Flinal Blog post from China

It's 11:00 on this Wednesday night in Guangzhou. I am happy to say that it is our last night in China, having spent the previous 14 nights in this country cooped up in a hotel with three bored kids who have a desperate need to get back into a daily routine at home. For a time, China was home to two of the members of our family, but it has never felt like home to me. I have tolerated the sensation of claustrophobia while being swallowed up by the throngs of people who crowd every sidewalk, restaurant, park, and street, but I have reached my threshold. I'm a country mouse who is content living in a very sparsely populated corner of the world, completely opposite of the world full of city mice I've been visiting for the past two weeks. In our two trips to China, the smallest city we stayed in had a population of 6 million people. That city is Nanning, which is where we got Truman two and a half years ago. Harbin, where we got Tiana, has 10 million inhabitants. Guangzhou, where we are now, has 12 million, and Beijing has 20 million. To put it into perspective, New York City would only be fourth on that list. And most of the people there speak English. Well, at least half do.

Tomorrow, we'll be on our way home--for a full 24 hours. The kids, and especially Tiana, will test my patience throughout the journey, but by 9:00pm Thursday in Hartsburg, MO (10:00am Friday in China), the never-ending flight, the crowds, the language barrier, the relentless stares by curious Chinese everywhere we have been, and the feeling of complete isolation despite being surrounded by millions of people will instantly vanish as we walk Tiana up the stairs of her new home and into the beginning of a new chapter in all of our lives.

I'll be back on facebook Friday (without the help of my cousin Larry Barr, who has been doing a great job of converting my emails to blog/facebook posts for the past two weeks--THANK YOU, CUZ!!!) so I can respond to your comments finally. We really appreciate all your words of encouragement and support. Thank you all!

Finally, here's the link to my latest newspaper column in today's Boone County Journal. Enjoy!