Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. THANK YOU!
I am fully funded! I get to stay on the race! A month ago I still needed over $3000 and then we had an internet fast so I could literally do nothing about it. Talk about a trust exercise with God! You are all incredible! A lot of people worked so hard and sacrificed much more than just money to help make this a reality. I appreciate you all SO MUCH!!
So for a quick recap of China:
My team and I worked in a thrift store in the suburbs of Beijing, China for the month of June! The store collects a loootttt of donations, some of which go straight out to other charities. The stuff that stays in the store was sorted and priced and went out onto the floor. My team worked in the warehouse doing all that. The money they raise goes back out to help other charities.
We got to visit a baby home that receives a lot of donations from the thrift store. They foster babies that need complicated medical care. It was an amazing facility!
Our time in China was a really culturally eye opening experience. We lived in an area that is heavily populated by ex-pats who have moved to Beijing for their careers. This meant we met a lot of people who spoke English as a first language! Yay! That’s always great. We also met so many amazing people who graciously invited us over and fed us food we’re used to having at home. We love those kinds of people! It was also really fun hearing about the culture of China from people who didn’t grow up there, but have lived there for years. Remind me to tell you all about the driving tests.
We also lived with four 20 year old Chinese girls that didn’t really speak English but were super awesome. They taught us how to make dumplings which is the traditional dish of China. We were pretty bad at it. They asked us to give them English names and we asked them to give us Chinese names. My name is Mei Li which means Beautiful. Yeah. That’s right.
I really enjoyed China. It’s such a completely different world from America and Africa and yet also very similar to both.
We had 2 days off this month. One was spent in downtown Beijing and the other was spent at the Great Wall of China! Our amazing contacts hooked us up with a free ride to the wall and free lunch afterwards. They also paid for us to take the chair lift up, which had an amazing view, and the toboggan ride down which was probably my favorite part of the Wall, no lie! They were amazing people who seriously took great care of us!
Right now I am in Ulaan Baatar, which is the capital of Mongolia. My team heads out Saturday to a different part of Mongolia which is 5 hours from here. We’ll be living with a Mongolian family helping in a greenhouse and with a foster home and summer camp. We’re pretty pumped!
