Day: April 2, 2013

Put Into Practise…

Today the Union Youth brought their projects to completion albeit for
some artwork to be added to the Music Therapy Room. Amazingly, when we
walked into the room this morning, we were shocked to see the first coat
of paint dry, smooth and looking quite good. (In fact, Steven had a theory that another team of painters came in during the middle of the night to fix our work!) We insisted on applying a
second coat that will need until tomorrow to dry. We're excited to see what the finished, dry product wil bring. We will then add music
themed artwork to the walls.

Meanwhile, the Roof Team completed their white painting that was touched
up by the Art Team's finesse. We had to drag Uncle Dale and the Roof Team away from
painting the roof kicking and screaming as they drained the paint trays
down to the last drop. The Roof Team were especially helpful with
cleaning rollers and brushes for which the rest of us were extremely
grateful.

At left, the Art Team work on their wall art while selecting
scripture… Charlotte reading from a Chinese Bible and Matthew reading
from an English Bible. I walked up the stairs as the two were searching for a piece of scripture. To listen to each of them compare what they were finding between the Chinese and English translations of the Bible was extraordinary. How many "Youth" on this planet have the ability to interact in such a way? Amazing to have that diversity and talent in our
midst. (Thank you to both of them!) In the Music Therapy Room, we each wrote our favourite pieces of scripture on the walls prior to applying the second coat… and third coat… and fourth coat… uh, no matter how hard we tried, we couldn't paint over the Word of God. 

We had a late lunch, again sitting together with the centre youth and
staff. The afternoon included games, drawing, face-painting with worship
music mixed alongside. (At left: two teams compete in a game while Athena offers one of the centre youth a marker during the drawing competition. Below: one of the products of the face painting.)

Tuesday U’th, From Guest Blogger Dale

We
had another great day of hard work and interaction with the youth at the
center.  We arranged to get to the center
early this morning – and you would have thought the Union U'th would have
complained – in reality most of them were excited to start early to allow them
to finish up their murals and painting. 

The
crew finished up painting the entire downstairs (light blue) and the entire
roof (white) along with some beautiful murals along the stairways and
hallways.  We worked hard until lunch and
had lunch with the youth from the center then back to work painting to finish
everything up.  The rest of the afternoon
was spent interacting with the youth doing games and face painting.  And for all of the youth and even the staff
it was the first time they have ever had their faces painted – loads of fun
that turned into a full-fledged party at the Center. 

While
this was going on a few of the senior youth left the center and did home visits
with 2 local (and very poor) families that have disabled children – very
touching visits – amazing what these families have to face in China –
everything from being shut out by their relatives to being disassociated by
their neighbors (due to the shame of having a mentally disabled child).  We are now out at dinner and soon head back
to the hotel for our evening debrief and discussion time.  See attached a few pictures from today's
activities.