Does someone know how to get chineses characters off my blog? I am guessing what to do since I logged on last in China, now all my prompts are in Chinese! We are back and had a great education in Asia. We fell in love with the Cambodian people above all, I think. The only thing that keeps me from wanting to jump right into an Asian mission right now is the severe pollution. If pollution really contributes to global warming I think Asia has to bear the brunt of the responsibility. It made breathing feel like a black lung experience. We learned so much and experienced so much history in Cambodia, Viet Nam, Okinawa and Nagasaki. It was very sobering and heart wrenching. The biggest surprise was learning about the horrible treatment the Okinawaians received at the hand of their own Japanese countrymen. It was not the Americans who were their worest enemies, it was the JApaneses who brutalized them. It was really a shock to hear the story of Okinawa as told by the Okinawians.

While we were gone we were blessed by the birth of not one, but 2 grandchildren, one of whom we knew nothing about. Jamie and Trent welcomed little Lucy Elizabeth a week early, so she made her entrance before we got back...it took 2 days for us to learn of her birth. About 10 days after we left for Asia, Jeff and Erin were informed that they had been selected by a couple to be the parents of the baby they were expecting any day. 10 days later they ,too, became parents, this time of a beautiful baby boy they named Owen Jeffrey. They didn't tell us any of this because they knew it would totally distract me from enjoying our trip, and I have to say they know me well. I could hardly stand being away when Lucy made her entrance, even though she was born in Ohio. To know we had a baby coming in Salt Lake, and wondering what was going on and not being there would have been torture. So we had a wonderful marvelous surprise at the airport Thurs afternoon. Imagaine seeing your granddaughter with a shirt that says big sister, thinking that her parents had been picked to become parents again, wondering when and how, then being told to turn around and look at your daughter-in-law. You do, and she is standing there holding a brand new baby boy! What a shock of the best kind. Neither Doug nor I noticed Macy's shirt. Jeff had to point it out to us. We were so surprised to see him at the airport with Macy, I firgured he must be tending her and had decided to bring her out for a quick hello. What a great homecoming we had.
Check out Jamie and Trent's blog for Lucy, and Jeff and Erin's for Owen.