Giving Thanks

We started the day by walking back over to Shamian Island to the White Swan Hotel. Pat had arranged a Service of Thanksgiving for Adoption. It was a real sweet service where we thanked our Heavenly Father for our precious children. This is one of the prayers: "May God, the Father of all, bless our child Samuel and we who have given to him our family name. May we live together in love and affection through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." After the service we took our famous "red couch" photos. It is a tradition for all the adoptive families to take pictures of their babies on the red couch. It was quiet amusing trying to get all of them to look at the camera at one time. The White Swan is a beautiful hotel with a large waterfall. It is really nice all decorated for Christmas. After the Thanksgiving service we walked a block to a Church of Christ. They have two services one in Chinese and the other in English. Both services were packed!! Praise God. We met a young chinese lady who was sitting in front of us. Her english was excellent. She actually teaches english at a local University. Anyway, she has been to Montgomery and she spoke at First Baptist Church (isn't it a small world??) She works for Campus Crusades but she says in China they cannot tell anyone it is Campus Crusades.. they call it Human Resources. The church was really nice and they sang lots of Christmas songs. Sam got to praising our Lord a little to loud and we were asked to leave (LOL). We went outside and Sam fell asleep in my arms while Nick was approached by a Chinese television crew and asked if they could interview him about being a Christian and what Christmas is like for him as a Christian. After church Doris and Pat gave us a New Testament Bible in both english and chinese. We then went and ate at the Cow and Bridge which is a Thai restaurant. Nick, being the adventurous eater that he is, order a seafood noodle dish. He really enjoyed it and had ate almost all of it when he saw something with "suction cups" and tentacles at the bottom of the bowl. It was either a baby Octopus or Squid (see picture). We were also approached today by a group of about 6 chinese girls who wanted to practice their english on us. Our young girl was Jenny (she is pictured above with Nick and Sam). She spoke excellent english and was so polite! We did a little shopping today.. and I bartered as best as I could. I got Sam two chinese outfits and 3 pair of squeaky shoes. Let me tell you, he LOVES those shoes... he just dances and jumps so he can hear them squeak! Tomorrow we leave at 8:30 to get Sam's medical exam and then we will go to the zoo. Sam seems to really be enjoying strolling through the streets and seeing all the sights. That is all for now. We will write again tomorrow. Love to you all.