chWinese culture

We just returned from the local supermarket. An interesting journey indeed. This morning our guide informed us Chinese are a pushy people and cars will not stop for you in the street. We had already seen on the plane and other places where it is not uncommon to step in front of you or cut you off. Crossing the street is not accomplished by following the "walk" signal, you must be sure there is not a car in the area you wish to cross. The red light in front of them means little if anything. The grocery store prices were pretty cheap but we found when we got here our U.S. Dollar is not worth as much as it was two weeks ago while the European exchange rate is almost twice as good. The eggs are kept out, not refrigerated, like Kenya. The beef sets out on a chopping block so when you know what you want someone can cut if off for you. Fish is left on ice non-packaged. We were told not to eat fruits or salad while we are here and reminded this morning in orientation to make sure we keep ourselves healthy so we can care for our adopted children. Our tour today took us to the Great Wall where we road a Gondola up to a section where there was a mini-flea market and we walked up some more to the top. The area around the wall is not kept very clean, trash laying all over the ground or left on tables. The people here seem to "look busy" but don't seem to be doing anything. It was common to see groups of people standing at street corners loitering with nothing happening. There are sections of town where the housing is completely run down and right next to it is a new apartment building being built. Our guide told us to rent an apartment in one of the rings closest to downtown is 10,000 yuan for one square meter, so a small 10 x 10 sq meter area would be 1 million yuan. Very difficult to afford. The city continues to grow and to do this they create another ring all the way around the city and refer to the area you live as to what ring you live in (3rd ring, 6th ring, etc). On the way back we drove by the new facilitiy for the olympics. To build this they tore down an entire community, don't know what they did with the people or businesses they displaced. Some of the heavy polluters were moved out into the country but it was evident from being out of town at the Great Wall how heavy the pollution is as you come back into town. We stopped for lunch at a Jade factory/restaurant and were served a Chinese meal. The sesamee chicken and pepper steak looked familiar. Some of the other items did not. Scott and Cynthia Liebenguth from Kansas City along with Michael and Lisa Cocchiarale and their daughter sat with us. I sat next to Scott and he is the type of guy who can't be serious for very long if at all. It's like setting me next to my brother-in-law Kevin at Thanksgiving, not a good idea. In between the laughs we asked both couples why they adopted as Scott and Cynthia had two children ages 8 and 13 and Mike and Lisa had two, 21 and 22. Mike and Lisa attended a Steven Curtis Chapman concert in Pennsylvania and Lisa felt convicted to do something. She kept making concessions on what she should do, pray for the children, fininacially support the children, support a family adopting...and each time she felt she was to do more. Mike was not on board and at one point was tired of hearing about it. He met a friend one day for lunch and on the way there heard Jeremy Camps "I still believe" and was convicted he was to trust God in faith believing this is what was to happen. Lisa shared her son was heavily into drugs and alcohol and severely messing up his life. Four days after Mike and Lisa pursued an adoption their son was convicted of his lifestyle and gave it all up and committed his life to serving God. Shortly after that he enrolled into a Christian college to pursue seminary. Scott and Cynthia had a different story. Scott felt he was blessed with two healthy kids and had wanted to adopt for a long time, Cynthia was not on board. They went with a group of friends from their church to a Steven Curtis Chapman concert in Kansas City the same year as Mike and Lisa and they along with some of the others in the group were led to adopt. One couple adopted last year, the other is still waiting. Scott runs a small farm of 40 cattle and trains hunting dogs. They shared how just before they were to leave an ice storm in lower Missouri kept his parents from coming for the first week so people in his church stepped in to help them out with their kids and the farm until the return. Scott is a pretty positive man and strongly believes when God asks you to do something He will provide all you need, you just need to act and do your part. We had a chance to speak with a single young lady from Pennsylvania today but don't know her story yet, maybe tomorrow.

Tomorrow we go to Tienamen square and a gymnastic evening dinner along with other small things. We'll try to get to know more about these families. I know Steven Curtis Chapman is big into Chinese adoptions, I wonder if his name will come up again. I do enjoy his video on U-tube, "When love takes you in", check it out.

Thanks again for all of your prayers. Leaving our three other children at home for two weeks is not an easy thing to do, especially when you are close to them. On our refrigerator door we placed the two pictures we had of Mayleah and as it got closer to leaving my children I didn't question if we were doing the right thing, but everytime I looked at her picture I knew in my heart this was going to be worth it, all of the work, the effort, the finances, the short separation, will all be worth it. I do pray though if we are asked to do this again it will be a closer country.

We'll keep you posted.

Ken