Here We Go Again!

Since I made the last trip to China without mishap, Ron was brave enough to give me the schedule of the next one before we board the plane! I guess he thinks I can take it.

We will depart Atlanta March 24th. Jonathan Goode from Nashville, TN and Dave Halligan from Endicott, NY will travel with us on this three-week trip. Jonathan will fly with us from Atlanta but Dave will meet us in Shanghai. We will spend the night in Shanghai and fly to Guilin the next day. From there, we take a train to Rongshui to visit the Neil Taylor Christian Care Center.

From Rongshui, we take an overnight train to Pingxiang, Jiangxi Province. Our son, Ronald, will go with us because this will be the location for our 7th orphanage. Ronald and Ron will survey the buildings given to us by the government and decide what needs to be done to remodel them. This will be the second orphanage funded by the Jackson Family Foundation. It will be named Refuge of Grace Christian Care Center.

We expect this project can be completed by August so the children can be brought in for the September school term. This is a coal mining area and it is predicted that there are as many as 3,000 orphans due to coal mining accidents. We will house 200 children in these buildings.

When we leave Pingxiang, we travel to Shaoyang where a worker will meet us to take us to the North Canton Christian Care Center in Longhui. From there, we depart by train for Zhumadian, the closest location we can travel to by train in order to visit Mama Jo's House Christian Care Center in Biyang. We will take a bus from Zhumadian or a worker will come meet us and drive us to Biyang. It is probably a two-hour drive from Zhumadian.

From Mama Jo's House, we will return to Zhumadian and take an overnight train to Beijing.

In Beijing, Ron has meetings scheduled but our fellow travelers will be able to tour some of the famous sites in Beijing. We will be in Beijing for several days.

This doesn't sound like a difficult trip when you read the locations but if you had traveled there before, you would know the difficulties. Although trains are often the best way to go (airports are not located in every area), it's not the most comfortable. After traveling all night, you may not have a shower for two days or more. We will stay in some locations several days and a hotel will be a blessed refuge for us.

We will become better friends with Jonathan and Dave as we spend time together. We are excited that they will travel with us to see the four orphanages and give us their input. It will be a trip they will never forget.

Our son, Ronald, is now in charge of all construction and maintenance of the buildings in China. He is eager to improve the quality of the buildings and standard of life for the children. It will be good to spend some time with him as we visit these locations to make a list of what needs to be done.

I don't have a lot of input into these kinds of things. I suggested that I stay home since Ron will have traveling companions, but he was not too pleased that I might not go. I will go and take my crocheting (I'm working on baby blankets to give babies at our next cleft palate medical mission). It will help pass the time as we spend a lot of time in train stations and on trains.

We ask for your prayers that we will be safe and healthy throughout this time.

New Kitchen and Dining

Our son, Ronald, has worked very hard to complete the new building at John Connor Brown Christian Care Center.

He is working many hours a day to have it ready when the children return to the care center following their Chinese New Year holidays about March 1st. The care center is on the left of the picture in the background. It is not as far away as it appears.
This nice new building will house a sanitary kitchen and dining room because the tile walls and floors can easily be cleaned.

The cook will also have a room and bath in this new building.

One room in the care center has been used as a kitchen and another room for the dining room. We will now have two extra rooms available to house more orphaned children.

Ronald will miss the children very much. They have called him Uncle Ron and enjoy being around him. He's not embarrassed to clown with the children and even hold one of their toys for a picture. He said life has been hard for him (he has a small room at the orphanage, shares it with a mouse named "Iron Gut" since he can eat anything and not get sick, and eats the same food given to the children). He's had no special privileges living there. When Faith Borck was going to our North Canton Christian Care Center to teach English, she asked what it would be like living at the care center. I told her "camping" "really bad camping accommodations". We continue to improve the cleanliness and food at each care center but without a good bed and heat in the winter, it is still substandard for Americans. Having a heart for the work is the key. Ronald said the precious children make it all worthwhile.

Ronald will go to other care centers when he has time to see what improvements need to be made at each one. He is ready to begin remodeling on some old buildings the government will let us use for our 7th orphanage.

Happy New Year

As this year draws to a close, we have grateful hearts for our supporters. Without you, our work would not be possible. We can do the "leg work" but you must dig from your pockets to make it active. All of our staff in the U.S. works very hard. We are often at our desks 10 hours a day, at night or on weekends but no one complains. We accept the challenge of each new day's work and stay with it until the task is done. It takes a lot of time to handle everything. When you love your work and feel that it is worthwhile, the tiredness you feel at the end of the day is a good tiredness. As a woman, I can compare it to cleaning house. How nice it is to feel tired when you can sit down and enjoy a clean house, the laundry done and everything in order. Accomplishing what is needed to help poor children gives us the same feeling of accomplishment. Thanks to our supporters for believing in us and the work we are doing. Thank you for sacrificing to help the poor children. Best wishes for a wonderful New Year!

If it seems too good to be true, it probably is!

We have not been able to get contracts for either of the nearly perfect buildings we found and hoped would serve as orphanages. The one that is definitely perfect will house more elderly people, which is a good thing. They are moving about 100 older people from a run-down building to this new and nice building. The building that is about half-finished is still sitting there. The officials from the Department of Education and some of the local people visited our orphanages in Pingguo and Tien Deng and had no complaints but the local people are still concerned about signing a contract with us. Often there's fear of the unknown and especially if it's with foreigners. So, the beautiful building may just sit there and deteriorate. Jackie, our worker in Xi'an has found an older building in a city southwest of Shanghai and we are working on a contract to take over that building and remodel it for our next care center. I have some pictures but they are not very good so I don't want to post them until we have better pictures to show you. No one would be impressed with what I have seen so far but I'm sure the building is sound and can be transformed into a beautiful home for children. There are about 1000 orphans in this area so our presence is greatly needed to start providing a place to live for these poor children. There are just more opportunities for us that we can keep up with.

Our son, Ronald, is doing a great job with the kitchen and dining room construction at John Connor Brown Christian Care Center. He says it will be completed by Chinese New Year and he will be ready to move to the next location. If the contract is signed for this older building, he will go there to begin renovations. He knows what we want an orphanage to look like and he agrees that we need to do our best to give these children a clean and beautiful place to live. He said he would miss the children at John Connor Brown very much. They have loved him like he's their uncle and called him "Uncle Ron." We know they have touched his heart as they touch ours when we go to visit for only a short time.

Home Again!

We left Beijing early in the morning of November 17. The weather is very cold there. It is below freezing with a 15 mph wind and snow on the ground. We were ready to come home. The flight to Toyko was no problem but we ended up waiting five hours in the Narita airport to get our flight to Atlanta. There was a mechanical problem with the airplane and they kept pushing back the time of departure. We were unable to upgrade to first class accommodations so we were cramped into middle seats in coach. I think we got the last two seats available on that plane. Although airlines have cut many international flights, there are often a shortage of seats on those that are flying. The services have been cut drastically and that makes a long trip even more uncomfortable.

We arrived in Atlanta more than 24 hours after we left Beijing. The last two days of jetlag have been difficult. We can hardly stay up until bedtime but then can't sleep the entire night. The body clock just does not want to readjust quickly.

Thanks to everyone for your prayers and interest in our travels. As contracts are signed for the new orphanages, I will continue to update the blog. It's a small way I can keep everyone informed that follows my blog. Please check it from time-to-time in between our trips to find out the progress of our work.

May all of you have a blessed Thanksgiving. We can surely count our numerous blessings every year as they outweigh the negatives of this life. God bless you!

Arrived in Beijing Wednesday night

Our flight to Beijing was about two hours. We took the subway from the airport to the first stop and met Sophia, one of our workers in Beijing. She was kind enough to offer us a place to stay while we are here. We heard that Beijing had recently had snow so we knew it would be very cold here. Normally, heat is not turned on in apartment buildings until Nov. 15th but with an usually cold winter starting early in Beijing, they have already provided tenants with heat. This was a pleasant surprise.

When we descended to land, as usual for me, my ears stopped up. The right ear never opened back up. I awoke up at 2 a.m. with excruciating pain in that ear. I moved to the couch about 4 a.m. to keep from waking Ron up. When he got up about 7 a.m., he gave me a pain pill and I went back to bed and slept two hours. I woke with horrible pain again and pink liquid oozing from my ear. We decided I would need to see a doctor. I was still under the influence of the strong pain pill, so I felt very unstable. I dressed and we left for the International Hospital. It was snowing heavily so we took a taxi. Ron completed papers for my admission and we did not have to wait long for the ENT to see me. He said I had an enormous amount of wax build-up and he began to clean it. It was very painful so he decided we needed to put softening drops in every 30 minutes and wait two hours for him to finish. I laid on two seats in the waiting room and sent Trip, Sophia and Ron out to eat lunch. When the doctor saw me again at 3 p.m., he washed out the ear and a lot of stuff was removed. He gave me a drop to use in the ear and nose three times a day for two more days. I also have a prescription for antibiotics. This trip to the hospital was not cheap - probably cost about $200.

The pain has stopped. My ear is still stopped up because of the drops but I think it will be fine now. For years, I have had infections and pain in this ear, but all the other doctors just gave me antibiotics to clear up the infections. I don’t know if removing the ear wax will solve the problem, but this old ENT doctor seemed to know what he was talking about. I just felt so blessed to be in Beijing when this happened instead of some of the remote towns we have just visited.

Ron has some work in Beijing, but we are also getting a few days of rest. We will leave for home on November 17th, one day earlier than planned. I told Sherry (who works with us in Atlanta) that it was no problem getting along with fewer clothes because often we didn’t get showers and change clothes but every two to three days. She said that is common in China. I told her that’s why my eyes are looking more slanted and China is beginning to feel like home.

We met our schedule this whole trip and accomplished everything as planned but there was no spare time along the way. I know very well why Ron wanted to give me the schedule after we boarded the plane in Atlanta!

Thanks again for your prayers and for your love for us. It will be good to be home again.

The Amazing Race

I know most of you have seen a little of the AMAZING RACE reality show. The last part of our trip was just like this. We didn’t know exactly where we were going or how to get there. We had to ask a lot of people for directions and help along the way. We had deadlines to meet so we had to be in certain places at specific times. Ron runs a very tight trip schedule.

Chinese people are not accustomed to seeing old people wandering around China (not part of a tour group) so they are both curious and understanding.

The only people we watch out for are at bus stations and train stations who try to grab your bags to get you to take their taxi. These are illegal and scalpers. They charge a very high fee. Some are very aggressive and rude. They walk beside you for long distances trying to take your bags even though we tell them NO over and over. They are not just being helpful like the other people.

When we returned to Xi’an, Jackie got us to the airport and we flew that night to Wuhan. We stayed one night in Wuhan and left early the next morning for the bus station not knowing what time we could catch a bus to Jing Zhou. We only had about an hour long wait. No one spoke English at this bus station, but one lady was kind enough to look at our tickets and escort us to the right waiting room. She came and got us when it was time to board the bus. We find people very helpful at most bus and train stations.

It was a very cold three hour long ride. We encountered cold weather in Wuhan and as in most of China, no heat is turned on until November 15th (hotels do have heat but not in other buildings). The bus station was cold with doors open and there was no heat on the bus. It was raining and very windy.

Someone who knew Ya Ning Langley came to meet us at the bus station. Her husband came to drive us around and a friend of hers from the school (a middle school English teacher) came to translate for us. They were so kind and generous and would not let us pay them or cover the lunch expenses. This is the kind of generous people we find everywhere we go in China. We first went to the government office, but the manager was not there. We went to lunch and enjoyed that time getting to know these very kind volunteers.

After lunch, we went back to the government office. A man and woman joined us in their conference room and I could tell immediately that we would not work out any kind of deal there. The woman took over the meeting and was as cold as a dead fish and as kind as a tiger. It was evident in her tone of voice and body language. After a long discussion between the volunteers and this lady, it appeared our volunteers did their best to represent us and our reason for being there. The lady informed us that they had an orphanage for 40 children and had no need for us coming there. We were told that they do not feel that orphans who now live with an old relative should live at a care center. Most of the children we find do have old relatives but they are poorly cared for and they are happy for the children to have a better life and a good education that we can provide for them.

It was reported to us before we went to this city that they have at least three buildings that could be used for an orphanage. Communication sometimes gets off-track if you are not getting the information from the person making the decisions. It was evident this lady was making decisions and our presence was a waste of her time.

The volunteers were extremely disappointed. They drove us to a location of interest in the city where the city wall is located and has become a beautiful tourist site. They drove us back to the bus station and helped us buy bus tickets for Yichang. They tried to pay for our bus tickets. They made sure we had some snacks and water and knew which bus to get on. Within a short time, we boarded another cold bus for another two hour long ride. It was still raining.

At Yichang, Rod, a classmate of Judy Yang‘s, one of our workers in Atlanta, met us at the bus station and escorted us to the hotel he had reserved. It was a new 39-floor hotel (five star hotel). He got a big discount for us so the room only cost us about $60. If a Chinese person makes the reservation, the room rate will be considerably less than if an American does it. It amazed me that rates are so flexible. I prefer a system where rates remain the same for everyone, but it seems most of the world does not work on that system. I had been cold all day so I took a hot shower and slept for eight hours under a down filled comforter. It was really nice. I can truly say we have had the best accommodations and the very worst accommodations. It changes from day to day.

The next morning, Rod met us at the hotel. Rod teaches Economics at a university. He is a very nice 30 year-old young man and he worked very hard for us arranging everything. He would not take any payment for his time. He said for us to just consider him a volunteer.

We checked out of the hotel and went to the travel desk to get airline tickets for Beijing. A government worker and driver came to the hotel to meet us. This was a very good sign. We drove about one hour to the Three Gorges Dam area. What a beautiful sight! This was perhaps the prettiest place I have seen in China. Clouds were covering the tops of some mountains. Valleys and rivers ran beside the roadway. There are about three check points along the road for people entering this area but with a government car, we drove right through. As they say, “it’s all in who you know!” We did not get out to see the Dam on this trip because we were limited in time. It was hazy and rainy again that day. We arrived at a small town just past the dam. It was a mountain town with streets running up and down steep hills.

We met the Civil Affairs workers at the first care center we visited. It was a three-story building housing 91 elderly people and all rooms were occupied. The outside of the building needed painting but the rooms were all clean and tile floors were spotless. The old peoples’ beds were neatly made and their clothes put away in chests. Each old person had a room to themselves. I think three people shared the same bath. The grounds were well kept and it appeared to be a very nice home for the elderly. Some were watching TV and others just walking around very curious about foreigners visiting them.

It was lunchtime when we finished at this facility so they took us to a hotel for a very delicious lunch. The two Civil Affairs ladies were very kind and nice. This was helpful after our encounter with the tiger lady in Jing Zhou.


They drove us to another care center where they house 70 elderly people. This facility is a seven-floor building. It was unbelievable! I did not see a single mark on any wall and the floors were clean. It is a brick and some type of block on the outside. The rooms were all as clean as a museum.

Again, the old people’s rooms were neat. Some of them were playing chess and others were walking around the gardens outside. There are exercise rooms and empty rooms that can be used for a library, classroom, recreation room, etc. on each floor. The outside was perfectly landscaped with trimmed shrubs, a bridge crossing a little stream, and beautiful concrete and gravel paths running to different areas. A playground was nearby and a newly paved area is ready for a basketball court.

We could use at least four floors for orphans, housing at least 100 (if not more) children. I think there are three rooms, bath and sitting room in each section. We can probably get four bunk beds in each room (8 children) so that would house 24 children together in each section.

The officials said we could set up a separate kitchen for the children. We feel sure the food they serve the elderly is not as nutritional as we would prefer for the children. They also said that although there are primary and middle schools within safe walking distances, they would provide transportation to take the children into town to better schools.

Everything we encountered this day was positive with full cooperation and them going above and beyond whatever we could possibly imagine. It is another “too good to be true” situation.

We met the director and vice-director (the man’s daughter) and they were very nice. We need our directors to go there to train because this facility was as near perfect as any care center you could find anywhere. I know a home for the elderly is just as difficult to run as a home for orphans. These directors want it to be the best and they have succeeded. If this works out and a contract can be signed with these officials, I should call this section “We struck gold.” It is far more than we ever expected to find. Our trip has been hard but very successful so far.

Our next challenge will be to find directors for the next two orphanages. Locating Christians or believers who can be trusted is not easy in China.