July 7, 2010 "I can do ALL things through Christ who strengthens me." --Phillipians 4:13 Ok…so today we really feel as if we are back among the living and like we will be able to survive in China for the next 10 days. I want to thank all of you for your prayers; they have certainly been felt. Milledge has kept me informed about all the good wishes and prayers coming our way via phone calls, Facebook messages and emails. We cannot see Facebook, Blogspot or this Adoption Voyages site in China, so we are hearing about it all through family and friends on Skype. If there is anyone out there reading this who is in the process of adopting from China…download Skype now! It has been our only link to home and has honestly been the key to us keeping our sanity! For those of you who have humored us by talking to us on Skype…a big thank you! You have no idea what your smiling faces have meant to us. Miss Ruthie has developed a cold today with a yucky nose and coughing. It is really no wonder that this has happened, considering she has been in an orphanage with little or no air conditioning and hopefully not too many people around her smoking. So, she comes here with us, and it is 145 degrees outside, and we can control the air in our room…you can imagine the coolness! Also, everyone in China smokes. If I’d ever had any notions of smoking, which I haven’t, I think I would move to China and just breathe deeply. I can’t imagine how much I would save in cigarettes! Caryn and I walk around taking very small baby breaths. Literally it is really that bad. They smoke in the lobby, the restaurants, cars, and every business that you go in. You can’t get away from it. So Ruthie’s cold is probably a result of both of these things. She is also crying more than she did the first couple of days, and I’m not sure if it is because she doesn’t feel well, or if she is finally grieving. I’m thinking it is a little of both. She gets very mad when it is nap time or time for bed at night. I wish I knew the bedtime ritual that she had at the orphanage, because I’m not doing something right, and it infuriates her! I will ask about this tomorrow at the orphanage. She is still the best baby, considering what she has been through the last four days. People have asked me about her size, and I don’t really know what to tell you because I haven’t been able to weigh her. I brought 12 month, 18 month, and 24 month clothing, and so far she has worn all of them without any trouble. I would say she is a good 12-18month size, maybe weighing around 20-22lbs??? She loves bath time, especially if Jon Milledge plays with her. Last night between the two of them, the bathroom was soaked! Pray for her as she grieves and as she tries to recover from her cold. She is an amazingly strong baby girl ,and I have fallen madly in love with her. I feel so blessed to have been chosen to be her mother. Thank you God for this honor. Now on to the other three of us and a couple of stories. My sister says that I have a story for everything, and that is probably true and this trip to China is no different. It has been a daily challenge for Caryn and I to find a person at the front desk that speaks enough English to carry on a conversation with us. We are batting about .200…not good. Yesterday evening I went down to find out about the laundry service because we are needing to wash some clothes. I walk up to a nice young gentleman at the counter who was smiling, and so eagerly wanting to help me and say…”Do you speak English?” he replied, “Oh yes, yes ma’am I can…how can I help you?”. Oh my word!!! I had hit the jackpot on my first try…miracles do happen you know! So I said to him, “I am needing to find out about the laundry service, please.” No joke this was his reply. “Oh, oh yes, you want to know about laundry in the restaurant!” Ok, so I hadn’t hit the jackpot after all, but it could explain why I get nauseated every time we go to the restaurant to eat! Speaking of the restaurant, we went there to eat last night for dinner and decided that maybe we should try to order off the menu instead of paying the 138 yuan to eat the buffet where we only get rice and watermelon. Caryn ordered Chicken Cordon Bleu, I ordered an American Beef Burger and Jon Milledge ordered Lasagna. Ruthie ate a bowl of Congee and watermelon. Caryn’s dish said that it was a chicken breast with ham and cheese and so on…it was deli lunch meat turkey and cheese breaded and deep fried. My burger was mystery meat loaf on a bun and Jon Milledge’s lasagna was not bad except for the weird green noodles! We didn’t want to hurt the waitresses feelings because they have been so nice to us, so when they weren’t looking we started giving Ruthie parts of our food so it would look like we had eaten some of it. Now, Ruthie will eat anything, or so we thought. Our views of our food were confirmed when Ruthie gagged and spit it all back out! Tonight we will go back to eating the rice and watermelon from the buffet. We are staying at a five star hotel by China’s standards. It is been very nice and accommodating to us, and for that we are grateful. However, there are a couple of things that we have noted that we didn’t realize were actual amenities in a five star hotel, like complimentary condoms in the bathroom. Not even kidding. Also the toilet paper rolls are the size of a coke can and the housekeeping department is highly offended when we ask for more. I’m thinking that there is a TP shortage in China, or that Charmin is on strike here. Really, it is a very nice hotel and they have taken good care of us, but we have to find laughter here to keep from crying. Today we went to the Wild Goose Pagoda. This was a pagoda built thousands of years ago by a Buddhist monk after coming back to China from India where he had acquired many books on the religion of Buddism. He decided to build the pagoda to store all of his books. We saw people bowing to Buddha, we saw monks, and we saw people burning incense in prayer. Our guide took us to this one room which was a mural about the life of the founder of Buddhism. She told us the whole story of his life while people were in front of us bowing down and worshipping him. At the end of the mural was a picture of him lying down and our guide said that is him now…he is dead. That one statement made me very sad, because all I could think about was the Risen Savior that I worship and serve. He is alive and living among us which I believe brings me much more hope than to worship a dead man. Sadly enough most people in China are Buddhists or have no religion. My guide this week, Fay, is 28 years old and graduated from the university here. After telling us all about Buddhism, I asked her if she is Buddhist and she said no. She said that most young people in China do not believe in any religion. They believe in the communist party. She told us that at the university they were taught to believe in Science and Technology, that this is where their happiness would come from. I wanted to bust out with some scriptures about a living God who loves her and wants her to be a part of His family or start singing Kumbaya or something…but she had already informed us that if anyone pushes their religion on someone else in China, you will be arrested. I want to go home to Georgia in 10 days, so I just said a little prayer for her right then and there and will continue to do so. After the pagoda, we went to a park at the center of the city to see a music and water fountain show. It was really neat not to mention refreshing when the water sprayed up on you in the now 321 degree weather. We enjoyed watching all the Chinese people during this show. Apparently the “thing” to do during a fountain show in China is to walk out in the center of the fountain while water is shooting up everywhere and get your picture taken while making the peace sign. I couldn’t talk Caryn or Jon Milledge into doing it for some reason. However, it didn't hold back the Italian tourist from strutting her stuff in the fountain in her soaking wet, thin white shorts and a navy thong. Jon Milledge said he didn’t think that was the best choice of outfits for her…really??? The best part of the day was when we were headed back to the hotel after the show, and we saw a McDonalds!! We asked our guide to please let us stop there for lunch, and of course she did. I’m telling you that the Golden Arches have never looked so good. We all three ate a double cheese burger, fries and an ice cold Coca Cola!!! It was like a little touch of heaven right here in Xian, China. Jon Milledge even got an Oreo McFlurry when we left. Halleluja for pieces of home! Down where we were today, which Fay calls the city center, was wonderful. It was very clean and modern looking. All around the fountain and pagoda is like an outdoor mall that looked very fun and interesting to explore. However, we didn’t really get to do that because Fay told us it was time to leave. Anyway, I think that if we had been in a hotel down near that area, we would be much more inclined to venture out. There is nothing around our hotel that looks safe to us. I did hear that there is a Walmart Super Center near here, so we thought we might go there this evening. We asked our guide if she thought it would be safe for us to walk there and walk back…she encouraged us to take a taxi. Ughhh! I guess we will, and we have been given a card with the hotel name on it to give our return taxi driver. I really want to see China and learn all I can about Ruthie’s province and culture, but I’m not going to do it if I don’t feel safe. Again, I think if Milledge and Forest were here with us, we could go anywhere, but two American women with a teenage boy and a Chinese baby cause quite the stir…believe me. Again, thanks for reading all my gibberish and for all the prayers, keep them coming. We are doing much better and really are trying to enjoy ourselves now. It is amazing what jet lag can do to your body and mind. If you are leaving comments on this site, thank you; I can’t wait to read them and keep them for Ruthie one day. However, I can’t see them here so if any of you would like to email us where we can actually see it, click the contact us button or something like that down at the bottom or on the side…I can’t remember! Those will come to my email account, and even though I seem to be getting them slowly.I am getting them. Thank you all, and we love you!   This is for Dr. Pagett, Dr. Whetzel, Patsy, Delia, Gaylene, Sandra and Brittany! I love to brush my teeth!     What you talkin about Willis?!   Wild Goose Pagoda     Incense burning     Inside the Temple   Monk     Fountain Show with Pagoda in the Background     The Golden Arches never looked so good!   One happy boy!     A Very Common Mode of Transportation         This page hosted by