Yesterday was our final day in Xian and we went out with a bang! We worked hard all morning scrubbing cribs in the red room and hanging up newly laundered curtains. We were all armed with brushes and rags, 80's music and several "helpers"--thank you Mila and Coco. We enjoyed one of our best meals at Starfish for lunch with our new friends Lee Chin and Caroline. The cook made homemade dumplings and then more delicious watermelon. After play time with babies, Tony, Andrea, Chanell, Lily, Lee chin and I headed into town where we were dropped off at the North gate of the city wall. This wall was constructed before the forbidden city in the Tang Dynast, the Golden Age of China. It is beautiful. We rented bikes and rode around the whole wall. We got an amazing view of the city, of a Buddhist temple, of life in Xian. They play soothing music all along the path and everything was clean and quiet. Xian is the most beautiful city in China, I think. LeeChin negotiated a rickshaw ride for us to meet the boys, Caroline and her English student, and Naomi at the McDonalds by the drum tower. We couldn't resist the Chinese French fries and strawberry shakes which were more delicious than at home! After this tasty appetizer we started into the Muslim night market. The sights and smells were mesmerizing. Dried persimmon, dates and kiwi were piled up near big roiling pots of baking walnuts. Quail egg totem poles on a stick fried in what looked to me like little abelskiver pans. We stopped to purchase some meat that our vegetarian friend Naomi said we could not live without, a type of corned beef that we can share with Mom and Dad in Hong Kong. The South gate of the city wall stood illuminated with light and hundreds of birds circled around it catching the bugs. It seemed like all the vendors had pet birds in a cage. We were told that every day all the bird owners hang their birds in a central tree where they can all sing together. For dinner we had the most delicious mini kabobs of lamb meat spiced with cumin and fennel and a kind of fried noodle made of bread called "bing". We might have enjoyed our meal a bit more had we not all been huddling around a preschool sized table sitting on tiny stools. The energy in these Muslim quarters was amazing, like a buzzing.
That night we packed and prepared for our flight to Hong Kong. This morning we said goodbye to our new friends at Starfish. What a blessing it was to spend a few days serving them. I was reminded again last night after a rough experience with Wilson that the hard and life changing things God asks us to do are not the big events like serving in an orphanage in China. They are the mundane daily tasks of living in a family, doing our visiting teaching, putting off the natural man in our comfort zones and keeping covenants. Our trip to China has been a reprieve and a reminder of what is the hardest and most meaningful work I can do. Snuggling cleft palate babies is easy compared to loving and forgiving mean teenagers.
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