Hey Everyone, We are just wrapping up day 2 in Beijing. We had a fun day that started off with a lot of snow. Our first stop was the National Opera House which you will see pics of (huge round dome, aka Bird Egg in China). We walked from the Opera House to Tiananmen Square, which is a huge national land mark. Tiananmen Square holds over a million people. Also, it is the place where Chairman Mao Zedong's body lies in state. There were many people in line to see his body, but it takes forever to go through and you can't bring cameras or video recorders into the building. There was also tons of security there. His picture was all over the place and videos playing inside the buildings. He is a big national figure for reasons I will never understand and can't post about.
Next, we visited The Forbidden City that had 9,999 rooms in it!!! Pretty amazing palace that covered a massive area that was beautifully laid out. You will see some of the pictures that we took there as well. The chinese culture is very rich in history and tradition. They are very proud of their culture. We also had another amazing, authentic chinese lunch today. We ate peking duck, some chinese chicken dishes, and lots of vegetables dishes. Zhou, our guide, knows where to take you for good food. Then we went to the Pearl store. The hostess at the store opened a fresh water oyster that had 22 pearls in it. The lady first asked everybody to guess how many pearls would be in the oyster that she opened and she told us that whoever guessed closest would get the largest pearl. Well, Lee won so I got the biggest pearl!!:):) That was Lee's excuse NOT to let me buy a piece pearl of jewelry.....should have known that was coming. After that, we went to the Silk Factory which was very interesting. They had some beautiful rugs, clothes, pictures, art work, etc. there that took a lot of time and craftsmanship to do. They had a gorgeous tiger picture that I wanted for the boys room, but it cost $3000 U.S. dollars!! They showed us how the silk was produced from the silk worm cocoons, which was a neat thing to learn.
Also, in China you cannot get on Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, Blogs, or any other type of social network. I am emailing our blog updates and pictures. If you know of someone who doesn't know about our blog please give them our site since I cannot post that to Facebook from here.
Tomorrow morning we leave Beijing and fly to the capitol city, Taiyuan, of Shanxi province where we will get Daniel and David on Monday at 2:30pm china time. Tomorrows flight is only an hour and once we get there we will go to the store and get a few things for the boys and get the hotel room set up for them. Then Monday will be the BIG day that we have been waiting for a long time!!!!! We will get to see and hold and hug our sweet boys and I cannot wait to post pics of them for you to see. I will have them in matching PJ's on night one so I promise you will have some cute pictures to look at!!!
Please pray for Daniel and David's transition to be as easy as possible and for bonding to go well with the boys. Pray for their health to be good. The Lord has been so good to us through this adoption journey and He has provided everything that we needed and we know that He will continue to do that. We cannot say it enough of the great things He has done for us throughout our lives and during this adoption. The Lord is always faithful to His children and He promises to take care of us and provide everything we need. Remember in His word He tell us that He even looks after the sparrow so how much more He will take care of us. Lee and I can truly say without any doubt that He has taken care of us and we constantly feel His presence. We know how much God loves Daniel and David and how much He loves each and everyone of us. I love Romans 8:38-39, "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." God loves these boys, us, and the rest of the world so much that He sent His Son, Jesus, to die a horrible death in order to pay the penalty for us so that we could have the opportunity to spend eternity with Him in Heaven. That is LOVE!! To sacrifice your one and only child is unimaginable to me, but that is what God did for us through His Son. I am so glad that we have a heavenly Father who loves us that much!! We cannot wait to be able to tell Daniel and David how much their heavenly Father loves them and how He has looked after them and how He picked them out to be our children and brought us together as a family. The adoption process is exactly what Christ did for each one of us and the Bible tells us that in several places, but one of the scriptures is Galatians 4:5-7 "redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. 6 Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "Abba, Father."
So in less than 48 hours Daniel and David will NO LONGER BE ORPHANS!!! They will never spend another night in an orphanage without parents and a family. They will forever be ours and they will know Monday afternoon that they have a mommy and a daddy that loves them with all of their hearts!!!:):) They will know, feel, and understand what love is and that I can promise you. What a gift God has given us through these precious two boys!! I cannot wait for all of you to meet them. We will post again tomorrow from Taiyuan.
Love,
Lee and Mary Ellen
Next, we visited The Forbidden City that had 9,999 rooms in it!!! Pretty amazing palace that covered a massive area that was beautifully laid out. You will see some of the pictures that we took there as well. The chinese culture is very rich in history and tradition. They are very proud of their culture. We also had another amazing, authentic chinese lunch today. We ate peking duck, some chinese chicken dishes, and lots of vegetables dishes. Zhou, our guide, knows where to take you for good food. Then we went to the Pearl store. The hostess at the store opened a fresh water oyster that had 22 pearls in it. The lady first asked everybody to guess how many pearls would be in the oyster that she opened and she told us that whoever guessed closest would get the largest pearl. Well, Lee won so I got the biggest pearl!!:):) That was Lee's excuse NOT to let me buy a piece pearl of jewelry.....should have known that was coming. After that, we went to the Silk Factory which was very interesting. They had some beautiful rugs, clothes, pictures, art work, etc. there that took a lot of time and craftsmanship to do. They had a gorgeous tiger picture that I wanted for the boys room, but it cost $3000 U.S. dollars!! They showed us how the silk was produced from the silk worm cocoons, which was a neat thing to learn.
Also, in China you cannot get on Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, Blogs, or any other type of social network. I am emailing our blog updates and pictures. If you know of someone who doesn't know about our blog please give them our site since I cannot post that to Facebook from here.
Tomorrow morning we leave Beijing and fly to the capitol city, Taiyuan, of Shanxi province where we will get Daniel and David on Monday at 2:30pm china time. Tomorrows flight is only an hour and once we get there we will go to the store and get a few things for the boys and get the hotel room set up for them. Then Monday will be the BIG day that we have been waiting for a long time!!!!! We will get to see and hold and hug our sweet boys and I cannot wait to post pics of them for you to see. I will have them in matching PJ's on night one so I promise you will have some cute pictures to look at!!!
Please pray for Daniel and David's transition to be as easy as possible and for bonding to go well with the boys. Pray for their health to be good. The Lord has been so good to us through this adoption journey and He has provided everything that we needed and we know that He will continue to do that. We cannot say it enough of the great things He has done for us throughout our lives and during this adoption. The Lord is always faithful to His children and He promises to take care of us and provide everything we need. Remember in His word He tell us that He even looks after the sparrow so how much more He will take care of us. Lee and I can truly say without any doubt that He has taken care of us and we constantly feel His presence. We know how much God loves Daniel and David and how much He loves each and everyone of us. I love Romans 8:38-39, "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." God loves these boys, us, and the rest of the world so much that He sent His Son, Jesus, to die a horrible death in order to pay the penalty for us so that we could have the opportunity to spend eternity with Him in Heaven. That is LOVE!! To sacrifice your one and only child is unimaginable to me, but that is what God did for us through His Son. I am so glad that we have a heavenly Father who loves us that much!! We cannot wait to be able to tell Daniel and David how much their heavenly Father loves them and how He has looked after them and how He picked them out to be our children and brought us together as a family. The adoption process is exactly what Christ did for each one of us and the Bible tells us that in several places, but one of the scriptures is Galatians 4:5-7 "redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. 6 Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "Abba, Father."
So in less than 48 hours Daniel and David will NO LONGER BE ORPHANS!!! They will never spend another night in an orphanage without parents and a family. They will forever be ours and they will know Monday afternoon that they have a mommy and a daddy that loves them with all of their hearts!!!:):) They will know, feel, and understand what love is and that I can promise you. What a gift God has given us through these precious two boys!! I cannot wait for all of you to meet them. We will post again tomorrow from Taiyuan.
Love,
Lee and Mary Ellen
Wow, what a trip!!! Last part has me in tears of joy for the four of you! Love and prayers coming your way, Mom
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