Zaijian to Lanzhou!

It's just about time to say "Good-bye to Lanzhou". In just a few long (I'm sure) hours we're off to Guangzhou, a southeastern city in China (this is the city where we picked up Poppy a little over two years ago) where the U.S. Consulate is located so that we can obtain a passport and visa (among other things) to get our little Willow-tree into the United States. We have a late hotel checkout, will grab a bite to eat, visit the famous Yellow River and other sites in Lanzhou, and then head to the airport. Our flight leaves at about 8:00 p.m., and arrives around 10:30 p.m. or so. We suspect we won't get to our hotel room until about midnight, so that might make it difficult for us to post a blog entry at that hour. So here's our final entry from this absolutely wonderful city in Gansu Province.

There are so many things about this place that we love. We love the people most of all; they're kind, considerate, inquisitive, patient, courteous, hospitable, sacrificial and charming. We've found these beautiful character traits to be consistent throughout our journeys in China, but particularly here. We Kruggel's have a lot to learn from these gracious people. We also love the relative cleanliness of the city; this includes the streets, sidewalks, parks, etc... The terrain is also quite varied. Scalloped hillsides, the rushing Yellow River and the moderate temperatures (which will no doubt drastically change when summer hits) make this place very desirable. Finally, congestion is so far less than some of the other areas of China we've visited; it makes this place very livable. Most of all, we love this place because it's the birthplace province of Willow. We don't know when, if at all, we'll be back. It's sort of sad to let it go.

We leave with fond memories, grateful to our sweet Jesus that the kindness of God has granted such wonderful experiences thus far. The prayers and support of our friends and family from all over have been soothing and uplifting gifts.

We came to Lanzhou with four of our family members, and we now leave with five, soon to be reunited as seven. The family portrait above is obviously missing our lovely Austin and Annie, but it's a joyous reminder of family treasure we have here. A few other photographs below are from our day yesterday.

Huitoujian! ("See you later.")

Tom (for all of the Kruggel's)