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| Please pray for one of my closest friends ****** ******. I worry about her, she's been in Ethiopia for a month so far with a Christian NGO and is in a very insecure environment and will be there for at least a year. ***** was my roomate in China, my buddy at Loma Linda and a person very dear to my heart. This is her last e-mail: "The schedule got all whacked, and I ended up spending the first bit in
the SSNPR region working in stabilization centers. On my second day
there I had a 1.5 year old girl die in my arms. I have never seen so
many cases of kwashiorkor in my life. I'm settled in now in Kebridahar. We were on our way to a clinic site
yesterday and were stopped by a group pcking heat and they told us
that they had planted surprises along the road and if it weren't for
the white flags on our car, we wouldn't still be in one piece. After
taking some of our supplies they let us pass only when we arrived at
our target village, everyone had fled - we got there right after the
fighting had stopped and causulties had been taken away. So we had to
make up an evac route- was totally insane. We made it home safely and
our addis ofice is trying to evacuate us but we are fighting it tooth and
nail. So thank you for the prayer cover. It is definitely being put to
good use." This is a BBC article on the conflict going on in her area: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7450533.stm
This is a BBC video on the Ethiopia's desperation as hunger grows: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7444753.stm | | |
| From my dear friend in Chengdu, the city I used to live in, about 50 miles from the epicenter of the China earthquake. She's a senior in high school, the daughter of m*ssionaries that became like 2nd parents to me when I was in China. I'll attach the last 2 of her letters. Please be praying, I beg you. May 18 at 11:41pm I slept through the 5.7-6.4 tremors on Saturday night! The screams echoing in the compound didn't wake me, nor did the bookshelf falling over. I woke up refreshed and on my way to the Disaster Relief Centre on Sunday morning,....the streets were dead again. Chengdu has a reputation for being one of China's liveliest cities, the buildings cannot contain the activity within, even during the blazing heat of summer, so the activity spills out on to the street, nomatter what the weather...but not yesterday. A solemn hush has fallen over this city. A strain is starting to be able to be seen on everyone's faces. The uncertainty of their house crumbling on top of their heads has driven many people to sleep outside in tents since the earthquake. Some people might think they are over reacting but really, after Saturday's "aftershock", and the possibility of one of Sichuan's largest dams breaking under the strain of so much water, has really made each person fear for their life. Daily life has become a task to fulfill now.Ofcourse there is this Chinese stiff upper lip which makes the shop keepers tend to their stalls as usual, but ask them about the earthquake (DiZhen), and their expressions will change drastically.
More and more teams of doctors and volunteers (builders are suprisingly some of the most in demand at the moment, that, or enigineers) are being sent up to the affected areas. I've seen them go off, I've made sure they've had their red-cross badges on, a sense of adrenalin is in the air as their trucks loaded with medical supplies,water and food, roar off into the distance. And i've also seen them return...weary, happy to be back, ready in a second to go back, and yet totally shaken by what they've seen. I've heard it somewhere before but i can't quote it exactly, "Strong men, grow weak with sorrow". The more recent teams who've been returning have reported that the stench of death has been overwhelming in certain areas. The IDP camps are filled to the brim. And now with all the rain, washing away dead bodies into the resevoires, the water is probably contaminated. There is an orphanage in Jiu Zhai which has accepted 200 orphans from the earth-quake area. The army has done a brilliant job despite the agonizing heat of the days here, and the government are really behind the people 100%, but resources are scarce, and people's wants and needs limitless at this point.
There are after-shocks every several hours now, but most of the people i talk to, are like me and just feel like there are continous aftershocks all the time to be felt! I'm writing this e-mail to let all of you know that there is another side to the story too. We are refusing to give interviews to CNN/BBC/CNBC/CBS...I've talked to all of them on the phone...as their version of the story is really quite slanted and they only want to hear what they want to hear. The public is doing their best. The government has taken our breath away with their efforts. The army is an amazing force which the Chinese, rightly so, have faith in. The story is, and will continue to be this, the Chinese are doing their best. It is so easy for outsiders to look in and critiscise, but ask one of the doctor's who has been out there if they have ever seen such unity and team work, and they will say that it has yet to be surpassed by another country's government.
I'm just heading out to the Disaster Relief Centre. Going there is an emotional toll, little children coming in with a grimy and bunched up 100 kuai note in their hand to donate to the crisis, caring for the teams coming back and trying to give some semblance of normalcy. Everyone is on tenderhooks but at the same time a sense of calm, and peace endures as the relief efforts continue...It is so awesome to see the hope which is making the public persevere, the hope which causes women in the IDP camps to cook meals for more than required because they think that there will be more people rescued by the time their meal is ready, the hope which is sustaining all of us.
Feel free to share this with your churches, work-places, friends, family, in the hope that more people will sympathise with the chinese people, and grow in their understanding of the situation at present.
Hope that this finds you all well & hope that these updates are proving useful:)
Love,
************
May 13 at 8:55pm Hey everyone,
You will be glad to know that life is basically back to normal. We have learnt to center our lives around the bi-hourly tremors. I was just walked up the eight flights of stairs with a heavy backpack and if I hadn’t seen the glass shake against the window frames, or heard the door’s rattling on their hinges I would scarcely have know that there was a tremor.
Everyone is being amazing. All my friends are involved in the relief process in some way or other, as young as they may be, the youngest one running errands and stuff is 14, speaks the local dialect like a local. It really is amazing what everyone is doing. Teams of doctors are flying into Chengdu from various countries and one team has made it as far as Du Jiang Yen, they are on their way to Bei Chuan. The only way to the worst affected area (Wen Chuan) is by either plane or helicopter, so please keep them in your prayers that they’ll be able to catch the next flight there, or charter a private helicopter of some sort. Communities are pulling together to donate food and funds, the camaraderie of the neighbors has somewhat faded where we are which is a bit sad, but it has made other pockets of other people pull together tremendously. It is mind blowing what is happening here. The relief and aid effort is underway and making a gigantic difference. Dogged organization and a determined calm have taken the place of panic and shock that has reigned over Chengdu the past few days. Really, all the organizations and relief programs have got a plan and finally can begin to put it into place. I wish I had more details of the disaster but It is very clear that Wen Chuan (where the epicenter was) is unreachable, the troops haven’t been able to access it yet, they have started on foot and just to give you a rough idea of how far away it is it takes us about 5 hours to get there by SUV on a good day.
Just got an update from a friend- the taxi drivers all around Chengdu have been mobilized and are carting people from Du Jiang Yen into the city. Anyone who has a vehicle actually is taking as many people as possible from the wreckage to hospitals in Chengdu. Apparently the weather is still wretched up in Du Jiang Yen and Wen Chuan, and that is why they haven’t been able to send aid in via helicopter or plane. The skies are black with rain and thunderstorms up there. Landslides have occurred all the way up to the affected areas, it’s so real and petrifying as we’ve traveled that exact road many, many times, and we have good friends who are/were attending a secondary boarding school up in Wen Chuan, and hearing the fact that boulders and rocks the side of houses were tumbling down the mountainside makes the disaster seem that much more vivid….we’ve had many close shaves along that road when the weather was fine…but with all the lighting and thunder and torrential rain the scenario seems hopeless. We are trying to do whatever we can to help, and please wherever you happen to be, if you could raise funds or donate resources, or if you have any medical links which we could call upon, that would be fantastic, let this scene no longer be a repeated image on CNN or just a headline in the newspapers, you know what is going on and it is very simple to lend a helping hand. It is very vivid, as I’ve written this….lol…as I’m writing right now, there have been 2-3 tremors. I hate to think what it’s like further up there.
Lift up the teams already up there, it can’t be safe, but we know that they are doing the right thing! We know that we can give hope and encourage people. Hope sustains.
Lastly…just to include a but of trivia….Thank God for Sweden! Because of the graduation party, we have oceans of smoked salmon, French bread, and cream cheese leftover from IKEA, so we have been dining off foods for the gods (or so thinks I!) lol
Thank you everyone for the concern you have displayed and your continued efforts to relieve the suffering which is very evident in Sichuan (minus the smoked salmon).:)
Love,
**************
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| http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=VOIrvpiYy2GJkgILXGhRDg_3d_3d If you have time and want to help me do my marketing class survey, please click on this link and fill out the 2 miinute survey anytime before May 21st. Thanks so much! | | |
| I am going to ride 50 miles to raise money toward World Vision's Bikes for Africa project. A good, solid bike in Africa costs around $100. World Vision is raising money in order to significantly expand bicycle ownership in rural Africa. In rural Africa, a bicycle is not a toy or a novelty. It is a key to unlocking significantly better well-being in terms of family health, education, and household businesses. A bicycle increases the distance a person can travel by 400%, and increases a person's carrying capacity 500%. It causes a transportation revolution! In places where roads are poor or non-existent, a bicycle moves farm products to market, allows a small farmer to get better seeds and fertilizer, helps children and teachers get to remote schools, and transports the sick to medical care. World Vision has partnered with World Bicycle Relief in Africa, which has worked hard with bike makers to improve and radically "ruggedize" the standard one speed bike. This bike can carry over 220 pounds of cargo, and is much more reliable than a standard "American" bike. We have established parts and maintenance service centers. We are ready to roll! According to experts like the World Bank, the reason that bike ownership in rural Africa is a problem is that no one will lend folks the money needed to buy the bike. These bikes will be purchased on a lease-to-own basis. That way, instead of a $100 gift meaning one bike for one person, a $100 gift means that in one year two people will own a bike. In two years that same gift means that 4 people will own a bike. Some of the biggest names in cycling are getting behind our ride. Will you get behind me? It costs about $100 for a bike. Help us put thousands of bikes into rural Zambia and help us make life better for the children of Africa. You can help us buy one or more bikes with your donation. If you can't give $100 or more, you can still contribute. Any size contribution will help. Thanks so much! http://www.firstgiving.com/juliewong | | |
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Toastmasters speech #5, Growing Up To Be a Child For the past 2 years I’ve been living with my little niece who just turned 3 about a month ago. She is super adorable and says the cutest things. She is in preschool right now where she’s learning new songs, how to play, share, and how to throw tantrums. She loves Cinderella, Veggie Tales and Dora the Explorer. In fact we had a Dora the Explorer birthday party for her a few weeks ago. She now sprinkles her speech with little Spanish words that she learns from Dora. When her mom says thank you to her, she says “De nada”. I’ve learned a lot about being a child from my niece Alina. One of the most important things as we get older is to proactively become like a child. In Matthew 18:3, Jesus says, “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. What is it about being a child that is so important? Surely it’s not the bratty, selfish and naughty parts of a child that we are supposed to emulate. Being childlike can mean so many things, we need to dissect it a bit. My definition of childish is some of the things I see in Alina, that are normal for a 3 year old—emotional roller coasters, fickleness, an inability to understand the depths of situations, long term consequences, and the need for instant gratification. My picture of childlikeness is this: it takes proactive effort to embody this quality. It is characterized by being wise as a serpent, innocent as a dove. Part of mature childlikeness is being able to not be complicated but being able to understand the complexities of situations, especially in situations that involve disappointment and pain. Let me provide an illustration, after college, some idealistic childlike gem of a person ends up having a really bad experience with a co-worker named Sally at her first job. Sally just happens to be, say, a vegan and a skater. I could list many other hypothetical categories like ethnicity, political affiliation, etc but that might get too personal for some. A childish person would leave that job with a bad taste in her mouth and end up being adverse to all vegans and skaters after that, throwing out the baby with the bathwater, not taking the time to analyze the situation more deeply, separating the wheat from the chaff, and recognizing how they could have grown from that conflict and the certain issues of contention in the relationship. There are a lot of very reactionary people walking around in the world because they have not taken the time to analyze and grow from their pain or conflicts. A childlike person would analyze the conflict with their co-worker and realize what the points of contention were, where their weaknesses are, where the other person’s weaknesses are and not throw the baby out with the bath water, being able to see where there is good as well as bad in people and the categories they subscribe to. This childlike person would then proactively choose to keep their heart soft and trust again even though they’ve been hurt once before. This is not just good pop psychology, this is absolutely essential in our relationships with God. How we deal with and respond to disappointment, hurt and pain determines if our hearts will stay soft, or become jaded, hard and cynical. For me and many of my fellow classmates from college, the twenties can be a brutal time, especially coming from an idealistic college environment. We were all in for some rough blows about the real world. How we deal with disappointment is pivotal to becoming like a little child. If we don’t take proactive effort to reverse the tide, it’s like inertia, a slow cement starts setting in to our hearts. Without a childlike heart we miss out on that purity of heart that is a precursor to seeing God. The Bible says, Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God. Without a pure and childlike heart, we will not see God. And whatever “seeing God” means to you, having a relationship with Someone you can’t experience isn’t very interesting. In fact it’s kind of lifeless. The Screwtape Letters is a work of Christian fiction by C.S. Lewis published in 1942. The story takes the form of a series of letters from a senior demon, Screwtape, to his nephew, a junior tempter named Wormwood, to advise him on methods of securing the damnation of an earthly man, known as "the Patient." If I were Screwtape, my greatest tactic against fallen man would be to slowly take away the childlike heart in a person—to introduce a series of difficult situations that would slowly etch into a person bitterness, cynicism and hardness of heart until a person stops believing that people and God can be good, trustworthy, and full of value. In closing, some of the characteristics of being childlike I’ve observed are: a conscious effort to trust, a choice to believe the good in people, to trust in God, to still have childlike wonder at nature and miracles, to be a straight shooter, to admit need; to choose to have faith, to believe, and to play. It’s being with our heavenly Father like how Alina is with her earthly father. She’s always saying, “Daddy hold me!” To me, she says, “Auntie Julie, Come play with me.” To her Mommy, she’s always saying, “Mommy, come help me pee!” For me, my journey to changing and growing up to be childlike involves doing the things I used to do at first. For me that means taking the time to have dates with God, to unabashedly ask for help when I need it, and to intentionally get to know all kinds of people who are different from me. Good luck on your journey. | | |
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