School Interim trips are a highlight of going to school at Concordia. Grades 5-8 go on trips with their grade. 7th graders (Eliza) go to Beijing. The High School offers 21 trips you can choose from. In the spring you pick your top four and the school picks one for you from among these. Each trip group is called a tribe. Each tribe has about 12-22 students, mixing them from grades 9-12. You meet with your tribe all school year long (about 3x a week for 20 minutes). Some trips are high adventure, some trips are service, some are both.
James was put on the "Silk Road Adventure” trip. They would be taking a plane to Dunhuang, seeing Buddist temples, walking through the dessert and Minsha sand dunes, planting trees, riding camels, seeing the Mogao Grottoes and the Weijin dynasty tombs, camping, and taking a train to the western Great Wall. He was thrilled. Two of his good friends were in this group too. He packed the Sunday before and was thankful that Todd brought him bicycle shorts for camel riding and gatorade packets from the states.
Emma was put on the "Duanmin Children’s Welfare Center” trip. They would be flying to Yuncheng and providing service in an orphanage. They would also visit the UNESCO World Heritage Town, like taking a step back in time to the Ming Dynasty. Emma's group is all girls and she was really looking forward to working with the special needs kids.
The Monday before the trips, Emma came home from seminary and was eating breakfast when we all noticed James wasn’t home yet. He came in the door about 15 minutes later all scratched up and in a lot of pain. He was still in the neighborhood of seminary when the front axle bolt of his scooter came off, he lost control and feel off. Luckily Grant and Luke Miller were behind him and helped him up. Grant drove him home on Grant’s scooter. We cleaned up his scrapes and he complained that he couldn’t stand on his left foot. I took him to the doctor and they did two X-rays that showed a small fracture in his calcaneus (heel). The doctor still had us go to Puxi for an MRI to make sure. The MRI also showed multiple bone contusions in his foot and shin. He has to stay off his left foot for 3-6 weeks and no running sports for at least 6 weeks. We bought him crutches and went to school to talk to the Interim advisor. She canceled his flight for the Silk Road Adventure. James was near tears! He was re-assigned to the “English Cultural Exchange” group in Shanghai. The advisor read him the list of students in that group and he only recognized two girls. We left frustrated and disappointed.
This is the letter I wrote to his teachers Monday evening:
This morning a screw on the front wheel of James' scooter came off and caused him to crash. He hurt his foot in the accident so we went to have it examined by Dr Edward Southern, the Orthopedic doctor at Parkway Health.
After x-rays and an MRI it was determined that he fractured his calcaneus and would be unable to conduct any "weight bearing activities" for the next 3-6 weeks. While this is a great disappointment (PE, Baseball and Interim), we are also grateful it is not more serious than this.
They are not casting his foot. He will be on crutches for several weeks and he will need to use the elevator.If you need a copy of the official sick leave certificate, it is on file with the HS secretary.Thank you for your support of James at this time!
When James had to get an MRI he turned back at me and said, “This is the real deal.” It made me laugh! James is always saying “The struggle is real.” And this week his struggle was real!
Tuesday he went to school on crutches. He was grateful for the elevator since the school has 6 flights of stairs, but he said he was still about ten minutes late to every class. He came home exhausted and took a two hour nap. He was also depressed because after school that day he missed a baseball game. His team was taking a bus to another school at 3:00 but he had to meet his new interim team 3:00-3:20, so the coach told him to miss the game.
Wednesday he had more control with the crutches and we re-packed for his Shanghai Interim. Friday, I took him to school with his suitcase at 8:00am. His group was going to stay at school until noon writing lesson plans preparing to teach English, Art and Music to a migrant school. Then they would eat the school lunch and get on a bus. Their destination was two hours away. At 11:00 I brought Emma to school to meet up with her group who was taking a bus to the airport. I looked around the school for James and saw him with his group in the cafeteria. He told me he was Ok and was making some new friends. He would be rooming with a Senior boy from Korea. I cried as I left the school feeling so sad that James had to miss his High Adventure Silk Road trip.
James has called every night saying he is having a great time! He sounds happy so I have tried to stop worrying.
Dropping James off at school for his Interim trip to Shanghai.
James wrote this about his Interim:
"Although I was a little disappointed at first, it turned out to be way better than I expected, and I had to laugh when we arrived at our hotel—or should I say castle—and our rooms were double the size of any hotel I’ve ever seen with a delicious breakfast buffet and practically our own living room. Compared to the Silk Road, where you sleep under the stars in a desert and the sand is your bathroom, we were living the high life! The hotel’s name was literally “Castle Ashford.” But it was a little creepy how empty it was, and a couple people saw bats flying inside. From the teaching standpoint, I am very grateful how easily I was caught up on our lesson plans, and I know my group was grateful for my help. As for the students that we taught -- it was a pleasure to see the joy we brought to them, and we definitely helped them a lot with their English. Our lesson plan was basic body parts (head, shoulders, knees and toes) and a list of 50 vocabulary words and adjectives. But I still have to say the biggest blessing that came with my Interim was my roommate Jisoo. Even though he’s a senior and I’m a freshman he was still so nice to me (and tolerated me showing him all of my magic tricks). Overall, I’m very happy with how Interim turned out, and the good relationships I made with all of the people on my Interim."
The students that James taught
School lunch — James said he didn’t eat the fish heads
Emma wrote this about her Interim:
“I was so blessed this past week to have the opportunity of visiting a little orphanage in the middle of China called Duanmin Children’s Welfare Center. All the children there are orphans with severe mental and/or physical disabilities, and working with the children there really taught me a lot about the beauty of life - the only world these children know is inside the fence and walls of the orphanage, the only people they know are those who feed and clothe them, and the only life they’ll ever know is one of simplicity, and yet they still have the most joyful eyes and sweet smiles out of anyone I’ve ever seen. Even though most of them can’t walk or talk, I could see in their eyes that they are still human and deserve to be loved just as much as any of us. There are no words to describe how grateful I am for everything these children taught me; the lessons of love and charity I learned from serving them are greater than anything a teacher or a textbook could ever teach me."
Emma’s Interim Group
Eliza wrote this about her Interim:
"Beijing was amazing! We flew to Beijing and camped our first night next to the Great Wall! Morning Taiqi was fun(some Chinese yoga dances). We hiked and hiked. One of our tour guides was a biologist and told us tons about the cliffs and mountains we were hiking. We stayed at a home stay for one night and met a nice bee keeper and tons of farmers. When we went to the Forbidden City it was raining. We went to the 798 Art District and learned a few things about photography. Then we made dumplings at the HuTong. The last day we went to the Summer Palace and a Chinese exercise park. Then we took a high speed train home to Shanghai. Beijing was a great experience - definitely my favorite school trip so far!"
Eliza and her 7th grade group on the Great Wall
