Gratitudes Part 5

Now that I am stateside I will continue my gratitudes by writing about what I do miss about China...

#81 - I miss knowing that the majority of the people I know all have phone numbers that start with 2360.  Now that I am collecting numbers for our new phone I realize just how diverse it is when you know people from all over.

#82 - I miss black out curtains.

#83 - Today at our service we heard some missionaries from Africa share and we both realized we miss the excitement that just comes with living in China.  When you are apart of it it doesn't seem odd but now that we know we will settle back in to a normal life it seems quite sad.

#84 - I will miss having maintenance guys at school who can fix anything and I don't have to worry about it.

#85 - I will miss the great value I found in imported items since they were so rare.

#86 - I will miss having students that really think you are super cool and want to be involved with you outside of school.  I will definitely miss having Nathan's students over a lot.

#87 - I will miss the certainty and stability we left.  I know that eventually we will have stability here but right now in the midst of transition life seems so chaotic.

#88 - I will miss my Chinese friends.  Before we left we got to hang out with most of our friends and it was so sad to think about leaving them behind.  They sang to us in Chinese and it really broke my heart to realize we were leaving such great people behind.

#89 - I will miss being an active part in the life of Baby Duncan, I think I already said this but here it is again :-)

#90 - I will miss the help so readily available.  I know I have friends and family that are more than willing to help us with kiddos and what not but with the transition to a new place our kiddos have to meet people again.  Maddy is a little more hesitant with going with people that are family but have been out of sight for so long.  It's hard both ways because we want her to instinctively know her aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc. but we know it takes time.  It will be a bit of time before we can just leave her with people which means a little while before we can escape the craziness and get away just us.  It just takes time!  I really appreciated the community we had in Shenyang because many cared for Maddy so much and knew how to care for her like it was 2nd nature.  We know we will get there eventually but in the exhaustion of jet lag eventually feels so far away.