Shepherd’s Field Farewell Prayer Walk, January 9, 2010

Today was the last day Team JAMES stayed at Shepherd’s Field before moving on to New Day Creations for the second half of its China mission. After breakfast everyone headed out to each of the houses to spend time with the kids for one last visit. The Samaritan House (clinic house) was visited where the most fragile kids reside upstairs; but as well some toddlers who have been treated have flourished and remain (i.e., Ginger, Adrian, Zephaniah, Grace, Tristan, Luke, etc.). The team also visited each of the Houses of Peace, Zachary, Love, and of course, Blessing. Jose & Mary had one last (for now) temporary pow wow with Malachi and caught some awesome video of him being crazy silly cute.

After an early lunch the team spent some chat time with Clay and Jewel one last time in the Outreach House (aka cafeteria). Then before the team was set to be picked up by the van from New Day, the team did a prayer walk around the whole campus, praying in front of each house, then the site of the not yet built vocational center building, and the other common use houses like the workmen’s shed, banner factory, school, guest house and administration building. Stevie (a girl!) the Shepherd’s Field dog followed the team throughout the entire walk.

The shuttle trip to New Day didn’t take as long as was expected. The New Day compound is near a local village town, truly local… The team got a brief tour of the guest house section from a New Day worker named Caroline and left for a walk in the town to find batteries for Jose. Towards the middle of the village center was a supermarket that was reasonably modern and seemed to have just about anything that you could need. The size C batteries that Jose needed were found. Elissa found herself a whole new bag of rolled tissue (she plows through them to get through the day), a pair of comfortable slippers; and the team also got some fresh out of the oven red date pastry cake from the bakery section. Seems red dates are one of Jose’s favorites. The day was nicely wrapped up with the most homemade meal that the team has yet eaten in China. It was delicious! We were initially amazed and skeptical that they made 6 dishes in addition to the rice and some Chinese pancake, but perhaps unsurprisingly finished the whole meal! You’ll possibly note all of the fattened waistlines when we return home.

Susan