A day in the life...

     I'm not sure what you see on your Google home page but, here in Taiwan, we see Lanterns...it's Lantern Festival time. This, coming right after Chinese New Year!  (I am sure my Chinese grammer in the previous sentence would be horrendous.) Tonite everyone will light lanterns and, if the weather is nice, we'll walk down to Plum Blossom Lake for devotions in the dusk with the brightly lit lanterns! Our sweet boy is not feeling well...he's running a fever and has some chills. His appetite is still good and he is sleeping well. But, his level of play is way down. We would appreciate your prayers for him! So...all of that to say that we will most likely not be on the lantern walk unfortunately. But, I'm sure there will be more of those.

Today as I was driving over to the Home (with LOADS OF LAUNDRY), I came upon a funeral. I had no idea of the magnitude of such an event. A large bright yellow canopy with lots of flowers and lanterns, etc was blocking the entire road - with just an entrance, or walkway, into the families home. (And, when I say large, I mean it covers the whole road and is about 2 or more stories high.) Last evening we were coming over for dinner and saw Anna, Ted and Bev and several others representing the family walking home from the house where the person had passed. Ted was pushing a wheelbarrow. The custom is to take rice and pay respects, as far as we could gather.

The weather today is glorious. Right now, it is Monday and the time is 12:24pm. I do believe that it is 11:24pm EST in the US. So, the kiddos just finished lunch. I am upstairs just outside Ted's main office. There is a little computer room set up for the kids with a large table so that a few of us can set up laptops. The internet is excellent upstairs! Charley was even able to catch up on the CATS yesterday for a few minutes! Can't believe their win over SC...wait, yes we can. Best. Season. Ever. for Univ. of KY basketball.

Yesterday we made our first adventure into *Lo-Dung. It is a fairly large city (or about the size of Lexington, maybe a little smaller) and you can see mountains in the distance and water-filled rice patties everywhere. In the city itself there are many shopfronts with much for sale. The other day Anna took up to the Post Office, the bank, and the grocery store. And, we were able to find each of those things again yesterday. We are pretty proud of ourselves! (We only got lost once...just a small panic that lasted about 30 minutes :). Today we are cleaning, cleaning, cleaning the apartment. It feels good to get some things accomplished in our living space.

The rain has held off for 2 days, praise God! It's supposed to arrive again tonite or tomorrow. Pray for sun!

 John and Hannah just before we left

 John and Braden  (Sorry about the side view)

 In the *Hong Kong airport

Just outside our apartment, with the rain behind. All of the apartments look alike - so you can see the far complex in the back to get an idea of what the front of ours looks like.

I am sure there is so much more we'd like to say, but just can't think of the words right now. We pray each of you is well and your weather is sunny right now!