Ingathering Plans in Qinzhou

I talked to Anna Liu, the Blessing Hands administrator in Qinzhuo, tonight with a cut rate Chinese phone card. She is going through 600 applications to find the 180 high school students that can be funded for the fall semester in Qinzhou County. She has 26 rural schools and her own home school (Qinzhou No 1 Middle School) who are submitting applications. She is setting 10 students per school on the average, except for Pubei Town that was flooded from the typhoon. She says some families lost everything there, and she gave that school 20 student grants.

The schools cannot believe their good blessings and the lack of paperwork required. Anna says that the government would take three months to give money out and require them to submit paperwork again and again. They will get the Blessing Hands grants on National day in about one week.

She has had people trying to come in the backdoor so to speak, trying to get their poor relative included. She just tells them to submit the paper work, and they will be considered with all the other applications. She tells them Blessing Hands does it the American way, in the front door.

She is getting ready for the fall ingathering now with the help of three teacher assistants who are helping her as volunteers. 180 high students will come to her campus to receive their tuition money and school supplies, have their photos taken, write thank you letters, and enjoy a social time. 26 teachers will come with them from the rural schools and some teachers from her high school as well will attend. She says it is going very well, and everyone is excited and happy about what is happening. It helps that they remember me in the schools, since I taught rural English teachers in a summer English camp there in 2004.

She will give some of the donated American books to the rural teachers for their schools. We need to send them some more English books. The reading level is about 6th grade or lower. Books can be sent for a dollar a pound (up to 60 pounds) in a M-bag at the U S Post Office. They take three months to get there, but are very welcomed. If someone wants to send books let me know, and I will give you the address and more information.