Saying Goodbye

After our dinner at pizza hut last night we were all so tired, but could not go to sleep that early (5:00 p.m. here) so we went to the hotel bowling alley. Four of us bowled for 5$!! That kept us awake and we had a good time. Joshua watched and loved every minute of it and especially when it was time to clap for someone!!

His affection for Lawrence is really great! He wants him to hold him a lot and always wants his attention. He spontaeously gave him a kiss on the check twice today. He also gave Olivia a kiss on the check. He is doing so well. He already knows a few English words and it has only been 1 1/2 days! He can say hello, bye bye, and no. The last one is very important. When he gets really tired he gets extremely hyper and agressive. So we need him to understand the word no! When he gets like that we hold him close and rock him either standing or sitting and he goes right to sleep.

He slept all night last night in the bed with Chase. I found him at around 1:00 a.m. standing on the floor with half of his body on the bed and he was still asleep!! It was funny! He has woken (not sure that is a word) up from every nap or night time and been very sweet. He wakes up very pleasant.

Today we spent the morning in the hotel room eating, playing with Joshua, and relaxing. It has been a very dreary day. It is cloudy and rainy. We went to eat lunch at KFC. As we were arriving there we saw a woman sitting on a square board with wheels on the bottom and pushing herself along the filthy ground with her hands. As she passed we noticed that her legs were not quite right and she had two club feet. It was an extremely sad sight.

After we ate at KFC, we went to Wal-Mart (our daily excursion) to get bigger pullups for Joshua, some light up spider man tennis shoes for Joshua and some more peanut butter and jelly for us to have some sandwiches in the room.

We got back to the hotel to find out we had to go and apply for Joshua's passport at 1:20. I did not know that the man (his caregiver from the orphanage) would be there. Joshua was happy to see him and gave him a kiss on the check. We did what we had to do there and he came back with us to the hotel to receive the donations for the orphanage. We were told we could not visit the orphanage due to some road construction, so he came to get them here. We helped him get them all down to the taxi and it came time for Joshua to say goodbye to him. I am not sure if he realized this would be the last time he would see him or not. He told him goodbye, kissed him on the check and hugged him . He watched him with longing eyes and waved goodbye. He kept his eyes on him as long as he could. I was just about to break into a cry, but I managed to hold it together for his sake.

We got back to the room and he played for a while and is taking a nap right now. Everyone else is getting stir crazy and has gone to the fitness center for some exercise. We were told today that we must stay here until next Friday, but there is nothing left here for us to do until Thursday and that is when we get his passport. Please pray that the time will pass by fast for us. There is not much to do here. You can only walk the streets so much. EVERYONE stares at us everywhere we go. We just thought it was bad before we got Joshua!!

I found out today that Joshua was found in a park. I hope to go and visit the park with him and take some photos of the park if it is not too far from here. As I look into the eyes of the many Chinese women here I can't help but wonder if one of them could be his mother. I would love to be able to tell her that we already love him so much and will take care of his medical needs so that he can live a healthy and happy life. And much more important than that, we will teach him how to live eternally and bring glory to God something which she may never get the chance to know or understand herself.

I hope all of you are doing well and know that we long to be home already!