Day 5 and all is well. It's 4:00 am in Xian, China and the city is alive with honking cars, trucks, mopeds, and street sweepers and smog. I've been watching a weird game show that is 1 part Wiped Out, 1 part Millionaire, 1 part X factor, and 1 part science show. It's awesome and I can't wait till the USA gets their version. Sofie is snoring next to me and Sarah Jane is also enjoying the crazy game show. It really is a multi-generational show!

Update on Sofie: she is hilarious. She has a great sense of humor, a tremendous amount of compassion when playing with the other kids on the trip, and she has decided that I am not a bad guy. It's hard to imagine what Sofie's going through right now. She had lived with a foster family for probably four years now. Grown up with these foster "parents" along with her foster "siblings" and had a normalish life. Now, it's all changed. As you can imagine, she is going through some rough emotions right now and we are all getting through it together. We are very thankful that she and SJ (along with our friend's daughter, Jenna) have hit it off so well. It helps to redirect during the low times. Also, she has a universal love of the iPad, iPhone, and all things tech.

BTW, she doesn't hate me. We hold hands and walk around, wrestle, sit by each other on the bus, talk through a translator app (which is amazing), eat in my lap, talk about our feelings... maybe not the last one yet. I've enjoyed it thoroughly. Fun things we did today: Toured the 2,300 year old Terra Cotta Warrior archeological site. We did this during our last trip but Claire and Brien enjoyed seeing this for the first time. It was a clear, cold day in a beautiful, mountainous area. Couldn't have asked for anything better. Sofie did well with a couple sad moments. But, SJ to the rescue. She did a marvelous job of keeping Sofie occupied.

As the rest of the group has been denied sleep b/c of jet lag and all that goes along with a trip like this, my nephew, Brien is probably getting more sleep now than he had back home. He is a sleeping machine. Standing up, in a bus/plane, hotel lobbies, hotel floors and basically anywhere that people will let him be. We are all jealous of his super powers.

June and I wanted this experience to reflect back to God. He has been our strength during this time. There have been happy and joyful moments followed by the tough ones that you can't control. June and I understand the process that is taking place with Sofie but it can be hard to face sometimes. We have relied on the power of God and His Word to overcome these obstacles. Our prayer is that Jesus can be seen in our actions and deeds. That's it for now, more to come soon.

-Bud