It always warms the heart to see family & friends arrive in Shanghai and we have been so blessed through May/June to have so many...finishing up with Lynda & Alyssa Stucky - straight from Kansas! I love how with a true friend you may have only seen each other a total of 48 hours in 2 years and just exchanged emails or kept up on Facebook, but once re-united you just pick right back up where you left off! Such was the case for Alyssa & Lindsey and Lynda & I! As we didn't have too long for Lynda in country, we got right on it and left via the overnight train for Beijing on
their first day here! We visited the Temple of Heaven and the Great Wall (on a very hot day!) before heading to Wang Fu Jing & crazy food street - where the pictures are great, the smells are overwhelming (not in a good way!), people are everywhere and the food - well we don't actually know because no one tasted the Starfish & Scorpion treats we bought! We finished BJ the next morning with LOTS of walking (and sweating!) through Forbidden City, Jin Shan Park and the silk market - and then we headed off for the real purpose of the visit - Shepherds Field Children's Village. Amazing Christian leadership, fabulous facilities (including an on-site guest house) and ~80 of the most precious special needs orphans in all of China! I honestly don't know how people work there without constantly adopting them...we found it hard to leave without a few of them stowed in our suitcases! Reading books with Josiah, playing games with Robert, singing songs with Kennedy, getting a kiss on the cheek from Cody, just holding Vincent, carrying Adrian & Mikey by piggy back, seeing 3 kids leave for cleft lip/palette surgery...throw in going out for lamb kabobs with their summer staff & the founder of SFCV & hear his stories and you have got an experience that both touches your heart and breaks your heart, bring you smiles and bring you tears - one that while will be mostly forgotten eventually, stays with you and changes you forever. It is always wonderful to take our kids to a place like SFCV and see their true hearts shine - to look past the physical, mental or emotional differences and just love on & play with these precious kids (oh yes, and beg to adopt more of them!). (For anyone that is interested in learning more about their work or even supporting some of the kids you can visit www.chinaorphans.org!)
Back in Shanghai we did some standard sight-seeing & fake market shopping before sadly taking Lynda to the airport - although I'm pretty sure Alyssa was quite happy to have the chance to stay on in Shanghai for another week and then fly home by herself - thank you Brad & Lynda! So we wrapped up the final week with lots more eating street food, getting dresses made by 'our' seamstress Kitty, watching movies, late night runs to Starbucks, riding bikes for bubble tea...being friends & enjoying life!
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| Amazing doorways at the Forbidden City (with its 9,999 rooms!) |
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| Yummy snacks anyone...because these girls aren't eating them!?! |
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| Sitting on the glass floor of the Pearl Tower |
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| YuYuan Gardens |
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| Our favorite street food (outside the hospital!) |
their first day here! We visited the Temple of Heaven and the Great Wall (on a very hot day!) before heading to Wang Fu Jing & crazy food street - where the pictures are great, the smells are overwhelming (not in a good way!), people are everywhere and the food - well we don't actually know because no one tasted the Starfish & Scorpion treats we bought! We finished BJ the next morning with LOTS of walking (and sweating!) through Forbidden City, Jin Shan Park and the silk market - and then we headed off for the real purpose of the visit - Shepherds Field Children's Village. Amazing Christian leadership, fabulous facilities (including an on-site guest house) and ~80 of the most precious special needs orphans in all of China! I honestly don't know how people work there without constantly adopting them...we found it hard to leave without a few of them stowed in our suitcases! Reading books with Josiah, playing games with Robert, singing songs with Kennedy, getting a kiss on the cheek from Cody, just holding Vincent, carrying Adrian & Mikey by piggy back, seeing 3 kids leave for cleft lip/palette surgery...throw in going out for lamb kabobs with their summer staff & the founder of SFCV & hear his stories and you have got an experience that both touches your heart and breaks your heart, bring you smiles and bring you tears - one that while will be mostly forgotten eventually, stays with you and changes you forever. It is always wonderful to take our kids to a place like SFCV and see their true hearts shine - to look past the physical, mental or emotional differences and just love on & play with these precious kids (oh yes, and beg to adopt more of them!). (For anyone that is interested in learning more about their work or even supporting some of the kids you can visit www.chinaorphans.org!)
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