Not such a small world after all~

We were quite ready to leave Jinan and head to Guangzhou.  We were blessed by our time in Jinan, but every step is a step closer to home.

Missy and Mr. Liu took us to pick up Samuel's passport.  It took several hours, and while we never did quite figure out what the hold up was Missy and Mr. Liu seemed quite concerned during the whole thing, I know God heard your prayers, or we would still be in the passport office.

We zipped off to the airport and with Missy's help navigated the terminal.  When we went to pass through security it came up that our luggage was flagged, so we had to go back to the counters to get a stamp to say we were not smuggling anything, and then back into the security line which was crazy long.  Every flight you take in China they process your passport, and take your picture, so going through security takes awhile.

Samuel seemed excited about going on the plane.  Jim kept telling me all the things that Air China was supposed to be doing, but wasn't.  I settled in in my broken seat and pretended I couldn't hear him.  Ha!

By God's grace we landed safely in Guangzhou.  Samuel did great on the flight, but his poor little ears hurt on landing.  He doesn't know how to chew gum, so there was little we could do.

Guangzhou is another HUGE city.  Beijing has a population of 19 million and Jinan has a population of 6 million.  Guangzhou has a population of 9 million.  It's amazing.

We are staying on Shamian Island.  It used to be an English and then French Colony.  It's very pretty here and the air is cleaner..... as is our hotel.  The temperature here is the same as Florida.  Yippee!

We have a full couple of days and then head to the Embassy.  Thank you for praying!!

Day 7?

Is it Day 7?  Things are blurred together right now.  Once Thursday ended we had the final piece to take care of in the trip in Jinan, the passport.  That morning I went outside briefly and it was the first day since the “fog” rolled back in.  The original smell that was there back in the beginning of the week was now in full force.  All I can say to describe it would be like breathing a poisoned gas.   The same type of smell is in the water.  If you lived here all of your life you would not think anything of it.  It still seems strange that people are not looking up and saying that there is this strange fog that comes over out city all of the time. 

The longer that I have been here the more I can tell that there is a strange mix of people walking and driving around like everything is ok.  For the most part for them, it is.  They just live their lives, go from here to there, and all seems to be business as usual.  In this area where there are literally millions of people in a ten mile radius, there is somewhat of an order to the chaos.  There is no good side of town, there is no bad side.  It is all kind of mixed up.

When we see the people in this area, we cannot stop and talk to them due to a language barrier.  Most people can say hello, or bye bye, but that is about it.  No more than we can say hi and bye in Chinese.  I have not yet demanded that they press one for English.  I say all of that about the people because they live an existence.  I cannot say how deep the meaning to their lives is, but from my perspective they are oppressed without knowing it.  They cannot go online to web sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube.  I am sure it is the government’s way of keeping the people under wraps so that they can control what they want them to know.  We are not pushing the guides too much as whether they think this is normal.  Buddhism is one of the primary religions here; however, there seem to be few people who practice that.  I was told before I came here that most people are atheists and for the most part I can see that.  There is nothing to believe in other than your existence and what you are experiencing right now.  This is perfect for the government since they do not have to worry about controlling or regulating what the people think or do.

So, back to the passport.  We did finally get the passport around 2 pm.   One thing I have learned about these other foreign countries is that there is no time schedule.  If I was running late and wanted to speak to a supervisor as to why there is a delay and I need answers now, they would likely call the cops to take me out.  You just have to remain calm and hope and pray they all do what they are supposed to do, even if it is in their time table.

Our plane was leaving at 4:30 to go to our next city named Guangzhou.    The airport was a little more intimidating since very few things are now in English.  We get through security with little incident and the plane took off and landed on time.  I was most concerned about the landing since the Chinese airline thing really concerned me.  The one thing that made me feel better is that I realized that when I got on the plane I looked at the placard on the entry door that said Boeing, Wichita Kansas.  USA, that’s what I am talking about.   The seats on the plane were kinda flimsy, but those must have been made in China.

We arrived and once again the guide picked us right out of the crowd within seconds.  How do they do that?  We catch a ride to the hotel that night.  We were pretty wiped out since we were up during the time we have been sleeping here so we did the quick tour and went to bed.  That wrapped up this day….

Thankful.

Psalm 95:1-6 - O Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms. For the LORD is a great God, And a great King above all gods, In whose hand are the depths of the earth; The peaks of the mountains are His also. The sea is His, for it was He who made it; And His hands formed the dry land. Come, let us worship and bow down; Let us kneel before the LORD our Maker.


We have so much to be thankful for!   God has been SO good to us.  I hope everyone had a blessed Thanksgiving Day.


We walked and explored Jinan without our guide and had our Thanksgiving feast of french fries at the KFC.   We would never eat KFC at home, but here it is like manna from heaven.  Samuel tried and has become a big fan of the french fry.


We are missing our family so much.  We were so blessed to watch the Thanksgiving service on livestreaming.  What an encouragement for us.


Today we pick up Samuel's passport (Please pray it's ready!) and fly to Guangzhou.  We are excited to be moving closer to home.  


Happy Thanksgiving !!!  Please eat a bowl of mashed potatoes, drink some water out of the tap, and take a deep breath of fresh air for us!!!

第6天 - 感恩節快樂

第6天 - 感恩節快樂

我們仍然可以在這裡過節，但它以不同的方式。我不知道如果任何人都足夠聰明，算出這個，但如果你是對你有好處。

這裡有一些圖片，以幫助你慶祝感恩節，因為我們是從傳統的食品遠離....享受

Day 5 - Jim

Day 5

Explored  a park with our guide.  It was cold and since it is winter time there was not a lot to see, but it was still good to get out.  Even though we are waiting to leave on Friday, we have the passport to pick up so hopefully things will go smoothly there and we will then fly to the next city. 

Even though there have been some interesting sights, I am more concerned about doing what we came here to do then get home.   There is becoming less to say each day in regards to what we are seeing.  It is more interesting to see what this kid is doing more than anything.  He has been really well behaved and he is constantly making faces and laughing.  This is not typical at all of adopted kids.  In fact, it is usually the opposite extreme and this can be a miserable experience for most people.  There is no reason why things are going well other than God has taken care of everything for us.  There is no other explanation.  This kid was supposedly a quiet and shy boy.  For us he is anything but that.  The video says a lot more than I can so here it is….

Exploring Jinan~

All of our paperwork for now is done here in Jinan.  We will pick up Samuel's passport on Friday and then fly to Guangzhou for more paperwork, this time for the US Embassy.

We have had some time to explore Jinan.  It is a fascinating city.   We walk down old streets where people are hanging laundry, selling fried octopus on a stick, washing their clothes in the river, and collecting the river's water.  Then we turn onto a modern road with cars, bikes, mopeds zipping by to large and more modern buildings.  It's such a contrast, but it is really cool.

We went to Baotu Springs.  It is a very beautiful park where the springs are surrounded by beautiful foliage and traditionally styled buildings.   We saw many older people walking around the springs and a young bride getting her wedding photos taken.   As we were walking we suddenly heard a saxophone playing "Roll out the Barrel"  Jim and I were cracking up.  It was a strange song for such a setting.  The older man who was playing it stopped our guide and asked a lot of questions from her.  He wanted to know why our son was so white while we weren't.  It was funny.

We have noticed that the Chinese young people will stare on the sly.  They may point at you to their friends or  whisper about you or giggle, but the older people don't even put up a pretense about the whole thing.  They just come right up to you.  We really are not offended at all, and find it amusing.  The other day I was standing and holding Samuel in the street and this older man comes up and stands two inches in front of me.  I thought I was standing in his spot or something and so I moved.  He followed me.  He then looked at me and pointed to the little bit of leg that Samuel was exposing as I was holding him.  He yanked it down, wagged his finger at me,and moved on.  Point taken.  The Chinese don't want to see their little ones exposed to the cold.   A few minutes later another older man came up to Jim and pulled on Jim's shirt sleeves (Jim was wearing a short sleeved shirt) and then pulled on his jacket.  It was like he was saying "You dummy, where is your jacket, it's cold."  So, Jim beats on his chest in the I am man hear me roar way and says, "I am strong man.  I am tough." The man just shook his head and walked away.   We just laughed.

Another thing we find funny is that we make the Chinese very nervous when we give Samuel something cold to drink.  They don't like that, and think nothing of giving him boiling milk or hot water which freaks us out a little.  We aren't sure what the whole thought is behind this, but he really does prefer cold juice over hot milk.

We ended up spending several hours and walking several miles through the center of Jinan.  It was so fun, and just an incredible experience to see the sights and sounds.  Samuel is not used to being outside.  They say in the orphanage they rarely go out..like maybe every six months.  I can't imagine.  He is nervous and wants me to carry him all the time we are outdoors, but he is happy and singing and giggling all the while.  He did learn that running down bridges, kicking leaves, and jumping off steps are fun though.  I love, love, love to see how exciting the simplest of things are to him.  He is so sweet and funny and he has  little nutty side that has our guide shaking her head, and us laughing until we are in tears.  God has truly blessed us.