This is the day that never ends...

Have you ever had one of those projects in kindergarten like flat Stanley or in my case a stuffed bear that got sent home with a different kid each week. During that week they were supposed to go everywhere with the bear and write a journal everyday from the bear’s perspective telling what he was doing and what life was like in this families house.

Well, I’m not a stuffed bear –although Megan seems to think I look like one—but today I will be bringing you this blog entry from MY perspective. My name is Annie Chase. If you’ve been reading regularly then you’ve heard about me. And if you’re my family then, “surprise! You found me!” its good to know you’ve been reading even though I haven’t been writing.

Last night I slept like a baby. Best night of sleep I’ve gotten on this trip. My morning started at 6:15. Makenna was still sleeping so I got on the computer to check email and see if anyone was on Skype. A few minutes later I heard a faint tapping at the door. Karla had come to get her hair done. I feel like I have “clients” every morning hahaha! People wanting their hair done and at night wanting massages and stories. I like entertaining though so I don’t mind. After doing Karla and molly’s hair I got to Skype a bit with my family before we headed out for the day.

Breakfast.

We are ALL sick of breakfast.

Need I say anymore? All we want is a bowl of cereal or a chicken biscuit from chik-fil-a.

Today is a special day for us because one of the nannies found us a government church to go to. In China, there are still secret underground churches where Christians can meet and talk freely together about Christ as long as they meet secretly. But there are also government churches controlled by China where they can sing and preach and meet freely without fear however they are tightly controlled by the government and can’t go very deep at all. They are told what they can and cannot say so that nothing will spread and the people still will not know much at all about Christ. So we walked to the church with fawn our translator and one of the nannies from the orphanage. We tried to sit in the back but they moved us to the front rows! Looking around they have crosses, a pulpit, a piano, etc. But we also looked up and saw cameras and wondered if they are government cameras.

They sang for a long time at the beginning and handed us Chinese songbooks so we could “sing along.” Thankfully I’m a musician and above the Chinese characters were numbers that described the tune so at least I had that going for me. I found once I got the tune down that if I looked at their mouths I could do a good enough job imitating the sounds too to get by.

The entire service was in mandarin without any translation so we don’t really know what was said or how deep they did go but we spent the time reading or enjoying hearing the mandarin. Afterwards we took lots of pictures with the members before finally starting our walk over to the orphanage.

            Today one of my dreams came true. As we walked from the church to the orphanage we saw some older men sitting on chairs outside their shop playing the Erhu. (The Erhu is sometimes referred to as a Chinese violin or 2-string Chinese fiddle.  It is a bowed Chinese instrument used in ensembles or played as a solo instrument.)

I LOVE those things so I stopped to listen and smiled at the men. Everyone else walked on and I took some pictures. Quickly the men asked me if I would like to sit down with them? Everyone else was gone, it was just me and I knew how to get to the orphanage from there so I stopped and sat with them to listen. I tried to explain to them that I play the violin and I think they understood because they asked me if I would like to play. I was SO EXCITED!!!!!! After totally messing it up the first time they showed me how to hold my bow hand and where to bow on the box. It was hard for me to figure out the pressure on the string and note intervals but I was so happy to have gotten the chance to sit with some Chinese men and play music.

When I finally got to the orphanage my little girl Alex was walking toward her room. I jumped at the opportunity to get through to her earlier in the day and was ecstatic when she let me pick her up after BARELY any time today. All that patience throughout the week is finally paying off!! But it wasn’t long before Leah found me AND hope AND Gracie. I was so worried they would ruin everything I had going with Alex but I knew that Leah would need some extra attention today because yesterday I was working with her on obedience and teaching her that she’s not in charge of me to just drag me wherever she pleases and force me to carry her. Then I left her to go to McDonalds with Shannon to pick up happy meals for the kids. I made sure to tell her that I was leaving but would be back before I left but with such a stressful day for them due to inspections she was running low and needed some one on one time with me.

            I got into the room with all the older kids and Shannon warned me that when they had walked in, Leah has been sitting at the end of the table after having just thrown up all over herself.

            I looked down at Leah and sat down with her. Alex on my lap and Leah snuggled up next to me. Poor girl. There were tears in her eyes and my high energy, loud, demanding, possessive, very tough emotionally, little girl was so calm and quiet. She just wanted to be held and loved. I can’t even imagine what it must be like for a 7 year old girl to have just thrown up and want to lay down and get some extra love and care but instead be cleaned up and alone like nothing even happened.  I tried to get her some air from the fan but one of the nannies started saying something to her and she began to cry again and nuzzled her head further into my shoulder. It was so sweet and I absolutely cherished the chance to be there for her when she was so vulnerable and needy. What an odd day. Before I knew it, it was time to go and out we headed to lunch.

             

            After a quick break we walked back to the orphanage, picking up a cake for a girls birthday and doing laundry along the way. The nanny brought Alex out to me and we picked up where we left off. She’s finally getting a little faster at warming up to me. Oh how I love this little girl. The nanny said she does smile sometimes but it just takes her a LONG TIME to warm up to strangers. Today we did make some progress though. Instead of her just clinging to me and dazing out we did get some good playing in. I joked with the nanny that I should get married tomorrow to a Chinese guy, start the paper work this next week and move to china so I could adopt Alex. I can’t believe how much I love this sad little kid.

Dinner at KFC was quite an affair. We felt like Justin Beiber as everyone in the building stared at us and some kids giggled wildly and got all flustered. It took us forever to get everything ordered and ready, which gave the kids plenty of time to come up to us and practice saying “hello” in English. They are so cute!

I feel like today has just gone on forever! Earlier today this rat came running out of the bushes and ran between fawns feet and across the grass. We’ve joked about it ever since but we all feel like that was days ago!

After dinner we got on a public bus with one of the nannies from the orphanage (new experience for us) to go to one of her friend’s shops at the night market. He has colorful stones he carves words onto and makes them into necklaces and bracelets. The nanny gave each of us a necklace with a black stone that said love on one side and friendship on the other as a gift. We loved them so much that we went back to get more for our friends and family.

            Today has felt like the longest day so far. We woke up later but we jam packed the day FULL of activity. Most of our down time was taken away and the time we did have we spent in my room typing together in silence. That’s pretty much my day. I left out quite a few details from our afternoon and all the things I did with Alex because I’m eager to play with Megan’s hair in the hopes that it will help me fall asleep again tonight.

Good night everyone!