Prayer Request

There’s so much to write about our Saturday, but I want to first request prayers for Ethan. On the way to the Great Wall, our guide informed us that she had gotten a text from Jane, who will be our guide in Nanjing, that said Ethan is in the hospital. Grace called her and let me talk to her. She had very little information except that he was taken there by the orphanage yesterday and they are planning on bringing him from the hospital to us on Monday. I asked a few questions, but she had no answers. When I hung up, Grace was trying to be very reassuring that maybe he just had a fever or a cold. I know things in China are not like in America, so it is hard to know what to think. I believe that God is watching over him and has him covered, so I am doing my best to be at peace and not worry. I just want to hold him and let him know how much we love him. He needs a family to comfort him. It breaks my heart to think about him being so alone, especially in the hospital. Thanks for lifting us all up to the Great Physician. We started the day by eating at the hotel’s breakfast buffet. Nothing like the White Swan from Reagan’s adoption trip, but it was fine. We played it safe and ate cereal and a few other American things, stayed away from the fungus salad! We met the others from our group, Amanda and Sherri. Amanda’s sister is with her to help with the adoption of 2 kids! This will be Sherri’s first! We will go our separate ways to different provinces, but it was nice to make new friends and share experiences with them today. At 8:30 we met Grace in the lobby and waited for our bus. The trip to Tianemen (fogot how to spell that) Square was crazy, the traffic was horrible and only got worse as the day progressed. We were there with a million other people and Grace seemed to just want to rush through everything without giving us all the information like Veronica did back in 2005. It was fine though because it felt like 110 degrees and the humidity is so bad. We were all drenched in sweat, as you will see in the pictures. So we made our way across the street by going under (reminded me of Riga) to the Forbidden City. There were so many people it was hard to keep together as a group. Reagan was not impressed. In hindsight, we should have given her the history behind everything before we left. Tons of people wanted to take pictures of our group, mainly because the other women are tall blondes with blue eyes. It was funny! I guess they don’t see Americans very often! Everytime we saw a little boy, the girls would say Oh, look, how cute, etc. They got to see real live split pants and the reason they wear them. No wonder China stinks so bad! Grace took pictures of us to send to Veronica. We really wish we could have had her as our guide. Grace is fine, but we loved Veronica so much, she was with us the entire time with Reagan’s adoption. She and Grace are friends and even came to America together last year. After the Forbidden City we got back on the bus to head to a Jade Factory to tour and have lunch. Again, the traffic was awful. Grace said she had never seen it that bad. We arrived and it looked very similar to the place we ate in 2005 only it was jade instead of vases. We had lunch, which was pretty good. They brought out all these dishes, including sweet and sour chicken! There was nothing weird or gross. Ryleigh is being a little picky, but Reagan ate a lot! We got a tour of how they make all the jade things, like jewelry, trinkets, etc. It was interesting. We watched several people working and saw pictures of the Olympic medals that they made, there were pictures of Michael Phelps kissing his gold medal with jade on it. Pretty neat. We didn’t buy anything despite the high pressure sales people. It was pretty expensive and we know even if it is fake jade (we got a lesson on how to spot a fake) it will be cheaper in Guangzhou. It’s going to be hard to find gifts to take home for Ethan, much different than shopping for girls! The ride to the Great Wall was supposed to take 10 minutes. Unfortunately we got caught in traffic for over 2 hours. Then it started raining and that is the point we got the call about Ethan. So, it took a lot to make the Great Wall fun. However, that was one of my regrets last time, was not enjoying being at this amazing place. Reagan had fallen asleep on the bus, so she was grouchy at first, but once we made up our minds to have a good time, we did! It was dangerous trying to walk up all those steep steps in the rain and there were a billion people, so we took our time and stopped to take a lot of pictures. It was also very smoggy. We didn’t get any of the history lesson from Grace, in fact I think she just stayed on the bus, so I wished again we had brushed up on some of the facts of the wall to share with the girls. Reagan commented a few times that she didn’t think that it would keep people out of China. She’s funny! I hope she remembers everything she is seeing and doing, but let me just say, that kid is 100 percent American! We witnessed a girl about her age peeing right there on the Great Wall. It’s perfectly okay for people to let their children pee and poop in public, in fact there is a little tiny ditch which serves as drainage for that. Super disgusting, but made us laugh! When we left the Great Wall, we got back into the wonderful traffic. Exhaustion set in and we fell asleep for a little bit on the bus. We drove through the Olympic Village and Grace talked about the different areas. We saw the Watercube and Bird’s Nest and where they athletes stayed. It was neat to see a glimpse of it. The smog made picture taking difficult. Ryleigh and Reagan slept through it and it wasn’t worth it to wake them up. Grace said you can swim at the Watercube for $25 a day. We arrived back at the hotel around 6:00. We were too tired to think about going out for dinner, so we ate beef jerky and crackers. We got to talk to the big girls and my parents, it was so good to hear their voices. I think about a hundred times a day that they would love being here. I miss having my girls all together! They survived their first 3 days of high school and seem to like it! We got packed up and showered and ready to leave bright and early. At 9:00 I thought I couldn’t stay awake for one more second so I crashed. Now it is the middle of the night here and I am probably awake for the day. It’s exciting to think that in just a few hours we will be in Jiangsu Province and there will be no more traveling before we meet Ethan! It’s been a long journey, physically and emotionally, but the time is near! Thanks for following along. Hopefully the internet will be as good in Nanjing and we will post easily from there!