Since Robert and I have met, fallen in love and have been married for almost 10 years now, we have both experienced what we call (A LOT!) of "firsts'. As in, things that both of us are experiencing as husband and wife that we never have in previous relationships. We believe in our heart of hearts that God certainly put us together and we have tried to live our lives individually and collectively to serve Him to the best of our intentions to please Him.
Well this morning, we arrive at Beijing International Christian Fellowship and we really didn't know quite what to expect. Well, it was awesome to experience praise and worship not only with 40 other families from America World, but people from ALL over the world! The pastor who gave the message this morning was from Tanzania and taught a lot out of the book of Revelation and the church getting ready to meet Jesus. Robert and I truly felt the power of the Holy Spirit in this church (which was actually held in a hotel theatre) more so perhaps because we were worshipping God in a communist country! THAT was a first! And it is truly a blessing and an amazing journey to go through this life with a partner who prays WITH you, For you and Grows with you. As I mentioned, neither one of us had experienced God so intimately before in our lives, much less in a marriage that is centered around him. We are excited to expand upon this experience with Mary!
Next, we toured the Jade Factory which was awesome as Robert made a couple of very special purchases!!!! No salesperson stalked us as bad, that was cool! On to lunch (you have 3 guesses as to what we ate and the first two don't count!) and on to the Great Wall of China!
WOW - INCREDIBLE - AMAZING.........built more than 2,000 years ago and around 4,500 miles, this is an awesome wonder of the world. Another "first", Robert & I climbed to the top over 2,000 feet with just over 7,000 stairs - round trip. Of course, that is not the whole wall but as Robert says, we didn't have enough Naproxsyn to do the whole wall! Looking all around from the very top, the landscape was just beautiful! The mountains were unlike most that we've seen in the states and again, just being amazed at God's greatness!
Back on the bus headed to dinner...(What do you think we had??).....well - you guessed right!!!!! We've heard there is a pizza place in Hefei City so we three families are hardcore to get something different! We hope the babies love it! Anyway, we're headed to the pool to relax our muscles, packing again to go get Mary, our bags have to be outside our door at 10:30pm tonight so we can catch our flight tomorrow and be on a bus by 5:30am - SHARP!
We don't know how much sleep we'll get and again, we'll try to take some pics to figure how we may be able to get them on the blogspot. We're nervous, excited, sleep deprived and very emotional (in a great way) about meeting our daughter for the first time!!!!! Our flight is only 1 1/2 hours so that's good and if you can guess what we'll be eating for breakfast on the flight in.......well,.....then you know what you can expect to eat when you visit China!!!! We love you all!
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Ronda & Robert!
Ronda & Robert!
