The plans are official, I will be departing this Sunday to head to the earthquake zone in Beichuan on the eve of the 1 year anniversary of the May 2008 earthquake.
**The picture effectively details how I look right now***
I cannot even begin to explain how excited I am. My bags are packed (1 week a head), and my smile seems to be permanent at the moment!
Today was brilliant on its own. As I was clumsily stuffing a sleeping bag into my backpack, a UPS truck brought me a pleasant surprise. Three enevlopes were shipped overnight the past weekend to me, containing 274 letters written by American children. I am now proud to say we have met our goal of 742 handwritten letters for the refugeed children, also in the envolopes was a total of $300 to contribute to the toy fund, that we will use to purchase toys in Chengdu for the young students who had lost their lives one year ago.
After all of the frustration in the past few weeks, courage and patience held its ground. These are both qualities I will need to use in many years to come, as the pursuit of peace and diplomacy is never an easy task.
I want to take this opportunity to thank all of those who were involved in order to make this trip possible: The schoolteachers and their students, who took the time to write a few hundred letters for the Chinese children to inspire them to continue their English proficiency and studies, (2) The University of South Carolina and Dobson Foundation, without the considerate financial support their would be no trip to begin with, (3) All of the private donors who have contributed to the toy fund, with your help we are able to purchase one toy for each student in the camp, (4) The Red Cross for your guidance and cooperation to help plan and harbor this trip to Beichuan, (5) And all of my loved ones who, without your support, I would not be the man that I am today as I will share the same love you have shown to me to this dark world.
Your help has cleared the path, and now it is time for us to take our first step.
glhfdd Warren
ReplyDelete(good luck have fun don't die)
I think that's a pretty all-encompassing six-letter message
I'll be following your blog man, have a great time