Jaclyn Ver Mulm, of Le Mars, shares a hug with two of the Chinese girls living in a housing tract built for people whose homes were destroyed in China's May 12 earthquake. Ver Mulm spent her summer in China. [Click to enlarge]

When Jaclyn Ver Mulm packed her bags for China this summer, she had two things on her mind: visiting her sister and catching some of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

But more was in store for the young woman from Le Mars during her three-month stay in the country.

"The whole summer stretched me," she said. "I was taken out of my comfort zone. Almost every day I did something that stretched myself."

Jaclyn Ver Mulm spent time at Sichuan, the province in China hit hardest by the May 12 earthquake, teaching English and even cleaning bathrooms. In the process, she made many friends. [Click to enlarge]

In May, the Dordt College junior left for the People's Republic of China with her mom and dad, Kathy and Steve Ver Mulm.

When they arrived, the nation was in the middle of picking up the pieces from the May 12 earthquake that killed more than 69,000 people.

"The thing that made this earthquake so bad was that most last about 10 seconds and this one lasted 45 seconds," Jaclyn said. "When we got there the entire country, the news, everything was about the earthquake. The country was really pulling together."

She traveled with her parents for a week, seeing Beijing and China's famed terra cotta warriors.

Then Kathy and Steve returned to the U.S., but Jaclyn stayed with her sister Kristi Ver Mulm, who has lived three years in China, teaching English through a Total Immersion Program.

Jaclyn helped teach two of the immersion program's three-week English sessions.

"It's a little different being much younger than the people I was teaching and having no teaching experience or training," she said. "The first day was incredibly nerve wracking, having 20 people looking up at me -- but they're really nervous about making a mistake, because in the Chinese culture you don't want to lose face."

By the end of the third week, Jaclyn said, she got to know the people she was teaching since so much of the course involved conversation.

"At the end of one session I had five women in my arms crying," she said. "After three weeks, you do become close. You're family."

The program Jaclyn's sister Kristi is with was started by Dr. Danny Yu, a man with a vision to extend English language programs and other education opportunities to the Chinese based on Christian principals, also forging relationships between Americans and the Chinese.

"Dr. Danny Yu has been very open with the Chinese government that he was inviting Christian teachers to come," Jaclyn said.

Government regulations forbid the teachers to initiate faith conversation with the Chinese, but if the Chinese ask them questions, they can share their beliefs, Jaclyn added.

She noticed government censorship in other areas, too.

"We couldn't talk about certain topics -- Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet," she said. "And I'm pretty sure most people don't know about Tiananmen Square (the site of protests and a massacre in 1989)."

After her two teaching sessions there were over, Jaclyn joined a group from the Netherlands to teach English at primary schools in Sichuan, the province at the center of the May 12 earthquake.

They taught at two elementary schools, one with 1,200 students and another with 200 students whose families now live in a housing tract for people who had lost their homes in the earthquake.

Families lived in a single room about the size of a dining room, Jaclyn said.

"It really opened my eyes to see how people live so simply," she said. "The children seemed to have a lot of hope, and you'd see 'Cheer Up China' posters everywhere."

Teaching English to the elementary students was another step outside the comfort zone for Jaclyn, a physical therapy major.

"The first day I was assigned to first grade and they'd had no other English experience," she said.

Part of the way through Jaclyn's time teaching there, rain flooded the housing tract and school was cancelled. Some of the group Jaclyn was with headed to Beijing to catch the Olympics. But five of them stayed behind.

"We did whatever we could to help," Jaclyn said. "We wanted to show them we still loved them, we still cared."

They picked up trash one day, and all the children at the housing tract came to help them.

Friday, they cleaned bathrooms.

"These were community bathrooms...absolutely disgusting," Jaclyn said.

But doing the dirty work paid off, she said.

"We just got to make relationships with the children. It feels to me they just want love," she said. "I wanted to show God's love for them by how I treated them."

That experience, she said, took her out of her comfort zone more than anything.

"Seeing all the children, sharing my love with them, I feel like my heart is still in Sichuan," she said.

Jaclyn did get to see some of the Olympic games -- she went to three events -- the women's gymnastics team finals, field hockey, and softball, a treat for the Dordt College softball player.

"It was really unreal. I had to keep saying to myself, 'I'm at the Olympics,'" Jaclyn said.

At the gymnastic competition, she and a friend had seats at the top of the stadium, surrounded by Chinese people. But they still wore their U.S.A. shirts and waved the American flag.

"Some girls behind us laughed," Jaclyn remembered.

Now back in Iowa, she's getting used to a 13-hour difference in sleep schedules and reflecting on her trip.

She learned quite a bit: a little about how to teach English, when to run outside in an earthquake aftershock, how to clean camp bathrooms, and more.

"I learned to eat what's put in front of me," she laughed.

But her venture outside her comfort zone went beyond food.

"I went to China to see my sister and watch the Olympics, but as I was there, God changed my heart to see a bigger purpose," Jaclyn said. "I was there to meet people, experience China, and share my faith."