Fear not, for I am with you; I will bring your descendants from the east, and gather you from the west; I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’ and to the south, ‘Do not keep them back’ Bring my sons from afar, and my daughters from the ends of the earth-- Today we were reminded just how far off this land is. Western culture has influenced the area a great deal, but it is still hard to find recognizable items in the grocery store! We saw many things in Urumqi, experienced a lot of the local culture and learned a great deal about the history of the area and people groups. This is a very interesting province. It is called the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, which means the highest official in the province as well as the President of the University must represent the Uighur ethnic group. There are, I believe she said, about 40 ethnic groups represented in this region. There are 12 main, native ethnic groups here, all of which are portrayed in the Xinjiang Regional Museum that we visited today. Most of them are Muslim groups. The Han Chinese and communist party, which first began to settle in this area after the formation of the Chinese Republic, have a display as well.
We also visited the Red Hills Park in the center of the city. In addition to being in the most in-land city in the world, this city is also known for being the geographic center of Asia. We walked through a 200 year old pavilion and walked past Korean monks (also tourists) next to a pagoda. The girls had pictures taken with a monkey. Anna fell asleep on my shoulder and took a nice nap while the girls played in a big exercise park. We have seen smaller versions of these here and in Beijing . Rachel proclaimed it the most fun park she has been to. We had lunch at an enormous KFC, experienced more exciting traffic and went shopping at the Chinese version of a Target type store to look for water, snacks and socks for Anna. Very different from any market we’ve ever visited. Everything was extremely inexpensive and there were about 3 – 5 employees eager to sell us something on every aisle. The girls bought shoes for about $1.25 USD and some pajamas. We bought some PJs for Anna too because the ones we brought were too small. On the way out, our cart full of purchases (totaling less than $40) qualified us to buy a small bottle of perfume for 50 cents in USD.
Anna is continuing to impress us with her abilities and understanding. She watches and listens to everything very closely and imitates very well. She has made a few brief cries for mama today, but has been easy to comfort. She slept on my shoulder through the entire grocery store outing as well. When we were waiting in line at KFC, she looked over my shoulder and starting saying “ba baa! ba baaa! to Pete.” She was so excited when he leaned over to let her give him a kiss. What a way to wrap daddy around your little finger! She then wrapped one arm around his neck and the other around mine and gave us a big joint hug. I have to think all of the prayers on our behalf can be the only explanation to her ability to so quickly give us such affection.
She seems equally comfortable with all of us and expresses her disapproval if any of us leave. She is most upset when I leave and wants my shoulder when she is upset. We’re trying to learn the Chinese words that she says. One that I love hearing often is “jie jie!” which means big sister and is said frequently and enthusiastically. She has them wrapped around those cute little fingers too.
Thank you for all of the prayers and email notes! We love reading them even if we don’t get to respond to each of them. Thank you all, you are a blessing to us.
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More notes and observations from Rachel—
Hey guys!
We had a note requesting our (Sarah and I) point of view so here it is. So far the most interesting, okay, okay,-weird, things I’ve seen have all been food. You heard about the goat, the part below the neck looked like a giant roasted chicken and the part above looked like one of those buffalo skulls with some meat hanging off it. We also saw lots of vendors selling food. One of them held up corn on the cob, bit into it to show us how good it was, and offered it to us. Later on we saw slabs of ribs (of what animal I have no idea,) hanging on racks out in the open, and more roast goat.
To expand on mom’s “you will cross the road and the bus will not hit you,” it’s more like, the bus will almost hit you but you will not be squashed. Aside from all this we had lots of fun. The exercise park was the most fun park I’ve ever been to, the most fun part was the swinging walkers. They made you feel as if you were really walking…on the moon.
Anna could be a bit of a manipulator. I had something she wanted and she came up and stuck her bottom lip out and gave me those puppy-dog eyes. I just gave her “the look” and her mouth quivered and she broke out laughing. Right now she’s singing and dancing.
