seriously random thoughts:

* can i still be jet-lagged? but if i'm not, then what's wrong w/ me? i can't sleep through the night and even after i've been in bed for well over 8 hrs, i still feel horribly tired...

* i helped run errands for my friend's (Christian) bachelor party. the guys planning it decided they were only going to do manly things...

this is inside a humidor checking out the premium cigars. sounds manly enough, right? but right after this, we went grocery shopping for s'mores. heehee...

* i bought a hair-straightener and i haven't burned myself yet! quite an accomplishment...

* i went to an allergist and discovered i have cold urticaria. which just means that (as weird as it sounds), i get hives when i'm in or near water and i'm cold. apparently, people just develop strange allergies like that, and there's nothing i can do except take allergy meds before i go swimming in cold water. what's nice is that from my blood test, i found out i'm not allergic to anything except ryegrass (o.93).

* i also found out that my cholesterol level is great. and i have near-perfect blood pressure. that's simply amazing considering i didn't eat vegetables until college. and i mean none... unless you count ketchup and french fries.

* i miss going to the beach (into the water) and i've decided i want Hawaiian in-laws. haha...j/k. =)

* since i've been back from china, i've been leading the life of a socialite. meeting up w/ people non-stop, getting pampered (mani's and pedi's at my roommate's bridal shower), and i even went shopping (but only to escape my non-AC apt)

the lovely bride-to-be... less than 2 weeks!

* i haven't done any work for school yet. i've thought about doing work but i haven't actually done any... oh dear!

* and just so people will keep me accountable, i'm supposed to be doing quite a bit of reading for the Missions Committee...can y'all ask me how that's coming along?

* i didn't get hit w/ post-missions-blues quite as badly this year. in fact, i was really excited and happy to be home. i think it's b/c i had such a fabulous time in LA before i left for China. it was also nice having HP and The Office to help ease my way back into the correct time zone... wow, what a summer...

well, it's over...

my time in China and my beloved Harry Potter world... and both were great! now i'm sorta mourning the loss of both.

anyways, my 2nd week of camp was VERY different than the 1st. here's my "family:"

Billy, Valery (my translator), me, and Bean - my 2 kids were like night and day: he's a 20-yr-old college student and she's a 12-yr-old special needs child w/ a terribly burned face

actually, we spent most of our time Brady-bunch-style w/ Martina's family since her kids were from the same 2 orphanages. this is us at Tiananmen Square. looking at Martina in this pic makes me laugh out loud everytime! =)

our little one, Bean - BOY, was she a handful! willful and downright disobedient a lot of the time. she would fight us - wanting to do everything on her own terms, resisting us when it was time to move onto the next activity... and i wanted to say, "Don't you see how miserable you are? Don't you see if you just obeyed or let go of your own will how easy it would be? how much fun?" then it hit me how applicable this is in my own life, in my own willfulness against God... i was, like she is, an orphan.

and in my struggles w/ loving this child, i shed tears as i heard God rebuking, "Do you know HOW much i love her?" enough to die for her. unconditionally. she needed me to love her, needed me to let her test the boundaries of that love...and i failed time and time again. oh, how glad i am that God's love is so much bigger than mine.

here Bean is getting tickled by Steve, one of my teammates. ( you're probably thinking, "What kind of name is Bean?" i know, i should've come up w/ something better but it was the English translation of her Chinese name...)

and yet when she was engaged, her laughter and smiles were incredibly contagious. it lifted my heart and reminded me that she was created in the image of God, just like me.

and just as i've been given hope, i wanted to pass it onto my girls. looking at Bean w/ human eyes, it was impossible - with her burned face, her lack of education... and even worse w/ Lina (below) - who has no arms. what lies in the future for them? but the organization is called Bring Me Hope for a reason. we are meant to love them, to serve them, and to infuse them w/ hope - something they might not have ever had before. the kind of hope that can only come from seeing them thru God's eyes.

Lina decorating her Memory Book w/ her feet. She ate w/ her feet too - used chopsticks and everything!

while i'd love to say we saw an immediate change in Bean's temperament or saw the fruit of our labors, in the end it comes to this: whether or not we can SEE that we're making a difference, we need to find contentment in simply doing His will. And to paraphrase from Gary Haugen's book, God's will is that we love others as ourselves, that we remember those who are mistreated as if we ourselves were suffering - and if we were in their place, would we want to be forgotten?

so let's not forget them...let us shield and protect them and bring them hope.

Peter getting drenched while holding the umbrella over the girls.

anyone wanna come next year?

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And now, can i just add how much i miss Martina? i was so grateful for her presence on this trip - our nightly walks debriefing the day, her ridiculously fake merchandise purchases, and her wacky humor! it was both a blessing and a riot.

she hated taking "normal" pictures... this is her trying to push me into the pond

i think we were trying to beat up cinderella or something... always great to find a kindred spirit. =)

End of my first week at camp...

At the beg of this week, I was SO tired and thought, "Gosh, i'm too old for this!" But then i looked around and found so much encouragement in the # of families that are here... esp. the older parents w/ their teenage kids. How beautiful to serve together - it's exactly what i've always wanted to do w/ my future family.

It's also amazing to be around so many people on my team who have adopted or are currently in the process. There are even families who are specifically looking to adopt a special needs child. I think to my time volunteering at Westside Pregnancy and the callers that asked about the timeline for abortions...when was the latest they could have one if they found out their child had down syndrome? Some people think that special needs children are erasable... but there ARE people out there who want them. I find that such an image of God's love here on earth.

Back to my kids...

during craft time, the kids filled the pages of their Memory Books. Here, Linda is tracing my hands and making a butterfly w/ the shapes...

the last night, we spend writing letters to the kids & they write letters to us. At the Farewell Ceremonies on Friday, the translators read aloud our (translated) letters.

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For some reason, i didn't expect it to be as bad this time, but the goodbyes were just as tearful and painful as last year. Actually, after it was all over, i found Martina catatonically lying in bed and she said to me, "You didn't tell me i'd be traumatized when i signed up to come!"

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It's hard not to lose it when the kids are lining up to be loaded onto the bus and their eyes well up w/ tears, some sobbing so hard they're wailing. I kept repeating to myself that I HAVE to lift these kids up to God and trust that He'll take care of them...even as the images of what they told me about their orphanages flooded my mind (24 kids w/ 2 adults, so poor that they've never had a single piece of new clothing, some kids so mentally handicapped that Maria didn't even want to take the Domino set i gave them b/c she was scared those kids would eat or attack others w/ the pieces...).

And Martina echoed the thoughts i had last year - is this heartbreak for them worth it? Are we destroying them by making the rest of their lives tasteless compared to this week? Now that they know what they're starving for...?

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But i *have* to believe that Love builds and that Love heals.

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i take SO much heart from Maria. I met her last year and immediately noticed the burn scars over her face and body. In addition, she was a sullen child who grunted most of the time b/c she couldn't properly communicate w/ anyone (she only knew her rural dialect, not Mandarin). This year, it's harder to detect some of her scars...they're fading in color - and just as her outer scars are healing, so is her soul. She's blossomed into a joyful child who spent most of the week initiating kisses and talking a mile a minute. It repeatedly took my breath away how different she is - and it helps me to continue believing that what God has begun in these children, He will finish.

i wish a picture could capture how absolutely beautiful she is...

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I think of how scared Maria was to step into the pool at the beginning of the week... even at the shallow end, she would flail like crazy until i would tell her to put her feet down and she realized she could touch the ground. But by Thursday, she was off on her own - exploring where she could go and what she could do. It's like she just needed that inital hand of help and someone to believe in her. And in her goodbye letter to me, she said she's no longer scared of deep water. I just hope that by loving these kids and reminding them that we believe in them, they can face the deeper waters of real life...

Anyways, after all the emotional exhaustion, we let loose on Saturday. Some people went crazy by shopping and others (incl. me) got out to a nature/adventure park.

this is a totally ghetto go-cart but it went pretty fast! i think i was trying to make an aggressive racecar-driver- face, but as always, i just ended up looking like dork.

me & some of my teammates... can you guess where we are? looks like a bridge, right?? wrong - we're actually standing on this:
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eeeek! YUP - we went BUNGEE JUMPING! i think my mom's going to *kill* me for going, but i was standing there thinking, I can't say went and merely watched other people jump. Even though i never really had the desire to jump before, you know what pushed me over the edge? it only cost ~$20. (although now that i think about it, that *should've* scared me off...) i have a videoclip of it all and i'll try posting it once i get back home.

it's been a restful Sabbath, just preparing for next week's kids. who knows what God will bring? it's exciting! thank you to all who are thinking of us here in China!

From China!
these are some pics of camp and my little "family."

Maria having a TON of fun on the slide at our mini-waterpark. She did NOT want to get up after her nap and even made us promise we wouldn't have to stay too long...but after getting wet, she went crazy and stayed an extra hour after everyone else!

the first night, we did a ball drop in our assembly hall - hands up in the air waiting w/ the music pumping...

down come the balls...

and then there was chaos for a good 20 minutes - balls flying everywhere...esp. at my head. definitely all the dancing and laughing will not soon be forgotten.

and this is us at the Great Wall - Christy (my translator), Maria, Diana, me, & Linda. I met Maria last year and Linda was one of my buddies from my 2nd week there. All 3 girls are from the same orphanage.

giving hugs and kisses all day is not a bad way to spend the day. =) our week's coming to a close and the girls are getting sad already... but hopefully some of the love has been spread in the short time we've had!