AGCI’s In China!

AGCI team members are in China! Our team is working to complete a project to revamp and brighten rooms at one of our partner homes in China. Julie Salwasser, AGCI’s National Advancement Officer, sent us the following update.

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I am sitting in the paint store and reflecting on the great trip we have had so far!

Our overarching goal for this trip is to continue to build relationships with the staff of Xiamen so we can best understand how we can support them in providing the day to day care for the sweet children here! As you can imagine, this takes time but it has been wonderful to see these doors slowly opening!

Our specific project, however, is painting 3 of their preschool rooms. I love that we are doing these spaces because they are places that the children go to play, create, and learn! These particular rooms were in really bad shape so a lot of prep was needed for the walls before we could paint. However, yesterday we were really able to get the murals started and we are well on our way today.

We had a few of our sweet kiddos–James (right), and a few others that walked past and with eyes wide they said “we want to play in there!” Wow! Talk about music to our ears. It is always amazing to see the kids take these projects in. The colors, happy characters, and warm pictures just draw them in.

We also had some time to play with some children yesterday. We took a few of the timthumb-phptoys we brought with us and we played with stacking rings, rumble cars, soft little balls, and textured little animal friends. There were lots of tickles, snuggles and laughter!
Today we will have more extended time with the kids. Many are children we are currently advocating for so we want to take some more photos and videos and AGCI’s Director of Education will also do some assessments.

It was a joy to see these sweet kiddos! Wow–Evee (left) and Leo, among others, have my heart! They are precious! I saw both of those two in March and I love seeing how they have grown! I hope by our next trip these kids, as well as others have families!

I will share more photos of the children when we return but in the meantime here are some photos of the rooms, team and a wonderful lunch with the two Directors, Lilian and Rocky from the AGCI team.

img_9556Thank you to all for your prayers and support! You can be praying for the project but even more for our continued relationship with Xiamen and that we can best move forward together in supporting the development of these kids, and also the hope of a family for each of them.