Hutong, not DONG, Neighborhood, The Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, and Most Importantly . . . The Last Day Without Mary In Our Arms!

What an amazing day today!!! We began with a Hutong Neighborhood tour (and yes, Scott called it a “HuDONG”, the dork!). A hutong is a narrow alleyway or street. There are neighborhoods throughout Beijing that are made up of hutongs, which date back 800 years. Families, sometimes as many as 20, share these common areas. The government is giving them money to preserve their homes because they are what the original Chinese culture was like hundreds of years ago, and Beijing is growing so fast, that many of them have been torn down; they are now trying to preserve this heritage.

We were able to visit the inside of a family’s home. It was much nicer than what I expected, with 3 refrigerators and 3 tvs! Scott and I were amazed at how clean these hutongs were. They are very quiet and very safe. We took a rickshaw ride through the hutongs (felt sorry for the man that had to pull us!) It was my favorite thing to do thus far since we have been here. I loved seeing how the Chinese people really live now and how they used to live hundreds of years ago (minus the t.v’s and refrigerators).

We then went to the Forbidden City. That, of course was amazing!!! The city was built from 1406 – 1420 and took 700,000 people to build it. The detail and size of it was a site to see. It spans 8.7 square km from one end to the other, with over 9,999 rooms, just one less than the Purple Palace of Heaven (the Emperor wanted it to be one less than heaven because he wanted it to signify his deity as a Son of God here on Earth). It was built as THE center of the city, where the Emperor lived. Words can’t describe the beauty and pure awesomeness (got that line from Kung Fu Panda!) of the city. You just have to see the pictures, and I’m sure that even that won’t do it justice.

We ended our tour at Tiananmen Square. It is the largest city square in the world. We didn’t see any details about the massacre in 1989; they keep that on the downlow here, even block access to it on the internet! We saw The Chinese History Museum (didn’t go in) and the building where the government does all of it’s business (sorry, we couldn’t remember the name of it). There was also a Memorial for Mao, who was the founder of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 (before that they had emperors; people got tired of the Feudal system and Mao voted himself in as the leader of the communist party). Mao’s picture is on the South Gate Entrance; he’s quite the hero here in China.

We came back to our hotel room, ordered a pizza from Pizza Hut, and chowed down! It tasted so good!! We are waiting to meet the other people in our travel group, to have a prayer time before we go on to our different provinces. In less than 24 hours we will finally get to meet our Little Miss Mary!! It’s really hard to describe how we are feeling right now. We are so anxious for the sun to go down to go to sleep, so we can wake up and get her. Five years ago we prayed for this day to come, and it’s overwhelming to think that IT IS going to happen. This is our last night without her. This is our last night to wonder what her laugh will sound like, or what her little hands and feet will look like. It’s our last night to wonder how she is being taken care of, or if someone is comforting her when she cries. It’s our last night to NOT have her as part of our family. Please pray for her and for us, that she will transition easily and that she will quickly learn to love and trust us. God is good, and I know He has picked the perfect little girl for us to love and care for.

“Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt his name together. I sought the Lord and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears.”

– Psalm 34: 3-4