Orphanage visit

Yesterday we traveled to Zhuhai to visit Hayley's orphanage.

It was a hard day, both for Hayley and her mama.  There were quite a few tears.  At one point she got very angry and outright rejected her best friend (who has aged out.).

As far as orphanages go, Zhuhai is a good one, but just the sheer numbers of kids without parents broke my heart.  Many, many of these precious ones have DS.  There are other needs as well.

One of the more interesting things about this trip has been how much we have learned about Maia.  She was unable to communicate with us at all when we came to adopt her 16 months ago.  Now she can't stop talking!  "Maia like this China!  Maia eat this China!"  And heartbreakingly, "Maia sleep this China" (pointing to a bamboo mat.). "Maia cold.  Maia cry."

We are off to visit the bonsai gardens today.  It will be nice to do something with no emotion attached to it.

A quick update

In one hour we will head to the Civil Affairs office to meet Hayley!  In the meantime, here's a quick update now that I am more coherent.

We flew China Southern from Vancouver to Guangzhou.  It was a very long flight, and the last two hours were particularly brutal, especially since I was sitting between the girls and they were both asleep, making it impossible to get out of my seat!  I wasn't as bad off as Ethan though--the plane was definitely not designed for someone as tall as he is.  It wasn't a full plane, and three different times people thought about taking the empty seat next to Ethan, but changed their minds when they saw his long legs!

We are staying in the apartment side of The Garden since there are so many of us.  We have a three bedroom, two and a half bath apartment with laundry and a full kitchen.  It is very comfortable!  I am having trouble figuring out how to post pictures from my iPad, but I will get it when I have some more time.

One really special thing has been seeing my friends Dwan and Liz, who were both here with us during our last adoption trip too!  We are all getting our daughters this afternoon!  What a great God we serve to even work out that little detail, for us all to be here together for another adoption!

The next time I post we will have Hayley.  I will definitely figure out how to post pictures. :)

At the Garden

It was a very long day, but we are here at the Garden Hotel in Guangzhou.  Our bodies think it's six a.m. And we have been up for 26 hours straight.  It's 9:30 p.m. Here in China and we haven't eaten for HOURS.  Darryl has gone out to find some baozi (like a doughy dumpling, sort of) and then we will all crash.

We get to meet Hayley at 2:00 p.m. China time tomorrow---that will be 11p.m. Sunday back home.  Please keep us in your prayers.

I am rummy.  No pictures today and it's probably incoherent.  More tomorrow!