Last Night at the China Hotel

Tomorrow morning we will check out of the China Hotel and check into the White Swan hotel on Shamian Island. Today we visited the international Church on Shamian (only about 20 minutes from here). It was a lovely service, but much different from the International Church in Beijing. It was an old "country looking" church, which large arched windows and built with white cinder blocks. It was also a fraction of the size of the building the BJ International Church rents, so much more intimate and quaint. The preacher spoke a line at a time in Chinese, and an interpreter translated in broken English. It was so interesting listening to the interpreter attempting to pronounce Biblical names (and he had some toughies) that would have stumped even a native English speaker. I chuckled out loud actually. Poor fellow.

Afterwards we ate at a Thai restaurant that was one of my favorites so far. It was delish!!! Even the babies ate til they were stuffed.

Lily has been attaching so well to Rob and , me. She still prefers Rob, but only sometimes. She is loving and happy towards me as well, and yesterday, she called me mama! It brought tears to my eyes. She is quite reserved with other adults, even the ones in our group whom she sees several times a day. She is stingy with her smiles, and has only shown friendliness to Rob and me. I think that is a really good sign! Once we are securely attached to one another (I'm not sure yet how to gage that) we'll work on friendliness and politeness toward other adults. But of course she is only 2. She has many, many people in her life who love her, for which I'm so thankful, and I want her to be able to relish that as well.

I feel somewhat bad about those of you who are looking for drama...because the past two days, thankfully, have been less exciting than what we've previously experiences. :o) The most stressful part of our day are mealtimes, and when we leave the table, it looks as if we've had a food fight. I leave each meal covered with sticky rice. They call it sticky rice for a reason...I have to pick it off of everything. The other toddler in our group is such a neat eater. Lily and Seth are BOTH wild things. Sometimes I think in my head, "I wonder why no one has asked me if they're twins yet?" They are so much alike!

Well, our internet package ends this evening, so I won't be able to post again until we are at the White Swan. Because of the time difference, I probably won't be able to call the boys until Monday morning, Viv. Give them each a kiss from us and tell them we love them. (BTW, Rob and I laughed out loud, and I still chuckle, until tears were pouring out of my eyes at their God versus Satan discussion. Thank-you for sharing that story with us!)

Only five more days until we fly home,
Jody