On Our Way to Jackson Family Care Center

We boarded another train at 4:30 p.m. for Zigong, Sichuan. It was the oldest and perhaps the dirtiest train we have been on. We had two men roommates in our cabin. One was a young soldier in fatigues and the other a middle-aged man, both silent the entire trip.

This trip was a total of 17 hours on the train. I can’t avoid a bathroom when it takes this long, but I try to visit these bathrooms as little as possible.
Restrooms on the trains and bus stations are the worst! After a few hours of daylight, with nothing to do but read or listen to music (as Ron does), we settled in to sleep. Our roommates were asleep by 8 p.m. so we turned out the lights. I went to sleep immediately and although I woke several times, it was 8 a.m. when I got fully awake again. Ron said he thinks he will buy me a train when we get home!

The trains are noisy and have many stops along the way either to board passengers or switch tracks to let another train come through. These stops are about two minutes long so I go back to sleep quickly.

After 17 hours on a dirty train and no shower for more than 24 hours, we feel rather grimy. I try to wear clothes on the train that will wrinkle the least since we sleep in our clothes and must wear them the next day as well. In this case, it was two full days and two full nights in the same clothes!

We arrived at Zigong at 10 a.m. and Jacob was to meet us at the train station. He was not there when we arrived so I got out my sheet of information to find phone numbers for Ron to call. Almost immediately, a crowd of men (about 10) gathered around me to try to see the paper I had of our schedule. I folded it back up but they still stood around. About that time, Jacob drove up and these men walked over and watched us load our bags in the van. Guess they don’t see many foreigners in Zigong!

Usually when we arrive at a train or bus station many taxi drivers are trying to get passengers. They do not take NO for an answer but walk with you trying to take your bags away from you and being persistent. It’s very annoying, but Ron and I stand our ground because these are the ones that do not use their meters and charge Americans a large sum to take them anywhere. Traveling in China requires experience and toughness. Ron is now a “pro” and knows what to do everywhere so I have confidence traveling with him.

We arrived at the beautiful new Jackson Family Christian Care Center and were very pleased to see the change from the crude construction we observed in August. The finished facility is very nice. They have completed almost everything but continue to do some clean-up work around the building. They will have picnic areas around outside in various areas that will be wonderful for the children.
The school paved the area between the school and care center and put in a track for running. There were ping pong tables, benches and lots of areas for the children to play. The road into the care center from the school has been paved so it improved things greatly.

We inspected the building and saw the cooks preparing lunch in their new modern kitchen. Since most children live too far to go home for lunch, the care center will serve lunch to 150 students and teachers each day. They will pay a small amount for their lunch but it will cover our expenses for food and have a little extra for our effort. It creates good will with the teachers and school officials as well. We ate lunch with them yesterday. The children told us they loved the food and their home there. It is very pretty and we are happy to provide a good life for these poor children.

Only 27 have moved to this facility but they will be bringing in more and more children as they locate them. It was difficult to know which children live at the care center because all the other school children were there together. We met the new director, Mr. Chan. He seems very nice and qualified. He is a Christian and lives in that general area. His wife will move there this week.

Jacob and his wife will relocate to our Mama Jo’s House Care Center in Biyang. Our director at Mama Jo’s quit and we need a lot of work at this facility. Jacob is willing to go work and improve things there now that he has finished the Jackson facility and there is a director in place.