Day 301 – Last Sunday in Jinan

When we were headed to the bus, we noticed that the traffic on Shanda Lu was kind of slow.  After we got on the bus, it took us almost fifteen minutes to get past Shanda Nan Lu!  We could have walked twice that far in that amount of time, but then there wouldn’t have been a bus to catch!  We just had to be patient and realize that we might be late for Church on our last Sunday here.  They were doing some construction on the corner of those two streets and all the traffic had to go down to one lane.  The buses were extremely slow because they have to go to the right to pick up passengers and then have to try and squeeze into the left lane to get around the construction.

We walked in just as they were trying to log in for the broadcast.  The Arkidin Bridge was having problems again today, so we were a little late getting into the meeting broadcast.  The Pace’s were about fifteen minutes later than we were.  We had trouble hearing the first speaker very well and then they got it figured out for the second speaker so we could hear him much better. 

Dinner was a large feast again.  All of the teachers are trying to get rid of the food that we have that won’t last until the new teachers get her in late August, so there was a lot of food!  Simon, Kathy’s husband, joined us.  Lulu Pilson was also able to make it.  The Pace’s had invited Lily so that we could all say good-bye to her, too.  It was a sad afternoon of saying good-byes to all these people that have been a help to us in Jinan and also become our friends. 

 

Here we are with Kathy, Hansen and Simon.

I didn't get my camera out fast enough to get the pictures of Jim and Wendy Purnell with Kathy, Simon and Hansen.

Libby and Wayne Clarke with Kathy, Hansen and  Simon.  Libby was the Primary teacher for Hansen.

Stan and Nancy Pace posing with them.

Then the picture with Lily, Hansen, Kathy and Simon.  Hansen was so happy to see Lily. It was almost like he had a little crush on her and wanted ALL of her attention.

We stayed around and talked for a long time.  Gilbert said he would meet us at the Hanlin Hotel to give us the gifts that he had brought for us, so we went down to the lobby and met him and Leo (Ping).  Gilbert gave us three kites from Weifang, some paintings, and two barking lions.  The paintings and the barking lions are meant to guard our home.  We had a nice visit with them and Gilbert showed us pictures of the baby. 

After Gilbert and Leo left, we went back up to Purnell’s apartment and talked for another hour or so.  Got into some deep subjects.  Then we headed for home and enjoyed a quiet evening.