Our Visit to Jinjiang/Anhai City

I will post a short version of yesterday. It was very emotional and this short version does not do justice to the events of the day.

Yesterday, we visited Sammy's orphanage which is located in Jinjiang, Fujian Province. We are staying in Fuzhou which is the capital of Fujian Province, however, the orphanage is located in Jinjiang which is about a 3 hour drive from Fuzhou. We arrived about 11:00 a.m. and the director gave us a tour. The facility is new - it was finished in 2007. We were able to see his room and his "big brother" with whom he shared his room. We were treated to a delicious lunch prepared by the cook there - it was the best meal so far. Prior to arriving at the orphanage we stopped at the local primary school where Sammy has been attending since 1st grad - he is currently in 4th. The students take a 2 hour break during the day for lunch, play, etc. so they were not there. Sammy had already told them goodbye on Friday, however, he wrote them a note on the board wishing them well. After leaving the orphanage we stopped and purchased notebooks and pens for all of his classmates, then returned to the school. We were invited into the classroom and the students were all seated at their desks. His teacher introduced us as his family and told them that he had come to tell them goodbye. Our guide explained to us later that this was very emotional for all of the children as they thought they had said goodbye on Friday. I noticed that a few of the girls had started to cry. Within a minute or so all of the kids were bawling their eyes out, along with the teacher. Our guide explained to us that Sammy was a very popular boy at school and the students were very happy for him that he had a family and wished him a very good life. Apparently, he always came early and stayed late and swept the classroom. The students sang a goodbye song to him that they composed themselves. It was unbelievable. The students all took turns standing up and wishing him well. The teacher gave him many papers written over the weekend wishing him well. Bob wrote our address on the chalkboard so that the children could write letters to him. There are 49 children in his class - the primary school has about 1,000 children - very large. The whole class followed us out to the gates of the school, along with the teacher, director and assistant director of the school. The director of the school walked us to our van.

Above, I have posted some pictures of the day. We are doing well - Sammy was very tired this morning due to all of the emotion of the day - he never cried. I will post more tomorrow.