Last week I began to tell you about the ceremony that became so much more than we expected. This is the rest of the story.
After our amazing greeting, we were ushered into a building where we met with some local government officials and school administrators. A TV station actually took some footage of our meeting, so that made us feel a little awkward.
Following the official greeting, we were lead outside into a blistering hot day! Man, I don’t know how the poor students in their band uniforms stood it! A large outdoor area near the school’s basketball courts had been set up for us. Those of us that had donated money for the orphans were on the stage with a few other people. The students were in front of us, and that day they didn’t make the orphans wear their school uniforms, and they sat in the front row near the stage. They were holding a bag of gifts we had purchased for each of them, and they acted like they weren’t sure if they should look inside or not.
Lizzy from my book and the Assistant Dean of the Foreign Language Department was asked to give a speech, since she speaks Chinese very well. Later Holly from my book and the former Dean of the Foreign Language Department, who was also there, told me Lizzy had done very well with her speech. It was so hot that day; I think everyone was just ready to get out of the sunshine.
Here are some photos of the events that day!
Global Partners in Life supported each of these orphans from whatever grade they were in when they became an orphan until they graduated from high school. To my knowledge only one of these students didn’t graduate from high school. One of the boys dropped out of school one month before he graduated, but I don’t know why.