January and February in Shenyang

Dear Folks,

First of all: happy belated Chinese New Year!  If you are like me and prefer your fireworks in fairly small doses, be glad that you are where you are rather than in Shenyang where there are way too many days of endless “booms” from early in the morning to very late at night!  Having had a horse and dogs in the country in Texas and noting their abject terror during the relatively modest fireworks in our neighborhood during the Fourth of July, I could easily do without them entirely!  They are a huge part of the local culture here, though, so I have learned to be a little more tolerant over the years.

Another pervading feature of these two winter months has been abnormally cold weather!  It has gotten to minus 30 Celsius which is way too close to minus 20 F for comfort!  Fortunately, it hasn’t been accompanied by much snow, which is probably actually bad as it indicates the presence of a drought which is scary in view of the number of mouths that need to be fed in this huge nation!

While we haven’t had much snow, I’m including some photographic evidence to show that this is NOT the case where MingGe and WenXi live.  Looks like they are in “Hogs Paradise”!  

All of this has meant that most of my social activities have involved the school boys and other friends coming to our apartment to celebrate!  Not a bad idea at all!  Migyeong continues to go to the orphanage most days to care for the little ones there.  I managed to drive out once when some friends wanted to go visit and bring some donated toys. 

The school boys will be out of school for 40 days for their winter vacation!  Part of this time has been redeemed as they are tutored by the university student studying Chemical Engineering who is the boy friend of Lacey, the daughter of our very good friends from the “night market”.  Lacey herself is helping with preparing power point presentations for our trip to the US which will start the end of March!

Migyeong and I will be landing in Austin March 31, doing our usual visiting of friends there and then zooming on to Tulsa via the Ft. Worth area.  As usual, this will be a fast trip for Migyeong as she needs to be back in Shenyang by the end of April!  I will be around longer so, hopefully, anyone that we miss when we are together, I can catch up with later!

We could really use your pr’s during this time.  Not only are we making preparations to travel to the States but we have a couple of Chinese friends that are in desperate straits, health wise.  One of them is a 15 year old boy named Tom who is going to Victory Ch. School in Tulsa but now diagnosed with a terrible disease.  The other is a Chinese friend here in Shenyang who is also battling a terrible disease.  They have both come into the “family” during this time and that is GREAT, but now we need J. Rophe to be on the job to provide them with a testimony of life and healing on this Earth!

We love and appreciate you and all of your prayers and financial support so that we can keep doing what we’re doing here!  We’re looking forward to seeing as many as possible of you all during our upcoming trip!

Love, Migyeong and Elaine

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