Day #13: We Ate A Baby Pig Tonight

Got off to a rough beginning today. First of all, I'd used white-out to correct an error on one of my notarized U.S. Consulate papers. That's apparently a "no-no" so Bob had to get up at 7:00 am to go fill it out again and swear in front of a U.S. Consulate notary that this was our paperwork.

Next, Autumn woke up feeling very sick. The U.S. Immigration Department demands that she be caught up on her immunizations because of her age, so she got stuck with many needles yesterday at her medical exam. She felt very badly and I could tell she was achy and in pain when she awakened today. She was also a tad feverish.

Next, Lexi work up with a nice case of travelers illness. At about 10am, I coaxed both girls down to the breakfast buffet so I could give them medication and they started to feel better soon, but we spent most of the day resting in our hotel room.

I got to spend some much needed time with the Lord. He turned me to Psalm 130 part of which says, "I wait for the Lord, my soul waits and in His word I put my hope. More than watchman wait for the morning, put your hope in the Lord. For in the Lord is everlasting strength." I've always loved this passage but it had new meaning today. I'd love to fast-forward to a place where I can communicate with Autumn. It's very difficult not to be able to get into her heart with words. I sense also that we will be waiting for a long time to do the deep works of healing that need to take place in her heart or all the loss she has known in her life. It will take much love to lead her to the foot of the cross as well. I'm not prone to be one who waits patiently. I am a do-er. Sometimes, we must let the Lord do the "do-ing" and we must simply wait like a watchman for the morning. I'm entering a season of this in my life.

Late in the day, Autumn decided she wanted to swim. This was great news. She's been very afraid of the pool, but I think we discovered her real fear was not the water nearly so much as the bathing suit! She's a true Secret Keeper Girl! Modest to the core. So, we let her just wear a t-shirt and shorts and she loved it. She really ventured out into the deeper water and even asked if we can go again tomorrow.


Cormack, the son of Holt employee Catherine, joined us. He's been a real friend to Autumn. He's only 7, but he's so filled with love and encouragement. He's given her many lectures on how she should work hard to learn English. Here he is pictured telling her she should be brave and try harder to learn to swim.


His mother told me that he received a Christian book when he was visiting Beijing earlier this summer and reads it every night. He told her that he "wants to know this God." I believe he will be a great man of God in China. There is a special quality to him. You can pray for him if you read this.

Now, you must hear about dinner.

The Cantonese (Guangzhou) people say that they "eat anything with four legs except the table, and anything with wings except the airplane." Across the street from our hotel, you can buy butchered animals that we would consider pets. We chose not to visit that market!

However, tonight we decided to give something exotic a try. The choices included water beetles, snake, eel, frogs...all fresh from their aquariums. Lexi was pulling for the water beetles. We opted for the baby pig since it was at least familiar and our friends, Barbie and Ed promised it to be delicious. In fact, it was. (I really apologize for this blog if you are a vegetarian. I'm not much of a meat eater so I basically stuck to the fried rice, egg plant and broccoli tonight...just for the record!)

Here's Lexi sampling the pigs foot...



Not really. I just couldn't resist the photo opportunity.