Our time here in Weihai, China just came to an end and we are now back in Xi’an. It was a good and challenging past 2 ½ weeks. If you were able to get a chance to read my previous post you may have gotten a taste of the Camp (Sunshine International Camp) we were working with. Here is a brief outline of our past half month (check back in a couple of days for some funny stories from this trip also):
We arrived in Weihai after a long afternoon and evening of traveling, it was hot and rainy as we waited on the bus for everyone arriving for the camp (there were people coming in from all over the world to work with this camp). Once we were all accounted for we made our way to the hotel. Our hotel is on the beach of the Yellow Sea. It is a great travel destination I would compare it to a cheaper version of Cancun with a ton of Russians (this is a popular vacation site for them as well).
The camp began the following day, and I discovered that instead of being a Coach to a group of campers, I was now going to be a Mentor. This meant I was going to be a big deal (ok that is a joke), but it gave me the opportunity to lead a group of coaches and help them with any issues they had in running their groups. To throw some numbers your way, we had 286 campers, 198 of which were Chinese at the high school or university level. I would encourage the coaches as well as help in whatever way I could with the flow of the 10 days we had together.
Our camp consisted of morning classes which included lectures on globalization (working in a multi-cultural situation), servant leadership, public speaking, relationships, as well as vision and/or goals for their life. All of this is designed to help these students in their business field. It's cool because these students have to go through quite a bit to make it into this camp so they are exceptional students and will someday be leading others in their field of choice. We also played group games and had group activities followed by discussion. These activities were used as tools to get the students to build relationships and went hand-in-hand with the lecture topics.
Many of the students were greatly influenced by this camp and a lot of new relationships began during the time. We are (like I said earlier) now home and happy to be in Xi’an. We will be taking the next month getting our apartment setup and I will begin school next month.
Check out the video also that I posted of our family and time in Weihai.
Much love,
the petersons
