From China to Denmark

About six months ago, our friend Ning Guangwen, said "Good Bye" to her family and best friend. She wanted to go "abroad" and her father wanted her to live in a safe country.

She left Shenyang, in northern China and came to Odense, Denmark. Guang planned to go to school and find new friends here. But she was very lonely and didn't know a word of Danish. She got a job cleaning business offices and going to a school to study engineering and computers. Neither Guang, nor I, really understood what she was doing at school and she often had to miss classes to do her job.

One day Guang met Sister Stevens and Sister Burton- the sister missionaries in Odense. They began to teach her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She started to come to our Family Home Evenings on Tuesday night here at the center. We became good friends because I could speak English and she missed her family at home. She loved to come to the center where she could work on the computers, e-mail home, help us eat leftovers, and talk and talk and talk. Sometimes we would come to the center early in the day to help her find solutions to her broken internet system at home, or give her little spiritual messages. She found a home here, in a very foreign land (to her).

I helped her create a family tree with landmark buildings from her hometown. She discussed her great desire to go to America and was very sad when they turned her down at her Visa Interview. She brought her paper work to the center and we began to learn how to successfully reapply for a visa. We worked together for about three weeks, making pictures of her family in China, practicing interviewing for the visa, making sure all the applications forms were accurate and positive, helping her to describe why she wanted to study in America, and making sure that she could tell her interviewer that she knew what she would do after her visa expired in two years.

Guang finally felt like she was ready to re-apply. She made an appointment to go to Copenhagen for the interview. The night before we tried to go over every question that she might be asked. We all were very nervous about the interview. She wasn't sure what direction she would go- if her plan to study in America was denied. The day of her interview, we were at a zone conference out of town all day. That night we planned to go to the theater to watch the "Young Ambassadors" (from BYU) perform. We didn't know whether it would be a sad experience or a celebration for Guang..because of the result of the interview. More to come --in the next Post.