Visiting the Old Homestead

One big to-do item before moving to the US for our family was going back to Jingzhou, Hubei. Seth and Caleb were both born there and that's where we lived & ministered for 6 years before coming to Shaoxing. So last week we took a couple of trains and made it back to our Chinese hometown. Our little Jingzhou is all grown up now and even has its own train station!

The weather in Jingzhou is much hotter (and much colder) than Shaoxing and the weather did a real number on us while we were there. Thankfully, a swimming pool that Lisa remembered was still open and we were able to go swimming a few days.

More importantly, we were able to visit a lot of people. We went to Seth's old pre-school where he got an overwhelming reception from his old teachers and classmates.

We hung out with a few of the Christians who are still around from our time there. Lisa volunteered to adopt someone's child. We also got to eat a meal with Derek's family. His mom was sick with cancer last year and this year, but is now doing much better. When Derek asked her why she was better, she quickly smiled and said, "God!"

We also got to visit the orphanage that Lisa & the boys used to go to every week. While we were there, a group from Harding also happened to be there including Jake's sister who told us lots of embarrassing stories about him that we promised not to share in public!

On our last day in Jingzhou, we also got to eat with some of our old neighbors. Our kids all grew up together and played together in the hot Jingzhou sun for several years. Even though our kids don't remember them at all, they had a great time running around the restaurant yelling Chinese and playing together.

One last highlight was getting to eat with Rob & Hannah Johnson during the trip. They are living in our old apartment building at our old school and doing really well. They love Jingzhou, are fitting in well, and seem to be getting into a good China groove. They also cast their vote (along with the Taylor family) for Jingzhou to be the new "go to" place for future individuals from Clear Creek who want to come work in China!

We've got a lot of other stuff to do before heading back to the US, but it was great to re-visit our China home and kind of close out this chapter of our lives.