Homesick

May 27, 2012 - I miss my home. I miss my kids. I miss my space. I miss home cooked meals. I miss my morning workout routine. I miss my bed. I miss drinking water from the tap. I miss my friends. I miss it all! We have one week left here in China and I am trying to enjoy the time that is left, but it is getting kind of hard. It makes me appreciate people who have to leave their comfortable homes and life to either travel or live abroad for a long period of time. People like those in the military, missionaries, or those that have to travel for jobs.

We went on another tour today of Guangzhou. Our first stop was a Buddha temple which could have been interesting, but I was so focused on Lucy and following where she was wandering off to, I couldn't really pay attention to what was going on. Plus it was so hot and muggy. Sweat was dripping off me like a running facet. While I was running around with Lucy, I decided (or maybe it was a God ordained thought, either way, it doesn't matter I just did it) I needed to pray to the one and only True God, who has made heaven and earth and everything in it. I needed to pray for those lost people that were coming in to pray to an idol for what they thought they needed. I needed to pray for the lost people of China. It was really a sad place.

 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. ²³ For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship —and this is what I am going to proclaim to you. ²⁴ “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. ²⁵ And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. ²⁶ From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. ²⁷ God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ²⁸ ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’^[b] As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’^[c]
29 “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. ³⁰ In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. ³¹ For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.” 
-Acts 17:22-31

We stopped at a few other places then back to our hotel for an afternoon nap for Lucy, which lasted a little over an hour and then we had a crying, sad girl on our hands. We had to walk around the hotel and then go out for dinner with our group before she was happy again. We still see some grieving going on with her and sometimes it can be a bit wearing on us. Another reason I am ready to get home and work on getting into a routine and have places at our house to explore and go to instead of a little hotel room. I mean we even feel claustrophobic in here too. Oh well, we will do what we have to do to bring her home with us. She is is doing better and better each day with bonding to me just as much as she did with Jason at the beginning. Today I held her a lot and walked around with her and most of the time Jason wasn't even around. She did great. Her new thing is she likes to hold both me and Jason's hand so we can do the 1...2...3...weeeeeee! game. Yeah, we have been laughed at and stared at on the street for that one.

Lucy's new favorite activity - go up the stairs.....

 .....and down the stairs

Tomorrow Lucy gets her visa photo taken (let's hope this one goes better than her passport photo did) and her medical exam to release her from this country and to make sure she is o.k. to enter the U.S. It could be a long morning of waiting and poking and prodding and filling out papers. Snacks packed......check! : )

hamming it up for the camera on a hot, sticky day!