I don't know how long it will be before we're back in touch with folks. It just depends on how quickly we can get the internet hooked up. Here's hoping we'll be back in touch before the week is out!
Tomorrow we begin our journey back to China. It's been a very difficult month and as the time has slowly wound down, this trip has become a huge burden. Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. Despite the issues, things have still worked out. We're finishing up the packing now and we'll be leaving from RIC tomorrow at noon. I hope someone out there will send up a few requests for traveling grace for us.
I don't know how long it will be before we're back in touch with folks. It just depends on how quickly we can get the internet hooked up. Here's hoping we'll be back in touch before the week is out!
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We finally received a reply from the school about our visa invitation letters. They've mailed the letters and sent a number we can use to track it's progress. The letters are currently in Zhengzhou, the capital city of Henan province. They should be here within the next week.
Unfortunately, this will mean that we'll be late for the fall school term there. I'm not sure how this is going to be worked out, but we just have to trust that the Father is doing whatever it is that He does to fix stuff. So far we still haven't received any of the papers we need from the school. We absolutely must get them this week in order to arrive in time for our classes, which will start on the 20th of this month. We're hoping that we get them soon.
Donations are still trickling in. This is good because we still have to plan for our future stay in China. There also may be emergencies or unforeseen costs that arise, although we're hoping that this trip is a smooth one. We've started homeschooling the kids. That's been a nice change from the monotony that is currently our lives. They're focusing on some things that they didn't test so well in on the CAT. Right now we're focusing on telling time. As it stands, our kids think it's pretty silly to learn to tell time on an analog clock since there's plenty of digital clocks out there, but we are pushing them to learn it anyway. We also have to do some teaching about money. It's difficult to teach these things to the kids, especially when they've been living the last two years of their lives in another country where they tell time using military time and the money is a different currency. The adjustment is difficult to make. Explaining this to a CAT test is pointless though, so we keep on pushing onward and upward. We've started getting out for a walk once a day so long as the weather permits. We usually just pick a different playground and walk to it. Once we get there, we walk around the track or basketball court while our kids play. This gives us a chance to start building up our walking endurance again. It's very important to be in good physical health if you live in China. The amount of walking we will do each day is insane, not to mention the amount of stairs we will traverse due to the lack of elevators. Tomorrow we will also start a new eating regimen. I really have to get my weight down. I've gained over 40lbs since arriving back in America. Here's hoping that I can lose that exact amount before we return. I do believe that it can be done. Colonel has managed to not gain as much, but I think he's more fit because of the job he had a Wal-mart. Well, that's about it. We're just biding our time until we can leave. It's kind of difficult living in stasis, but I guess that's life some time. We heard from the school again today. Turns out that they are still having issues on their end with the paperwork. They won't be able to mail the visa invitation to us until next week or sometime thereafter. This makes it impossible to get to China in time to begin teaching. Unfortunately, there's nothing we can do about this. It becomes increasingly difficult for us to continue living in the USA without some sort of income. Originally we were supposed to leave at the end of August, so we stopped all our jobs once that time approached. Now we're kind of stuck in a bad situation until the school comes through. Every time we talk with them, they have some new problem that pushes our date to leave here back by a week or two. This is damaging our trust in the university and makes us very nervous to work with them. I can't begin to explain how frustrating this situation is.
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