Greetings Friends -The countdown is on and one week from right now (Sunday 8 pm) we will have been on an airplane from Chicago for 8 hours - with another 5 hours to go before we arrive in Beijing.
This morning our travel team was commissioned at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church and Dan Timmons did an excellent job of capturing the essence of our journey before Pastor Burcham and members of the congregation offered a prayer of commissioning. A very special moment.This weekend we gathered to pack the 7 large duffle bags with items that we will take for those we are serving. We have the remainder of my dad's dental equipment for the Dentists at the Ren Li Clinic (along with three lab coats from the University of Iowa College of Dentistry), over 40 quilts made by a great group of woman from Gloria Dei Lutheran Church, pencil boxes and education supplies, 250 Matchbox cars provided by Jim and Jack Spooner, hundreds of hats knit by Cheryl Gilg, and and large quantity of hygiene supplies.
We are limited to smaller bags than the previous trips and the weight must be under 44 pounds so we needed to maximize every inch of space. ONE of the great values of having young people on the team is their creativity. Emily suggested we use the "as seen on TV" vacuum bags - which we did - and they are amazing.
I have attached a couple of photos and will attempt to send a short video to the blog.
Our schedule and updates can also be found at www.shiningcityfoundation.blogspot.com
And finally, thanks to Doug Pals for setting up the e-mail update and blog. Doug is one of our China 2010 team members who will be joined on the trip by Dan and Deb Timmons, Brad Peyton and his daughter Leslie, and my daughter Emily - along with me, the person writing this post - Scott Raecker.
