Awake, finally

We're home and well recuperated from our high school Fall Camp. I went home at 10am on Friday, and was in bed by 11am. I set my alarm to get up at 2:30pm, because I had a music practice at school to return for. However, it did not wake me up, and I kept sleeping....until 4am on Saturday! I can't believe it, I completely skipped Friday.

Our time began on Thursday with the 3 service projects we had scheduled. All went as planned, and the feedback from the students was quite good.

The theme of our camp centered around love and service, based roughly around Matthew 22:39, in which Jesus tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves. That's why the day started with the service projects - to help break our isolation from our foreign community, and serve the needs of the local people around us. It's kind of like saying, "won't you be my neighbor?"

Painting an Olympic mural at a school for migrant children
A classroom of Chinese students
Preparing to paint walls at the school
Playing games at a school in Dujiangyan
A newly planted garden

Once it was over, we met back at the hotel for some debrief time. Dinner was brought in from the market - we had 少烤 (pronounced shao kao, grilled meats and veggies on skewers). It did not go quite as planned, because the vendors were late in arriving and brought fewer grills than we planned. However, the kids were in good spirits and used the free time to mingle.


Another fun afternoon highlight was a competitive game of "chicken ball." This game is more or less ultimate frisbee, but played with a whole, raw chicken. Gross, but the kids really got into it. There were boys (and some girls) running around, trying desperately to pick up that chicken.

Look close - you can see the chicken in midair!

We had 3 games scheduled, but after the first game, the chicken was mangled and coming apart. Unfortunately, this exposed bones that were beginning to cause injuries. Play was suspended, and Alan the ref turned into Alan the medic.

I think a good 8-10 got patched up due to chicken-ball related cuts. I disinfected them all, so there should be no infection. However, if this is school was in America....I would have smelled a lawsuit. We bought a new, still-frozen chicken and had no further problems. So let this be a lesson - if you are going to play a sport with a dead animal, stick it in the freezer first.

In the evening, we met for some singing and reflection time. We talked a little about the concepts of love and service. One great quite from the night came from one of our juniors, who responded to the question of "How do you want to be loved?" by saying, "I want love for me to be altruistic. In biology, altruism is defined as an action that another organism takes which will increase another organism's reproductive success while sacrificing its own reproductive success. Well, I want to be loved that way. Except the reproductive part." As his AP Biology teacher, of course I was proud.

Singing in the auditorium

Rachel washing the feet of a student

Our last official activity for the night was to build what one student called "the longest ice cream sundae ever built in Chengdu." It was pretty big, and 70 students fit around it at once.


All in all, it was a good time. The students served well, and socialized all night long with one another. Many spent time with people outside their normal social circles, which was even more encouraging to see. Many stayed up the whole night, including the teachers, which is the source of our all-day sleep fest.

But now, that is over, and it is time to go to Chongqing for our staff retreat. We leave Sunday morning and return Wednesday. We will be at the InterContinental (5 star!!) but I do not think we have free internet :( So, I will post when we return.

-alan