A picture of our group for the week (minus the driver) ~ Me, Linda (I keep calling her Laura so she needs to change her name...), Gloria, and Michael. We have made some awesome memories.
We spent all day at New Day Creation Learning Center. It is a fabulous facility approximately 1-1/2 hours out of the city. It has a school for English skills (all ages), a cafeteria, a small manufacturing business, a gift shop, a preschool, and the foster facility. Obviously we were there to visit the foster facility - the children are special needs with the majority of the "issues" being some form of heart disease. After touring the facility we played with the preschool age children first. We got to help them water color paint; one of my favorite activities!
These were pictures of the children hanging in the facility. Hannah, the one picture is for you - can you tell which one :-)
Later in the morning we went upstairs to see the babies. There are approximately 10 babies upstairs but more than half of them are in the hospital for surgeries or for winter bug (since they have heart problems even the common cold can be serious). We were able to see the therapy room and the baby bedrooms.
The therapy room had such an inviting and comforting feeling; actually you could say the entire facility had that "home" feel to it...
I was able to spend my "baby" time with a little boy named Noah. He is 3 months old and has downs syndrome and a heart condition. He has more surgeries to go, but he was an absolute delight today. He would cooo at me and hold my fingers really tight. Of course I sang to him, rocked him, played on the floor with him, and walked around with him. His favorite song seemed to be Itsy-Bitsy Spider; he would just laugh when the spider crawled up him... He did take a short 10 minute nap in my arms, and I just melted. The Ayi brought him to me when he woke from his afternoon nap; I felt really privileged by that plus she let me feed him his bottle (oh I so remember how difficult those days can be & I don't long for them to come back). Before we left for the day (and this trip) I sang one last song to him ~ Jesus Loves the Little Children ~ and promised him that there was a plan for his life. I silently cried as I left.
I do not like to hear myself sing and would not normally upload a video of myself, but I wanted to share with you Noah's smile. As the day progressed he would smile the minute I started the song...
While Noah was napping I played with a little 7 year old girl named Leah Hope (I love that name). She is a dwarf but sharp as a tack. She kept leading me around by the hand. Her english is excellent, and her coloring skills were top notch. She reminded me how much fun it can be to be a kid... so girls, when I get home we are getting the painting out, the play-doh, the coloring, you name it!
We had dinner at the Beijing Hotpot. The best way to describe it is a chinese version of fondue. It was excellent... except for when I went to put the noodles in my pot. The noodles weren't sliced and they were all tangled...so when I picked them up, they all came out, they wouldn't go into the pot, they were going everywhere...everyone came running over to try to keep me from making a huge mess; of course, I made a huge mess, felt like all eyes were on me, and was embarrassed beyond words. Oh well, have I mentioned how much I don't like change, embarrassment, or feeling like everyone is watching me. Anyway, the meal was very good. The oil I was cooking my food in was extremely spicy, so now I have heartburn :-( Hopefully I can get a good night sleep.
Tomorrow is our last day in Beijing. We are off to see the Forbidden City Palace and the 450 years old Bell Tower. Gloria promises it will be a great day of shopping as well. Not sure how that will work since we have no luggage room, but we'll deal with that later. I'm off to sleep for now ~ good night & sweet dreams...
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