Filed under: North Korea | Tags: China, CNN, espionage, euna lee, laura ling, North Korea, trial
Today the two journalist who were arrested along the China-North Korea border were scheduled to go to trial. According to CNN sources, the trial barred any observers from the room. CNN Article
Our prayers go out today for Laura Ling and Euna Lee. It’s got to be a scary thing to be going on trial in North Korea. We haven’t heard any news on the latest. But we’ll definitely keep you up to date as we learn any information.
Filed under: China | Tags: BBC, beijing, China, christians, CNN, devastation, died, earthquake, epicenter, evacuate, internet, kids, killed, nonprofit, orphans, parents, SiChuan, texting, twitter
Last May (May 12 to be exact), China experienced a devastating earthquake in SiChuan (四川) province. Over 68,000 people were killed, and another 17,000+ were missing. 630 children were left without parents. The numbers keep going. Check out the link below to read more about China’s official numbers on the situation.
During the earthquake I was about 1,100 miles away in Beijing. When the earthquake hit SiChuan, the 12-acre, 2-story building I was in rolled like it was on the ocean. It was wild. Nobody knew what was happening. We evacuated the school and all the faculty and students stood out on the field for half an hour or so until the building was deemed safe. Before we even got back inside, people’s cell phones were going crazy. Texting in China is 90% of cell phone communication. You very rarely hear people talking on their phones, most is done through texting. So between cell phones, the internet, and twitter, the entire country, and world, was notified faster than any news sources could spit out information.
It was so weird to be getting up to the minute news on websites and twitter feeds when the big news companies like CNN or BBC had nothing on their site. After a few hours, things started streaming in. We were in shock that what we felt was over a thousand miles away. My roommate at the time was at our house. We lived on the 24th floor of an apartment complex in Beijing. He said the entire building started swaying heavily back and forth. I can’t imagine what it was like at the epicenter. China was devastated for months. Some of my Chinese friends had family members who lived near the area where it hit.
China is still recovering it seems. Many kids are without parents, many parents have lost their kids, and many families have been ripped apart. It was an awful thing. It was encouraging that some of the first people down there to help were nonprofit organizations…and a lot of them were Christian-based. That’s the way I think it was meant to work. That’s God’s calling to us, to help those in need. And it was awesome to see people step up and help.
Go to this link to read more about the reconstruction of SiChuan and the surrounding areas
