Wednesday

I can't believe it is already Wednesday!!! Where is the time going? Although, none of us were sure exactly what day of the week it was, much less the date. Does it really matter? Lisa, one of the teachers on the team, reminds us that Amy, the founder of LWB, often says, "We can sleep when we get home!"  So we have been going full steam ahead constantly. 

We started the day with having the kids come in with the teachers and showing them how to use some of the skills we taught yesterday. Three 30 minute lesson with 3 different age groups while answering questions and trying to communicate in another language. It was definitely a challenge!  However, I managed to learn the Chinese for red, blue, green, yellow and circle. 

Lunch is always fun trying to determine what we are eating, trying to talk with language barriers, trying to eat with chopsticks. However, before lunch, we had a meeting with the Director of Civil Affairs for Jinjiang City (like the Mayor). He is a very nice man and super supportive of the orphanage and the work they are doing. We were able to talk to him about our different roles and what we are teaching. The director even told him about a couple of children that we saw and talked to her about that she is going to begin the process for their files to go to CCAA. He was pleased with that as well. The director is an amazing woman! There is no doubt that she loves the kids! 

We started the afternoon with a Q&A session with the teachers to see if they are understanding what we are teaching, if they have other questions and to talk about particular students. It started a little slowly, but picked up as more started talking. Then we broke out into our groups for more training without the kids. They are so eager to learn and help their students!  

After the sessions, we went to the rooms to check on a few kids and so I could take a peek inside some ears and mouths. Most of the ear drums were hard to see due to wax, but the ones I did see looked pretty good. A few had some fluid behind them, but these kids also had colds so it is expected.  Their mouths looked good - no unexpected clefts, no red throats, only one had large tonsils.  The ones with unrepaired clefts looked good as well. They were a bit reluctant to let me look - afraid I would do more than just look I think. 

Dinner was good. I did pass on the pig tongue. So far we've had pig feet, tongue, and skin/rind.  We feel like we are always eating and definitely are not hungry!  

After dinner we returned to the baby rooms. There I got to hold a little one with Albinism. He is a chunky monkey and has the BEST laugh!!! He smiled and laughed his deep belly laugh over and over. He can pull himself up and liked looking at the pictures on the back of the camera. Reminds me of my Tom when he was little. So full of personality!

This evening, we went to explore some shops and walk around some. We found an Apple store and a candy shop. (I stocked up on Kinder Eggs.  Although they are different from the ones I've had before. Still fun! Since Chinese New Year just ended, there are still decorations everywhere ... red lanterns, signs on the door posts, rabbits. We saw goats on carts, babies on motorcycles and every imaginable food sold by street vendors.  Sadly, my camera battery died and I didn't bring my charger. Thankfully Lisa brought 2 cameras and is letting me borrow one, but I can't upload the photos. And even better news ... Lisa's bag arrived today. All of our luggage is finally here!!!  

God is so evident here!!!