Seasons of Autumn - GO. BE. LOVE.

Friday, April 9, 2010

Day 2 at the orphanage

It is 9pm now and I am about to go to sleep. We had a great day today. I woke up at 6am again, got ready and we all had breakfast at 8am. I was very happy because there was bacon at breakfast today and actual cold creamer on our table for the coffee so I didn't have to use hot milk. And there were these little chicken thingy's that tasted like chicken nuggets - those were yummy. I tried a biscuit yesterday with meat in it but didn't like it much. Lily informed us this morning that the meat is donkey - very interesting. I'm kind of glad now that I didn't eat a lot of it although several folks on the team did and didn't seem to be deterred from eating more even after finding out what it was. We got to the orphanage about 9:45 am and went upstairs to play with the little kids that we spent the morning with yesterday. Some of the girls brought these foam visors and foam stickers to decorate them and those were a hit. The kids were hilarious - they had their visors so covered in stickers, there was hardly any room left. I took a ton of pictures but to my frustration, when I tried to load them onto the computer tonight, it is saying it's a bad file format. They show up on my camera playback though so I don't get it. I put in a new memory card and hope to retrieve the pics from today later. I'm adding a few more good ones from yesterday for now and hope tomorrow the other memory card works and I can add ones from the day.

So we went in to the room with mostly smaller kids and pretty much all the kids in there are sick with colds and stuff. They have this vinegar solution going in a crock pot in there and sure enough - it clears out your sinuses when you go in there. And the kids - so many of them had major runny noses. We were on nose patrol a lot in there. Luckily, we had lots of kleenex with us. Side note about the kleenex - most bathrooms here do not have toilet paper so you have to bring your own. Many of the bathrooms also don't have a toilet - it's more like a hole in the floor that you have to hover over. Bella calls them squatty potties which cracks me up. We have to use them at the orphanage but we try to avoid it as much as possible. Anyway, so back to my story - so we go in the "sick room" and the little girl I was telling you about yesterday was screaming. The workers were shaving her head - poor little thing - she was screaming the entire time. I asked Lily why they were doing that and she said so that they could put an IV in her head. We were in there about 45 minutes and in that time - her head got fully shaved, they gave her a bath and then they put an IV in her head. She screamed the whole time. I was watching them do all this and trying to make sure she was ok and wishing I could do something - it really breaks my heart when kids cry like that. I knew they weren't actually hurting her but still - what kid would want their head shaved and IV put in? I was about to burst into tears with her several times. It broke my heart. Everyone else was working on the visors with the other kids - helping them put the stickers on and stuff. I decided to make her a visor. I put hearts and stars and shapes on it and wrote "I am loved" on there. I know they don't speak English and the letters were in English but nevertheless I wanted to speak that over her. After the IV was in her head, she finally stopped crying but her whole body was doing that thing it does after sobbing so long where it still shakes and it's hard to get your breathing back to normal. Everything in me wanted to go in there and just hold her. Not that she'd want me to though cause she probably wouldn't. I peaked in on her through the window to the side room she was in and handed the nurse/caregiver the visors and told her it was for her. They handed it to her and she held it in her hand and looked at it. I took a few pictures of her holding it - it was so cute. She still looks just as beautiful without any hair - she definitely looks more like a baby with no hair. I'm not so sure that she is 2 - she's pretty small to be that young. Not sure. I need to find out her name. It's harder to find out names here because Chinese doesn't use letters of the alphabet so even if we had them write them - we would have no idea what we were trying to read. There is one young girl who lives there and also helps out - she is 20 and she knows a tiny bit of English and she has been trying to teach us some names. They are so hard to say and remember. I need to find out that little girl's name. It was interesting to me that she could hold the visor - after playing with her with the ball yesterday, I wasn't sure if she could hold anything. But today, I realized otherwise. We came back later in the afternoon and she had a tomato in her hand. She was trying really hard to eat it but her arms don't seem to bend right to raise up to her mouth - she is very smart though - she has figured out that if she goes up against the wall and props her arms up on the wall - she can then hold them steady to try and eat the tomato that's in her hand. Kids will find a way. It's amazing to see all the physical things these kids are overcoming. I did a lot of silent praying today for them - for healing, protection and for a spirit of peace over this one kid with down syndrome who kept hitting all the other kids. He kicked me in the shin and hit Kara quite a few times too. He has quite the aggressive nature. I was praying against that mean streak in him. He would go from super mean and hitting and scratching kids, even spitting on a few of them - to suddenly happy and jumping up and down. I felt so bad for the other kids in the room - they would put their arms up to shield him or run away form him but he would still manage to catch them off guard at times and hit them. Yesterday, I saw him scratch up one of the girls hands really bad. Not sure what the best thing to do with him would be. I was wanting him away from the other kids to protect them but also realizing he needs love too and obviously has something going on with him. It's a hard place - the workers are clearly trying to do the best for him and the other kids.

After about 45 minutes in the room with the younger kids, Lily came and got us - the staff was going to teach us how to make dumplings. They had these little round pieces of the dough ready for us, as well as a meat and seasoning mixture and they showed us how to put the meat in and then fold the dumplings closed. It was quite comical - ours looked a mess compared to theirs and several of the staff and older kids were laughing often at ours and a few were taking pictures. Lily and some of the staff showed us a few times how to do it and we finally seemed to get it - although they still weren't near as pretty as theirs. I so wish my camera card would let me upload those pictures.

After we made the dumplings, we got to sit down and eat with the special needs kids and eat them (cooked at this point of course). They were super yummy but very filling - we were all so stuffed. They also had this beef that looked sort of like roast beef and that was good. And some yummy veggies.

After lunch, we left to let the kids have their naps. We went back to the hotel and I added me earlier blog about yesterday. That pretty much took the whole break. We were going to head back to the orphanage at 2:30 but we realized that the hotel here doesn't exchange money and we needed money so we can take the kids on an outing tomorrow and Sunday - some of the team were able to collect $1000 in orphanage donations - we get to use a portion of that to take the kids out for an activity which I know they will love and remember for a long time to come. And we also plan to print some photos to give them while we are here - including at least one enlarged photo for them to hang on the wall. They will love that - they are crazy about having their photos taken here. And then hopefully there is enough left over to buy a washing machine. The orphanage director said there is a new building being built next door that will replace this part of the orphanage so she said they didn't need much by way of supplies cause they don't want to collect a bunch of new stuff that they'll only have to move over. But she did say they could us a new washing machine. Anyway, so once we realized the hotel here doesn't exchange money like the one in Beijing did, the team decided to go to a bank. Me and Marsha were on our way down to meet in the lobby and were like 4 minutes late - while they were all waiting, some decided to go on to the bank and just come back and get us right after. Well, right after turned in to a full hour. I guess the bank would only let each person exchange a certain amount and they ran some kind of background check on each of them. Needless to say, we were all kind of bummed that our time with the kids this afternoon would be shortened. But... we were glad to realize before Saturday that the hotel didn't exchange money since the banks are closed on Sat and we definitely want to do an outing with the kids.

We got back to the orphanage about 4pm and had an hour with the kids. We did the visor art project with the special needs kids and they too loved it. Then we stuck stickers on all of them. Several of the kids had hands completely covered in stickers. And many of them decided to stick a bunch on me too. I'm still finding them on my clothes. We spent that last hour between the two rooms with the younger sick kids and the special needs kids - they are next door to each other - I was back and forth quite a bit. When I saw one of the toddlers in the hall with the caregiver and she was heading back to that room, I wanted to peak in on that little girl who had the IV put in. She was sitting at the kids table and I was happy to see she wasn't crying anymore. She was just sitting there observing. She would stare back at me a lot but I couldn't get much reaction out of her. I went over to her and kneeled down next to her and rubbed her head and shoulder. It didn't seem to upset her but she still looked pretty skeptical. One of the ladies came over at this point and took the tape from the IV off her - she of course started crying again. I picked her up and started trying to console her by patting her back and rocking her back and forth. She kept screaming. Finally one of the caregivers came and grabbed her - she stopped crying immediately which made me realize she still hadn't warmed up to me and she had started crying from the IV tape but most of the crying after that was because I was holding her. It is interesting to me that this trip and the last trip in Costa Rica - I was drawn to two kids around that age who both wanted nothing to do with me picking them up or loving them. I think part of me senses something in both of them that is a fear of me, a skeptical nature, distrusting people in general - and it makes me wonder what they have been through and makes me want to love them even more. I so want to bring that little girl home. I wonder if we have any kind of medical help in the US that could fix her arms and legs being turned the way they are. I really don't know much about it. I just know she is a beautiful precious child that God loves very much. They all are. That little boy I mentioned yesterday that would cry and cry and only stop when Frank held him- same thing happened again today. That little boy is absolutely precious - he is missing both arms and has little parts of an arm on each side but they are not functional. He just loved Frank. Marsha connected with one little boy with a cleft lip who did not want anything to do with anyone else and likes to sit by himself on a chair in the middle of the room. When you try to come near him, he turns away. He was so fascinated by Marsha's glasses though - she was able to connect with him by showing them to him and letting him look through them. I got some really cute pictures of him getting really close to her with his head cocked sideways trying to figure those glasses out. Too cute! So many beautiful children - it is so heartbreaking to see so many of them in physical pain and need. I don't understand why children are born with these problems - I so wish we lived in a world where that was not the case and all children were completely healthy. But for those children who are not - here in China and I'm sure elsewhere - they get abandoned, left in orphanages - all because of things they cannot control and did nothing to deserve. It is truly unfair. I really feel that we as the body of Christ need to do more - I need to do more - to look after the precious little ones who have been rejected and left behind. Their earthly parents may have tossed them away but Jesus hasn't. And neither should we.

Frank shared a scripture with us at devo this morning and I'll end by sharing it with you:

"... for Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"" ~Romans 10:13-15

I challenge you to go be the feet of Jesus. Even if you're in a place like China where you can't necessarily preach with words, you can share the good news with your actions. Which reminds me of a saying I've heard recently - "preach the gospel everywhere you go and when necessary, use words". We can be Jesus to a lost and broken world.

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FW: First day at the orphanage

I meant to get online last night and blog about our day but my internet connection was not working in my room. It is now our 2nd day at the orphanage and we are back at the hotel for 2 hours for a break while the kids nap. So I am going to fill you in on yesterday - our first day at the Chifeng orphanage.

I took tons of pictures but I've narrowed it down to a few for now - I will add the bulk of them when I get home since I can't actually get on facebook here.

Yesterday, I woke up at 6 am wide awake and could not get back to sleep. So I decided to stay up. My roommate, Marsha, was awake too so we got up and got ready. We all met down in the hotel lobby area for breakfast at 8 am. Chifeng is not as much a tourist town as Beijing so breakfast here is VERY different. It resembled a dinner and I was 3/4 through the line with an empty plate cause not much was looking appetizing. There were chicken feet and pig skins - so yeah, I didn't try those. They did have cocoa crispies but the milk is hot - so that was interesting. I was happy to discover a guy making omelets and I got some scrambled eggs. I also had coffee, some fruit and I tried the cereal with hot milk. We had morning devotional in our team leaders room at 8:30 and prayed for our day. Frank brought a big bag with these cool bouncy balls that when you bounce them - they light up with flashing colors. We took those to the orphanage.

The orphanage is not far from the hotel which is really nice. It took about 15 minutes to get there and when we pulled out - we were all really surprised at how big and nice the orphanage is. There was a team who came here 2 years ago and Lily was their guide too. She said there were some new things since last time - I think she said the outdoor playground equipment was new. The orphanage director had come to the hotel to meet us and when we got there, she gave us a tour around the building. It's several story building with classrooms, a large playroom area that has some rehab equipment, a room where they keep the kids sick with a cold and are equipped to put IV's in them with antibiotics. It is a very nice place. I took a few pictures of the rooms where the kids sleep - you can see stuffed animals on the bed - Lily said the last team gave those to them (I will add those pics later). A lot of the kids at this orphanage are in school so we won't get to meet them until Saturday and Sunday. So the ones that we are seeing the first few days are either really young, sick or have special needs. When we got here - a 15 year old boy came out to greet us and was all smiles. He remembered Lily and told her that he misses her everyday and was so happy to see her again. After getting a tour and peeking in to some of the rooms, we got to go in and play with the sick kids - most of them were younger kids. They were so cute - several babies, and a handful of toddlers. A few of the little girls immediately walked up to us and started handing us cards and toys. She'd go around and hand them to everyone and then come back around and take them back and give them to someone else. It was cute. We got to hold babies and love on kids. A sweet photo here of Marsha with one of the babies - that little one just snuggled right up in her arms. So precious. There is also a great one of Christine with a little one in her arms and they are both laughing. The little girl I was most drawn to was a little girl who I was told is about 2 year old - there's a picture of her here with the ball in front of her. And another shot of Bella holding her (and Sammie holding one of the other kids). When we got there, she was laying on this little bed and I couldn't tell if she was ok or not. Plus the bed had wet spots so I wasn't sure if I should pick her up. A caregiver came over a few minutes later and changed her diaper and then I gestured to her if I could pick her up. She picked her up and handed her to me and she immediately began crying. She wanted nothing to do with me. So I handed her back to the caregiver and she stopped crying. Later, Bella was able to pick her up - she cried at first and then stopped - she still looked skeptical but didn't seem as upset as she was when I tried to hold her. Later on, one of the older girls who lives there and helps out put her in a little kid chair with arms on each side and scooted her up to table. I found a ball and started rolling it back and forth to her and she started to relax a lot more and I even got her to smile and laugh. There are a lot of special needs children at this orphanage with various physical problems ranging from cleft palette to missing limbs to down syndrome . This little girl has something wrong with her hands - she had to use her arms to hit the ball - she couldn't really use her hands. It almost looks like her arms have grown wrong - sort of twisted. But she was doing a great job gripping the ball with her arms and batting it back to me. She'd smile and I'd clap and say "yay". It was so precious. She is a beautiful little girl. I was sad when they came and told us we had to go to lunch and then leave for nap time. Most of the time while we were in that room - there was tons of picture taking happening. A few older girls were in there and they loved having their picture taken. And then they'd want to see it and want to take more. The younger kids loved that too. There was one little boy who was in a walker and he would just cry and cry - tears would just pour out of his little eyes - it would break your heart but when you'd try to pick him up, he would cry more. Until Frank came over - he picked him up and held him and he totally stopped crying. It was the sweetest thing ever.

Lily came and told us it was time for lunch and we were eating at the orphanage. Originally she had said we'd go eat out somewhere while the kids were napping but that plan changed. I must admit, I was pretty nervous about it as to what the food might be. Of course, you don't want to be rude when you are offered food and it would be unpolite not to eat it. But we were all pleasantly surprised - they made two kind of dumplings - one was with kale in it and the other just plain. I figured it was a safe bet to stick to the plain ones. I'm glad I did cause the others who tried the kale filled ones said it was not their favorite. They also gave us greens and some tofu stuff that was in long strips sort of like noodles. That was pretty good. And my favorite was these soy beans that had like salt and some kind of marinade on them and were baked - they were yummy and crispy. I put some in my plain dumpling and that was good.

After we ate, we had to leave so the kids could nap. We headed back to the hotel and I checked my email and a few of the girls used my laptop to check theirs. And then I took a short nap.

We went back around 2:30 and spent the afternoon with the children with special needs. They were a blast - they were so excited to play with us. And Frank brought out the light-up colorful balls that glow and flash light when you bounce them and those were a huge hit. After about 15 minutes of playing in the classroom, the staff suggested we take them down to the big playroom. That was a much better idea. Most of the kids came down with us to the big room. It was really hot in there - like a sunroom. A lot of the kids had sweaters on and after awhile, finally did take them off. I had leggins on under my pants and had to take them off. We had so much fun bouncing balls and playing on all the toys in there. The kids love Lily - she would roll a ball back and forth with this one boy for the longest time through this rainbow tunnel thing. They had so much fun. THere were giant balls in there that bounced. And a little swing thing and these little boats that rocked back and forth like a teeter totter. Time flew by in there - we really had a ton of fun and so did the kids. It was perfect. Later, they brought a few of the kids down who had been in the sick room with us earlier and they got to play with us too. We took tons of photos - it is hard to narrow it down for the blog. I've chosen a few to help illustrate what I'm talking about. These kids are amazing - so full of joy. What a wonderful day we had with them.

We had to leave at 5pm. We came back to the hotel for 30 minutes and then walked to a nearby restaurant for dinner. Seems like every meal gets better than the last. We've had great food here - Lily is the master at ordering yummy food for us to try. We had a yummy breaded chicken, beef with veggies, tofu in like a soup type boiling dish, pork and this interesting dessert that was made out of corn and had fruit chunks in it and sugar. And this time, we had Pepsi to drink. Delicious meal!

We came back to the hotel, met for a debrief as a team - we shared stories and best moments of the day - and then we all headed to our rooms to get some rest. I couldn't get online for some reason so after trying for about 30 minutes, I decided to just go to bed. I got a good rest and woke up bright and early today at 6am.

All in all - our first day yesterday at the orphanage was amazing. And the best part is that we get to see these kids again for 4 more days. Saturday and Sunday, we are taking all the kids on outings. I guess there is a nearby park that we can take them to. This will be special for them as they do not go out often. I think we are also taking them to either KFC or McDonald's to eat too. Yes, they have those here. Although, I have a feeling it'll be totally different than the ones back home. We'll see. Those outtings will also include the school kids that we haven't met yet. Some of the school happens at the orphanage and we have seen some of the kindergarten kids in the hallways as they walk to their classrooms - they are adorable. We are not sure which ones are the ones who live here as some of the neighborhood kids come there for school and some are the kids who actually live there. We will find out on Saturday when we meet them.

Please pray for good weather Saturday and Sunday so we can indeed take the kids to the park. Lily said there was supposed to be a bad sand storm here today but it never happened - it is sunny and nice out. Sounds like the favor of the Lord to me:)

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Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Day 2 in China

It is 8pm here on Wednesday night and I'm about to go to bed. Today, we had a yummy breakfast at our hotel in Beijing at 9am which consisted of omelets, pastries, meats, fried noodles (of course), and coffee. After breakfast, we packed up our rooms and then had devo in our team leader Frank's room to prepare and pray for our travels and our days with the kids. Tomorrow we finally get to meet the kids and really start our journey. After our devo, we checked out of the hotel and got on the bus to head to the airport. Traffic was crazy and smog was really bad. I can't imagine living here - the air is so dirty - it cannot be healthy to breath this stuff in. We finally got to the airport around noon and checked our luggage in. Kara had her passport and then she didn't and we were all a little nervous about what happened to it - but she ended up finding it in her front pocket of her purse. So that was a relief. We got our luggage checked and started to head to security and Lily informed us to go on ahead and she had to catch up with us after cause the driver apparently had called her and needed to come back to drop off some documents. So we went on without her and fortunately, the signs were in Chinese and English so it was pretty easy to find where we needed to go. My belt set off the alarm in security and I had to get frisked and wanded - luckily it was a woman. Sammie got stopped because of something in her backpack (see photo attached of her at the security desk) - we're still not totally sure why but they took everything out of her bag, searched and ended up with her tiny bible in hand having a discussion in Chinese. It seemed like the bible was the item in question although we never really knew since we had no translator with us at the time and none of us speak Chinese. After some back and forth and them trying to ask Sammie questions to which of course, she could not answer - they finally decided to let her go and give her the bible back. They did flip through it a bit. Some of us thought maybe they were flipping through to make sure it wasn't in Chinese - it's ok to bring in a personal bible but not ok to hand them out to folks here. So maybe that was why but we aren't totally sure. We're just glad we got through. On our way to our gate, we came across a little store and got some Dove candy bars and some of the girls got ice cream. We got to our gate just as it was about to board and two guys stopped us and asked where we were from cause they heard us talking and recognized the accents. One of the guys was from Miami and the other from London, England. They are here on business and were super nice. The one from Miami had the "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" scripture tattooed on his neck. He asked what we came here for and we told them we were visiting orphans and they asked if we were Christians and they were really excited when we said we were. They said they are too - to which I replied - I thought so since I noticed your scripture tattoo. They asked about the VO website and we wrote it down for them. They were super nice. Just as we decided we had better get on the plane, we saw Lily. She made it. We all got on the plane and headed to Chifeng. I had an empty seat next to me and a Chinese guy near the window next to that. He tried to talk to me in Chinese several times and seemed like he really wanted to tell me something but I had no clue and just had to keep shrugging my shoulders. I wish I knew what he was trying to say. It was a rough plane ride. Not a super small plane but kind of rocky on the takeoff and landing. Not sure if was windy or what the reason was but it was doing that dropping and back and forth thing and I was feeling like I was going to be sick and so was Bella. Not fun. The last 30 minutes was not fun - very nauseous. I was thrilled when we landed and I managed to not throw up. And also very happy when we got in our van and traveled only 20 minutes to the hotel - all flat smooth roads and no traffic. It is mountainous here - Lily said Chifeng means Red Mountain so that makes sense. It is considered a smaller city for China so we were expecting to be in the country - wrong. It is 5 million people who live here - and that's considered a small town. My goodness - I can't believe that!!! It's spread out a bit more than Beijing and though there are tall buildings - there aren't AS many as Beijing. There is one cool building near our hotel that has a mini Eiffel tower on top of it and it lights up different colors at night. See the photo attached. Our hotel is really nice here - I took some pictures of the lobby and our room. Although we ended up switching rooms about 20 minutes later cause that whole side of the building had the sun beating in and was really hot. Lily suggested we all change cause the AC doesn't work here this time of year. Luckily we hadn't unpacked our stuff yet. I had been busy trying to get the internet to work and it wasn't working. Finally got it working now after Frank and some hotel staff tried for over an hour. Thanks to Frank for somehow getting it to work.

We had such a big breakfast this morning, we decided we didn't even want lunch which was a good choice. We went to dinner at 5 and were just barely starting to get hungry. We walked about 1 mile to a restaurant near the hotel. Lily said a few years ago when the team came and she did this trip with VO, there were no restaurants within walking distance. And now there are at least 10. So we are going to try a different one each night which will be fun. The place we tried tonight was neat - we had our own private room upstairs and it was really cute. The table had a spinning glass lazy susan type thing in the middle - which worked great for sharing food (see photo). Lily ordered a bunch of stuff for us to try again. We each got rice and then tried fried eggplant, pig skin (I didn't try that - no thanks), beef, pork (yay), spicy chicken, some kind of root, and cabbage. And of course, Coca-Cola:)

After we ate, we walked back to the hotel and like I said - spent the next hour trying to get our internet to work. I will be going to bed soon. We'll have a full day tomorrow. We have breakfast about 8, devo at 8:30 and the orphanage director is coming here to the hotel to meet us and take us to the orphanage at 9am. We get to spend all day with the kids. We will have to leave for lunch so the kids can nap - we'll go eat someplace and come back once nap time is over. I think we stay until about 4:30 or 5 and then head back to the hotel or dinner.

Oh, I took a picture of my new laptop bag on wheels that I got at the crazy market yesterday - I got to use it for travel today and it worked well. Although, I have to say - the rubber handle on it smells horrible. I'm not kidding - it smells like gasoline. I have wiped it down with baby wipes like 10 times and even wrapped one around it for a few hours and it still reaks. I don't know why it smells so bad but I hope it wears off eventually. When we were in the van - it started to smell up the whole van. It's kind of smelly here so we'll just say it's my little souvenir of the smell of China. ha ha

I have taken a few pictures so far but knowing me, I'll surely take the most of the kids. In Costa Rica, I took 600 pictures. Most were photos of the kids. So I will pick out a few of my favorites each day and upload them with a blog update.

Thanks everyone who has been reading my blogs/notes and commenting. I can't get on facebook to comment back or update my status but I do get to read your comments in my email inbox so that's been really nice.

Thanks so much for all your prayers - we feel the favor of the Lord all over this trip! He is good!!!

The New Busy is not the too busy. Combine all your e-mail accounts with Hotmail. Get busy.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Day 1 in China

Can I just say how glad I am that I set it up before I left to be able to email myself to a blogger address and have it update my blog and facebook too - because you cannot get on facebook here apparently. Or blogger for that matter. But I can get on hotmail thankfully and I see that folks are commented on my facebook and blog so now I know it's working to update it this way. So glad. YAY! If you're reading this from facebook - I believe it gets delayed in posting to facebook from blogger. If you want to see it on my blog - visit http://autumn-seasonsofautumn.blogspot.com/

It is 6:42PM Nashville time on Tuesday and it is now 7:42 AM on Wednesday here so I just woke up. We took a short rest yesterday morning when we got in and we wanted to get adjusted to the time so we thought we should do a little sightseeing to keep busy and awake. We sure did. Lily, our guide, is super awesome and accommodated our request - she took us to lunch at this most awesome yummy old Beijing noodle restaurant. And she ordered for us a bunch of stuff to try. It was all so yummy. Hoping the pictures I'm trying to post with this will show up. Of course, I took a picture of the food:) My favorite was like a sweet and sour pork. The funny part was - she ordered for us and the left to run home and get her pass to this park we were going to afterwards. Not the best idea to have your translator leave during your first meal in China. Needless to say - our driver who didn't speak English - did show us how to dress the noodles with this soy based sauce stuff. But we were all super thirsty and we looked around - and not many people at the restaurant had beverages. I was using gestures of holding an imaginary cup and drinking to our driver with hopes that he would order us a drink. I even thought, well, maybe they know the word Coke and could get us some Coke. What we ended up with was little cups of hot water. Not tea, water. It was pretty funny. Our guide got back towards the end of the meal and we told her about our attempt to get a drink and that we'd really just love a coke. She tells the driver "coca-cola" and he laughs and totally understands that word. Apparently, our shortened Coke version of it doesn't translate so next time, we'll know to say Coca-Cola! Nevertheless, we didn't drink the hot water and we were super happy when we got our coke:) The moral of the story is - without Lily we get hot water to drink instead of coke! We much prefer having Lily:) And she's super sweet too.

After lunch, we got dropped off at the south entrance of a park called Temple of Heaven. I took some pictures - beautiful architecture but behind it all - a very sad story of this being a place where many gods were worshipped. The people would come there to pray for harvest, rain, wind, etc. There were certain places that would echo because of the design and apparently they believed their gods could hear you when you stood there. I just kept thinking, I'm so glad my God is accessible anytime, anywhere thanks to Jesus! Needless to say, the park was not my favorite place but it had some really awesome like 300+ year old trees that had really neat designs. And a young guy stopped us and told Lily to have us come see his art - so we followed him to a little building and inside was some beautiful art by him and a bunch of other people. Smart guy to stop the Americans - of course, we each bought something. I bought a painting on this scroll thingy that was called "Autumn". There were a series of 4 of this water scene with a tree and two birds and the Autumn one was appropriately yellows and oranges. And since it was name so perfectly - I just had to get it. It was only 150 yen - which I think is like $15 dollars or so in US. Not bad for a neat piece of local art. And it rolled up into a box so I can take it on the airplane pretty easily.

After we left the park - this is where our adventure really begins in Beijing - our driver was delayed so Lily suggested we take a bus to the subway and the subway to the free market where you can negotiate and bargain prices to buy stuff. I didn't take pictures but one of the other girls did - which I will post later - of all us crammed into the bus. Turns out, the bus we got on was the only one that went to the subway and pretty much everyone in town was on it. If you aren't closterphobic, you still felt like you were. It seemed crowded when we got on but to my surprise - we stopped and picked up more people at at least 4 more stops. It was insane. And these people were getting on so you had better make room or they'd be climbing over you. Case and point - an older lady literally did climb over Frank and Bella to get to a seat by the window. It was crazy. Thankfully, we were not here on a 100 degree day cause it already smelled bad enough in there. So we finally get off the bus and we are all laughing hysterically at how crazy that was. We then get on the subway - almost as crowded but we only had to ride for 2 stops. We got off and wala - we are at the market.

Note to self: next time I come, wait a few days to shop here when I'm not totally exhausted from a day of travel. The market is madness. It's 6 or more floors of vendors lined in row after row of stuff. One floor has luggage, purses, wallets, bags, etc. Another floor is electronics. There is jewelry, clothing, shoes, nick-knacks, and so much more. I saw some laptop bags and since I had been shopping for one before I left - I knew the price back home for these. And I pretty much knew what kind I wanted as far as size and stuff. I found one that was a Samsonite and started bargaining with the lady. I honestly didn't bring much money on this trip for spending money so I had limited funds. I had in my mind that I didn't need it unless I could get it for 130 yen or less which in US is pretty darn cheap for a nice laptop bag on wheels. I told her that 130 was all I wanted to spend. She had started at 400+ yen and finally after chasing me down the hall when I walked off and said no, I only had 130 - she went down to 190 but I just wasn't going there. She kept saying I could borrow from my friends - yeah right! Dave Ramsey would so not approve. Ha ha There were other vendors so I kept walking. She was crazy - she literally chased me down the whole row saying "wait lady, wait lady." I finally turned the corner and kept going. I really don't like this kind of shopping. You feel so rushed and pressured and they start doing the price war with you before you really even decide if you want something and it stresses me out. I like to take my time and evaluate whether I need something and how much I have to spend, etc. We were about to go to another floor and I asked if the team I was with (we split into 2 groups) minded if I tried one more vendor cause I really did want a laptop bag. I used my backpack on wheels to get here but the laptop doesn't fit in there very well and I had to take it out and hold it separately on the plane cause the backpack won't fit under my seat. I had not been able to find a bag like these for less than $75 to $100 back home which I just didn't want to spend. But if I could find one for between $15-$20 here in US - that would be a bargain. Next vendor I went to - I asked her about the same bag I had been eyeing at the other vendors booth. She said over 400 yen. I said "I only have 130". She thought for a moment and showed me a smaller Samsonite one that she would give me for 200. I said, "oh ok - thanks anyway - I only have 130" and started to walk away. She said "I'll go 150 lowest". I said "I don't think I have 150 but let me check". I had 145 so I showed her and said "145 is all I have" and wala - I now own a Samsonite rolling laptop bag. I actually kind of like that it's smaller. I'm pretty excited about getting it that cheap. Once I got that - I was pretty much done on shopping and these people chasing you around trying to get you to buy something. The 3 people I was with were not mad shoppers but the other group apparently was - they came back to meet up with us with lots of bags and about 10 minutes late which was not a huge deal but I think they could have shopped longer. Whereas, I was done about 30 minutes into it. Not to mention ready to crash. It was 5:30 PM here which is 4:30 am at home so it's no wonder we were tired. We were so happy when our driver picked us up and we didn't have to take any more public transit. Lily took us to a place to eat near our hotel and it was yummy too. She said their specialty is Peking Duck but you have to order that in advance. Sounds like we may go back on our last day and do that. For this meal, she ordered a huge bucket of rice and a bunch of meats to try - chicken, beef, pork(my fav), and tofu (which was not a hit). There was also this meat thing with a breading around it that I guess was made out of eggplant. The outside was decent but the meat inside grossed me out so I didn't finish mine. But they had these little tortillas and you put the pork in it and rolled it up and ate it and that was super yummy. Both meals - my favorite has been the pork - it's been a sweet sauce both times. I hope we order 2 orders of that next time. We topped off our meal with Coca-Cola (it had a pretty Chinese label) - attaching a picture of Bella holding it.

After dinner, we walked about 5 blocks to our hotel and immediately headed up to go to bed. We were all totally beat and feeling like we had been here for a week when it had only been one day. A few of the girls wanted to use my laptop so I told them they should come straight to my room - otherwise I had a feeling I'd be out like a light in about 2 minutes. They sent some emails and stayed about 15 minutes. I washed my face and brushed my teeth and when they left put on my pjs and I laid down and my roommate Marsha got on the laptop. I didn't hear anything else - I was out in probably no joke, like 30 seconds. I think I was already dreaming when I heard Marsha ask me how to turn the computer off. I'm sure she had only been on for a few minutes yet my sleep was already so deep, I felt like it had been an hour. I hopped up and turned it off and laid back down and never woke up again until about 2 am to go to the bathroom. Around 4 am, I started waking up a lot and thinking I had been sleeping a long time and wondering why it wasn't light out yet. But we did go to bed at 8pm so that would explain it. I did manage to get back to sleep. Marsha's alarm went off at 7 and I was definitely ready to get up. The sun is out and the horns outside have started honking. It is time to begin Day 2 in China. We are eating breakfast at 9 am and then packing back up and heading to the airport to fly to Chifeng. Tomorrow, we will have our first day at the orphanage there - and we will be face to face with our reason for coming. I can't wait to meet the kids. The team brought tons of arts and crafts to do with them. And I brought face paint!

Since it's night back home - y'all have a good rest. While you sleep, I will be taking in China! Stay tuned for more. And thanks for all your prayers.

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Monday, April 5, 2010

I'm in China!

I made it! Here's some pictures of the team in the airport shuttle and a few looking out my hotel room. It has been about 26 hours since leaving Nashville and we just checked in to our hotel in Beijing. It's actually Tuesday morning here. Our flight got in at 5am Tues morning. It's like time travel. Flying all night was the best idea for a 12 hour flight because we slept pretty much 9 of those hours. Not that it was comfortable sleeping but it was sleep and it made the flight go by so much faster. The last 3 hours when I was awake went by slow but they showed GI Joe which is a pretty cool movie so that helped. I was wedged in the middle seat between two guys that I'm pretty sure didn't speak English. They never spoke to me so I'm assuming they didn't. Which was fine with me cause I was so tired, I fell asleep before the plane even took off - I woke up and we were in the air and I was thinking "when did we take off?" I've never fallen asleep for a takeoff before. But it was pretty much 4 am Nashville time when we got on the plane so that would explain the tiredness. Thankfully the seats were much wider than the ones on my earlier flights so I had a little room to move. By the time we were about an hour away - I was started to get a little closterphobic (I'm not sure that's how you spell that). I was happy when we finally got off the plane. The rest of the team sat together farther back. I was sort of separate because my flights got book later than all of theirs. But we were all asleep anyway so it was ok. Since it was so early in the morning, the airport was practically empty which meant we breezed through. We were met at baggage area by our guide Lily and we loaded up into a van and headed to the hotel. I was very glad it was early cause looking out the window from my hotel room now, traffic looks insane (see photo). But we got here just before the craziness. I think it's about 40 degrees out so not as cold as I was expecting. I'm happy about that. We are going to rest up a bit, shower and then meet in the hotel lobby at 11:15am and go sightseeing at a place called Temple of Heaven. We'll have lunch near there and then shop in some sort of market later. And of course, get to bed early tonight to attempt to get adjusted to China time. We're pretty much on the opposite time schedule here so while y'all are sleeping there, we'll be awake here and vice versa. I remember when I went to the Philippines - it was easier to adjust to the time here than it was when we came back home. I think it'll be the same way here. It's light out so my body is already telling me I should be awake. And I did sleep for 9 hours off and on on the plane.

Anyway, I'll keep this brief. Just wanted to let y'all know I made it safely. And our luggage all made it through all the transfers too. The Lord's favor is all over us - thanks for praying!

We travel to Chifeng tomorrow and for the next 5 days after that, we will be loving on kids in the orphanage there. I will upload pictures and updates as much as possible:)

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Sunday, April 4, 2010

Celebration

I woke up excited. I rarely ever wake up before my alarm yet today I did. I'm so excited to go to China and I'm also really excited and thankful that I don't leave until later in the afternoon so I can attend Easter service at my church. I am thankful for my church. The body of Christ at Belmont has truly demonstrated Jesus to me. I've been there 7 years and it really is home. When I lost my job, the young adults and the pastors there jumped right in to offer support. They've prayed with me, encouraged me and kept me accountable. I had little tastes of it growing up but I never knew authentic church until I came here. And it was in the people at Belmont that I finally knew Jesus - really knew Him. It radically changed my life. And 7 years later, who would've guessed that I would be working for a missions agency and going aroudn the world to minister to orphans? God is so good - and He does have great plans for each one of us if we are obedient to step out in faith and go where He leads. I'm so glad I did. And I pray I will continue to hear His voice and follow where He leads. I'm soooo thankful for the love of Christ that has penetrated my heart and healed so many hurt and broken places. I finally know the freedom in Christ!! Thank you Jesus. Thank you that you came to earth, you lived and you died for me so that I might have life and have it abundantly. Thank you that I didn't find you - you were always there waiting for me to come to you - you found me and I'm so grateful. So today... I am excited to go celebrate Belmont style (which means - jumping, hands waiving, free to really celebrate) service. I love that freedom. And we should be celebrating - today represents the day Jesus rose from the dead! This is the day! He is risen indeed!!!! "The enemy has been defeated and death couldn't hold Him down. I'm gonna lift my voice in victory, I'm gonna shout my praises loud!!!!" And then I'm gonna get on a plane and go to the ends of the earth and let that love that Christ demonstrated to me be demonstrated to "the least of these". Jesus loves the little children and so do I!!! Happy Easter everyone! May you fully know... I mean really, really know that you know that you know - the love of a savior who came and died so that you might live!

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Saturday, April 3, 2010

Preparing My Heart

I leave for China tomorrow - Easter Sunday. Today, I've been packing and praying and thinking about the kids I met in Costa Rica, looking at their pictures and missing them. I've been thinking about how much I wanted to bring a sibling group of 5 home with me but knowing it's not my time yet. I don't even know if they can be adopted - they have a mom - she just keeps getting them taken away from her for neglect. Last time, she left them home alone. And now, she's pregnant again. I pray for her and for those kids. And I pray for their sake, she will get it together and be the mom they deserve. Part of me still wants to be their mom. I cannot get their faces out of my mind. They are in my dreams at night. And they are most definitely in my heart. I know the Lord has put the desire to be a mom and specifically to adopt in my heart - but I have not felt Him yet say "this is the time". So I wait and I trust that I am doing what I can do in the meantime by going and loving on kids and being Jesus to them. I long for the day when I can do more by bringing a child home and being their mommy.

I just watched a video on youtube that my co-worker posted about a family that just adopted 4 kids from Ethiopia. I sat here watching with tears just pouring out. I don't remember ever just bursting out crying as often as I have lately - since I went to Costa Rica. On Compassion trips, when you meet your sponsored child - you know you'll still write to them and you know they are being taken care of, provided for, given a hope and a future - through Compassion and the local church. You leave feeling uplifted and purposeful. You go thinking it's to encourage your sponsored kid and in turn - you end up being the one encouraged. And I came home from that trip with 2 more sponsored kids and later sponsored 3 more and became a volunteer. It wasn't hard to leave. I met my kids family and they were poor financially but rich in love. And I knew he was in good hands and a loving home. I wasn't sad to leave. It was different on this trip to Costa Rica. I fell in love with kids that I don't know if I will get to see or talk to again. I don't know where they'll end up or what will happen to them. Knowing their stories and seeing their smiles yet also seeing the pain behind those smiles - it's heart wrenching. It's a different kind of purpose on a trip like this - it's going in to the dark and bringing light. It's loving kids that may not know what that feels like and may not even know how to receive it. It's knowingly walking into a situation that you know is going to be emotional and painful and heartbreaking - but it's so not about me - cause if it were - I wouldn't go and keep having my heart broken like that. But I'm compelled to go by a father who loves me and loves these kids - even more than I do. And I want them to know that love. It breaks my heart to go - because it should. And I fully expect it to happen in China too. And that's why my heart is heavy tonight. I know that I will fall in love with these children. I know that I will laugh and play and have fun with them. I know I will make new friends with the team that's going and I know I will be glad that I went. But I also know that it will be hard to leave and I will leave part of my heart behind. So I sit here tonight and prepare, pray and ask God to give me and the rest of the team the strength we need. And He will cause He's the one who has called us to go. He has gone before us and prepared the way. And through Christ, I can do all things!