It’s been snowing since last night… big fat flakes, too. I took some pictures this morning and posted them here.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Julia, my youngest sister who’s a senior in high school, played Golde (Tevye’s wife) in Pacific Academy’s production of Fiddler on the Roof. It totally rocked, and the pictures we have so far don’t do it any justice, but I posted a bunch here anyway!
 
 
 
 
 

We arrived in Canada at about 4:15 this afternoon, after a short delay at the border. Thankfully, the immigration lady that we had to talk to was really nice and let us go, even though our insurance card for the van expired yesterday (we have insurance…just not the new card!). What a long trip! Probably the most difficult thing was the lack of music…no radio, tape player, or cd player in the van, and we lost our thingy to plug a cd player into the cigarette lighter. So, I just played through all of my favorite cds in my head…and when I got really tired, I’d sing them out loud, which I’m sure Joel loooooooved. (=

Anyway…it was a really long trip, but so good. Especially because we got to stop and stay with my sister and her family, and our dear friends Travis, Nicole, and Raegan in Colorodo, and our friends Brian and Holly in Butte. What a blessing!!! I just wish we could’ve stayed longer with them.

Thanks to all of you for our prayers…the van did great, and we stayed awake even though we were really tired. Now we’re in the midst of unpacking…but we’ll wait to really start settling in until tomorrow. Tea, rest, sleep..mmmmm.

We made it to Butte, MT (that’s “byoot”, not “boo-tay”). The 1977 Dodge van is running superbly. We left Silt at 5:45am, and got here around 8pm. We’re getting up at 2:30am to leave by 3, so I’m going to bed!

We arrived in Silt, Colorado this morning at 9:15. We got a late start in Dallas, plus the tail-pipe burned off of the muffler about 10 minutes down the highway, and there was a lot of snow in the mountain passes in Colorado that slowed us way down for a couple hours. But the van did surprisingly well – we’re pretty confident it will make it to Canada. Thanks for the prayers, and please keep praying!
 
 

We made it to Dallas. Tomorrow we leave for Silt, Colorado after a good night’s sleep.

PLEASE PRAY FOR OUR VAN!

Our Long March to the Great White North has begun. It looks like this:

Thursday: Baton Rouge, Louisianna -> [7 hours (+4 for breakdown & repairs)] -> Dallas, Texas
Friday: Dallas, Texas -> [16 hours] -> Silt, Colorado
Monday: Silt, Colorado -> [11 hours] -> Butte, Montana
Tuesday: Butte, Montana -> [11 hours] -> Surrey, British Columbia

Please pray for our van, and for our alertness on the road!!!

This guy’s sign says, “I’m looking for a women to marry” and “Please come talk.”

His sign, the cobble stones, and his clothes and appearance compared to that of the people around him suggest that he’s a peasant from the countryside who has migrated to the city. In this picture he’s in some downtown shopping area surrounded by middle-class urbanites, looking for a wife.

Every year in China, migrant workers equivalent in number to the entire population of Canada move from the countryside to the city seeking work and escape from rural poverty. Collectively they are referred to as “China’s floating population.”

If this guy manages to marry an urban resident he’ll likely be able to legally stay in the city. Otherwise he won’t have legal residency when his work (usually unskilled labour on building projects) is done. Without legal residency, he’ll have to maintain an illegal, impoverished existence on the fringes of urban society or go back to the rural poverty from which he came.

Rapid urbanization is a global trend, and in our lifetime we’ll have – for the first time ever in human history – more people on the planet living in cities than in the country.

We finally made some decisions. Here they are:

- We have moved our leaving-for-China target date from February 2006 to February 2007, because we’ll need an extra year of school.

– We’ve applied to a school in Southern California. It will take us year to complete the remaining Intercultural Studies and International Development courses. We’re actually pretty excited about getting into their particular program for a lot of reasons – one being that for much of their offerings they use a “block” model of graduate education rather than the standard 3-credit lecture format. They’ve done this for 5 years and love it.

- We’re leaving Baton Rouge, Louisiana for Surrey, British Columbia, Canada on November 17. It’s about 45 hours of driving time, but we’re hoping to drop in on some conveniently-located friends in Colorado and Montana. We’ve gotta get there in time for Julia’s starring role in Fiddler on the Roof!

Also, we’ve e-mailed out our first progress report. If you didn’t get one and want one, just let us know.

… aside from your children and spouses spouse:

Panda cub takes first steps (there’s a link to free video in the fourth paragraph). And of course, don’t forget the ever-popular live panda cam.