Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

My trip to Sichuan has been concluded, but the needs for relief and restoration work continue. I hope my trip daily log gave you a glimpse of the seriousness of the critical situation in Sichuan that demand our attention and involvement not just through an one off fund raising effort. I have the privilege to attach a trip concluding report (in Chinese) by one of my team member which I share her thought completely. Thus I did an English translation for those English speaking freinds in Austrlaia. I do hope that it would serve as a springboard for challenging us in Australia to ponder what else we could do in medium and longer term so that the great suffering of our compatriots in Sichuan could be shortened.  I pray that God will lay on our heart the same burden to make our contribution no matter how small it could be. See you all back home in August.

Just update my daily log from day 1 to 5 for your perusal.

Hung

My dream to serve our compatriot Chinese that I had 12 years ago is now fulfilled when I stepped foot on Chengdu Xian Liu Airport on 22/6 2155 hour Although it is still just the beginning of my relief mission trip to Sichuan, but I am getting a clearer sense of God’s guidance paving my way into this short term mission trip, I am still not sure how God will guide and use me in China, but it is too improbable that my trip to Sichuan is an accidental one happening by chance.

On 23/6/2008

We had our debriefing meeting at the office of Hua Mei International Education & Training Centre. It is a non-government organization registered in China to provide education and training for social welfare. We were encouraged to adopt the attitude expressed by the motto of Hua Mei to express with love and to serve with humility.

We then set off to Guang Yuan 300km North East of Chengdu arriving there in the late afternoon. After a brief lunch we went to the Church there to meet with the Government officials. They welcome us coming all the way from overseas to render our help. The need of post-trauma counseling was stressed. People are still living in fear as many of them have chosen to live in a temporary tent erected outside of their own house whether they are suffering damages or not. Typically, they are in the second stage of grieving either in denial of the facts of the loss or angry about the failure of themselves or the authorities to prevent the disaster from happening. The Head of the Religious Administrative Department expressed grave concern of the heightened tension between the victims and the Government caused by those anger. They have high hope for us to do something to soothe the tension so that the rebuilding and rehabilitation work will not be hindered.  On the other hand, they welcome us to go to the worse hit areas to have first hand observations as to the way our team can contribute. It paved the way for us to visit two to three spots within the Qing Chuen disaster area in the next 2 days.

In the evening, we joined the prayer meetings of the Guang Yuan Church . We sang and prayed together for mutual edification and support. And we will meet again tomorrow evening with one of our qualified counselor conducting a talk on the importance of grief counselling  I was asked to deliver a short sharing so your prayers are treasured.

24/6/2008

It was a day full of excitement, adventures and grace. After a cosy breakfast at the hotel. Our team of 20 had to be split into 2 groups for equally important divine assignment.

Excitement
The first group consisted of our team leader, vice-team leader and their assistant. God used them to be the mediator between the local church pastor, the headmaster of a well established school and the town hall leaders. The church of Guang Yuan is headed by a young pastor with little experience and peer support. He has to look after not only the church in the city of Guang Yuan but scattered meeting places in the peripheral towns & villages. The church building of one of their meeting place at Ron Shan town was seriously damaged in the earthquake. Its church premises is adjacent to that school (P1 to H9) which has 1900 students. Even before the earthquake, they were pressurized to move out sparing the land for the expansion of the school. Now the church building was 80 % destroyed and has become an illegal house. They wish to rebuild it on their premises, but the school with the support of the government wants them to move out to another land which is much larger than their existing one. The church not only needs money to rebuild but were asked to pay a large lump sum as compensation for new additional land to be acquired. This is absolutely beyond the ability of the church to pay. So, with the presence of  the mission team, the team leaders & the assistant were invited to be the mediator to resolve the conflict. The meeting went on not so smoothly initially and quickly sailed into stormy waters.  At the verge of collapse and breaking up, God listened to our collective prayers and turned around the situation bringing forth an amicable compromise. We need a lot of follow up prayers for the healing of the broken relationship between the church and the school. Of course, money for the church rebuilding is one of the many prayer requests.

Adventure.

While team A was playing the mediator role, team B was sent to give comfort  and  medical stuff to those families affected heavily by the earthquake. You may see from some pictures that most houses with 3 storey look good on the external but they mostly have suffered heavy damages especially on the 2nd and 3rd floor.  Most people would have to stay in a tent supplied by the Government. But the rebuilding of the house, by Government new policy, is to be borne by the house owner themselves. So they are all in stressful condition. We could offer very limited help apart from showing them that their suffering have not been forgotten.

We visited two villages, one in the morning on the plain and another in the afternoon on the mountain side. The roads were very difficult especially in the latter situation. Anyhow, God’s grace was enough for us to accomplish the caring and gospel sharing mission.

Grace

An evening meeting was conducted for a talk about the need and technique to handle grief. Response was good which triggered all the attendance to stay behind for more one on one talk. God really leads us to see the need for counseling, not only for the post-trauma therapy but day to day personal and family conflict.

Thanks to God, 2 persons came to Christ during our home visits and one in the evening Counselling awareness meeting. Many more hearts were touched and we could build up good relationship with the Quang Yuan’s members.

Conclusion
From the events of the third day, we could really sense the presence of God, using each and every member of the relief team to convey our love and hope to the local people. Tomorrow, our schedule will be even harder visiting another heavily hit area including “Green Brook” and the household of the Ma Luk village. In the evening, we will have a gospel opportunity with the government officials. May God’s will be done...

25/6/2008
As mentioned, today we are going to visit the heavily hit disaster area in Qing Chuan (Green Brook). For safety reason, we are not allowed to reach the most seriously hit area in the Green Brook Ken but just a place called Ma-Luk (Horse –Dear) village at the outskirt of Green Brook Ken. Despite we had learned about the devastating power of the earthquake on the media, coupling with our observation in Ron Shan, the real situation in the field of Ma-Luk village is far far beyond my imagination. In Ron Shan, which is east of Guang Yuan and much further away from Green Brook, not all the houses in the village were damaged. But in Ma-Luk, over 90% are damaged to the extent beyond repair. The power of the earthquake here was much greater which could be reflected by the pattern of damages. Here in Ma-Luk, almost unexceptionally, the quake damaged the foundation in short time frame. Gaps all emerged on the ground floor breaking the weight bearing walls and corner pillars. Thus the vibration stopped on the ground floor and the upper structure normally remained intact yet the house is not repairable.

When we arrived, we were first led to visit a school. Many class rooms were shaken to crumble completely. At that time, many students who preferred a rest were having their afternoon slap inside the class room. It was lucky that some were accompanied by teachers who guided the student to evacuate. Miraculously, all were just in time to vacate from the house before it fell down completely. Now, they have the liberation army to help out pulling down the damaged structure preparing for future rebuild. As mentioned, The Government’s budget is too tight to spare any money for rebuilding.  So, everyone is equal in terms of self financing for the rebuilding. The government’s commitments so far are: -

For those who have worked their gut out to earn money for building a house, it was really unacceptable to them losing their hard earned modern house in less than 3 minutes. Thus when we afterwards visited the residential areas, we encountered many persons who still could not accept the great loss of house although the lives of kin are well and intact.

After spending  over an hours in the devastated village listening to the grief of people, we moved on to a resettlement areas accommodating people from the most disastrous zone. For those people they virtually had lost everything. But many of them that we have encountered were quite positive. So different people may have different reaction and capability to deal with grief. But it was good that many of them are receptive to be comforted. And our visit, chatting and a big hug all served them well in their souls.

We cut our camp visit short returning earlier so that our team leader can have another round of chat with the key government official. Actually through them , the team have been able to establish many strategic connections for future ministry as stepping stone to eternal life. As for us, we were assigned to do a final round of home visit to Guang Yuan. We visited Xiao Yu and her boy friend Wang Chuan and have the opportunity to share the full gospel to him. He was touched but still need a final magic divine moment to release him  and set him free for receiving the gospel. .Your incessant prayers are always needed. Thanks  and regard
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26/6/2008

We left Guang Yuan with a heavy heart. It was heart twisting to see the young Pastor seeing us off with tears welling up in his eyes. He was accompanied by his wife and son but I could feel his loneliness and helplessness in striving to manage and minister to 9 meeting places in Qunag Yuan plus all the local churches in the peripheral shires including the heavily damaged Ron Shan Church . Xiao Yue did not turn up. It could have been worse for us if she did. The empathy for their hardship in keeping the church running with limited resources and help really could be understood no better than myself. For the whole day, despite I left physically yet my heart was staying behind at Quang Yuan for the whole day long. They have been a neglected area for much too long. They deserve better help and encouragement which I pray God might have His plan for them.
                         
Our next destination was Jian Yau Ken of Mian Yang Shi. We visited an Anglican planted church of 115 years old. The government returned the land and the property to the church in 1989. The church building occupies only a small portion of the land with many local residents occupying all of the rest of the land. For years, they could not remove them away, but the earthquake destroyed all the houses on that church premises including the church building. So, on the one hand, it was a negative events necessitating the rebuilding of the church which were too old and small. But on the other hand, it was a disguised blessing because the church could now reclaim all the lands from the residents who are too scared to stay now. A grand redevelopment plan was presented. The Lisac International might consider helping out a clinic for gospel outreach. We were shown the heritages of the old Anglican church as if we were going through a historic tour. The trinity concept reflected in all the old traditional facilities such as the three chairs of trinity, and the three partition baptism tub. We left Jian Yau in awe with the thought of the miraculous work of God in protecting and reviving His churches.

Our next spot today was to the Rehab Centre of the Chinese Medical Hospital  A proposal was in the final stage of negotiation in expanding the rehab centre to cater for more services including particularly the counselling and psychotherapy service in meeting the acute and critical demand for treatment of  PTSD for many of those earthquake victims as well as some of the rescue personnel. If this project is successful, it could provide a stepping stone for more social care and gospel outreach. We changed plan to stay there to have dinner with all the doctors of the rehab unit for relationship building.

We returned to Chengdu in the late evening. In our daily debriefing session, many people expressed our burden to serve and render more help to all those various project proposals. The way and manner of involvement was again reminded to be a trainer and helper, but not necessarily has to be a doer. We  ended in prayers asking for wisdom to choose and  prioritize all the needs for best long terms effects.

27/6/2008
We started the day by joining with the co-workers of Hua Mei. Our first stop was at the First Bone Hospital in Chengdu . This is a favorite project of Pastor Tsai, the general secretary of Hua Mei. It seems that the Chinese style of therapy is a popular mix with the western style of clinical therapy in most of the Chinese Hospital . I am no expert in this area so I really cannot tell what is their professional level What impressed me was the enthusiasm of the Doctors there, yearning for exchange program opportunity to better equip themselves. Two female doctors attracted our attention especially the one who could command good English. We recognized she was wearing a cross so we suspected she is a Christian being  brought to Christ through some Western workers here. Our leader invited her to join us for dinner for Christian fellowship.

We then left Chengdu for Pang Zhou  visiting the Church there. The pastor again is a very young fellow working together with his wife who are also a theological students same as her husband. This seems to be a very common phenomenon in China that very young pastor with limited experience has to look after vast parish area with heavy responsibility. Like Pastor Chung in Pang Zhou, he has to take care of 12 meeting places apart from his church. The earthquake actually has brought much increased gospel opportunity. He was excited to face up with this new challenge. He has planned for a new church of 1200 capacity despite currently he has roughly  200 Sunday worship attendance in average and 400 to 800 on Easter and  or Christmas. We stayed there for lunch cooked by the church members. They have a good kitchen to serve not only us but the earthquake victims and normal social care services. They are blessed with good healthy growth ever since they resumed running  the church on September, 2004. Hua Mei’s leaders  were recommending him to focus on one particular project which is the community clinic. Pastor Chung has yet to finalize the draft.

We then continued on to Chi Feng to visit a Primary School. This small village was one of the most heavily hit area. It is located at 40 km from the earthquake centre Ying Shiao. 90% of the houses has crumbled and 99% were damaged beyond repair. The primary school was seriously damaged. The entire building had to be bulldozed yet they did not suffer any casualty at all. In fact, through the teachers recounting the traumatic 3 minutes of earthquake, they were lucky to survive as they were all too shock to react and leave the building immediately. Most just regained common sense to run for their lives  after the quake. The drilling of assembly helped them to retreat orderly without panic. Hua Mei has already assisted them to build 4 temporary class rooms at the original site with four more to go. But the costs has gone up as the heavy duty machine have been relocated else where. Hua Mei anyway has supplied 40 fans for reducing the heat of the class room.  We had quite a lengthy talk with the teachers who were graceful for the help and care by the Government, the army and all those NGO including Hua Mei.

We returned to Chengdu to have the first western meal in Chengdu . The restaurant is run by a young  guy who is an orphan raising up by his God mother. He is a lay leader in a certain house church. He emotionally said I could be his father as my eldest son is of similar age as he. He gave me a big hug with everybody watching on and taking photo of us with envy. The female doctor came but we found out that she is not yet a Christian despite wearing a cross. We anyway be-friended with her and prayed for her salvation as she continues to attend church for the sake of seeking for inner peace.

Lastly, we returned to Hua Mei for a concluding debriefing. We all greatly enjoyed the whole trip and looking forwards for future involvement if God willing. Two of our members stayed for another 3 month with MSI PS. Please pray for them.