A Little Slice of Heaven

June 19-24, 2011: Joni and Friends Mission Camp, retreat for families with disabled members.

Muskegon, Michigan - home of Maranatha Bible and Missionary Conference Center. Or, in my opinion, the best camp on earth. Before this retreat, I had never worked with anyone with disabilities, nor did I ever find time to really serve God--I was a believer and follower, but never considered myself a "strong" Christian. And so, I was presented with little pleasant surprises day after day at Joni camp, and it turned out to be a bit of a life changing experience for me.

My mom seeded the idea of serving at Joni camp towards the end of spring semester, excited that scheduling-wise, it fit perfectly into my hectic suitcase summer. Muskegon was only a 4 hour drive, and having a mother so gracious to finance my summer adventures, I agreed. Besides, I had never been to the other side of Lake Michigan, away from my beloved hometown's coastline of tall skyscrapers and man-enhanced beaches. Seeing a more peaceful, natural side of "the lake," as we Chicagoans call it, couldn't be such a bad thing.

the "other side" of Lake Michigan

boardwalk on the beach

Mona Lake

Lake Michigan sunset from the pool

The first day and a half at camp, when it was only the STM's (short term missionaries, they called us), went by slowly. We got briefed on stuff like wheelchair basics, autism, controlling emotions, daily schedules, etc. and of course were introduced to the impressive camp grounds. They had a kid's dream vacation--tubing, boating, zip line, horseback, climbing wall, pool, beach, delicious food, and free ice cream--all wrapped up between two lakes into a few beautiful square miles tagged as Maranatha. The best part: everything was wheelchair accessible, and the mission of this retreat was to fulfill campers' wishes. There was nothing they weren't allowed to do. Special harnesses were purchased for the zip line (a quadriplegic man was able to ride), tall men stood alongside the horses to ensure safety during campers' rides, and wheelchair ramps led to pontoon boating, just to name a few. After the families arrived, it seemed that we were all of a sudden in fast-forward.

A boat ride, ho-down, petting zoo, beach day, countless delicious meals, and a few thousand calories later, I found myself at the end of the 5 day camp, not ready to leave. It's hard for me to put into words what I took away from Joni camp. It really was one of the best things I've ever done in my life. People of all ages with disabilities were allowed to "be free" (the theme of this year's camp) and do/say whatever they wanted, without anyone turning an eye or giving them a weird look. The atmosphere of the camp was sooo rich in love for these people, and for Jesus. I was blown away at how all the STMs had such a will to serve, without looking for anything in return. I was even more touched by how genuine the disabled campers were. They didn't care what you looked like, what designer you wore, what you drove, or how many times you had messed up in your life. They loved you for you, and they told you every day! Isn't that what God wants from us after all? These people with disabilities are a blessing and constant reminder of what it is to live sincerely, candidly, and open, the way we all used to when we were innocent young kids. Out of respect for the families, we aren't allowed to post pictures of their kids without permission, so the only person I'm allowed to share with you is my camper, Marin. She is in a wheelchair, but lives her life as well as any of us do, and holds a deep passion for God. She is my age, in college, and extremely smart! I had a great time with her and her mom at camp!

If you haven't heard of Chuck and Emily Colson, Google them! Chuck Colson was a Marine captain, has worked next to President Nixon in the White House, and is the father of Emily. He was also the first person to go to prison after the Watergate scandal. After losing everything, he gave his life to God, and is the founder of one of the most successful prison ministries in the world. Emily is the author of the book Dancing with Max, a story about her autistic son and the testing journey of his childhood, raising him as a single mother. I would highly encourage you to read the book. It gave me a greater appreciation for autistic kids and the strength of God's love.

If time and scheduling allow, I will definitely be back at Maranatha next June for another round of Joni camp. I can't wait to be back in that atmosphere. I think my STM team leader Carol said it best, "This really is incredible, I envision this is kind of what heaven is like."

Ciao Italia... I'll see you again

My short time in Italy accounted for 10 of the best days of my life. I got to meet great people and experience great places, culture, and of course pizza and gelato.

 I fell in love with the Italian culture... their rich history, their language, their architecture, and the beautiful country itself... it undoubtedly surged my passion for travel. I would love to not only go back to Italy, but see the world, experience everything, and meet everyone! A artist by the name of Juan Gutierrez sang in one of his songs, "we are all one in the same, we are lovers and brothers and sisters and most of all friends." He was right on. The world is full of interesting, diverse people, and I LOVE learning where other people come from and what their story is. Next time I go abroad, rather than do lots of touristy things, I would like to live in one place, soak up the culture, experience how others live, and meet more people. So grazie Italy for serving as the start to my exciting summer and reinforcing that the world is big and beautiful and always open for adventure! And thank you soccer for being the stepping stone of this opportunity. I'll miss all the girls so much!

 Ciao Italia, I'll be back soon. Meanwhile, my summer goes on... next stop: Muskegon, Michigan. Andiamo!

Lake Como

June 11, 2011: our last day

Today started with the toughest wake-up of the trip. One more day in Italy? What am I gonna do without gelato, lasagna, pizza... and how can I ever get myself to eat previously frozen pasta again? We all reluctantly woke up (kind of, we were never fully awake in the mornings), had breakfast, and took a short bus ride to beautiful Lake Como, the deepest lake in Europe! The town of Como was less touristy and more cultured, a perfect way to go out in Italy. It was set on the southeast end of Lake Como, across from gorgeous green mountains sprinkled with residential houses. Our plan was to take a 1 hr and 45 min boat ride to Bellagio to check out the scenery and marvel at some more mountains, but a huge afternoon thunderstorm derailed our plans, so we just decided to drink wine on a covered patio on the lake. Not bad, besides the part where the not-so-modern sewage system overflowed onto the street. I'll spare you those pictures (yes I did take pictures of it) but here are some from our day in Como

Lake Como

Some of the team

Streets of Como

Great pizza

Our last gelato :(

One of my favorites from the trip!

After a wet day in Como, we jumped on the bus and headed back. Our last night at the hotel consisted of packing, lots of cheap wine, and a good dinner, with all intentions of going out with a bang. I would say we did pretty well.

Some of the girls with Pino our driver and Sara (to his left) our tour guide. They were so good to us, we were so lucky to have such gracious, awesome people to take us through Italy!

Milano and Game 4

June 10, 2011: fashion capital and jersey trading

This is the part of the trip where I started to get sad and tried to figure out how to make time go by slower. Since our returning flight was out of Milan, I kinda sorta wanted to skip Milan altogether... I figured that if we never got there, we would never have to leave. My time in Italy thus far has renewed my desire to see the world. Although I was born in China, I moved to the US at such a young age that the majority of what I know stems from the American culture. I've only been out of the country twice since moving here at age 5 - once to see family in China, and once on a foreign exchange trip to Costa Rica. The more of the world I see, the more I realize that what I know is only a small fraction of life, and the bigger my craving gets to explore different places, cultures, food :), and people.

Anyways, I couldn't figure out how to slow down time, so we went on to explore Milan. We started with lunch at a local pizzeria, and continued on a short guided tour down Via Dante (Dante Street), a famous pedestrian street in Milan. We ended our tour in front of the Duomo di Milano (Milan Cathedral). The rest of the day was spent walking around, buying a souvenir or two, and getting ready for our 4th and final game.

Salami and provolone pizza. Italians eat a whole pizza this size by themselves!

Via Dante

Duomo di Milano. One of my favorite structures of the whole trip

Galleria Vittorio Emanuele shopping center

Castello Sforzesco, Milan's famous castle

Milan wasn't my favorite, only because I prefer mingling with locals and meeting new people over commercial hyper-touristy places, but it was still cool to see the city, especially the beautiful cathedral! We got on our bus to go to Meda, a suburb of Milan, where we played our last game. We came out against a well-organized Real Meda club team, and unfortunately ended up losing 3-1. We took full advantage of it being our last game by doing the traditional switching of jerseys with the other team after the game! I got myself a sweet Real Meda jersey, and the Italians were happy to get some American jerseys. After a little while of having fun being typical rowdy soccer players with the Real Meda girls, we said ciao and got on the bus to go to Hotel Cruise, our home for the last two nights of the trip.

Our room

Venezia

June 9, 2011: Venice, the Queen of the Adriatic

Buongiorno (good morning) San Marino! After soaking up the mountaintop view one last time from our hotel, we packed up the bus and headed to Venezia. Our bus driver Pino (awesome guy) had to park the bus in a parking lot where we transferred to a ferry that took us to Venice.

Boat ride to Venice

Piazza di San Marco

Caffe Florian, the oldest cafe in Europe!

Going back for a gondola ride is definitely on my bucket list

From Ponte di Rialto (Rialto Bridge), the biggest bridge in Venice

Masks all over the place for the famous Carnevale di Venezia

Venetian alley

From the boat dock at the end of our Venetian adventure

Ciao Venezia!

After spending time in Venice, watching our field hockey girls play against a club in Padova, and having yet another delicious Italian dinner, we rode to the Crowne Plaza where we slept on the comfiest beds all trip. After a long day and a couple drinks, I don't think any of us had trouble sleeping.

First time watching a field hockey game

Emily and half of our awesome Crowne room

Rimini and Game 3

June 8, 2011: first lazy day

Rimini: a tourist beach city on the eastern coast of Italy on the Adriatic Sea, known for its hoppin nightlife and long stretch of sandy beaches. It's also the site of our first relaxing day of the trip. Traveling gets tiring, so we were all looking forward to getting a day to relax on the beach all afternoon. The beach was so different than the ones in the US. It was sectioned off into properties, each one with a number from 1 all the way down to the 80s. Each property is owned privately, and you must pay a small fee to use their facilities (beach chair, bathrooms, showers). We went to bagno(beach) 26, our tour guide Sara's beach. The weather was perfect for tan lines and R&R!

Bagno 26, Rimini Beach

Adriatic Sea!

After holding off the storms til we left, literally perfect timing, we started preparing for game 3 against Savignano. It was on a small grass field, and as muddy and sloppy as it was, we ended up winning 2-1.

Muddy jerseys after game 3

Back at the cafe a few doors down from the hotel, I got my first lesson on why Italian pasta is so much better than American: it's always freshly made! I ordered tortellini, and got warned in a degrading tone that the chef could make it for me, but beware that it was frozen. A little puzzled, I said okay, thinking in my head that's not uncommon in the states. What I would give to have some Italian pasta and hazelnut gelato right now... delizioso!

San Marino

June 7, 2011: a beautiful mountaintop, gelato, international soccer, and attempted laundry

About 3.5 hours away from Montecatini is the Republic of San Marino. It is the oldest republic in the world! The scenic drive up the mountain to our hotel was the next best thing to actually being at our hotel, which faced out from the mountain and provided us with a view like something out of a movie. A few steps across the street was a long stretched overlook onto one of the most beautiful mountainous horizons I've ever seen, two blocks down the street stood stairs leading up to the castle of San Marino, and a couple doors to the right was the cafe where I discovered and developed an addiction to hazelnut and chocolate chip gelato. I wonder if this is what heaven is like!

View from across the street

View from our room patio down the street... in the direction of gelato!

What we woke up to... can't complain

On our guided tour of San Marino, we learned that San Marino is its own republic independent of Italy. It's a teeny tiny 62 square kilometers, and it's not looking to gain or lose any land... ever. Being a republic without an army, San Marinians are passionate about peace and pride with a "live and let live" kind of mindset. With a territory as beautiful as theirs, who could blame them?

Climbing the castle

More castle climbing

Beautiful

That night, we went to the soccer match between the San Marino national team and Hungary. A few Coronas after our arrival, we finally made our way past screaming tailgating Hungarians into the stadium. We learned that Hungarians really know how to celebrate soccer. They brought fireworks (I think, I don't know what they were really called) into the stadium, and every time they scored they lit them up. I was too immersed in the experience (or maybe too many beers in the experience, sorry mom and dad) that I'm not sure if it was my ear drums or retinas that were damaged first. San Marino lost 3-0 but we still had a great time!

At the game!

Crazy Hungarian fans

The funniest part of the entire Italy trip took place on our first night in San Marino: my roommates and I trying to wash our own clothes. Laundry cost an arm and a leg at Grand Hotel San Marino, so we decided we were going to fill up our bathtub with water, detergent, and way too many clothes, and do it ourselves. The end result went something like this: the front desk man came up to our room because we unknowingly used the alarm rope as a clothes line, clothes were hung up in an attempt to dry in every part of our room for the rest of our stay there, and in the end, our clothes were neither dry nor fresh smelling. Oops.

Emily adding detergent to the tub

Portovenere, Cinque Terre, and Game 2

June 6, 2011: best day of the trip


Well up until day 4 of the trip I had heard nothing but good things about Cinque Terre. After stalking my older cousin Lucy's photo album after she backpacked through Europe and having a few friends tell me their experiences, I was pumped to go see it for myself! The Cinque Terre means 5 lands, and is comprised of 5 old, enchanting, small towns on the west coast of Italy, right on the Ligurian Sea. The towns are built into cliffs and they're older than the United States has even been a country! We bussed to Portovenere, a small town on the water close to the Cinque Terre, where we took a boat to the 5 towns. They are, in the order of our boat tour (south to north): Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and Monterrosso al Mare. The view from the boat ride was breathtaking. I took tons of pictures, but they don't come close to doing it justice.

Cady and me in Portovenere

St. Peter's Church in Portovenere

Boat tour!

Ligurian Sea

We rode the boat to Vernazza, my new favorite place in the world. As the boat was docking, we saw a man cliff jump off a mini cliff, about 15-20 feet high off to the side of the town. We were sold. After spending some time marveling at the small town's charm and elegance and a top notch lunch of pizza and beer... the BEST pizza with a Heineken to top if off (Rob, that's for you), we all spontaneously bought swimsuits (since we didn't bring them to Cinque Terre) and made our way to the cliff. The pictures tell the rest of the story. Everything was perfect: the weather, the water, the atmosphere, the scenery... it couldn't have been any better!

Riomaggiore

Vernazza, my favorite picture of the whole trip

The water was so clear!

Vernazza

Pesto left, margherita right. The best pregame meal I've ever had

I could have stayed there in the water all day, but it was game time soon so there was no time to waste. We took a train two stops up to Levanto, where we played their club team. This is where we witnessed the worst display of officiating and sportsmanship any of us had ever seen, along with the true meaning of "home field advantage." The Levanto club was less than classy and a pain in the butt to play against, so this is also where I learned how to say BS in Italian, and relayed my new vocabulary to the ref several times. I somehow felt like I fit in more by saying it. Even though we were all fired up at the time, it was probably one of the funniest, most nonsensical events of the trip. We managed to pull out a 6-2 win and took a ride through beautiful Tuscany back to our hotel in Montecatini.

Our beautiful field in Levanto

Cady and me after our 6-2 win!

Tuscany. Two hours of this from the bus made for some good thinking/reminiscing time. This picture sadly doesn't do justice.