Shigala, China – Day One
In some way each of you has supported the Waterhope Mission to provide fresh clean water to children in our world who suffer and die because of their current water supply. In 2009 the gift of Hope has continued in Uganda, Chad, and Tamil Nadu where many projects have been completed. Our good friend Luc Janssens is working on a borehole project in Laos and as I write to you Tracy, Alison, and I are in a Land Cruiser in Tibet heading to install a solar powered filtration system for 160 children in a remote area some 13,000 feet above sea level.We met our contact Fu in Cheng Du two days ago who informed us of our three day journey over dinner. We were to meet Huang, our driver the next morning and travel 10 hours to Kand Ding, then we would need to wake at 3:30 am and leave before 4:30 am due to “road construction” and travel 8 hours to Ganze, finally our last day would be an easy 4 hour trip to see the children and spend five days working on the project together. Sounded relatively simple as we sat in the nice Szechuan Restaurant in Cheng Du.
Huang is a very good guy who speaks about five more words in English than any of us can speak in Mandarin so we use “Handarin” a lot! (That’s when you point to what you want or to what you are saying! The first day was only 8 hours on the road and the roads were great to poor with only the continual passing of large trucks on Mountain roads as a concern for our safety. We walked the streets of Kand Ding and were the show of the evening as the only Caucasians in the small mountain town. We bought pastries, fresh fruit, and of course a 10 x 12 mm open end wrench and a carpenters pencil for 20 yuan (2.75). The room was kinda clean and we slept well, till 3:30. We packed and left at 4:40, After 10
minutes we were in pitch black on a mtn road that was being constructed and spent the next two hours in an Alfred Hitchcock movie as Huang passed on the sheer drop side with no guardrails and no lights, the dust was so thick at times that visibility was 10 ft and the road went from 8 to 14,000 feet at the apex. As we cleared the peak and found a two lane asphalt road we all cheered and Huang used one of his English words and a little Handarin as he lifted his finger shook it and repeated no! Two miles later we hit a road down through the foothills that lasted a good 6 hours and did not have a flat spot on it…..so bad at times it slowed us to a crawl. The day has been long and our 8 hour day is now 9 with 3 to go. We did enter Tibet though and the sites of the prayer flags and small villages are awesome.
God makes people in all shapes and sizes and due to language barriers we cannot communicate with words at times but one thing is for sure. Loving people always communicate in actions. Thank you all for all of your actions that have communicated love and given hope to our littlest brothers and sisters across our world.
Peace and Love,
Steven