OMPC Mission's Trip Update

Phil is leading a trip to China serving orphans right now. He is using Lily and Kate's blog to update the friends and family of the members of the trip. He is going to send me the text and pictures as he has access to the internet. I'll put them on the blog as he sends them. Right now he has great internet access in Beijing, but as they travel to the more rural area in Chongqing, he may not have such access. So we'll see what we can do. I think he can also see the blog while in Beijing...so if I have time, I may post some pics of the girls that I've been working on to post so he can see them. We were able to video conference today so that the girls could see him over the computer and he could see them. So fun! It went great this morning. Lily was able to show him how she finally was able to snap her fingers and he was able to make silly faces at them to make them laugh. Kate didn't want to hang up and after we did, I went to the kitchen leaving her in the office and after a few minutes, I could hear Phil's voice again and she had called him back! (She is such a computer geek at 3 1/2!)
Tonight didn't go so well. Kate is really struggling with him being gone and she just cried the whole time saying she missed him and she wanted to go to China, too. She kept trying to disconnect us because she was mad at him for not taking her. Ugh.

Anyway...here is the message from Phil and the gang!...

"We are on our way

While most of you were sleeping at 330am Thursday morning, we were packing our cars headed to the Birmingham Airport. After many months of preparation, it was time to fly to China. After an initial stop in Chicago, we boarded the 747 that would take us to the literal other side of the world. It is amazing what you can do (or can't do) when you are stuck in a chair for 13 hours.

If any of you do not know our primary purpose, let me define it for you. Our team desires to bring love, compassion and a servant's heart to the people we meet in China. Most of our time will be spent in a Chinese orphanage near Chongqing, China. We will spend 5 days in the orphanage interacting with the children and hopefully blessing them as they will be blessing us. We will also be spending time experiencing the wonderful culture of China.

Due to the situation in China, we will be intentionally vague in these postings of our ultimate motivation for why we have traveled a world away. Please intercede for us often over the next 10 days. We hope to post as much as the internet connection allows. Tomorrow we travel to one of the great wonders of the world: The Great Wall of China.

We arrived at the Beijing airport and were blown away by the brand new international terminal. It has only been open the last two months and it has to be the largest and nicest terminal in the world. China is really gearing up for the Olympics. After an one hour drive to our hotel, we quickly changed and then went to a local restaurant for some delicious Chinese food. After buying some bottled water, we headed back to the hotel for a shower and some sleep. Our remote team member,

Ansley Kniskern, joined us this evening after flying in from Thailand.

We will get some rest tonight and see one of the wonders of the world tomorrow."

Phil didn't send any pictures with this email, so this is a picture of him a the Great Wall from an earlier trip. If you post comments, I'll be sure the team gets them via email if they aren't able to access the blog in China....so comment away!