Random thoughts...

So, it's my turn to write something today. After sitting in a hotel room with a sicky all day, there is not much to report. The rest of the crew went on a boat trip on West Lake and did some shopping/sight seeing. Noah slept and I listened to the street sweepers play "It's a Small World", accompanied by the garbage trucks traditional Chinese tune. How come with America's "advanced" technology we don't have musical sanitation trucks? Stop lights in China (at least this town) have a countdown to the end of the green light before it turns yellow. Same with the red light. That way drivers know how long they have until the light changes. Again, How come with America's "advanced" technology we don't have these? Ever try to order food when there is absolutely no common language? I gave 2 workers at a steam bun store quite the laugh trying to order vegetarian and red bean buns. Best I could tell, they were trying to tell me that they were all out of both, but had plenty of mutton buns left. Go figure :-) With the massive population in China you'd think there would be tons of people without jobs and trash everywhere in big cities. Yet, you see people all over the place in orange coveralls diligently sweeping the sidewalks, checking trash cans for recyclable goods, and scrubbing elevated crosswalks. Imagine if we tried something like that in America? You want a welfare check? Sweep this sidewalk for 2 hrs everyday and it's yours. People working and clean streets. Sounds like a win/win to me! (I think that will be my campaign platform) Lastly, why did God lead us to adopt a little girl who speaks a different language, has moderately severe disabilities (she very rarely takes a step without holding onto someone/something, while the 2 yr old another family adopted toddles around after them with ease), whose laugh and grin can melt your heart, but at the same time break it by rejecting one parent for the other? I'm sure things will work out eventually, but in the meantime I think we are all ready to escape Hangzhou and this hotel room for a new location. But first, we have to survive a visit to her orphanage tomorrow. Please pray that that experience will help SongLian with the transition to her new family. ~Kyle