Xian City Orphanage

Today, we took the train from Luoyang to Xian (5 1/2 hours!) and arrived at Xian Train station at 1:45 pm. We were ready to go see the Terra Cotta Warriors before touring the Xian orphanage but we were informed at the last minute that we needed official permission to go to Ankang from the Civil Affairs office. After an hour interview, we were cleared and are heading on train to Ankang tomorrow!!

We then went to Xian orphanage, but stopped to get the kids some snacks and fruit before arriving. That is where we stumbled upon some nice old ladies doing exercises on the side of the road. JR and I just had to join them -- it was too tempting! The Xian orphanage is well-run (by the lady pictured with Jeff) and houses approximately 600 children ranging from newborns to 18 yrs old. After briefly touring the building caring for the younger kids (many of them are special needs as you can tell from the pictures), we went over to the facility which houses the older kids and has the Mother's Love library. As you can see, the library is used every day by the older and younger children. The orphanage director told us how appreciative she is to have educational books for the kids to learn. The staff told us they need about 30 new large dictionaries and we agreed to purchase them as soon as possible. It was awesome to see our project working right before our eyes!

The older kids were attending school and so Jeff was not able to re-connect with the children who helped him put the library together in August 2006. Many of these kids have graduated from high school and are working or attending university. But.....they still have no parents and that is very sad!

Again, thanks for your prayers and support and we hope you enjoy the pictures. We hope to have an icredible day tomorrow in Ankang. It will be a long day back and forth in a day with a 4 hour train ride going down and 4 hours coming back to Xian. But it will all be worth it!!!