We left our RV at
the Smith’s farm in Sanger, TX. We got
up at 2:30 and left at 3:15 a.m. on Saturday morning to arrive at Sam Holt’s
apartment building at 4:15. Sam runs a
limo service and told us he would gladly take us to the airport and we could
leave our car inside the fenced-in area at his apartment building. He drove us in a luxurious car but it was not
a limo. We arrived at the airport in
plenty of time to take the first flight to Chicago at 5:45 a.m. but since it
was the Thanksgiving weekend, we got the last two seats. One seat was in coach and one in first
class. I made Ron take the one in first
class for two reasons: they served
breakfast which he enjoys more than me and he could take two bags on. They made him check his suitcase carry-on at
the plane door saying there was no more space for bags on this flight. He was able to take his computer bag and one
small bag with equipment for the hospital.
My seat in coach was in the center with an Indian girl on my left and a
black lady on my right. The black lady
was holding a year-old baby girl. The
lady had on Muslim clothing. I gave her
a little of my space to care for the baby and she was grateful. We got to know each other a little. She is 60 years old and raising the
grandchild because her daughter is bi-polar and unable to care for the child. Welfare was going to put the baby in foster
care so she is going to raise the child herself. Her son, who is married to a Hispanic girl,
had just returned home to California from duty in Afghanistan. She had been to visit him and his family and
was returning to her home in Detroit.
She said her son will now be transferred to Italy and since his wife can
go with him now, they offered to care for the baby but she didn’t think that
was fair to them since they have three children. She had a few questions about me and where we
were going and why. I gave up my apple
juice to put in the baby’s bottle and she was very grateful. She thanked me for my kindness. I wanted to make a good impression for two
reasons: I wanted her to know I am not
prejudiced against her because of her race or religion. I don’t have to accept anyone else’s beliefs
but I can respect the fact that everyone should have the freedom to
choose. None of us had a choice about
the race we were born into so we need to love everyone—God made us all.
We arrived in
Chicago about 8:30 a.m. Ron went to log
us into the computer for the flight to China so we can get on the standby list
early. We went and ate breakfast (Ron
said his on the plane was not very much after all). We wandered around the airport some, rested
in seats at vacant gates, ate lunch and then moved on down to our gate for departure
about 6:30 p.m. for Beijing. We arrived
in Beijing Sunday morning at 8:47 p .m. (China time).
We were #2 and #3
on standby and we were given Priority Boarding.
This is probably not a coincidence.
We got our buddy passes from our dear friend, Sam McLean, Capt. of
American Airlines. Sam has been
supporting our work for a couple of years now and helping us in various
ways. Our seats were not Business Class
which we usually flew on Delta but First Class seats, the seating right behind
the pilots’ cabin. There were some
vacate seats used throughout the flight by the pilots and co-pilots during
their rest breaks. The seats were great
and went completely flat for sleeping. I
actually got seven hours of sleep on that flight. The most I’ve slept in the past was 3 or 4
hours. This is a 13-hour flight,
traveling 6,570 miles or 10,574 km.
My chair would not
work automatically. Normally, I am not
mechanically-minded and I have trouble figuring out how to do a lot of things
that Ron thinks should come naturally to anyone. He was sitting next to me with a sort of
barrier between us so he could not reach over and help. He was laughing at me and saying I just
needed to push the right button. I was
doing that but nothing was working. He
said it operates slowly. I told him it
was operating so slowly it wasn’t working at all. Finally, a flight attendant came by (a tall
nice-looking man in his 40’s). He
stopped to help and sure enough, nothing was working. He took the arm off, checked it out, put it back
and it still would not work. He got down
under the side of the chair and worked on it a while and tried it again. It still would not budge so he manually moved
the back of the seat and the foot rest and got it in the right position for me
to have dinner. Later, he came to help
get it to lie flat for me to sleep but the seat would not go back. He moved me to a seat up front, made my bed
for me and just as I got comfortable, he came and said he got it working. I moved back to sleep but when I got up about
5:30 a.m. he had to manually put the seat in position again. He apologized over and over but I told him I
didn’t mind since he was so gracious to do it all for me.
This is the first
flight I have ever taken where we were offered pajamas. I didn’t take them because I felt funny about
this in a cabin with other passengers.
Ron said he’s taking them next time but I don’t think I will. A man and lady across from me changed and
probably were more comfortable.
Our food was
fantastic. We had smoked chicken
crostini as an appetizer, followed by prosciutto and mozzarella with honeydew
melon, then caramelized onion and leek soup, with a green salad with peppercorn
cream dressing. This is all before the
entrée. I was already full by the time I
ate these delicious treats.
I chose brie and
leek ravioli with shrimp in a ginger coconut sauce (they put the tomato sauce
instead but I didn’t send it back). It
was still delicious. Other options for
the entrée included curried salmon, stir-fried beef with asparagus, pork
tenderloin with asparagus and rice, halibut with sweet potatoes, green beans
and corn salsa.
There were rolls
and butter and a variety of drinks. I
didn’t have dessert but Ron had a huge ice cream treat.
The midnight snack
sounded great but I was not awake for it.
The menu had dim sum (pork and mushroom or shrimp dumplings with
noodles; pizza with roasted vegetables and fruit. Upon arrival
(about one hour before touchdown) I had a delicious macadamia nut cream soup,
green salad and roll, with a chocolate chip cookie.
We arrived on
time, went through customs, got our bags and entered the main airport to search
for the time of arrival for Mike Gifford coming from Seattle. His flight was arriving in 30 minutes in
another terminal so we had to quickly go catch a bus to that terminal. We had not been there 5 minutes until Mike
walked out. We took the airport bus
toward our hotel. We were told the
closest stop would be the 4th stop but when we got off we quickly
realized it was one stop too far. None
of the taxi drivers knew where our hotel was located on the 3rd ring
around the city. Finally, after waiting
about 30 minutes one taxi driver knew the location and took us there. It was about 2:30 before we got to bed and we
had to be up by 7:00 a.m. to get some breakfast before meeting the attorney at
9:00. His office was on a top floor in
the same building. Our worker, Hope, had
arranged for us to stay at this hotel because of the convenience to his
office.
We met with the
attorney for about two hours to go over the establishment of a central legal
registered office for Agape in China and to review what would be needed to get
a license for the new charity hospital we had built in Wadian, Henan,
China. He indicated that the process was
going to be very difficult. He made many
suggestions and was very helpful in educating us about the process. He is very young but very smart. He is
a member of the Lions’ Club and since he is very charity-minded, he will handle
our legal work free-of-charge. He even
said he might be able to get the Lions’ Club to pay for the surgery we need
done for the boy who needs eye surgery before he can have his second surgery at
Medical City in Dallas to reconstruct his face from being born with a severe
cleft lip and palate.
We went to a
nearby restaurant for lunch and then took two taxis to the South Train
Station. We had too much luggage and
people to fit into one taxi. One of
them fussed the whole trip about having too much luggage although he certainly
didn’t have much with us dividing people and bags up between two taxis. It was a 30-minute race with the way they
drive and then they let us out a long way from the train station when they
could have driven right to the front door.
They are very rude and try to take advantage of people every way they
can. Of nearly everything in China, I
detest taking a taxi about the most.
Our train was the
first for Julia Ng, our new Operations Manger from Hong Kong, and Mike Gifford,
our new CEO in training to someday take over the operation of Agape. We had an overnight train in a soft sleeper
car all together. Bags were still a
problem because, besides our personal luggage which we all kept to a minimum,
there were two bags with hospital equipment to be left at our next stop in
Wadian.
We arrived early
that morning in NanYang and were escorted to a five-star hotel. Our check-in was completed (without our
passports, which is bypassing the system in China) and we were shown our
rooms. After a short break we went downstairs
to meet with those associated with the hospital in Wadian. Dr. Joshua was there. He originally worked with Ron to build the
hospital. Tony, a minister from a church
in Shanghai (also working with a church in Hong Kong) was there. Ron had asked him to be on the advisory
board for the hospital. Mr. Liu, the
developer was instrumental in giving us the rooms in the 5-star hotel so he was
present. The meeting in the lobby of the hotel lasted a couple of hours and
then he took us to meet several people and to have lunch.
We drove in two
cars for 45 minutes to Wadian. We spent
the next two days there in various meetings about the operation of the
hospital. That has not yet been
resolved.
From Wadian, we
traveled to Pingxiang to visit the Refuge of Grace Care Center in Luxi. Julia, Ron and Mike met with the director
first and then with each employee to go over the new management changes and asked
questions about their jobs. A tour of
the building was also conducted.
Ron, Mike and
Julia traveled on to Guilin and went to Neil Taylor Care Center in Rongshui,
Jackson Family Foundation Care Center in Zigong and to Wesley’s House in
Pingguo. They conducted the same tour
and meetings with each director and employee.
During this time,
I stayed behind at RGCC with Ronald and Gigi for one more day and then we took
a night train (with James, Ronald’s translator) to Guilin. Ronald and James had completed their work at
RGCC so we were meeting up with Mike, Ron and Julia a few days later at John
Connor Brown in Tiendeng. The day we
arrived in Guilin, we checked into our hotel, had lunch and went to Elephant
Hill Park (within walking distance). It
was a beautiful park with ethnic dancers and beautiful trees and plants. ‘We climbed the mountain and had a wonderful
view from the top. After dinner that
night, we had an hour’s walk around another park that was bright with pretty
lights and two pagodas in the center of the lake.
The next morning,
we ate breakfast and caught a local bus to the end of the line to tour a
cave. It was an hour’s tour through an
amazing cave with unusual formations, beautiful lighting and a power point on
the side of the cave at the largest part of the cave. It was truly a great experience.
We returned about
half-way to the hotel and stopped off at McFound’s Restaurant for lunch. It was really unique and the food was
delicious. Everything we ate in Guilin
at different restaurants was good.
That afternoon we
left at 3 p.m. for Nanning. It was
supposed to be a 5-hour trip but ended up being a 12 hour trip because they are
working at the Nanning train station.
We had “hard sleepers” where there are six beds to an area without a
door so people are walking up and down the halls all the time. Since it was a day trip, we thought it would
be fine but as it stretched into a 12 hour trip, we ended up sleeping some of
the time. We got to bed at our Nanning
hotel at 3:00 a.m. and had to get up early to catch a bus to Tiendeng to meet
up with Ron, Mike and Julia at that care center.
We had the rest of
that day and the next day until in the afternoon at this center and then Ron,
Julia, Mike and I left our sweet kids behind to go back to Nanning by bus. We got in at 8 p.m. and had a horrible hotel. We walked to McDonald’s to get something to
eat and then to bed because we had to catch a 5:30 a.m. bus to the
airport. We got Julia off on her early
flight to Hong Kong and the rest of us caught a 7 a.m. flight to Shanghai. Mike decided he would stay in the airport
and begin standing by for his Delta flight to Detroit to commute on to
Atlanta. Ron went to check with
American Airlines and was told that every flight was sold out through
Wednesday. They suggested we begin
standing my for each flight in the event two seats came available. We stayed the entire day in the airport. Mike got on the flight at 5 p.m. but got a
coach seat (he also had lst class on the way to China). We got the last two seats on the AA flight at
7 p.m. We had tight coach seats and it
was rough for 14 hours to Chicago. We
went through customs, got our bags, and after several security checks, put our
bags back on at AA for the flight to Dallas.
We got to the gate just as they were boarding and did get the last two
seats on this flight. We were not seated
together but for the last three hours it really didn’t matter. We just wanted to get back to Dallas. We could have stayed overnight in Chicago
but we would have had to stand by for every flight the next day and it might
have been even harder to get seats. As
they say, “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” We were exhausted but glad we could make the
connections and get home.
From the time we
left the hotel in Nanning until we got to our RV in Sanger, TX, it must have
been well over 30 hours. We could only
sleep for a few minutes with a seat crammed in so tightly with other
passengers. What made it worse was that
a Chinese girl about three years old a few seats away from us cried or screamed
for at least 10 of the 14 hours we were flying. After I had gone up the ramp from the plane,
I heard a man behind me say “I can still hear that little girl screaming.”
It was a
successful trip. None of us got sick and
we returned home safely. It was a great
experience for Mike and Julia to see all of the care centers and meet our
workers. It was a great bonding time for
them to see if they can work together.
It was made clear by Ron what responsibilities each would have. It was clear that Julia can run the
operations in China and has the resources and ability to do so. It was clear that Mike needs her in order to
leave this portion of the work to someone else without having to be involved to
any large extent. Mike is greatly
needed in the U.S. to learn the accounting and operations from this side and
get fully involved in the fund-raising.
Julia plans to
spend the first year just overseeing the care centers and gradually begin
taking over the record-keeping from Ronald.
Ronald will complete one or two more projects and
return to the Philippines by the middle of January. He will continue to work with Julia for
several months from the Philippines while awaiting a decision for a possible orphanage there.
When the Agape office
is registered by our attorney in Beijing, Julia will be able to begin raising
funds in China. With her CFO
background, there’s no doubt she can bring in a lot of money. Many Chinese corporations give to charities
but they want to be sure they are registered charities before doing so. Each of our care centers are registered with
local governments in each area but Agape is not centrally registered. The young attorney knows a way to get us
temporary registration so Julia should be able to begin this work in about a
year.
We had a wonderful
time with Ronald and Gigi. They have
worked tirelessly in China under the most difficult of circumstances. We would have had to make 4 or 5 trips to
China each year if he had not done this work for the past five years. I would compare his job to a prison sentence
since the conditions have been about as bad.
He had been trustworthy and done an excellent job. He deserves to have a place to settle down. We know there’s a great need for an orphanage
in the Philippines and they will run it well.
It is my prayer that they will be able to settle down there soon.
