words don’t describe how painful our last day was. as the kids got on the bus there was a deep sense of loss that filled us all. i have never seen a child express such a profound and honest sadness. no matter how evil or uncontrollable some of these kids were, every child was in tears and savoring every final moment. it was in this that i realized what a precious gift love is - to love someone without condition and without reservation. that is a gift that speaks to everyone and brings about change. we loved these kids and regardless of how they showed it, they loved us more. how hard it was to realize that at goodbye.
courtesy of my dad, who managed to maintain dry eyes and keep his man-card
as the week was ending, we all started to do little things to capture the memory of the kids that we were with. this video is one of my favorite treasures from the week!
ps. because YouTube is on the ball and i’m a caring guy, you can view all of the “bring me hope diaries” videos right hear. simply hit “menu” in the lower right corner and it should ( should ) bring up thumbnails of all the videos they’ve posted. good luck!
so, there is an old chinese antic “The man who have not climbed The Great Wall is not the true man.” and if you concentrate closely enough, you can hear an old chinese man with a 4′ long stringy white bear saying it exactly like that. though we did not climb the great wall, we did visit it, and it is absolutely breathtaking!
the sky was hazy at best and seeing how i wasn’t going to get that next national geographic shot of with my mom’s point and shoot, i decided to take the brief opportunity to snag some shots of my camp buddies. but here’s one of the group first ( compliments of some passer-by )
and the boys…
and this is one of my favorite pictures ever taken. this is jerry
for those of you who are interested in more than just the 5 pictures here, i’ve put all my parents pictures in a slideshow here. enjoy!
having a severe lack of faith and generally untrusting personality doesn’t always make me a prime candidate to all those team building exercises. luckily, i wasn’t the only one the only person that prepared by bringing a second pair of pants. here are just a couple images from our first team meeting.
and one of nellie and her translator kelly.
