Back in the USA

Just landed in SF and cleared customs without any stress.  Going through SF when you fly international is always the way to go.  Entering through LA is terrible!

Casey didn’t sleep on the flight at all and his eyes are totally glazy….good luck looking at your computer screen tomorrow Casey.

We are ready for home:

Casey: vanilla latte, juicy hamburger, beer and ice cream!

Robert: my bed, my wife and my kids…can’t wait to wrestle with the fantastic four.

Thank you to those who helped support my wife Stephanie by watching the kids and giving her some support – she has been doing really well and I am so grateful to all of you guys.

When we get the additional photos uploaded we will send them out – probably later in the week.  We will also have an open invitation to view a slide show and video at our upcoming board meeting (FYI – our board meetings are always open).  We will announce this upcoming date too.

We ask that you consider how much you can give financially to help provide special needs teachers and specialists for the Kaifeng Orphanage.  The salary for a certified teacher for one month is $150.  With four teachers we can assist these kids at this orphanage.  Their pay equals $5 a day or  62.5 cents an hour!  (And we all know that teachers work beyond their 8 hours a day People from our board will be contacting you in the next couple of weeks to see if you are able to partner with us.  Thank you for considering this.

Thank you too for your prayers and support – it was an incredible journey.  This trip was the first domino to begin tipping over pain and poverty for the poor and we pray that it will pull these forgotten kids into a perfect place of peace.

Great Wall

What a historical experience!  My friend Rod Hanson did a marathon and the Great Wall was part of the course which I so admire because it is the symbol of China and I have Chinese daughters and I have never been there.  Each time I have come here I have been on the Southern part of the country.  Did you know that you can see the Great Wall when you are walking on the moon!  Yes, it is true.  There are five main areas to visit when you go to the Great Wall and we did the second one closest to Beijing.  90% of tourists go to the closest one…but we just felt like we are more locals than tourists.  Well actually Casey is ready for a hamburger and some good beer.

Stories about the Wall….

We met a family who will be residing in China for a whole year and the mom is interested in taking her two kids 8 & 11 to Kaifeng and volunteer there.  Her husband speaks Chinese and will be employed here.  They are from California – how incredible would that be…one day after we set up our school some one volunteers to go there!

We saw people from all of these countries…USA, India, Venezuela, France, Germany, England, Scotland, Scandinavians, Asian countries (Japan, Korea), and I am sure there were more.

We also met a group from…Iran!  The guy was talking in Farsi at the very apex of this climb and I look at him and said hello to  him in Farsi and he couldn’t believe another Persian was on top of the Great Wall with him.  His name was Darius – like my brother – keeper of goodness.  He lives near the Caspian Sea where I vacationed when I was a boy.  His English was fantastic too.  I really felt so emotional as I was coming near the top of this Chinese monument and knowing that I had climbed a great wall in helping to achieve our goal of education for Chinese orphans.  I felt this total clarity about the next portion of my life.  I have cried a few times on this trip.

Back in Beijing

We officially returned back to Beijing.  We are entering our 8th day here and we saw our first Americans and did our first tourist activities.  The Henan province has very few foreigners visit it and especially Americans.

We were relieved to not be constantly stared at.  Casey is a total attraction to almost every single person here…I mean who has seen a man with red hair!  And the women here are so enamored with him.  I have decided to give him a nickname – George (after George Clooney).  I am Brad Pitt – he has adopted some kids.  We are like two movie stars everywhere we go in the capital of Henan or in Kaifeng.  Think I am kidding – if you ever come here to this beautiful land you will see exactly what I am talking about.  The culture of Chinese is to be SO hospitable.  And they love Americans so much so we get even more respect, admiration and yes, movie star stares.  But Casey…yes, Casey….he is such a heart throb to SO many women here.

We toured the Great Wall – which was simply amazing!  We also went and visited Tianeman Square.  We saw their Parliment building and are crashed back at the hotel right now.  Casey is taking a nap before we depart for our final dinner here.

Our battery camera died so we can’t upload any more current photos from our trip.   I also can’t figure out how to add a ton of photos on this blog via the gallery option.  When we return back to the states we will put together a slide show and some video that we will send out via our website and email.

Casey will also be adding his stories and perspective after we return.  He has said that he is still processing all that we have absorbed.  In general we are both exhausted and drained.

But to my students who might not be ready to come back to school well I will be ready – I will be on a 15 hour flight and will be absolutely rested and ready….I just might be in the wrong time zone and be sleeping while it is school hours!

We are ready to come home now that our objectives were met.  We leave tomorrow at noon (9:00 p.m. PST)

Kaifeng Kids

this room will be used for teaching

they have a puppy at their foster home

Special need little ones

Kiafeng boy

playing with puppy

Eva

While we have been here in the Henan province we have of course had Xia assisting us through each of the steps but in addition to her has been one of the family reps for the Henan province – Eva.  She is an English major, smart, charming and a go getter.  She was a former tour guide in Shanghai – she showed us again today how talented she is when she guided us through the Millenium Park today (it was what we were treated today to by Mr. Wang – orphanage director of Kaifeng).  She slipped us through each crowded area…when one show/drama was over she scooted us over to our next placement so that we could have front row seats.  She is amazing.  We are interested in seeing if she can assist us with translation, communication and confirmation of our program that we established today with the orphanage.

Eva has a great heart for orphans

Kaifeng

This is the city that will host our first school.  What an amazing journey in less than a year.  A non-profit, a board, our first fundraiser – 2009 Chinese New Year and now two board members visiting and establishing a relationship – friendship – respect with the orphanage director Mr. Wang.  A man that we are so blessed to connect with – he has a heart for orphans (not always the case with orphganage directors – it is a very prestigious government position), and he is smart and business minded, an impeccable host and he asks for us to care for those kids in his orphanage that he nor most of China has no idea or finances dedicated to – kids with special needs.  So here we GO!!

JOIN ECHO!

Give money, support our fundraisers – Chinese New Year 2010 February 20th, Host a house party with quality art from orphans for sale, join our board or travel to Henan province.  The orphanage director has given us an open invitation to visit, photograph, video tape and we built a solid beginning with his office manager who will document receipts for all of our purchases and pay roll for teachers.  CCAI needs to officially make a decision to support the process with their connections and structure but this was very hopeful in our conversations today.

I want to say thank you to:

Sarah Wagner & Dominic for starting Scrolls From China
Jesse and Maria Roberts with Rise Up International which helped us moved forward with our first fundraising effort.
Our current board – Jenny Murphy, Brian Murphy, Chris Hanson, Cyndee Overland, Casey Jaeger.  Thank you to those three others who will listen to the details of our trip and hopefully join our board.
HD Weddell – my principal for giving me the ability to go.  H – the director here welcomes volunteers from our IB program who are interested in China and educational and social issues.

To all of those who have supported us….there are so many of you….Thank You!

Three special thank you’s….

1.    Casey – for sacrificing from his job to make these connections happen.  One person wasn’t sufficient for this journey.
2.    Joshua, CCAI and especially Xia – they made this vision possible
3.    Most importantly – to my wife Stephanie.  She has always wanted for what has happened these past few days to actually occur and to come down from the clouds into reality – stop talking about it Robert and make it happen.  Well she is my dear love who through her physical pain everyday that she experiences gives love to me through all of my love languages and on top of that runs a house with four small children.  Stephanie – I love you!

It might sound like everything is peachy rosy and that all of the work is done…and that maybe even the trip is over.  Still a long ways to go but with patience, prayer and purpose we will help these amazing kids in Kiafeng who have special needs and WE will give them an opportunity to smell the delight of their city which was one of the ancient capitals of China outside of their orphanage walls.

Lily Orphanage Center

We went and visited the Lily Orphanage Care Center in ZhengZhou yesterday morning.  Casey and I wanted to see the effects of CCAI’s involvement in an orphanage for a while and what type of impact that they have had.  It was really special to be greeted by five young boys ages 8 – 12 running up to us to take our donations and greet us with such enthusiasm.  I took the suitcase that Xia was bringing of infant clothes and handed it to one of the boys.  I didn’t initially see that he only had a couple of fingers per hand he took this 50 lb suitcase and wheeled it all of the way to the care center.  Lily Orphanage Care Center’s are located throughout different orphanages in the Henan province and they accept kids that are special needs from any of the 18 orphanages in the Henan province.  They have a high ratio of staff that they employ and do a wonderful job in helping.  I saw my first little baby about to pass away.  She was very fragile and probably wasn’t going to live more than one more day.  I gave her a blessing and wished her a wonderful greeting into heaven.

Casey and I are really informal dignitaries of the United States of America.  We represent our country and everyone is always looking at us.  When Casey wears his cool sunglasses inside as well as outside he is definitely a movie star!

We were actually given special permission to enter into the ZhengZhoe orphanage because it was a Saturday and the orphanage director always needs to be present when visitors are coming.  But Xia has her ways!  We were there around noon and all of the kids take a nap time – even the teenagers.  When we walked into the 9 – 12 year old kids room there was one boy whose eyes became glued to me.  So I went over and started playing with him, practicing some English and he loved the attention.  Through the middle of engaging with him he called me “Baba” – this means father in Chinese.  When I had to leave he was wailing and didn’t want me to go.

Xia – she has been working with CCAI for 10 years now.  She has always been close to her brother – co-founder of CCAI Joshua and has really used her talents to help shape CCAI as a respected and professional organization that it is.  With the economy going down and the slowing process of the wait for families who are waiting to add a son or daughter to their family she has helped spur adoptions through the waiting list.  These are kids who might have seizures, cleft lips/palates and procedures or operations can help give them that assistance that they need.  She has developed a close relationship with this province and helped bring the adoption numbers from 40 three years ago, to 80 two years ago and to 200 this past year – just with special needs kids.  She loves kids and marvels at those families that take these special needs kids on.  She considers these parents as heroes.  She herself is a hero.

Casey and I are now riding in a van back to Kiafeng to go over the details regarding our plan.  This is where he will take over and use his organizational, decision making and exuberance to the table.  But before we do this the director is going to host us by taking us to some local shows – acrobats, magic, dramas.  This was a surprise for us but he insists.

Xia showing us the Lily Orphage Center in ZhengZhou

Thoughts

China as a culture still is learning the concept of giving and even tipping. I asked an English major graduate from the Henan University his salary for the month as a bellboy – 800 rmb (676 rmb = $100 US). And he went through all of the world groups and stated who tips the best, Chinese – no, Europeans – yes, Africans – yes, Arabs – yes, Americans – the best.

Marshall just graduated this past June and is working at the Holiday Inn as his first job. People who speak English in China have lots of employment opportunities.

Chinese people in general love to express themselves. They are adamant, loud, excitable and passionate.

In general, Chinese people are rule followers. They don’t want to offend people…they are SO hospitable…especially to Americans. But when it comes to driving…well then it is the wild Wild West. No rules other than don’t get your car destroyed because you will be paying the damages.

I could never teach my students how to cross the streets here. It is simply ludicrous. On one major road yesterday – I was able to cross all of the lanes carefully and still looking in that direction…now in a six lane road with cars, scooters, bikes, pedestrians all going very very fast to their destinations the seventh lane going the opposite direction are buses and transportation vehicles. Simply Crazy. Either Eva or Xia grabbed my arm and kept me safe. So many things to take in!

All in all I love being here. We are able to help those most in need, I love good food, and I enjoy meeting new people.

I do miss my wife, Stephanie and kids. Love you guys.

babies need to be held when they cry

Photos

Rubber hits the road

What does this phrase even mean…can someone comment and give me the significance on this please…

But the last two days have been what this canned language signifies for us. We started by gathering for breakfast at 7:30 and discussing the details of our trip and again reemphasizing what our goals were of these appointments with the orphanages and their directors.

I could barely eat anything…I was to excited and nervous. I cried a whole bunch of tears the day before because this journey was finally now a reality. Casey on the other hand can eat like an OX! He made an understatement on day two of our journey – this country makes me hungry! Well yes, the authentic Chinese food is simply delicious.

We headed out at 8:30 in the morning towards Kaifeng http://www.henankids.org/orphanages/Orphanages.aspx We had an appointment with the orphanage director Mr. Wang and the Director of Civil Affairs for Adoption and Orphanages in the Henan Province – Mr. Chu. We were very honored guests on this occasion. Mr. Chu lives in Zhengzhou and we traveled about one hour to get to Kaifeng. He traveled there the night before to sleep in a hotel and then sent his van to pick us up back in Zhengzhou to bring us to the Kaifeng. We also picked up a second interpreter that CCAI provided so that both Casey and I could have our own personal translators wherever we ventured throughout our tours. Again – CCAI is incredible! Our translator’s name is Eva and she is the assistant CCAI rep for the Hunan province for families that are adopting via CCAI.

So on our journey I decided to lighten the mood by challenging everyone to make their favorite animal noise and the others on the ride would of course try to guess the animal. The best part of this was Eva who tried to imitate a pig noise. Well let’s just say that her small Chinese nose didn’t help her very much and Casey, myself, the driver, and Xia were laughing hilariously!

We pulled into the orphanage and were met by the director, his two deputy directors (each orphanage has a director and two deputies). We sat down made our introductions – Casey, Treasure on the EChO Board, Chemist for Bend Research, Robert – Co-Founder of EChO, Board member, teacher and father. This description was a great opening for us beginning to laugh with each other. We explained the origin of EChO, our board members and foundations purpose.

Mr Wang gave the history of the orphanage in Kaifeng, the number of orphans, older orphans, orphans in foster care, and answered all of our questions regarding himself and his role. He is a young man – 39, handsome, sharp dresser and overall we really were given the impression that he cared about his kids. The place wasn’t a four or five star hotel but the hearts of each of the employees seemed genuine.

We toured their facilities, toured the foster home placements and then eventually headed to lunch. Lunch was phenomenal. We had 15 or 16 of us eating lunch at a very swank restaurant.

There are drinking customs that we discovered at this lunch which was new to us Americans. When we are honored guests we are given lots of toasts and we are to drink each time “bottoms up”. If we didn’t adhere to this we would have absolutely insulted our guests who went all out and ordered over 25 dishes for us to sample. We dined for at least two hours and it was during this dialogue that we discussed what a potential partnership could look like.

The second orphanage is located in Xuchang – this was such a different atmosphere – the building was brand new – we had to wear these footsies so that we didn’t scuff the new floor, we met again and the name of this orphanage director….yep, Mr. Wang too! We viewed the entire orphanage, talked about our organization, and they shared with us their plans and need for connecting with an outside organization – they have never partnered yet with a non-profit foundation. This Mr. Wang was friendly and proud of his orphanage.

We then headed to dinner at his insistence to have the “real” conversation and we were still so stuffed from lunch. But we of course joined him so that we wouldn’t offend him. We again ate over 20 dishes, did the courteous drinking and I shared stories of my adopted girls – Mr. Wang shared stories of his previous military days, did magic tricks for us and in fact read our palms while he predicted our jobs, marriage, personal income and longevity. He said that I am happily married (true), will change jobs in future (come on! I love Bend High), that I was very wealthy (missed this one!) and would live a long long life (Whatever God gives me – I am happy with).

We then went home and slept around 11:30/midnight back to our hotel.

Now here is the dicotemy of these events and the day. Both orphanage directors absolutely were vying for our services and partnership. But we would go from the depths of pain, suffering, loneliness, sadness, loss, remorse and hopelessness to the highest tier of social status where our meal would pay for several people’s salary for the entire month, decadent, drinking until we had to tell our hosts – NO MORE!

On top of the depth of this rollercoaster we realized that orphanages are changing their needs regarding the older orphans. They are able to attend their local public schools and there is great support for this. We were really impressed with their studies and in general they do not have to leave the orphanage (in this region) until they are able to! The real need regarding education is for students with special needs; kids with intellectual disabilities. They have NO IDEA what to do with these kids. They just sit around and do nothing. It made me so SAD. I was really weeping. My students have no idea how our country, state and school district serve them. This is wonderful for the United States but wow these orphans who first of all are abandoned and then have no one to instruct them is simply devastating. They would like to do something but in fact the directors simply have no idea what to do. These are the lost kids. There is so much potential with just some simple instruction and curriculum that these kids could become viable adults. The Hunan province has such an agriculture economy that there is more opportunity for vocational opportunities for kids/adults with developmental disabilities.

Another rubber hitting the road. We didn’t know that this was the need. In fact as our host Xia informed us that this is a need in every orphanage throughout China. No one knows what to do. But we came with an understanding that older orphans needed vocational instruction. Yes, the older orphans could use some assistance in job hunting, resume building, etc but in general there wasn’t a great need for this. My head was in spinning state after the first orphanage as this becomes a clear reality to me…and change is sometimes difficult for me to process.

Casey and I discussed and brainstormed all this morning on the second day. It was a great conversation – we laid out what we learned and processed the details. Casey is extremely intelligent and stated that we simply needed time to process all that we had learned. We took so many notes, photos and observations and were balancing that with our depression of the stark realities of these impoverished kids. We sorted through the whole morning and remembered what our board wanted for us to do: 1. Establish a strong relationship with CCAI, 2. Choose an orphanage 3. Secure an educator 4. Discuss and Develop curriculum.

After everything we made a decision to go with Kiafeng. It was really clear regarding the level of partnership that each of these caregivers wanted to give to their kids/orphans at the orphanage and their strong means of communication that we experienced with them. We hope to assist Xuchang in the future after we establish ourselves in Kiafeng for the next year.

We head back tomorrow to confirm with the orphanage director – Mr Wang and the staff member who will be our direct link of communication. We will be donating our five lap top computers, two suitcases full of clothes and more goodies for the kids. We will establish a contract that will state the details regarding payment to the teacher, discuss what our budget can do and in essence make the first steps toward serving special needs kids and making them independent so that they can move out of the orphanage at some point of their lives plus assist the older orphans who are done with their secondary schooling with some assistance too.

All in all we will discuss the complete details with our EChO board and send out another team this coming winter to follow up on the beginnings of our relationship. And CCAI will help us facilitate the money, paperwork and serve, as a reminder that we know the Director of Civil Affairs and this is CCAI’s philosophy – have accountability from the top down. We are very fortunate for this partnership and are looking forward to working with the Kiafeng orphanage.