ChIna!

We made it!! Wow, am I tired. We have been so busy ever since the morning that we left. On July 31st, Rianne and I flew out to Newark and met up with our team. We had a pizza party and we hung out all night. They are a great group of people! God has really blessed me with some wonderful people to spend two weeks with! The next morning, we got up real early and started our journey to the airport. 20 people, 40 bags, plus everyone's carry on. Not so easy, but we did it! We got done checking our bags, going through security and whatnot at around 9:30. Our plane didn't leave until 12:10, so we had some time to kill. We all went wandering around the aiport...I ended up at Starbucks with Rianne, Wes, Jonathan and a few other people. After we were done there, we just all chilled at the gate until they let us board the plane.

We finally got to board the plane at about 11:30. The 13 hour flight consisted of movies, sleeping and more sleeping. I watched Edward Scissorhands (finally!) and The Pianist. We landed in Beijing at 1:45pm, August 2nd. None of us lost our luggage and no one was quarantined. Success!! After we exchanged money, bought a soda (amusing), and loaded our bags onto a van and loaded ourselves onto a bus, we head to Hope Foster Home. It was about a 30 minute drive from the airport. Once we got there, the first thing I saw when I got out of the bus, were little babies peeking out of the window waving at us. So adorable!

Once we got the tour and got settled, we headed in to play with the kids for a while. They are so cute! After dinner ( Chinese Dominoes), we headed to bed at around 7:30. Everyone was exhausted. This morning, we all got up at around 5 or 5:30AM and had breakfast at 7:30. Then at 9, we loaded onto the bus once more for the Great Wall. On the way, we got some Subway. :D The Wall has some good stories, but it's way too late and I'm way too tired to get into them right now!

When we got back, some of us played with the kids, while some of us just hung around. At 5:45, we had dinner, which was some weird cabbage stuff, green beans, and rice. Not too bad! Afterwards, I went back to the yurt and fell asleep, only to be waken up by Rianne, yelling at me to get to devotions! Oops... When I got in there, I was so not awake. That's the last time a take a nap...it really messes with my head! That brings us to right now. It's late, I'm tired, I'm going to bed! I'll try to get on again soon to update again...hopefully with some pictures! :)

Showing hope -
~Katie~