After breakfast we went to a church here named Beijing International Christian Fellowship (click the name if you want to visit their website.)
It was a very neat experience. The church is headed up by Koreans and is attended by expatriates from all over the world. Interestingly enough, Chinese citizens are not allowed to attend. There are notes on the door and on their brochures that state: "Due to local government regulations, all international churches in Beijing are open to non-Chinese passport holders only. To attend, please bring a photo ID that proves foreign citizenship. Thank you for your cooperation."
They said that they are the largest international church in the world with over 63 countries represented. It is so awesome to see that God has people on fire for Him even in the heart of a communist nation.
After church we drove out to a portion of the Great Wall the runs through Beijing. It was about an hour outside of Beijing and thankfully no one got carsick, even though the driving in China is a little wild. Unfortunately, it was very hazy and not as picturesque as we were hoping, but it was still very awesome to be walking on this structure.
We could have gone the easy way, or the hard way. Since everyone else was going the easy way, our group decided to go the way that is more steep. Very steep (that's fear on London's face)
and here's London climbing stairs with Kasity, the daughter of one of the couples that is in our adoption group.
Nothing wears a body out like climbing. Here are 2 bodies that look familiar:
Here are Victoria and London taking a scenic break
All up and down the wall are vendors that come up and try to sell stuff. Everything from etchings and paintings to musical lighters with pictures of Mao on them. The vendors are very persistent and somewhat distracting from the beautiful scenery, but Victoria discovered that she likes to haggle. Here she is closing a deal on a watercolor painting:
The Great Wall of China was created by Emperor Ch'in Shi Wang Ti (not positive on the spelling ) to keep out barbarians from the north. He wasn't really the 1st Emperor, but he had all the records of previous rulers destroyed and declared himself the 1st. In fact, his name, Ch'in, became the name of the country. He was also the guy who created all of the terra cotta soldiers to protect him in the after life (he wasn't very nice so he was afraid that people would try to get revenge on him in the next world.) As the wall was being built, if a person didn't meet quota, or if they complained...they were buried alive in the wall. It is said that the Great Wall is the largest tombstone in the world.
This is an ironic picture...the Great Wall was built by a xenophobic ruler to keep out non-Chinese barbarians...and here we are, barbarians walking on the wall as a tourist attraction and even wearing a t-shirt declaring that we walked on it. Emperor Ch'in must be rolling over in his grave!
Here's a picture with our guide, Rosa:
It is so nice to be here with a guide that speaks our language. She has really been taking good care of us and it has made this trip a lot less stressful than it would have been if we were on our own.
Tonight we were adventurous and found a restaurant that served exotic food.
Ginger is packing us up now as we're leaving around 6:30 tomorrow morning to fly to Guangzhou. I think we're supposed to meet Sydney tomorrow afternoon so my daily reports might falter a bit :)
We are very excited to be meeting our new daughter tomorrow. I'm trying not to think about it too much because I want to be able to get some good sleep tonight. Stay tuned...my next post will have pictures of Sydney!!!!
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