Day 2 of camp 1

I don't have much time to write, ever, between walking Bill and Tom to the cafeteria or, say, touring the Great Wall.

That's right. Today we visited the Great Wall, hiked on it, and took many, many pictures of it. Bill and Tom are the orphans that have been assigned to me for the week. They are quiet and shy, but they're coming out of their shells more every day. Right now it's about 10:30 p.m., and I am exhausted. But I want to share a few photographs of our day. I hope this weekend I will have more time for a lengthy update.


Thank you all for the e-mails and the comments you have left at this blog. I read them and appreciate them. Home is so far away. But we love what we are doing here, and what God is doing through us.


Above are my two boys--Tom on the left, and Bill--and my translator, Elva. Her Chinese name is pronounced "Eileen," and she is much more organized and responsible than I am.

Day 1 of camp 1

It's Monday at 7:15 a.m. Breakfast is served, and in a few hours the orphans will arrive. Sleeping has been easy, as our room has air conditioning and it gets cool and dry at night. By "our," I mean the guy room where I'm staying--with five other men. Dori is staying down the hall from me, with a handful of girls.

We are excited, if a little apprehensive, about meeting our new friends this morning. Now begins the work we came for. Now begins the first five days of our true adventure, one of relationships. More to come.

On location: China

I am thoroughly exhausted, but thrilled to be navigating the Internet with words and photos to share from Beijing. We have had a crazy day, settling into a dormitory in a huge private school and touring a nearby medical clinic for orphans and foster children.

I am not sure how often I will be able to update this site, between struggling for access to a computer and finding the energy to write. So I have posted a few photographs from today, in hopes of providing a decent view of where we are and what we're doing.

Below is a picture of the front of one of the several dormitory buildings where we volunteers are staying. Notice Steve Bolt on a bike--a rare sight indeed.

One of the most surprising things about Beijing is how lush it is. In part because of a strong monsoon season that just started, there is green everywhere, and flowers.

So long...

We are leaving for China. Check back for live updates from Beijing beginning tomorrow afternoon. Thank you for reading, and for your support. Please continue to pray for us as we travel and work and tour.

Countdown: 1 day

So. (That is how the unknown author of Beowulf starts his story, and I always liked it.) We are down to our last full day at home before we leave for China. Our journey will begin at the Bolt's house, then we'll carpool to Los Angeles International Airport, then we'll fly--or, more accurately, be flown--for nearly 13 hours, landing in Beijing on Saturday.

Neither Dori nor I has ever been on a plane for longer than about four hours, and we have never flown on a 747. We are not sure whether to look forward to the experience, or dread it. But it is what we'll do once we step off the plane in Beijing that is the purpose of our journey, so even if the flight is awful, it won't matter.

In recent days, I have noticed slight changes in my attitude toward children. I saw a little guy get his finger pinched in the swinging door of a trash can at a fast food restaurant yesterday, and I was overcome with compassion. And yesterday may have been the first time I have not, in some small way, felt uneasy about spending two weeks trying to cheer and love a bus load of orphans.

I believe this is an answer to prayers--my own, when I have asked that my heart be prepared for the task, and those of others. So thank you. For my wife's part, I believe she carries in her a strong love for children that never needed bolstering. What we both still need are prayers for stamina, good health and servant-like love for our teammates.

I will try to post a few updates from Beijing while we are there, but my first priority will be seeing to the Bring Me Hope blog, where photos and writing will probably be several times a week. If you are interested in seeing and reading about our daily activities with the kids, I would highly recommend visiting that blog.

Well, that's all I have for now. I must go pack or something. Thanks again for your support.

Word of the day: 'Noncontroversial'

You gotta love it when someone chooses to use this five-syllable word when they could just say "boring." I suppose things that are noncontroversial are not always boring, but usually that is the case. We are human. Our nature is to revel in observing a good controversy. We hate to be embroiled in one with consequences, but watching one from a safe place--is there anything more satisfying to our curiosity? Could this be the reason why we love gossip?

And could this word of the day be the antidote to gossip: To consider scandals and failure in other people's lives as noncontroversial because they were not our decisions to make, and not our consequences to reap? I can just imagine all the noncontroversy that wouldn't travel from person to person within our communities if our love for one another was so strong that we could override the gossip gene.

How boring, but how very safe, that community would be.

Blogger's note: Books, and especially dictionaries, are full of good words. Feel free to leave a comment sharing one of your favorites, and keep watching for more of mine.

Three Rivers photo essay

Here I'll post some photographs from our trip last weekend. There were so many good images, and I captured but a few of them. I have sized down the thumbnails to fit more in the post; to see the larger images, click on the thumbnails. Enjoy, and please leave some feedback.




Kenny tried for well over an hour to start a fire the old-fashioned way: by rubbing two sticks together. He almost succeeded.

Building character is fun, kids!

This is going to be a long one, so I'm sorry if you're a fan of quick hits, or if you do not have enough time to scroll through it all. It's been a week since I posted, and for good reason. At least once a year, Dori and I like to spend a few days out of cell phone range. By that I mean backpacking, somewhere remote, where the mighty bear, and not the computer, is king. Our experiences last weekend ran the gamut, from thrilling to relaxing to frightening to downright exasperating. I did manage to capture a couple dozen good photographs, a few of which I will post separately. I think the best way to relate the trip would be to list the events of each day, so here goes:

Day 1: Friday, July 13
Dori and I packed frantically after I got home from work, then left the house at 7 p.m. Two hours later, we left Temecula after a handful of last-minute errands. We jury-rigged my laptop to play DVDs and made it through Sweet Home Alabama and half of S.W.A.T. before arriving in Three Rivers at 1 a.m. Kenny and Paige are staying in Three Rivers, a small town about an hour southwest of Hume Lake, and that is where we slept.

Day 2: Saturday, July 14
The first half of this day was extremely trying, and I'm not just saying that to be dramatic. A hot, sweaty hike that I pegged at eight miles was followed by a steep descent through low-slung trees and poison oak to get to the river by which we would camp. As soon as we started into the ravine toward the water, all the muscles in my left leg and most in my right started cramping. It slowed everyone else down, and made it much harder to pick my way down the slope and through the poison oak. Psychologically and physically, this was an extremely difficult morning for me.

But the afternoon was better. We set up camp right by the North Fork of the Kaweah River, just inside Sequoia National Park. The effort it took to get there was rewarded by how remote our campsite was. We knew we wouldn't see any strangers, and we didn't, as there was really no trail leading to, from or past where we camped. We relaxed, ate dinner and dipped our feet in the river and then slept for about 12 hours Saturday night.

Day 3: Sunday, July 15
This was our day to kick it, and we did. After breakfast, we hiked a few minutes up an old mining road nearby to a shanty where ore pulled out of mines on the hillside was crushed for tungsten. We poked around for a bit and I took some pictures, then we proceeded up the road to a real, honest-to-goodness mine. There was even an ore cart sitting in the mouth of the mine shaft. Headlamps on, we explored the mine for about an hour, climbing into the vents that were blasted diagonally upward 80 years ago by miners. Outside, the temperature was in the 90's and it was bone-dry, but in the mine, it was cold and moist. I have never been a fan of dark, enclosed spaces, but this was fun. I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Later in the afternoon, we hiked upstream and chilled at a pool that was fairly deep. I got a sunburn, and we scoped out a suitable place to scale the steep hillside to get back to the road out.

Day 4: Monday, July 16
We woke up before dawn and began packing our things. Breaking camp is really not as bad as it sounds. But hiking out of a river gorge with no trail is not for the faint of heart. It took us about an hour to get from our campsite to the old road that led out of the hills to Kenny's truck--a distance of less than half a mile, over the river, up a steep hill and ultimately about 400 to 500 up in elevation. Then came the long walk. When we arrived in Three Rivers, I could barely move for all my sore spots and worn-out muscles. But we had a relaxing afternoon eating pizza and watching Comedy Central, then we topped it off with dinner at Bubba's, a barbecue place in Visalia.

The craziest few hours of our trip came on Monday. When we got back from our hike, we noticed that the right rear tire on my car was flat, so Kenny put the spare on and I went to a tire place in Visalia to get it fixed. It turned out the tire place was not the same company from which I had purchased my tires, as I thought, but after an hour of coaxing, they fixed it for free. So we were good to get home Monday night.

Or not. We had been cruising down Highway 99 for less than five minutes when I hit something in the road and my right front tire immediately went flat.

I don't think I can accurately convey what I was feeling as I put the spare on for the second time that day--the only day in the last year when we had 300 miles to travel to get home. The hassle of getting the first flat fixed was completely eclipsed by the bent wheel and destroyed tire that I had to deal with off the side of the highway.

We spent Monday night in a Motel 6 in Bakersfield, tired and defeated.

Day 5: Tuesday, July 17
We ate breakfast at Denny's while the tire place in Bakersfield fixed my tire and put it on my car. We left for Fallbrook around noon, and pulled in at 3 p.m., never so happy to be home.

Summary
I don't want to make it sound like the trip wasn't an adventure, or fun, or even that it wasn't relaxing. It was all of those things. We especially enjoyed spending time with Kenny and Paige.

However, I am convinced that God was determined to teach us some very important lessons using a few pages out of the old pain and suffering textbook. In exactly one week, we'll be on a plane to China, headed for an experience unlike any we've had, as individuals or as a couple. Maybe the stress of the hike and the two flat tires were a primer for summer camp in Beijing. Or maybe they were designed to make anything tough that happens there seem tame. Either way, here are some valuable lessons Dori and I learned this past weekend:

• Leaving the house does not equal departing on a road trip. It equals another set of to-dos that each whittle away at the true time of departure;
• Long pants are the new short pants when hiking through hills inhabited by poison oak;
• The tougher it is to reach a campsite, the more rewarding it will be to stay there, providing it is situated between a river of pure snowmelt and the entrance to an old tungsten mine;
• Bug spray is bliss--potentially cancerous in the long run, but instant bliss, all the same;
• Fixing one flat tire does not automatically exempt a vehicle or a motorist from hitting large objects in the highway, causing more flat tires.

Illness and tons and tons of driving

Between driving to and from Escondido almost every day this week and the cold I had to fight off, I did not have much time for blogging. Sorry. But I thought I would post at least a little something before Dori and I leave for a weekend backpacking trip with Kenny and Paige near Three Rivers.

My first week working out of the Escondido office has been interesting. I like the people I sit next to and the environment--a busy newsroom with dozens of reporters and editors all making phone calls and working on stories--but I absolutely hate the driving. Half an hour each way, and that's just the time. What the extra driving will do to my gas bill remains to be seen, but I don't have a good feeling about it.

While it is a bit frustrating to be moved around like a pawn by my employer, I am thankful for my job. I get to pursue my curiosity, be in the middle of things and write. That's most important, writing. All the driving I will be doing is worth it if I just keep getting paid to write.

Well, I must embark for the journey home now. I want to be home before the next full moon, so I must move quickly. Farewell.

Wireless camping

An article posted yesterday on Yahoo! News talks about the genesis of campgrounds sporting wireless Internet connections. Having been camping just a few days ago, in a place where my cell phone display said NO NETWORK, I can testify that a Web connection would sometimes come in handy. However, it could also be a nuisance.

Does having Web access defeat the purpose of camping? Please weigh in with your thoughts and comments.

Observatour

This weekend was a good one, albeit hot. We spent Saturday atop Palomar Mountain, camping with some friends that are fixing to move to Florida. When you only have forty to fifty regular members in your church, losing a young couple is tough. But he is a Marine, and move they must, and so we bid them farewell with a camping trip.

On Saturday morning, we set out for a five-mile hike to the Palomar Observatory. Between the heat and the altitude, I became keenly aware of my severe lack of stamina. But we made it.

Throughout the high country surrounding Palomar Mountain, there are beautiful plateau grasslands. The yellow grass contrasted with the dark green oaks is just gorgeous. It is a kind of beauty I never recognized as a kid--serene, quiet and understated. I highly recommend a day trip through the northeast portion of San Diego County so you can see what I'm talking about. Specifically, try driving up Palomar on South Grade Road, checking out the observatory, then descending via East Grade Road, which drops back to Highway 76 at Lake Henshaw. You won't be disappointed.

I had not visited the Palomar Observatory, which is built around the Hale Telescope, for at least fifteen years. Unlike most impressive things that I saw during my childhood, the dome was much larger than I remembered it. I have always loved astronomy, and the thought of spending just one hour looking out the telescope into deep space gave me chills. For more information about the observatory, click here or check out the Palomar Observatory Wiki.

Here is a shot of the inside of the facility, including the bottom portion of the telescope, which holds the mirror. Turns out the 200-inch (16.7-foot) mirror is actually made out of Pyrex. True story.

Moving day

Last night I had the distinct displeasure of packing my desk in the Fallbrook North County Times office to transplant it into the Escondido office (a.k.a. the Mother Ship, the Big House, Central Command). I threw a bunch of stuff away that, at some point, I was sure I would need. Two and a half years is a long time to accumulate dusty post-its and meeting agendas. My favorite were all the business cards for people I could not even remember. Most of what was there is now in boxes and will be moved today.

The significant change afoot here is that I will no longer be based in Fallbrook. The powers that be have decided that all reporters shall be grouped into the Escondido and Oceanside offices. So maybe two days out of every week I will be able to work in Fallbrook, but I'll be doing the rest of my time in the Big House.

It's really not that bad, except for the drive. I spent yesterday in Escondido, and it was a little odd sitting two desks away from a handful of people who could fire me, seeing the publisher walk through the newsroom, things like that. But I suppose it will add new challenges to my job. I have a feeling it will make a better reporter of me, so I cannot complain. OK, maybe a little bit. As I'm driving half an hour each way to and from work.

Reflections

It's taken a couple of days to recover from the Fourth of July festivities. Fireworks in Fallbrook were pretty--not the most spectacular display ever, but just having our own fireworks here was sweet. We were home in a few minutes when they ended, instead of waiting in traffic for an hour, like we would have had we gone to the beach or any other display in one of North County's bigger cities. Working the cops shift for the Times yesterday, I also found out there were three stabbings at the July 4 celebration in Oceanside by the pier. I'm pretty sure there were no stabbings and no gang fights at the event in Fallbrook.

Before watching the sky pop red and yellow over the Grand Tradition, my family and Dori's dad and brother got together for lunch and swimming.

Note on the picture below: I love the "NO DIVING" sign. "CAUTION. WARNING! RULES." To a kid, it all means NO HAVING FUN! And then the one in the upper right explaining how to perform CPR. If I pulled a drowning person out of the pool, the first thing I would do is mosey on over to that sign and read up on artificial respiration.

Freedom of our fathers

We hear all the time that we live in a free land, a land of liberty and hard-bought political freedom. On a day named "Independence," I think we would do well to reflect on the freedom that truly matters and will carry on into eternity.

"Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage." (Galatians 5:1)

"Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed." (John 8:34-36)

The most common and ruthless tyrant is sin, which has invaded every household, every heart and every government to make them captive, and it is that enemy we should loathe most. That we can be free of it is something to celebrate even more than our freedom to vote, own property and worship openly, as citizens of the United States.

Freedom was not our idea--it was God's original plan. And it was Christ's objective. When I look at the colors of the flag, I see His blood, His snow-white purity stained with murder, and the blue of the royal robe they laid on His shoulders. To the extent that Christ's gospel is honored among the American people, we shall be free indeed.

Happy Independence Day.

Caution: Eating your computer may cause indigestion

Dori directed my attention yesterday to an entertaining little Web site that lists some frivolous lawsuits and outrageous warning labels. A few of my favorites are "Never use hair dryer while sleeping"; "Do not drive with sun shield in place"; and "Do not allow children to play in the dishwasher." A label on a can of pepper spray reads, "May irritate eyes," and on a pack of fireplace logs: "Caution--risk of fire."

The site makes a good connection between redundant warning labels and frivolous lawsuits, and some of the most entertaining labels conjure great images of human stupidity. Like, "Do not eat toner," found on a laser printer, or, on an electric carpenter's drill, "This product not intended for use as a dental drill." Hm. I wonder what happened there.

In other news, it was reported today that the $67.8 billion fortune of a Mexican businessman has surpassed Bill Gates' $59.2 billion, and has made Carlos Slim the richest man on the planet. Or at least the dude with the most money. There are a couple of interesting points in the article, such as the fact that Slim's personal fortune equals about 8 percent of Mexico's gross domestic product.

Film reviews: Tuxedo surfers, tough guy, rat in the kitchen

It has been a while since Dori and I saw a bunch of films all at once on the big screen. A few months ago, we watched Apocalypto and We Are Marshall in the same evening, but since then we have been selective about the pictures we want to see in the theater. This weekend, we broke the trend and saw movies three nights in a row. Two were animated, and one had a wryly animated lead character. All three were good.

Surf's Up: For an animated film about surfing penguins, this movie was actually pretty entertaining. I thought it had just enough of a lesson to be worthwhile, and that the lesson was not over the top, like is the case with some animated movies. There was some pretty good music in the soundtrack, and the animation was great. For a boy who grew up on the Animaniacs and TaleSpin, modern animation is a marvel. However, this is the last penguin movie that I care to see for the next few years.

Live Free or Die Hard: Watching Bruce Willis kill bad guys is cool enough, but the one-liners laced throughout the fourth Die Hard installment really make this one worth seeing. It has noticeably less bad language than the first three, which were all made back when writers and directors must have thought action stars needed to be cast with vocabularies somewhere between sailors and rappers to be believable. Willis (a.k.a. NYPD detective John McClane) seems appropriately worn out, and his sidekick, played by Justin Long, is a computer hacker who provides great contrast to Willis' gruff cop. Like Surf's Up, this film also does not try to be more than what it is, which is an action movie. Those who made the film know we bought tickets just to see John McClane shoot stuff and be tough, not to be lectured about some thin moral value. Live Free or Die Hard delivers plenty of explosions and humor, as well as the catharsis of watching the good guy win. Again.

Ratatouille: The animation in this film was slicker and more technical than Surf's Up, and the story was also more intricate. The trick here was getting audiences to fall in love with a rat, and once I got over that hurdle, I thoroughly enjoyed Ratatouille. What was interesting was that a lot of the dialog and some key chunks of the plot were at an adult level of understanding. At one point, the film's villain says something like, "...not that anyone can be a great artist, but that a great artist can come from anywhere." That line hit me like I've never been hit by a line from an animated movie before. It took me surprise that a film about a rat who dreams of being a chef could be deep. In the end, though, it's the fancy animation and typical slapstick laughs that are the best reasons to see Ratatouille.

Little white lies

I'm not sure how to frame this one, so I'll just put it out there: A new study has supposedly revealed that people begin lying at the ripe old age of 6 months. Read it for yourself here.

I personally do not have a hard time believing this. I think you mothers will also relate to what is reported in the article about fake crying, when a child feigns distress to get attention, pauses to see if their adults are listening, then continues bawling.

Boy, to think I started lying before I even started walking...

On another level, it is a sad tribute to how thoroughly the human race was tainted through one man's sin. The sinful nature does not creep up from behind us at some predetermined age; it is there all along. Learning how to use it is what takes a while, but we all eventually learn.

On this Sunday morning, I am thankful for the power of Christ--not only to save us from our sin and seal us for heaven, but also to set us free from the grip our sinful nature.