Thursday, October 9, 2008

A thanksgiving for my Wunchie.....

Wunchie,

Today daddy got the opportunity to visit a village called Bai Hua in Sichuan Province, China. Bai Hua suffered a terrible tragedy recently when a devastating earthquake hit it and hundreds of other villages and towns around it. Seven little children were killed at a school that daddy visited, and 700 more people were killed in the village. Overall 90,000 people lost their lives in the earthquake. As I looked at the terrible damage to the school in Bai Hua and the surrounding village, I thought again and again about you and mommy. I am so thankful that I have the two of you, and that you are safe at home. But I was reminded today just how fragile life is and how we can never take anything for granted. We never know what might happen and must live our lives grateful for what we have and for the relationships that bless and grace us each day. So, I just wanted to say that I love you and mommy and am thankful for the life that we have together. I am also deeply thankful for the very special opportunity that I had today to meet the people in the village of Bai Hua and to see how they are rebuilding their lives. Daddy and your Uncle Greg and Uncle Richard are helping to rebuild the school in the village, and we were able to attend the ground-breaking ceremony for the rebuilding. It was a great experience. I hope that you can follow along with us in this work when you grow older. Until then I'll try to keep up the work in honor of God and mommy and munchie......please pray for us...we love you...keep going....give mommy a kiss....


Daddy examining damage to one of the classrooms in the school...though ruined, thank God that overall the school withstood the earthquake.


These are school children who are celebrating the beginning of the rebuilding process for their new school....they were saved when the main school building withstood the quake...seeing them was a very moving experience for daddy!


This is a picture of the washroom at the school that collapsed. Seven children lost their lives in the collapse of the wash room...may I never take my wunchie for granted...

2 comments:

maria said...

What a timely reminder. Thank you.

Janet said...

Billy, you are much stronger than I would have been seeing that. I would be useless. Thank you for the work you are doing there. I have to go hug my children now.