August 1, 2009

August 1, 2009
Dear Ones,
It has been a wonderful day—never quite what we anticipate but as long as we stay flexible it is a lot of fun.
We awoke early (thanks to time change I think) and enjoyed a special quite time together…especially loved reading Psalm 113 together…this has been my chapter coming into this journey and I was excited to share it with my sister.
We looked in on Janessa and she was sleeping away so we decided to take a walk into the village with a couple of the Ayis (one of them was Emma’s former Ayi). We thought we were going for a short stroll (it is really hard to make these long legs of ours shorten their stride to match the Chinese Ayi’s)…however, we were really going for a visit to all their friends. We strolled into the village and stopped to change babies and watch the men folk play a board game akin to checkers and listen to them talk. They talked a lot about us—unfortunately, all we can understand is that they say we are REALLY TALL, American, and the ones that took Dang Hong Ming to America to have her face fixed. They ask us lots of questions and we just keep saying “Wo bu dong” “I don’t understand” and “na shi shenme?” “What’s that?” to increase our vocabulary. After the visit with the gamers we went to the home of one of the Ayis. They had a large garden and proceeded to pick us a bowl full of cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, and a basket of peaches. They insisted we eat them—we weren’t so sure about eating straight from the garden but they did rinse them off and show us how to peel them before eating. They were actually very good but oh what a sticky mess that was. They fed the little ones with us (we had two toddlers and two infants) too and so everyone was nice and sticky. It was great fun. They had us sitting in the middle of the road on these little tiny stools that were only about 6 inches off the ground—again with our long legs I think we would have been more comfortable standing but it was good exercise squatting there for about an hour…we both laughed about the fact that we probably would not be able to stand up again when it was time to leave as our legs were beginning to fall asleep—but we managed. It is a beautiful time of year to walk through the village as everything is really green and there are lots of plants blooming and vegetables growing…Fun to compare with the pictures of Mariah’s last visit when she walked through those same streets when they were brown, frozen, and quite bleak.
On our return to the Home we joined in on a birthday party for Katie (Joyce & Robin’s girl). She turned 10 today and was quite excited to be able to serve all the little ones cake. It was fun to sing Happy Birthday in Chinese—most of the children really enjoyed it although one little one got scared and started crying and that set off quite the chain reaction—it was hysterical!
We checked back in on Janessa after the party but she was still sleeping or sleeping again so we had lunch with the Ayis and took a brief nap. After our nap Janessa was finally awake and ready to play for awhile. She is running a bit of a fever and has a slight cold…hoping it will clear up before travel day. We played for awhile in her Nemo room and then got permission from her Ayi to take her up to our room for a photo shoot and a travel clothes fitting. She did really well…she fusses a little but not inconsolably. She fit well into her travel outfit from Auntie Susan and girls—she’s too cute in it (see the pics). The housekeeper was quite impressed especially with the bow (she was in our room cleaning at the time). We spent the evening with the Filipino nurses and Anna again…now it is time to say good night and get rested so we can head into town in the morning to attend services with Joyce and Robin.
Love you all—we’ll try to get one more e-mail out before we head to an internet-less Luoyang.
With Joy in Service,
Mariah & Melissa