Chengdu, part 1: the hills

After a flight and a train ride over the last two days, I'm now in Beijing with David Bolt and Adam Neesby. We'll be attending a few Olympic events with the five orphans who are here for the sixth--and last--week of camp. One is standing at my elbow now as I type, pointing to the screen and asking me questions in Mandarin that he knows I couldn't possibly answer. They are so precious, and I'm glad to have this final opportunity to spend a few days with the children we came here to serve.

While I'll have more on the Olympics and Beijing sights later, I wanted to revisit Adam and my trip to Sichuan Province to visit a friend there. You might recall that Sichuan was where the 7.9-magnitude earthquake hit in May, killing tens of thousands of people and destroying even more homes and places of work. It was a huge tragedy, one which everyone in China seems to regard with the same kind of somber recollection that enters the American heart when it remembers Sept. 11, 2001.

First, I will post a few photos from the hills about two hours north of Chengdu, where we visited an earthquake refugee shelter but were promptly asked to leave. Because of the sensitive nature of our visit there, I can't post some of the best images, but I hope these will give you an idea of what the area was like (hint: it was beautiful).

There was a river flowing right by the camp. This photo shows scenery typical of what we were surrounded by during our brief stay in the mountains.

On Saturday afternoon, we took a rickshaw further up the mountain, via this road...

Then hiked up this path...

Past this flock of noisy geese...

To meet this man...

He was a tobacco farmer up on the hillside, and the walls and roof of his house were destroyed during the earthquake, along with his pig sty and chicken coop. You can imagine what kind of financial hardship this put on the 70-year-old farmer. We met dozens of good, sad people who had lost possessions, land, family members, and yet still found hospitality in their hearts for us. We were blessed over and over during the 16 or so hours we were in the foothills of the earthquake zone, and even though it was a crazy and sometimes nerve-wracking day, it was totally worth it to meet the valiant survivors of China's worst natural disaster in decades.

Next up: What we did after we had to leave the mountains.