Happy 2010! The Joseph family has had a fantastic weekend thus far ringing in the new year with both friends and family! On Thursday night, we had our friends, the Morrises, come over for a family slumber party. After having them over for dinner a few weeks ago, we all decided that it was so much trouble to get out and over to someone else's apartment that it would make sense just to do an overnight. So we did it! They came over with their two little girls, ages 5 and 1, had dinner, put all the kids to bed in sleeping bags (except for Noah and their littlest one who both got beds/pack n plays), and then had time for the grown ups to sit and visit. It was such sweet time! Jason and Sara have been here in China for almost 8 years, and Kevin and I feel like we have a lot to learn from them and their experience of overseas living. And we even celebrated with homemade eggnog! (The pic is of the kids on the sofa reading together the next morning.)
The next day (Friday), a driver with a van came to our apartment to pick up Karis, Noah, and me to take us to Beijing to do an airport run. We successfully found and picked up my sister Sarah, her husband Rob, a
nd their little boy Ben (5 months old). We had a great time talking all the way home and catching up, enjoyed a dinner that our ayi had prepared while I was gone, and got the weary travelers to bed. Today Kevin and Rob went to get massages at the blind masseuse parlor and Sarah and I took the kids on a walking tour of our community--including taxi corner, the market, our real estate friends' office, and the local grocery store. All of our friends were so excited to meet Sarah and of course thought Ben was adorable! We have lots of fun adventures planned over the next 3 weeks that they will be here, but for now we are just thrilled to have precious family here and to see them recovering so well from the jet lag! We've especially loved seeing Ben interact with his four Joseph cousins. The picture is of Noah, who has really just started crawling this week, as he has made his way over to Ben to try to chew on one of his feet! The little guys are fascinated by each other!!One fun story. Kevin was just sharing with us on New Year's Eve about the last b
ook he's been reading about faith. In the book is a true story of a little girl who has two parakeets until one of them dies. She asks her mother for another, but her mother denies the little girls' request. She is heartbroken, and prays that God would bring her another parakeet. The very next day, the little girl finds a parakeet in her back yard in the middle of an urban area where a parakeet should not be! The parakeet proceeds to let the little girl catch it in her hand and carry it into her cage and into captivity. The author uses the story to challenge the reader into greater faith, or "God confidence" in what he asks God for and expects in response to his requests. So on New Year's Day, before our friends left our apartment, Karis' friend Adah had two temporary horse tattoos left that she brought over to share. Kevin helped Eli put his on, and then tried to help Karis. Unfortunately, Karis' did not come off at all, and she was so upset! She even went up to her room to have a good cry! Right after our friends left, we had lunch and she asked Kevin to pray before the meal that God would bring her another tattoo since her horse one had been ruined. I have to admit, I dreaded hearing Kevin offer up the prayer, knowing that we hadn't seen any tattoos like this since we'd been here and not thinking we had a chance of seeing this prayer answered! But of course, that afternoon when we got Sarah and Rob back home and their bundle of goodies for the Joseph family (two and a half of their 4 bags they brought were filled with things for us!) was unpacked, one of the gifts my mom had sent was a coloring book for Karis, complete with TWO PAGES of temporary butterfly tattoos! I wish you could have heard the squeals of her delight as she ran to find Kevin and tell him of how God had already answered their prayer! Is He good, or what?! We had a great conversation of how God can use even a tattoo to deepen our "God confidence" and show us His love for us and His goodness toward us as His children. We're hoping the tattoo story is not one she (or we!) will quickly forget!!
