What do the girls' names look like in Chinese?

Growing Up On the Farm in China
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Liu Jiamei and Liu Jiahua are twin sisters. (In China, the family name, Liu, comes first.) They live in a small rural village of a few hundred people in the Shanxi Province of China.

The girls were born prematurely, and even after they were four months old, they only weighed five pounds each.

Dr. Alice Chen, from the Evergreen Family Friendship Service medical team, visited the Liu girls when they were babies to help them get better. She brought powdered milk and medicine to help nourish the babies back to health.

Evergreen Family Friendship Service is a Christian service organization dedicated to improving the health and well being of rural families in the Shanxi Province.

In gratitude, the parents named the babies in honor of Dr. Chen and Evergreen because of the help they gave the family. Over the last few years, as the twins have had various health problems, the Evergreen doctors continue to help.

The Lius work a family farm. They get up when the sun rises and sleep when the sun sets. In the summer, they are in the fields by 5 a.m. and work until 10. After a rest they return to the fields at 4 p.m. and work until 8.

Small farmers like the Lius grow most of what they eat. Water is limited, but their crops of millet, buckwheat, sorghum, corn and sunflowers require a lot of water. Sometimes water must be purchased and transported to the village. The Lius have no animals, so Mr. Liu works his two acres by hand. Mr. Liu is fortunate to have a large courtyard in which he grows vegetables each summer to supplement his family’s income.

Mr. Liu received a $100 loan from Evergreen to buy seed and fertilizer for a small vegetable garden. Evergreen also provided a drip irrigation system to water his family garden.

The family is doing much better now. The twin girls are five years old and growing. They will start first grade when they turn seven.