The Emporia Gazette

May 28, 2012

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Opportunity didn’t have to knock twice when Katie Schemm learned she could go to China this summer to work at an orphanage outside Beijing.

Schemm, a student at Manhattan Christian College, joined a Christian Missionary Fellowship group as an intern to teach English and help take care of children who primarily have heart ailments at an orphanage in the Daxing district in a Beijing suburb.

“It was a really cool summer experience,” she said. “We worked pretty much 8 to 5 every day at the orphanage. ... I loved the work I did there. It was so awesome — loving on kids that don’t have families.”

The children had been abandoned by their parents, who could not afford to pre-pay for the medical treatment to repair the damaged hearts of their babies. Chinese doctors and hospitals apparently do not accept payment plans.

Most of the children had heart murmurs, holes in their hearts and other conditions that often are treatable in the United States; children with hydrocephalus and spina bifida also were housed in the orphanage.

Some of the abandoned children stayed in foster homes near the orphanage but most stayed in the orphanage proper.

Schemm taught English to the preschool children twice a week; all of the children learned English, with varying degrees of fluency.

“Then I would just be in there helping the other three days of the week,” Schemm said.

The children in the orphanage were popular candidates for adoption by American couples willing to take all of the steps and invest the time required to complete the formalities.

“These kids have high adoption rates,” she said. “So families in America can pay for their surgery. I got to see two kids leave for America when we got there.”

The approximately two months she spent in China was a good investment in a summer vacation experience, in addition to contributing her talents and skills for the good of the children involved.

“Two months, I think, was the perfect time to really get involved with people and the culture,” Schemm said.

Her parents, Robin and Randy Schemm, had looked at the mission service as a potentially good experience for their daughter, and had encouraged her in efforts to raise the $4,300 she would need for the flight housing, and food during the mission, which lasted from June 2 to July 29.

She began a letter-writing campaign in February to family, friends and churches to raise as much money as she could from outside sources. By mid-April of this year, she had half of the needed funds — enough for CMF to commit to her round-trip ticket.

“So, no going back after April,” Schemm said.

By the payment deadline, only $700 remained for her and her parents to add to the contributions that made the trip possible.

In the interim, Schemm made sure she had a passport and visa to travel around China, and took care of the inoculations required for the trip.

“I think I only had to get six shots,” she said.

After a 12-hour flight from Newark, N.J., to Beijing, she and two other interns settled into an apartment on the outskirts of a Beijing suburb with a population of approximately 50,000 people.

Like medical treatment, the trio pre-paid for electric service that was estimated to last a full month.

With two window air conditioners, a refrigerator and three computers, “we had to buy electricity several times,’ Schemm said.

The apartment had running water, too, though the interns were advised to drink bottled water instead of tap water.

“The Chinese people don’t drink the water either,” Schemm added.

The climate and landscape were similar to Kansas, with perhaps a little more humidity caused by the river that ran close by.

Most of the people seemed to be poor, and sheep often were herded down the dirt streets while outside vendors sold their goods to shoppers.

Public restrooms were dirty and the river was redolent with trash and animals and other debris.

“There’s still parts that are beautiful,” she said of the rather flat country behind the apartment the trio occupied during the stay. “There was corn fields right outside my apartment.”

The city where she stayed, in the Daxing district, also is “like the watermelon capital of the world,” she said, her tongue gliding over the name of a city that could not be spelled with absolute certainty.

The interns traveled during their off times, using the wide variety of transportation available in China, from its high-speed trains, subways and buses, as well as a taxi ride that quickly turned harrowing.

“He was a crazy driver,” Schemm said, laughing as she recalled that one wild taxi ride.

“You’re on a highway, but if people miss their exit, they just turn around. He drove on the shoulders — both shoulders — down the middle …,” she said.

The interns attended church services at an international church, where the native Chinese were not allowed to gather. Praying publicly and reading Bibles were not allowed, and sometimes government-approved churches were prohibited.

“We couldn’t say we were there on a mission trip,” Schemm said.

The group visited Tianamen Square, the scene of a deadly confrontation in 1989 between protesters and the Red Army. There, and in other places, the Chinese wanted to have their photographs taken with the foreign visitors.

Some freedoms remain curtailed in China. Riots in western China caused the government to shut down Facebook and Twitter for about six weeks, she said.

“The government’s really oppressive, but it made me thankful for the U.S., you know?” Schemm remarked. “It wasn’t scary by any means.”

The group never felt threatened or unwelcome when they traveled in the area. Most of the time, though, was spent within the confines of the orphanage and its walled grounds.

“On this compound, they also have a cafeteria, badminton courts, grassy yards. They had a big grassy backyard,” she said. “It was beautiful. It felt peaceful.”

She built relationships with the children at the orphanage, particularly with two girls, Victoria and Sophie, and 3-year-old Andrew, all of whom she taught in her English class.

Victoria is being adopted by a couple in Texas; Sophie is being adopted by a couple in Illinois, and Andrew is being adopted by a couple from Ohio. Schemm is in touch with all of the adoptive couples and hopes she will be able to visit the children and their parents when they come to America.

“My relationship with them was close enough I could go visit,” she said. “I love them so much.”