Hong Kong to Nanning-December 18

"May God be gracious to us and bless us and make His face to shine upon us, that Your ways may be known on the earth, Your saving power among all the nations."  (Psalm 67:1-2)  We are so thankful that God has blessed us beyond measure in Christ in order to be a blessing to the nations.  That's the message of Christmas!  We think about that as we travel here.  May His name be known and praised.

We have had a pretty quiet day.  Waking up after a refreshing night's sleep, we swam in the pool and found some food.  Then we were back at the airport for our plane to Nanning. Annika made a couple of friends while we waited for the plane. Once we boarded, Todd tried out our "Jibbigo" app on his seatmates, asking them questions about Nanning.  I noticed Mari's head above all the rest when I went to the back of the plane.  We definitely stick out here!  Arriving in Nanning, we went through customs and were met by our wonderful guide, Cindy.  As we drove into the city, she told us all the wonderful things about Nanning.  After settling in, we ventured out to find some food on our own.  The doorman pointed us to an area around the block from the hotel and we started on our adventure.  The restaurant we chose had dumplings on the menu which sounded great to our hungry stomachs.  It was clear from the moment we walked in that they do not serve many foreigners!  Our server tried her best to communicate with us and we all laughed a lot!  The food was great and we were stuffed. Mari also noticed that a few cell phones were surreptitiously taking pictures of us. Too funny.

 Can you find Annika in this picture?

 Did you guess right? There she is.

 Now can you find Mari in this picture?

 With our wonderful guide Cindy.

 Todd wasn't sure what he had ordered.

 With our server who spoke zero English.

Well, we are heading to bed and preparing for our big day tomorrow.  Cindy said we will meet Elsa at 10:30am at the Civil Affairs office.  There is one other family that she knows of who will also be adopting a little girl tomorrow.  Pray with us for a good first day.  Her foster family wrote a little note on the bottom of an update Cindy gave us tonight saying that they wanted Elsa to be in a loving forever home and that they would love updates about her.  Clearly she was well cared for and loved.  We praise God for His provision in that way.