August 7th Post

China Team Blog 8-7-10

By Erik Burklin



Coming home…

Today was travel day for our team. We got up 7:00 am and packed our bags before going down to the lobby for a final “Chinese style” breakfast. I think our whole team is ready for some familiar Western food. Last night we talked about what kind of food we are most craving. Chipotle was the big winner!!!! After saying our good byes to all the other teaching team members from Arizona and the International team we got on the bus, which took us to the airport. It was fun to travel with some of the AZ team members from Chengdu to Beijing and then from Beijing to Seattle. So the friendships that were formed during English Camp had a little bit longer to get stronger.


A final team pic before going to the Chengdu airport
One of the highlights for me was bringing my youngest daughter, Bri, with me to China. Like for most of our team members this was her very first visit to China. It was fun to see her interact with all the Chinese students during the last 10 days of camp. Bri got close with one of the TA’s, Rebecca, who was just baptized a few months ago. Her exuberance for Christ was evident as she served the kids and us with a smile on her face each day. She wore a big wooden cross around her neck as a testimony of her new found faith; how awesome! On the last day of camp, Rebecca came up to Bri and gave her a special gift...her wooden cross.

The other highlight for me was to experience one Chinese student pray to accept Christ during camp. This was such a God-thing. She came to the Hua Mei English camp last summer and God was working on her heart during the last 12 months. Now she is a new Jesus follower. What is so exciting is that she is a natural leader. I have no doubt that God chose her to be a difference-maker in her high school this coming school year. One of her friends has already started to ask her questions about God and her new found faith. Please pray for Gina as she continues on her journey with Jesus.

Wow, our team is exhausted but very happy. Our prayers from before the trip have truly been answered in so many beautiful ways. We prayed for team unity: God helped us to stick together! We prayed for safety: God kept us safe! We prayed for health: God helped our team to remain strong; even when some of us came down with “stuff,” God gave the much needed strength and grace for us to endure. We prayed for open hearts: God gave us 167 Chinese kids to reflect God’s upon, some who were drawn a little bit closer to join God’s family…and He gave us Gina.

Thanks for praying on our behalf these last two weeks; thanks for partnering with us in making Christ known amongst the young people of China.

We’re excited to be coming home…..

“Declare His glory amongst the nations.” Psalm 96:3

August 6th Post

Dear Family and Friends!

Today was defiantly a day that I saw the Lord in the faces of all the children, the teaching assistants, the activity assistants, and the teachers! The Lord came down and let me see that God is in control and breaches all cultural differences and language barriers and he LOVES everyone the same. It is nice to be assured that he is in control. Today was also a tearful day of goodbyes as the foreign teachers had to leave the campers and TA's. The relationships formed over the past 10 days will last the rest of our lives. We each have students that have special places in our hearts and we will never forget our TA's that made it possible to form the relationships with our students by bridging the language barrier. I leave knowing God has a plan for us all and I hope we meet again. As I have been saying on this trip, "Their english gets better as ours gets worse. We all come together and cry in the end."

Thank you all for the prayer for Steve's foot, it has been getting a lot better!!

Coming back to Chengdu has been a lot of mixed feelings. The off-roading in the Coach bus was pretty much insane. The team has really become a family rather than just a team. :) I am happy to say that I am a part of that family and I am very sad to leave. But again, God has a plan!

I will see you soon!!!!!!

Thank you all for following us and supporting us and praying for us!

Until the whole world hears,

Mitch

August 4th Post

My fellow Americans!

We all hope that everyone is doing well! I just want to personally thank everyone for all of the prayers, it means a lot! I know that God is working through all of us to show Christ's love. I also want to share two quick stories that I've been blessed to be apart of... One of the camp's Activities Assistant, Donald, spent the night in my room with Mitch and I. He's been a strong believer in Christ for about a year and Mitch and I had the opportunity to hang out with him. I asked him to say a "goodnight" prayer for us, so he willing prayed. As soon as he finished, he told both of us that it was his first time praying in English. Both Mitch and I were humbled and honored to be the first people that Donald prayed out loud in English with. The other story happened today over lunch. Jordan and I were finishing our food and James, a camper sitting across from us who speaks very broken English suddenly said "Amen." Jordan and I looked at each other in excitement. A few minutes later after a conversation of hand gestures and stick-figure pictures, we finally figured out that we were all Christians! It's amazing to see how the Holy Spirit works in unsuspected times!

In reference to Mark's pray request yesterday, Bruce (the New York team member), Jim (the camp director), and Erik led Gina to Christ!

Also, would you please pray for Steve's foot. If his foot is not better by the morning Steve is considering traveling to Chengdu early to visit a hospital.

Thank you so much everyone for all your prayers and support!
Get 'em Rockies!
Joey Scavuzzo

Update from Steve

Please keep praying.

Mark's eye is better.

Mitch's voice is back.

Natalie is feeling better.

However, Steve's foot is worse.

Also, Bri is having stomach problems.

Tonight is the talent show and Mitch and Steve's class is doing a skit called 'The Greatest Love'. It's about a dog that gives up its life for its owner, and it ends with the phrase, 'no greater love has anyone than if they lay down their life for another.'. The kids wrote it and it closely resembles the gospel story. Please pray that God would use this skit.

Thank you all very much.

August 3rd

This morning our team was in charge of today's assembly. The moral value: Reliability. We performed a skit and demonstrated a trust fall to help explain the theme. After the morning assembly a junk-art fashion show was held. Each class was given a bag of materials that included things like newspaper, paper plates, markers, etc. The students then created outfits and one student was selected to model down the "runway." The activity was a blast! This afternoon, class was held and this evening was all camp olympics. All the students competed in events like dodgeball, a basketball shootout, and a three legged race. Camp is going great and the students are learning more english everyday, but the teachers are tired. Please pray for strength for all the foreign teachers that we would have the energy for the last two days of camp! Thank you for your continued prayers and support!

Addition to Blog August 2nd

On the bus ride from the hotel to the school Natalie had a conversation with Chloe, the only non-christian among the foreign teachers. They discussed the great sacrifice and significance of Jesus dying on the cross and God's gift of grace. It is exciting that she is surrounded by Christians and being exposed to the love of God every day.

Illness Update

The team's been hit by numerous illnesses. Please pray. The long days are catching up with us.

Natalie is run down and not feeling well.

Bri has a cold.

Mitch has a sore throat and lost his voice.

Mark's stomach has been upset and he now has an eye infection.

Steve has multiple staff infections on his hands and feet.

Chris W.'s legs are riddled with mysterious insect bites.

Thank you for praying,

Sw

August 2nd Blog from Steve W

Yesterday some of the classes learned about David and Goliath. One of those classes was Mitch and Steve's. At the end of the story they explained how David trusted God to deliver him, and God did. They then asked the students to divide up into three groups and write a drama to preform in front of the class. One of the groups wrote a story of a young girl who goes on a walk with her sister and her dog. An out of control taxi comes around the corner heading straight for the girl. The dog sees it and jumps between the girl and the taxi, dying in her place. When the doctor comes he says this girl will live, but the dog is dead. The girl cries and tells the dog she will miss him every day.

This story very much resembles Jesus' substitutionary death for us - His sacrifice instead of us. As a result Mitch and Steve would like to use this as a bridge to carefully introduce the gospel. Please pray for them and their class and if God would want their class to perform this skit in the talent show.

August 2nd Post

Well, we are currently only 4 days away from the end of camp! Our team is exhausted right now for sure. The long days and short nights definitely put a toll on our bodies. It is actually 11:15 p.m. and I am finally able to get on to update you all. The good news is that our team may be tired, but spirits are still up. We use our free time to explore the city, relax, shower, or go get ice cream (that is only 14 cents here). The heat has been a huge aspect of this trip. Tonight I played guitar in a little concert and my guitar was actually wet from the sweat! 97 degrees is bad in Colorado, but add in the humidity and you have a bus full of wet people and foul B.O.

The important thing is that we have begun to really see those tidbits of "God moments" on this trip. Our member from New York was straight-out asked today "I want to know more about Jesus." I have been asked multiple times what I do for a living as well as what my bracelet is for (from Costa Rica last month). Our teaching assistants are also mostly not Christian and I was telling Steve the other day that it seems our mission here is almost as much to be a witness to them. If you could keep Isolde, Annie, and Erin in your prayers, those 3 have been the ones I have seen closest to our team as a whole. It would be such an amazing blessing if we could see any TA's also come to Christ on this trip!

My hardest part of the trip came yesterday evening. Almost daily, at least one portion of our team explores during our free time (90 minutes). However, last night half of our team had the night off while the other half was at a talent show. Our show is on Thursday night. Steve, Chris Willecke, Jordan, and I hopped in a taxi to go to a local farmer's market. The market was closing so we started to walk down a street that we have attached a picture of on this post. As you can see, it is pretty packed and it seemed that our group got more and more silent as time went on. I purchased a strand of fireworks that are surely illegal in most countries because we all know that boys will be boys and it explodes. Don't worry mom, I only spent 28 cents. By the end of this journey, we were 3 km from the hotel and silenced by the way that some people live in Bazhong. I want to describe it but I really cannot do that. I am still processing what I saw there. The best way to put it is that there are people living in storage containers and they fill the container with trash that they sort for recyclables. As I wrote that, I was realizing that I cannot even describe that. Jordan pointed out as we quietly got back to the hotel how he felt a little guilty that we had complained about showers that don't drain well and how we were roughing it. It was unanimous agreement. I have seen poverty, but this was just so real...

I wanted to show a picture of Chris Willecke teaching with Edelweiss. She is our TA (also not a believer) and has been amazing with us! Just a heads up, Chris is a great teacher. He does well with the kids and is so patient when they struggle with words like "correct" and "theater". At times it seems we are either over their heads or too elementary, but they really just appreciate us being there with them. Chris plays basketball with them during break and our other teacher, Andrea, teaches them line dances. If anything else, we can show them love even when they struggle with English.

The last picture I want you to see is the white board. At our first meeting, these were our prayer requests. I can tell you that we are in the right place, this is not a holy vacation, we have a heart for the Chinese, and we have seen beyond the culture. Also, we have been safe, ministering, no (big) stupid decisions, and we are experiencing brokenness more and more each day. To our supporters, thank you. It is because of you that we are here. You opened your hearts to give to us and we were fully funded plus more. What is really left is that we don't let this be a "trophy in the trophy case" that we forget when we get home. Please continue to pray for our hearts in this.

Stepping back from a leader's perspective, we have an amazing team that melds seamlessly. Andy has been our saving grace with his Mandarin. Mitch is out of his shell like I have never seen. Chris is always so excited about whatever we do. Joey is always found in the middle of a crowd at least a foot shorter than him, Natalie is our main contact to the TA's, and Bri seems to always have somebody with her playing soccer. Chris has been such a level head for us and joyful. Jordan is the comedian of the group but it seems that he also has some of the wisest statements on the trip. God knit a team together that we never saw coming when Steve, Erik, and I sat down this winter. Just another show of his power.

Prayer requests for the last few days:
God would open doors for conversation.
Good rest at night.
Our witness to the TA's (Isolde, Annie, Erin)
Strength in classes to push through as we get tired.


Mark

Quick Post

There was a bus crash on the front page of CNN.com just now but it was not in any way involved with us? It is about 100 miles east of us.

Mark Seifert