Week in a flash

A Chinese saying goes like this: "Walk a hundred steps after the meal; you will live to ninty nine years old." Emily definitely live up to that now. She passionately practices her walking and standing with every opportunity. We'd love for her to crawl before walking. But she seems to have her own agenda.

Joey came back from Taiwan. David continued studying with him every morning. Joey brought dozens of new Taiwanese students to FriendSpeak this Sunday. Several of them even stayed for the church service. We are in serious need of new workers now.

Jerry came over Wednesday afternoon. He was surprised at how much Emily had grown during the past month. David picked up Jason from SMU to FriendSpeak Wednesday night. Friday night he went to the LST training in Arlington. I stayed at home with Emily because I went to the training last year. We all went to the training on Saturday. Below is our team picture.

After we came back from the training, Emily sat on the floor played on her own for the longest time - she missed her toys! She played them one by one until the dinner time. See how happy she was back to her own place ...

Emily had her passport photos taken at WalGreen Friday afternoon to apply for the Chinese visa. The lady at WalGreen complimented that it was the best baby photo she's ever taken.

Sunday Emily was a little fussy at church. It could be the fourth tooth that is coming out, or she didn't want to be still on the pew. We spent most of time out there in the foyer. David and I thought about taking her to the nursery. But with the big trip only a few weeks away, we decided to keep her with us to lower the risk of being sick. After church, we met Heidi and Yongying for lunch. Heidi read with me three years ago during FriendSpeak. Hongying started meeting David at StarBucks six months ago. They are moving to New York next week. We are going to miss them!

One night we were talking about spiritual lessons that we learned from Emily. Here are just a couple on the top of the list:

1. Emily never holds anger or unpleasant feeling for longer than one minute. No matter how unhappy she is at the moment, she always forgives us and turns into a happy and trusting baby within one minute. (Eph. 4:26 "Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry")

2. Emily has an abandon trust toward her parents. When she decided to roll off the surface, she covered her face with blanket and beamed with smiles on her face - trusting that we were going to catch her in the fall. (Proverbs 3:5 "Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding")

3. Emily is friendly and happy. She responds to people's smiles almost instantly under normal circumstances. Sometimes she initiates smiles to the strangers whom I thought might scare her a little. (Philippians 4:4"Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice.")