’s grown taller and was clean and neatly dressed. He lives at the high school but comes to the care center when he has time. He has classes all day and at night. He is studying seven subjects and said his work is very hard. He must study almost all the time to keep up his grades. He said he would have made 100 on an English test but carelessly made one mistake that cost him 4 points. He said he ranks #7 out of 67 students. We encouraged him to keep up the work because he wants to come to the United States for college. He was so sweet and our reunion with him was comfortable and lovely.

King’s thumb that had surgery has become bent due to scar tissue so he really needs to have more surgery to correct that as well as at least two facial surgeries. We will help him return just as soon as we can, but it can’t delay his education.

Due to an outbreak of N1H1, schools had closed in that city.
There were only 20 of our orphans still at the care center. The rest had gone home to visit relatives to reduce the risk of exposure. A 16-year old girl from our care center was in the hospital with fever but they did not know if it was the flu.
We only had about a half day at the care center but really enjoyed our time with the precious children who hung on our arms and loved having pictures made with us. The children never want us to leave so it’s hard when it is time to say goodbye.

Rongshui is difficult to travel to and it’s so remote, you feel like you are on a movie set when you arrive there and look around. It just doesn’t seem real to wake up with roosters crowing (at a nice hotel in the middle of the city). The only taxi available is a motorcycle with a covered tent-like structure over it. It only cost cents to ride in it. Only a few cars are on the roads.