31 JUL

You'll understand after reading this post why I've been off-line for a few days. Not to worry, things are quite restful now that we're in Guangzhou. We've even been swimming in the hotel pool!

7/31--Start the day with breakfast in the hotel at Wenzhou. N is chastised for putting sugar in the "salty" congee for H. Waitress takes the bowl away and brings me another. We have steamed buns, dumplings, fried rice, and yams. Oh, and C's tower of yogurts! The boys had boiled eggs. B's learning to peel it himself.

Go to police bureau to fill out some sort of paperwork (not sure what exactly since it's all in Chinese) to get H's Chinese passport. Leo runs us over to get H's picture taken and we shove through a crowd and put her down on the seat for pictures. This automatically makes us first in line. WE run back over for more forms, turn those in and are told to wait. The kids are going crazy by this time and a Chinese policeman motions M to calm them down. Leo comes back to tell us the man who needs to sign off on the paperwork isn't sure he feels like signing it ni one day--he ordinarily gets 5 days (he's got the paper on his desk, by the way). Don't pressure him, just come back at 3:30pm and he'll make a decision on whether or not he wants to sign them. I'm thinking a bribe sounds tempting if it weren't illegal! :) So, it's about 1030am and the guide tells us to just have a seat and wait--UNTIL 330pm! Are you kidding? We decide to take a walk--find a little exercise area the kids can play at, but N's wary because there's so much mud (typhoon hit 2 days ago)--no changes of clothes left with us, long ride back in the van. M convinces her it'll be fine, the kids need to run off some steam. Abotu 10 minutes later, F somehow finds a nice, goopy mud puddle to slip in--she's covered--hands, feet, shoes, skirt, legs! N's turning red and M's laughing! We go back to the police bureau and take off her skirt and shoes and wash everything in the bathroom. Thankfully she had shorts under her skirt and just wore those. Found a KFC, had some FFs and rolls and let teh kids play on a little slide there. it was really B's size, but they haven't seen a playground in so long they made the most of it.

Went back to the police bureau and prayed. We HADto have this form--no way for H to get on the plane to Guangzhou without it. N put her head b/t her hands, closed eyes, and tuned out everything around--quite a zoo here. i finished with complete confidence that the form was already signed. Our guide came in 5 minutes later adn said the man decided to sign it--he said he was so worried even if we weren't worried. I told him we prayed for God to take care of every detail and He has done just that--no need to worry, simply trust God.

Started journey back to Hangzhou and were making good time. N had to spend a great deal of time praying that we'd all make it back safe--by far the scariest car trip I've even been on. All the sudden, traffic stops on the highway. For 2 1/2 hours we didn't move--most folks got out of their car to walk around. We got out for a bit. Bad accident and Chinese emergency personnel don't move very fast. Finally we move literally about 6-10 feet and stop again. Seems there was a 2nd accident in the haste to get around the first one. WHAT??!! More waiting. N trying hard to re-focus to positive thoughts. God is very gracious and reminds me (and I, in turn, everyone else in hte car) to be thankful that HE protected us from the car accident right in front of us. Arrive back at teh hotel by 11pm and collapse in bed.