More Pictures from Chongqing

A woman practicing a sword "dance"

Gotta love those noodles!! We ate lots of them in China

Dancing on the plaza

Always working...

OK, so Starbucks is not really Chinese...but it was a lovely place for me. The coffee at the hotel in Chongqing was awful and trying to find coffee to "take away" was really difficult. And then came Starbucks. It looked a little like home, it smelled right, and the lady understood what a "tall non-fat latte" was with no other explanation or charades. It was a little bit of "home" in a foreign land!

...and working some more..

A dad with his daughter - checking out the fish

On to Chongqing!!

So here are some practical details about the next leg of the journey on our trip....
We arrived in Chongqing and were greeted by our wonderful CCAI representative. She was warm, caring, friendly and attentive to all the families.

We stayed on the 26th floor of a hotel in Chongqing. The rooms were lovely and we had a super fun time riding the glass elevator on the outside of the building!!

Of course the reason we were all in Chongqing was the babies. I wish I could show a picture of each one...they are so amazing!! However, if you want to read my thoughts about the night the babies came to us, see here.

We visited the Chongqing zoo...home of some handsome Pandas.

We saw quite a few baby carriers like this around China. It is a basket in which the child can sit on the little ledge or stand in the bottom.

Playing games in the park

The grocery store in Chongqing was crazy!!! It was very much like the rest of Chongqing in that it was ALWAYS busy, full of people, with lots of activity (including a little pushing and shoving in line). While I recognized much of the food, there was some that was quite new. Above are ONE of the types of chicken feet on sale at the store. (Needless to say, I refrained from that shopping experience!)

Up to 2 years of age, the Chinese put their children in these split pants. That way when the child needs to go "potty" he or she just pees (or something else) wherever they are. Interesting concept...but it makes for some cute little buns!!

A bed of spring flowers...

Each morning many people would gather out in the park to do Tai Chi or some sort of group exercise. My favorite was the large plaza that would fill with women each morning in order to spend the first hour or so of the day dancing. You know, there is something right about a country where dancing is the first activity of the day!

Especially Fond of Them

So it's three o'clock in the morning and I can't sleep. Partially because my husband is gone and I have a child (who likes to move) sleeping with me, and partly because I am grieving. Yesterday, as I was celebrating the accomplishment of having "finished" the China pictures, it dawned on me that I hadn't seen a few. As I went through the photos again, I realized there was a huge chunk (almost 300 photos) that were missing! I frantically searched for them...to no avail.

I am sure it is some fault of mine that they are gone, but I have no idea how. They included all my pictures of the Old City of Chongqing...pictures that hang in my minds eye, but the beauty of which are lost to the rest of the world. All the richness, colors, faces, and stories will be mine to treasure, but not to share. I am sad...I was especially fond of these images.

Some may think that out of a total of 3000 photos taken in China, what is 300? Really if you think about it, I still have A LOT of photos. But, as I said before, I was especially fond of these and so numbers and percentages do not rule the day, my affection does.

As I lay in bed thinking about all this, the Spirit began to stir my heart. On the heels of such devastating tradgedies in Myanmar and China, it is easy to "dehumanize" the events and fall into lumping them into the category of "natural disaster" that happened "over there". I can fall into looking at percentages or statistics of populations lost. Sure, this number or that number of people are gone, but in an area with with over 2 billion people....well...there's still a lot of people.

However, each life - each individual life - was a picture, a piece of art, an image-bearer of his or her Creator. Their beauty and story hang in the heart of the God who Sees, but are lost to all the rest of us. How sad. Great works of art that are removed from this earth forever and will be forgotten or never seen by the majority of the planet.

But God does not forget. He remembers...because He was especially fond of them!

(By the way, I'm not equating the value of a human life with a picture. I think the Spirit just helped me understand the fondness that a creator has for each creation. And the deep sadness that brings when those creations are lost. And for any of those who have read The Shack, I think I was allowed understanding to the phrase "especially fond of".)