Had a neat idea...

6 days and counting!  Or rather, making them count, as my new sign says.  (I got a sign about a week ago that reads, "Don't count the days, Make the days count") 

We had a really neat idea recently that we just today got completed.  Perhaps you've heard of the recordable books that Hallmark sells?  They have quite a selection now, where you record the text on each page and as the child turns each page they hear your voice reading the story.  Well we decided to pick up a simple recordable book, and have a friend read and record it in Chinese!  We are lucky enough to have several friends from China that Jim worked with at his previous job.  One of them, Cong, is actually from Beijing, so we even knew that her dialect of Chinese would match that of Lydia.  So today, Jim met up with her and had her record this book in Chinese for us.  Now we have a picture book, titled "All the Ways I Love You," recorded in Chinese, that we can take with us on our trip and Qian Ting will have a book she can "read" with us that she will understand.  I find it absolutely amazing how God places people in our lives, sometimes years in advance, that can play a specific role sometimes much further down the road.  Many many thanks to Cong for her help with this!  I'm going to hopefully post a video of the book recording here...

The upload quality of the video isn't good enough to read the words on the pages, so here are the words from each page...

(for proper credit, this book is written by Theresa Trinder)

"I love you quicker than a minute, I love you longer than an hour"

"I love you like the honeybee loves buzzing round a flower"

I love you stronger than the wind, I love you softer than a cloud"

"I love when you are quiet, and I love when you are loud"

"I love you closer than your shadow, I love you further than the sun"

"I love you, too, when raindrops fall, one, by one, by one"

"I love you round and round the world, I love you through and through"

"And when it seems impossible to love you more....I do."

What a wonderful blessing to have words of such reassurance and love for Lydia to hear in a language she understands in those early days of being with us.  Thank you Cong!

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