The Last Wait

I've got 50 minutes until Ruby gets to our hotel lobby, and I've finished the Hobbit, my 'comfort read', and I thought I'd at least write about our morning trip around Hohhot since later today the focus will be about our new arrival.

We experienced a very crowded, elaborate buffet breakfast at the hotel this morning. Then we took a cab to the big Buddhist temple in town. It was built in the 1600s and is really pretty big. We heard some monks chanting and saw people spinning prayer wheels. We explored temple after temple for a while, then headed into the market nearby. There we found some items that required a little haggling.

When we turned around to go back, we saw a red cross rising above the old one story shop fronts, so we tracked it down.  The pastor was eager to practice his English on us, and we chatted. He said the church serves 1500 people and grew out of the ministry of a missionary who arrived in the 1920s.  It was heartening to meet devout believers here in Hohhot. They gather for prayer at 6:30 ever morning and worship for two hours.

You see the sheep decorating the wall behind the "choir loft."  That's because the people here love sheep and mutton, and it jives with the image of the Great Shepherd.

Writing has helped a little, but I've got 40  minutes to go. We were supposed to get her at 10am according to the original itinerary, but then there was some transport issue with roads being out because of recent rains, so they had to put Ruby on a train. Then we heard 2pm, and most lately our facilitator said it would be 3pm.  The waiting is hard. I keep trying to compare it to the wait in the hospital when the other two were on their way. I'm not sure how it compares, but it is all I know.

I fell pretty jittery; of course, that might be the two cups of cappuccino I had at breakfast.  I pray things go well. I've prayed a lot during this trip. We're pretty sure she'll be nervous of Jasper--he's tall, bearded, and strange looking. The babies at the foster home started crying when he came in, which is not a great indicator of love at first sight on Ruby's part!  My expectations keep veering in all different directions, as they have done for months. And soon we'll see how this starts, which really doesn't have tons of bearing on how this will turn out when I'm 80 and she's 49.

30 minutes to go.