The Great Wall Tournament - Thanksgiving in Beijing

For our second Thanksgiving in China, Rich and I followed Stacia's basketball team to Beijing for the Great Wall Tournament hosted by the International School of Beijing. We witnessed some great competition between teams from Osaka and Tokyo, Beijing and Shanghai. Unfortunately, the team from Thailand couldn't get out of their country to attend because of the airport being shut down from the protests. Eighteen family members of the girls all attended to stomp, clap and cheer the team on to their 3rd place finish in the tournament. We parents had a blast together hanging out between games, taking a couple of side trips, and sharing meals. The host school even put on a wonderful Thanksgiving feast on Saturday night for the players and coaches. They even extended an invitation to the Concordia parents to join in. The turkey meat was cut off the bird and placed on my plate - boy was that moist! It was a fantastic trip and we were able to enjoy it without worry as the other kids had Rich's mom to stay with them. We sure appreciated that opportunity - Thanks Carol!

We also had time to visit the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube olympic buildings.

I just had to include this view of the Forbidden City from the hill top pavillion. It is meant for you to see the incredible pollution of this great city.

Rich and I took a side trip Friday morning to a beautiful park across the street from the Forbidden City. Several of these pavillions were placed on top of a hill in the park. It is winter there like in Detroit but the weather turned out great as the sun came out and warmed everything up.

Stacia and her team accepting the Jade vase trophy for a third place finish.

Stacia and her teammate being recognized as "All Wall" tournament team players

Stacia's team waiting for the end of the tournament Thanksgiving feast to begin.

And the season has just begun.....

First Day of School 2008

Our traditional "crazy" pose

The Allen Gang heads off for another new school year.

Stacia (10th grade), Lucas (9th grade), Lance (6th grade),

Elise (4th grade).

As the old saying goes, "My how time flies..." I now have two

high schoolers. I can still distinctly remember standing outside

our first home on Oxford taking Stacia's picture on the first day

of preschool with Lucas waving goodbye and Lance standing there

sucking on his bottle. How excited I was for Stacia. Will I be that

excited when she is starting college? We are truly blessed with

these four and it is such a fun stage in life keeping up with all

of their activities and watching them mature. I need to remind

myself to cherish every stage and enjoy them while they are still

in the home.

Allen Boys are Discovered!

Check out those models! Last week Lucas experienced his first shot at modeling and a few days later Lance had his turn. It was quite a scene watching the ladies fussing over their hair and makeup and helping them to put on and take off dozens of sweaters. They took to it like fish in water!

It all took place after our good friends the Liptaks were stopped while out in town. An model's agent approached our friends and asked if they would consider having their sons do some modeling for a manufacturer's marketing catalogue. They also asked if they had any friends who would be interested in it as well. Lucas jumped at the chance, but it took Lance a few days to come around to the idea. Lance now has his second shoot on Monday the 18th at our home. As it turns out, several kids that our kids know in the community have done it including our neighbors two doors down. The boys love making some pocket money and are paid on the spot in cash.

The agent has certain sizes that need to be shot, so she lines up the kids as she needs them who meet the height requirement. The boys will be called as they have need for them. What a riot it has been and quite a memory in the making. I'm not sure this will go very far ( we will not be creating any portfolios or seeking out agencies) but they will enjoy it as long as it lasts.

Our Malaysian Get Away

On April 25th, all six of us headed to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for the Malaysia Cup Football Tournament that Lance's team and soccer club was playing in. We traveled with the teams and their families. We all stayed in KL at the same hotel and traveled back and forth on Saturday and Sunday on buses to the fields. There is one word to describe the experience - HOT!! I don't know how the boys did it, but just sitting there in the shade not moving was hard to endure. The humidity must have been in the 90s like the temperature. The boys played their hearts out but couldn't triumph. We didn't get to see a lot of KL but what we did see was nice as it was lush with rolling hills or foothills. It was a treat to stay at a hotel connected to a megamall with lots of restaurant choices. The kids wanted Applebee's the first night. They got their much needed american food fix. It was the Chinese labor day holiday and the kids had the whole week off so on the 28th we headed to north Malaysia to the Island of Langkawi near the Thai border. It was a beautiful, mountainous, lush place with water warmer than heated pools. Monkeys were everywhere and the cicadas were deafening. The resort was beautiful and we had a chalet on the side of the mountain with a water view. We tried to spend a good amount of time near the water because of the heat but we had a few great adventures along the way. We took a gondola up the mountain for spectacular views. We took a boat trip through the mangrove river and got to go to a "petting fish farm" and hiked through a bat cave filled with hundreds of bats. A couple of days into our trip another family from Concordia came to the resort and we joined with them for lots of fun including a hike up to the seven pools where the kids were able to go down a natural water slide in a river. We also had a great Thai dinner together on our last night. I did have one harrowing experience as I was alone and filming some monkeys in a tree. Evidentally it was dinner time for the monkeys and I had set my beach bag on the ground while I was filming some in a tree. Well a different kind of monkey started coming down some stairs toward me and were very intent on getting into my bag. I grabbed it before they could get to it but a couple of them continued after me with hissing. I had to back away and "fight" them off by swinging my big beach bag at them. I was scared there for a minute. All this transpired while the video camera was running so I have proof of the event even though much of the ground was filmed and you can hear me yelling at the monkeys... Once again I marvel at the incredible opportunities that we have had here in Asia this past year and am very thankful to the One who brought us here.

Earthquake Experience

First, confessions. Our goal was to add to the blog at least once per month, but I now see that March and April have both gone by in a (silent) blur! And now, the first update won’t even have a picture!

This week had a little bit of new China excitement that we did not anticipate. I (Rich) was sitting at my desk on Monday at work. I realized that I was feeling light-headed and quite dizzy. I thought that I might be sick or pass out. Unsure of what was happening to me, and not wanting to fall over, I put both hands out on the desk for stability. As I did, I noticed that the drawstrings on my office curtains were swaying back and forth like a pendulum. Huh?

I realized that it wasn’t just me -- something was happening to the whole building! It was swaying in circles and making it feel like an amusement ride! My first thought was – uh oh – all the construction around us has done us in. They are building TWO giant buildings across the street, both taller than anything in the U.S. Throw in the subway they are building under the street and the two new skyscrapers on the other side of us, and I figured that maybe our building was destabilized and about to fall over!

Anyway, we were all asked to evacuate. It took about 15 minutes to get the crowd down 33 flights of stairs. When we got outside and found someone to talk English to, I learned that they were on a phone call to Chongqing (1000 miles away) and they had felt an earthquake and hung up the phone there. Then another guy said that he was on the phone to Beijing (500 miles the other direction) and they had felt an earthquake there.

We were safe on the ground in Shanghai, but I realized right then that this dizhen was BIG, and that people somewhere in China were going to be in serious trouble. As you may have heard, the epicenter was out in western China, far from here. And it is very bad. They already have so little in terms of equipment and and expertise and funds, etc. that far out, it is going to be a difficult recovery indeed.

We are safe and sound in Shanghai, but thousands in China could use your prayers and support.

Love to all,
Rich

Family Mission in Thailand

Give and it will be given to you…
Those words from the Bible are living truth for us. As a family, we just returned from 10 days in Thailand. But instead of visiting Thailand’s world-famous beaches, tropical gardens, or exotic resorts, we went up-country to the poorest rural part near the Cambodia border. And true to God’s word, found for ourselves beauty and riches galore!

We visited Tree of Life orphanage, a small place in Buriram. They hosted our family and three other groups over the Chinese New Year Holiday in February, and we all put ourselves to work. The first three days were exclusively at the orphanage; painting, cleaning, digging, planting, rocking, feeding, washing…and of course playing with the kids! Our own kids were fantastic workers for long days, and were a great example to a few other visiting teen-agers! The next four days were spent visiting about 10 local schools. The final couple days were spent putting on an English camp for local kids.

Fixing playground equipment, putting on song/dance/skit programs, meeting thousands of kids, playing games, and passing out 13,600 bibles to each one. Teaching English with songs and games and making memories. It doesn’t sound like much, until you re-orient yourself to the setting – country schools in the middle of nowhere that never have foreign visitors, kids who desperately want to learn English to get ahead but have nobody to speak it with them, and even kids who now own one book – the bible we just gave them. It was a humbling and exhilarating experience all at the same time, and not something to forget.

Here are a few lingering memories and images:

An after-church walk with children from Tree of Life: kids from two different worlds sharing the same love of life.

An orphanage baby who slept on the floor before Sue arrived with her strong arms, wallet, and determination to make a difference.

Some games don’t require you to speak the same language.

Hard-working young men whose only goal was to make the world a better place – for somebody else.

A baby with no mother that had constant loving arms around her.

A courageous young man explaining God’s word to an interested Thai teacher (and a dozen of her very-blushing school girls!)

A hero’s welcome from gracious children that are truly thankful for each small gift – that have a level of appreciation our activity-filled, media-saturated world cannot understand.

You don’t think young people will give themselves away until they are exhausted? Here are youth group teens from Korea/China on the ride home after another long day.

Three months on the road. Sleeping on floors. Leading to make it happen all along. A YWAM (Youth With A Mission) team from Australia, Canada, Korea, U.S., Thailand, and the Solomon Islands. If a YWAM group ever shows up on your doorstep, feed them a large meal, give them $500, and tell them to get back out there changing the world.

How to change the world? One day at a time, one person at a time, one simple act at a time.

We love you and miss you all!

A Winter Wonderland in Shanghai

This is a view this morning of our street! The kids are home for their first snow day from school and probably their last! It was the first snow day to be called in the school's 10 year history. It actually started snowing heavily on Saturday but did not stick on the ground. It snowed again on Sunday and again on Monday with more predicted today. We have been in a cold snap hovering around freezing for several days and so it began to stick Monday. We have had snow, rain, sleet and freezing rain for three days. It has been reported in the paper that this is the worst storm to hit Shanghai in 24 years. Later today the sun came out for a while and melted quite a bit of the snow. Something like this here really stirs things up for travel because they don't have plows or salt trucks. People were on the streets sweeping the snow with handmade brooms and shoveling with construction shovels. There have been countless accidents as the people here do not know how to drive in the snow. Also, the airports have had numerous delays and cancellations. The train service has halted for several days because many provinces have been hit by blizzard like conditions. The train stations have 10s of thousands of people stranded who were traveling home for the Chinese New Year holiday. It is very sad. Our maid is supposed to travel to her home province, Anhui tomorrow by train and I don't know if it will happen. She hasn't been home to see her husband, a farmer for almost a year. What is such a disappointment for many was such a great thing for the kids who all were at sleepovers last night and spent the day with friends today. Once again the picture of contrasts in China...