The End of the Road

Here I am on our last night in China. It has been a true adventure for our family. We saw so many sights that are unique to China and have marveled at God’s creation half a world away from our home. We have also experienced many emotions over the past 2 weeks. With all of the wow factors we have been a part of, I can’t say that I am sorry to be leaving. Tonight I have spent a good 2 hours repacking our bags! Difficult to do in the 3 square foot space I have available in the room and 4 boys running about. I can’t wait to have them run free in the yard.

Today was a low-key day for our group. We had a group picture this morning, several families here have 7,8,9 people with them, a few have 3 people, you can imagine it was quite the picture. In our free time we shopped a little more and went swimming again. For lunch today we had some McDonald’s burgers, just the burgers, sick of everything else they have to offer. You know it is bad when Kit tells you, “anything but McDonald's, it keeps giving me gas.” Nathaniel has found his first love in French fries, he didn’t like the burger though. Every time we walk past the bench with Ronald McDonald sitting on it we have to stop and take a picture of Nathaniel.

This afternoon we headed to the American Consulate to do our swearing ceremony. To be honest, I don’t know what I agreed to… I kept thinking, wait I might have changed my mind. I can’t handle this, are you sure about this God? I think maybe you got the wrong gal here Lord. I know….Moses and I have a little something in common. After dinner we headed straight to dinner. This time when Nathaniel picked a pricey item, I put my mommy foot down and tried to explain in my best pantomime, that it was too much. My new mantra throughout dinner is Country Mouse. Remember the story: City Mouse, Country Mouse? If you don’t the idea is that the country mice don’t know how to act in the city. We’ve got ourselves a country mouse folks. This little farm boy doesn’t know not to run in the street or to not pour his tea in his saucer and slurp it out of there. Elevator buttons, bells and escalators are all new to this little guy and I can’t wait to get him home where we don’t have an elevator that he can press all of the buttons so that we stop at each floor.

I’m longing for my bed, doing laundry (as sad as that is, it is true!), eating a dinner that I like without paying money for it and waiting for ever for the food to be served, playing outside and a routine.

Thank you for all of your prayers. We have appreciated them and needed every single one of them. Keep praying for us dear friends as we have many adjustments to still make. Pray for Nathaniel as he grieves the foster family he lost, we found out today that he had 4 older foster siblings and 2 younger foster siblings. No wonder why he is so angry at times.

See you all soon!
----Susanne