Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I hope in Him!” from Lamentations Yesterday, I just couldn’t get to journaling, so I decided to do some this morning before things get busy again. Someone asked me what the foster family and orphanage had done to prepare Anna to meet us. I wasn’t able to meet the orphanage director or the foster parents (China does not allow it.) My information all came from the orphanage doctor and the foster care coordinator from Good Rock Foundation and everything I heard from them had to be interpreted. I believe they did try to explain to her about us and I’m fairly certain she had been shown our pictures. We had sent pictures in two different packages and since some of the things sent in each package were returned with her, I have to believe the pictures were shown to her as they tried to explain this to her. She is just a month over two and has no prior experience to draw upon to understand what they were trying to explain, so I’m sure it was all very confusing. She is quite articulate for a two year old, so I’m sure she understood more than we expected. We have been showing her pictures of the boys and she understands they are older brothers “guh guh.” She laughed a bit about that because she thought Mark was not a very big older brother. She was calling James the big older brother and Mark the small older brother. I’m still trying to learn how to say those. Over the past three days we’ve realized just how well she can communicate as she has conversed with our guide, waiters and a donkey cart driver. An example of a conversation that our guide interpreted for us yesterday morning when we set out in our van – Anna: “Where is my hat?” After she has it on, “this is my new hat.” Shows it to Sarah, “why doesn’t she have a hat?” Puts hat on Sarah and laughs. Rachel puts on hat. Anna: “She already has a hat. Give it back to me.” I also watched her tell women in the bathroom that the two girls whose heads were popping over the top of the stalls were her sisters and tell the waitress that I was her mama and Pete was her baba. I’m starting to feel a bit concerned about just how frustrating it will be to come home to a place where suddenly no one understands what last week was understood so clearly. We have figured out some of her words on our own and confirmed them with our handy dandy Costco foreign language translator. Today, I’m going to bring my own handwritten collection of index cards of Chinese phrases and begin writing down as many of her words and their meanings as we can. We plan to buy some tapes and videos in Chinese and continue to learn more ourselves. With such a good start to learning this language, I don’t want her to loose it. I know how hard it is to learn it! Pronunciation of English is difficult for her, but she tries very hard to imitate what we say. She loves a little song that Sarah has been teaching her and says some parts very clearly.
One of the things we had done in preparation of meeting her was to send some circus animal cookies in one of the packages to her knowing we could bring something familiar with us. She has loved those crackers, which she calls “binga” (biscuit). Sarah had learned a Chinese nursery song which she also loves hearing.
Somehow, she has figured out that we are her family. I know it is really the grace of God in her life and the prayers of so many people. She still misses her foster mother and I’m sure she would probably trade me for her in an instant if given the choice. She cries for her each night at bedtime, but does seem to accept me as a substitute. She looks for me and calls for me anytime I’m out of sight. She just woke up and is planted in my lap right now. Despite her bedtime cries, she wakes up happy each morning. Thank you for the continued prayers on her behalf. I’m hoping we will learn to understand each other more and more as the time here progresses. She is very persistent and expressive at trying to make us understand. Last night when she was upset, we could understand little of what she was saying, but I did understand “mama” and the words for socks and shoes. I put them on for her, but she fell asleep on my shoulder before she tried to head out the door. Today is a new day, she just got a binga from jie jie and she seems ready for more adventures. (We’ll work on better nutritional habits after we’re home!) I can’t wait until you all can see this amazing little girl in action. We don’t have the right software to send a video clip, but we’ll try to send something for our out of town friends after we are home. Today we are off to see the Heavenly Lake up in the mountains. I’ll let Rachel describe our visit before we send off this post. Blessings from the Aldrich Family
More notes and observations from Rachel—
Hello earthlings! Stories from space travelers, visiting other planets, galaxies, and worlds. To boldly go where no Aldrich’s have gone before!
It really does feel like a different world here. Ironically, we visited a place called “The Heavenly Lake” today. It was absolutely beautiful. It’s a small lake completely surrounded by mountains. We got on a boat and toured the lake. On one side we saw mountain goats climbing around the rock cliffs. I honestly didn’t know places like that existed.
We had a great lunch there before leaving. The only thing I was a little wary about was the whole baked fish, eyes and all. There were these skewer things that were really good and I ate quite a few. Then when we were leaving we saw a whole uncooked animal, which dad guessed was a pig with its stomach split open and a man cooking the skewer things right next to it. I couldn’t help thinking; did I just eat pig intestines? Well I won’t eat so many next time. There were also really different looking horses which Sunny called Mongolian horses. They were really pretty.
After that we went to a mall, of all the places to go in China.
Then Sunny took dad and I to go get some fruit, it was delicious.
Right now Anna is crying because she thinks she has to take a bath. It’s kind of weird, she’s the only little kid I know who doesn’t like to take a bath.
She is so smart! We learned that she has been teasing Sarah and I, calling us, “bad egg.”
