The Great Wall

Last night when we came back from our day trip, we went out to eat with one of the other families at a local restaurant close to the hotel.  It was interesting trying to communicate with no knowledge of Chinese on our parts and no knowledge of English on the waitresses and a menu in Chinese.  Thank goodness for pictures and the universal language of hand signals.  Our food arrived and was tasty.  All 6 of us ate and got bottled water for the equivalent of $14 total.

This morning we headed out around 8.30 to the Great Wall.  Traffic was heavy because it was a Saturday.  We stopped at a Jade factory just before we got to the Wall.  The jade was beautiful, but we resisted purchasing!

Jade carving

The Great Wall

It was a cloudy day

  The weather was warm, but pretty cloudy on the wall.  Cindy gave us a choice of climbing the steep part of the wall, or taking a more gradual incline,  We opted for the steep climb, of course :-) Yes, I'm serious...everyone wanted to do the steep climb!  Just like yesterday, you have no idea of the beauty of the wall, or how difficult it is to climb, from pictures.  The steps are uneven and very high in places.  Some of us made it past 2 towers, some of the guys and one little girl made it a lot further.  It is definitely a "must-do" if you come to Beijing.  After the Wall we headed back towards the city for lunch at a Cloisonne Factory.  Again a great lunch.  There are 5 children in our group and they have handled all the tours and food so well.  Makes us miss Megan a lot, but I think she is having fun at home.

The bus/van we traveled in while in Beijing

Bird's Nest, Olympic stadium

After lunch we drove by some of the structures built for the 2008 Olympics. Beautiful architecture!

The final part of the tour was an acrobatic show. It was breathtaking.  Other breathtaking moments throughout the day is the way the Chinese drive.  We witnessed about 5 accidents today alone.  Bicycles and mopeds share the busy roads with cars and buses and no one wants to give way to the other :-)  Honking of horns is a very familiar sound.  We concluded that it didn't cause the other driver to slow down/move over, rather it seemed to be a way to relieve frustration :-)

We leave the hotel at 7.30am tomorrow to catch the 10.20 flight to Zhengzhou (pronounced "JEN-JOE" as a 'zh' is like a 'j').  The flight is 1-1/2 hrs.  We will settle in and get prepared for receiving Jack on Monday!

Please pray for Jack, that as he prepares to leave the Orphanage on Monday morning he will not be fearful. Pray for his caregivers who no doubt have become attached to him.  It will be a 2 hr drive with the Orphanage Director to Zhengzhou.  I'm sure he will be wondering where he is going. Pray for us too that we might have wisdom in our initial interaction with him so that he can sense the love we have for him, even if the language prohibits us from verbally reassuring him.

These past 2 days we have had opportunity to visit with all the other families(who have arrived so far) and it has been heart warming to hear their stories - each one feeling God burdening them to adopt, guiding them through the process and even supplying for them in ways only God could do. 

MEGAN.  Now you have the weekend off to do some fun things with Granny and Granda.  Try not to run them into the ground :-)  Love you and miss you.