"Good will come to him who is generous and lends freely . . ." Psalm 112:5

This would certainly describe the dear lady pictured above and her husband, who has given the church a large amount of beautiful hand-painted porcelain from their business they are closing down here in Hong Kong as they are immigrating to Canada. When I heard they were donating porcelain to non-profit groups, I inquired as to whether we could be a beneficiary to raise proceeds for three orphanages near and dear to our hearts, and that would be where Zoe, Maddie Rae, and Ellen spent the early part of their lives. We weren't exactly sure of the amount to be given us, as Josephine and Arthur chose the items, but when we walked into the store, we were completely overwhelmed at the amount that they indicated was all ours!! My thought was that we were going to be there a very, very long time. Not too long after we began packing, it was obvious that we didn't have near enough boxes, so after a couple of phone calls to our dear friend Lam, who donated the truck to ship all of these boxes from the warehouse to the church, we received a delivery of 50 more boxes, in addition to our 40 that were there already. After four hours of packing, we had 70 - yes, that is 7-0 - boxes!! The sale is on Tuesday and Saturday, so pray with us that it will be a success and we won't be looking for locations to store boxes of porcelain, but rather able to send much-needed money to these childrens' welfare homes.

This little angel is Wren, who is living in Hefei, Anhui, where Ellen was born. My friend Retta is her sponsor, and it is our hope and prayer that we would be able to earn enough from the sale to pay for a surgery for one or more of the children born with a cleft lip and pallet, so that one day they will be as beautiful as this other little angel, Maddie Rae Fuman Kelley!
Though the packing was hard work, we managed to have some fun. . .

Sandy and Retta doing their "Vanna pose."
Josephine's husband, Arthur. Both of them stayed right there with us packing and bringing us newspapers, tape, putting boxes together - they have incredible stamina!
The porcelain-packin' crew, minus Sandy, who is on the other end of the camera.
Jeanette, Nicki and Sally working away.

Missing home

Well, it's official - I'm homesiiiiiiiick! I'm glad we took many pictures this past summer while home so we could go back and look at our fav people and places and remember they are still there waiting for us to return in a couple of months. The picture above is of the farm I grew up on, where my father has toiled many, many hours to make a beautiful place for cattle to graze, horses to roam, and crops to grow and for kids like me to have a place where there was plenty of room to play and call my own.


My next favorite place is the beach - a clean, beautiful Florida beach, we have visited many, many times, as we spent seven years living in Florida, and it's so close to grandma and papa's house too. Toes in the sand, looking out at the water, feeling the sun on my face, it doesn't get much better than that.
Well, everyone needs a crazy papa and the girls and their cousins have most certainly got one in their Papa Hicks! We could tell some "crazy papa" stories here right now, but I'll just let you enjoy the picture. . . I think once he sees I've posted this particular picture, I'm going to be glad I am 8,000-plus miles from Sebastian, Florida!
Ahhh, Target. Miss this place soooooo much too.
Now, this is what I am really, really missing, getting behind the wheel of my truck and taking off to, where else, Target and the grocery store and hauling a bunch of kids around!

Brad's turn

Our HicksHouse Blog turns the "spotlight" on dad and hubby this week. He has an extremely busy schedule and hardly has any time for fun and relaxation. . . actually, that is really true, but there have been, and hopefully will be in the future, special times spent with friends and family. Here's a snippet of those. The two pictures above were taken last year on a long and somewhat treacherous hike up the mountain. They did get to stop along the way for much needed refreshment. I was happy to hear there were no hot pools with Swedish babes in them, as there were when he would go hiking with the guys in Colorado . . .
On Cheung Chau last year on an outing with the Kelley and Christensen family, Brad let Noah peddle him around the island. Good thing Noah has strong legs :)
Jon Kelley and Brad exiting a cave where pirate booty was supposedly stored long ago. Sadly, they returned empty-handed. I guess that leaves Jon's wife, Retta, and I to search for our own Hong Kong "booty" in the markets and lanes of Hong Kong!
Ahhh, relaxing with his wife (who was taking the picture at the time) atop a junk sailing out of Victoria Harbor on a beautiful and relatively clear day in Hong Kong.

Lost in Peng Chau

Retta and I took the ferry (partially seen in the picture above) over to Peng Chau, a small island nearby, in search of a dry cleaner a friend told me about that is much more reasonably priced than the one here in DB, as I had a large order. At the last moment, I asked Retta whether or not I should bring the camera (as we're always talking and thinking about blog entries with pictures) and she said, "Yes," and I'm glad I took it along as I got some good pictures while there. As the ferry was coming in, I said to Retta, "Do you think it looks like it's leaning over to one side?" She said, "Yes, it is." We're just so spoiled with those big, fancy DB ferries. But we got on anyway. I did look around for where the life jackets were. . . We found the laundry shop and you can also see that they sell fruit, vegetables and porcelain. It cost a fraction of what I paid last year to have curtains cleaned in DB, so I'll keep my fingers crossed all comes out all right.We saw this cute little boy wandering around lost and looking for his mother - who just happens to be my friend Retta, who also just happened to snap this picture with my camera, because her husband just happened to drop their camera that is exactly like my camera on the Great Wall. Major bummer. Jack was on a field trip to Peng Chau with his class and it was fun watching them running around exploring through the narrow streets.
Well, Retta, you were brave to ask, but once again, no sandals in your size! Must be difficult to have such big feet living in Asia - which also just happens to be my size. We feel each other's pain.
Peng Chau is a small fishing village with no motorized vehicles, so there are small streets with people on bikes and people shopping in the small family-owned stores. We noticed in just about every little store we went into they were watching a Chinese soap opera on T.V. Everyone wasl very intent on watching this program.
Retta couldn't find sandals to fit, but I found some to fit Zoe - and along with the glitter she was inspired to paint her toenails too.

Happy Adoption Day, Ellen Beibei

As I was thinking about the pictures I would post to the blog in honor of Ellen's 12th adoption day, the picture above came to mind for a couple of reasons. This time last year we took Ellen back to Hefei, and the picture (thank you, Lorne) captures Ellen standing near the location where she was "found." It represents the closest to her beginning we could possibly get her to. Yet having said that, we know, and she knows, that long before she was "found," the Lord God had His hand on her life. We have had a few interactions with people lately who imply that Ellen should be forever grateful to us for being her parents, for rescuing her in a sense. Yet she knows that it was not we who did the rescuing. We are never able to rescue ourselves, in spite of what we might think. She knows that God had her resting very securely in His hand and that He gave us the privilege and honor of being her parents for life. She owes us nothing. She owes her Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer all the glory and the honor. We thank God for rescuing us from a childless future!! And for bestowing on us the very great blessing of a precious treasure named "Beibei." Thanks for being our daughter, Ellen. We love and admire you very much, along with the rest of your family! Brad snapped this picture of Ellen just a couple weeks ago at the Forbidden City.
Ellen handing goodies out to the kids in the Hefei orphanage last year where she spent her first seven months of life. Here's to hoping these kids are in their "forever families" right now.

"Not to us, O Lord, not to us

but to your name be the glory,

because of your love and faithfulness."

We interrupt the following program for these few meanderings. . .

For those of you who will never get the opportunity to travel to China, here's the kind of, um, toilet, you will encounter if you are a woman. It's fondly (?) referred to as a squatty. This picture, however, does not, I repeat, does not, represent the squatties that I have been in across China. This one is pristine. This one happens to be located at the MTR stop for, yes, you guessed it, Disneyland. It looks like a Disneyland squatty too, doesn't it? Nice and shiny and clean and it smells okay. You may wonder what the waste basket is doing there in the corner. Well, that is there because you don't put your tissue or toilet paper you have, um, used, in the squatty. It goes in the waste basket. The squatties I have been in are no longer white, the waste basket is full of - well, I'll let your mind wander with that one, as well as your nose - and the floors are slick with - well, I'll let your mind wander with that one too. I could give you more information about Chinese squatties, but I'm afraid I'll lose all my blog readership, so I'll continue on. . .
We stayed in the Marriott Executive Apartments in Beijing. This was a large complex of I think around seven large towers and the one we were in were for short-term stays, but were equipped with a full kitchen, large living area, dining area and two beautiful bedrooms and two beautiful bathrooms. There was a large iron fence around the complex and guards at all the entrances with gates that had to be raised or lowered as you came in and out. This is the view outside our sixth floor window looking down on the neighborhood around us.
China is chock full of opposites, stark contrasts greet you around virtually every corner. Out our window was the dirty, old-looking, neighborhood, while inside the gates we lived in opulance as reflected in this picture of the huge indoor swimming pool. There was a large hot tub, gym facilities, nice restaurants and beautiful spa.
On our pedicab tour around a flat-house neighborhood called a Hu Tong in Beijing near the Forbidden City I snapped this picture of grandpa with grandson.

More pics at the Great Wall

Ellen Beibei was quite the entrepid climber. She was dismayed that her 40-something parents weren't continuing on a lot further. . . She kept asking me (Carol) why I was having to stop and rest so often.
According to our guide, the building at the bottom of this set of stairs was for the captain.

After going down the tobaggon slide, we were greeted by these dangerous-looking warriors. What I was thinking when this picture was taken is, "Oh my gosh, he put his hat on my head - yuck!"

At the Wall

The part of the Wall we went to had two separate sections with two different ways to reach the top of the wall. One was an enclosed gondola and the other is this chair lift. With the gondola, you would also take that back down; however, with the chair lift, you could ride a tobaggon down a long slide, which is what we chose to do.

Going up on the lift, Zoe and I sat in one chair together and behind us was Brad and Ellen and behind them our guide Helen. The lift was more scary than I anticipated, as it's been a long time since I've been on one. During the ride, Zoe said she was scared and had her eyes closed. At that very same time, I also had my eyes closed and we grabbed each other's hand for comfort. When we reached the top, Ellen said she was scared, I told Brad Zoe and I had our eyes closed, and then Helen came along to say she also had her eyes closed and she was scared! What a bunch of scaredy cats we were!
We had such a clear day and could see for miles. I would much prefer to do that on solid ground, though. I got brave here and turned around to snap a picture of Ellen and Brad behind us.
Our guide Helen had an inexhaustible amount of information about virtually everything we saw with her. I would let Brad absorb all she had to say while walking about checking things out for myself and then I let him hit the highlights for me.
There were several times we needed to stop and take a break from either our ascent or descent. Whichever way it was, our legs got a really good workout that day.