Dear Family & Friends ~
It is with a great deal of anticipation and excitement that we share with you our prayerful decision to jointly embark on a trip to China this summer! The purpose of our trip is teaching English in a fun and creative way to Chinese teenagers. This English Camp is organized by a Christian humanitarian organization founded by a local pastor in central China. The camp will be held at a boarding school which is home to thousands of junior and high school students. This English Camp will be a special program held during their summer break for 500 students.
Three other churches from the US, Canada, and Singapore will join our team from Grace Chapel to participate in this camp ministry. Lesson plans for the English course have been planned and developed in advance. Each person teaching an English class will be accompanied by one local Chinese English teacher to assist with translation.
This trip seems like it was designed specifically for me as it is to China and in the role of teaching which is both my personality type as a Teacher as well as my passion.
I am extremely excited about the great team of 10 we are traveling with from our home church... I'm the "old lady" in the crowd with most being in the 20-something age bracket. What a blessing these guys are to my heart!
Subsequent to my long and prayerful decision to join this trip, Ryan also decided to go to China and this is an extra and unexpected blessing that leaves me in great praise of God!
Ryan has three years of mission trip experiences to share with our China team (two trips to Matamoras, Mexico and one to Costa Rica) and enjoys spending time with children and teens (especially ones that aren't his brothers!). He's going to be "watching over Mom" as I take my first international step of faith ~ he's so like his Dad! God has been telling Ryan for the past two years that he will GO and he feels that this trip to China is where God wants to use him at this point in time. So, before heading off to the University of Colorado in Boulder; Ryan is thinking it will be great to teach English and play sports with this group of Chinese teenagers as we invest in their lives.
Our itinerary, Lord Willing, is as follows:
- Thursday, July 27, 2006 ~ Depart Denver with three flights and a long-van ride
- Monday – Saturday, July 31 – August 5 ~ Teach two English classes each morning; Various “American” activities with students in the afternoon (football, badminton, basketball, baseball, relay races, kickball, dodge ball, drama, singing, line dancing, creative art, board games, and Frisbee)
- Sunday – Tuesday, August 6 - 8 ~ Short time of travel to experience Tiananmen Square, The Temple of Heaven, The Great Wall of China, and The Forbidden City
- Wednesday, August 9 ~ Return travel to Denver
Our intent is to bring educational material for our teaching as well as American sports and game equipment and to leave both as gifts for our students along with many memories of the love we plan to lavish upon them. It will be an honor to share our joy while we are there. Our hope and prayer is that our trip will leave a lasting impact on those with whom we will have the blessing to
work and play.
Your prayers are coveted! .. .. ..
Love, Sherrie
This trip seems like it was designed specifically for me as it is to China
Ryan has three years of mission trip experiences to share with our 
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CHINA ~ For centuries China stood as a leading civilization, outpacing the rest of the world in the arts and sciences, but in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the country was beset by civil unrest, major famines, military defeats, and foreign occupation. After World War II, the Communists under MAO Zedong established an autocratic socialist system (The People’s Republic of China, declared October 1, 1949) that, while ensuring China's sovereignty, imposed strict controls over everyday life and cost the lives of tens of millions of people. After 1978, his successor DENG Xiaoping and other leaders focused on market-oriented economic development and by 2000 output had quadrupled. For much of the population, living standards have improved dramatically and the room for personal choice has expanded, yet political controls remain tight.
China is the world's fourth largest country (after Russia, Canada, and US); Mount Everest on the border with Nepal is the world's tallest peak. It’s terrain is mostly mountains, high plateaus, deserts in the west; plains, deltas, and hills in the east.
2006 population estimate ~ 1.3 billion (over 1/5 the world’s total population).
Religion ~ Daoist (Taoist), Buddhist, Christian 3%-4%, Muslim 1%-2%, (officially atheist).
WORLD ~ Globally, the 20th century was marked by:
(a) Two devastating world wars;
(b) The Great Depression of the 1930s;
(c) The end of vast colonial empires;
(d) Rapid advances in science and technology, from the first airplane flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina (US) to the landing on the moon;
(e) The Cold War between the Western alliance and the Warsaw Pact nations;
(f) A sharp rise in living standards in North America, Europe, and Japan;
(g) Increased concerns about the environment, including loss of forests, shortages of energy and water, the decline in biological diversity, and air pollution;
(h) The onset of the AIDS epidemic; and
(i) The ultimate emergence of the US as the only world superpower.
The planet's population continues to explode:
•1 billion in 1820
•2 billion in 1930 (110 years)
•3 billion in 1960 (30 years)
•4 billion in 1974 (14 years)
•5 billion in 1988 (14 years)
•6 billion in 2000 (12 years)
For the 21st century, the continued exponential growth in science and technology raises both hopes (e.g., advances in medicine) and fears (e.g., development of even more lethal weapons of war).
70.8% of the world's surface is water, 29.2% is land.
The total land area of the world is about 16 times the size of the US.
The total population of the world is about 20 times the US population of 300 million people.
(All the above is from the CIA Fact Book ~ http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/)
6 Billion People Whose Souls Long for the True Love, Joy & Peace Offered by a Personal Relationship with God through Jesus Christ.
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