Gotcha Day!

Well, yesterday was a big day for our family.  Around 1:30 pm we received a phone call in our hotel room that Maia had arrived and was waiting for us downstairs.  We quickly pulled ourselves together and went down the 14 floors to meet our daughter fot the first time.  What an unreal feeling, meeting this little person who already has a definite personality and who knows nothing about us. 

We had really prayed that the Lord would have prepared her for us and He really answered our prayers.  She can hear quite a bit, much more than we wcpected, and she talks A LOT.  She was very scared, though, when she first met us.  She was dressed really warmly and carrying a big stuffed bunny and a water bottle. 

My first thought was, she's not holding the toys we sent! And sure enough, we found outquickly that she had never received any of our packages.  So she had never seen our pictures or known who we were. 

They took  us to a back room where we got acquainted a little.  She wouldn't look us in the eyes or let us touch her.  We tried to move really slow even though this was the moment we had waited 19 months for!  She started to warm upp a little, and the lady from the orphanage who had brought her to us gave her a little pep talk, and we took her up to our room.

She warmed up quickly after that, especially to me.  That was when we descovered she could, and did, talk.  Within the first hour she had discovered her suitcase full of clothes and she and Alaina changed into matching dresses.  We also gave her her backpack and her new baby doll.  She hasn't let it out of her sight since then.

We decided she had had enough trauma for one day so Darryl went out and found a store where he bought us some noodle bowls that we ate in our hotel room.  The girls had a bath togethere--so much splashing!--and got into their jammies and laid in bed playing games on their innotabs (best. purchase. ever.)  and dropped off to sleep around 9:00.

I woke at 4:00 to the sound of crying, and she let me get in bed with her and comfort her.  Poor thing, so many changes and so hard. She is really a trooper.

I didn't tell you the thing that happened in the morning yesterday before Maia arrived.  We went out to have breakfast and had to cross several busy streets to get there and back (imagine playing frogger-and you are the frog.)  As we were running through traffic Alaina started yelling and pulling me back.   I realized she was saying "my hearing aid!)  I realized it had gotten knowcked off her head and looked back just in time to see a taxi run right over it.  Not thinking, I ran back and swiped it up off the street and ran back.  I had a terrible sinking feeling in my stomach, but miraculously it still works!!  It looks a little rougher than it did but I know God was protecting it.  that was a bad moment.

Today we went theo the adoption office and signed the official paperwork.  This afternoon we will go out to apply for the passport.

We really love the hotel we are staying at and have met some wonderful new friends, the Wessels, who also got their beautiful baby Kate yestereday.  We are so glad to be on this journey with them. 

Tonight we are going to venture out and find Wal Mart.  We need some water bottles and Darryl has been craving peanut butter. 

 Our first time seeing Maia, and her first time seeing us.

 Still scared, going up to the room.

 New pretty clothes help.

 Girls, dresses, and bay dolls.

 Papa.

 Feeling much happier.

 Noodle bowls for dinner.

 Love Mama already.

 Clean jammie girls.

Beditme.

Long Days, Good Travels, and a Few Adventures

 Hello everyone!  We are safe and sound in China and we have had a few adventures along the way.  As you may know, Darryl left Ephrata before we did in  order to get a few days of work in before meeting us in Shanghai.  Ethan, Alaina and I left Seattle a 1:30 on Thursday and flew ten hours to Tokyo, changed planes, and headed to Shanghai.  Unbeknownst to us, Darryl had gotten on his flight in Dalian, which flew to Beijing, circled around for a while, and then flew back to Dalian!  Everyone had to get off the plane, and then they boarded again and headed back again.  He did finally make it to Beijing just in time to make his flight to Shanghai and was there to meet us as planned.  The only problem was that in the confusion his bag never made it to Shanghai.  We figured if that was the worst thing that happened we were in pretty good shape.  Sherry, our exchange student from last year, and her family were there to meet us with a van and driver.  We drove through a nasty lightnig and rain storm and finally arrived in Sherry's hometown, Nanjing, around 1:30 a.m.  We were tired and collapsed into the hotel beds.  We were able to spend the day with Sherry and her family exploring Nanjing.  What a beautiful city!  First we went up to a small mountain and visited the masoleum of Sun-Yat Sen, the founder of the Republic of China.  To get there we climbed 398 steps, one for each of the original residents of Nanjing.  I only had to stop and rest once. :)  Then we went to see the old city wall which surrounds the city.  It is 600 years old, and many of the bricks it is made of are signed by the original makers.  We were told that if their work  wasn't good they were killed!  We  had a wonderful lunch with Sherry's family, who gave us gifts and insisted on paying for everything.  They are really wonderful people.  We explored the park outside the wall and bought a few souveniers.  Then  they took us to the traditional market and we spent a long time wandering and just enjoying the city.  We had a really interesting dinner consisting of 24 courses of small amounts of traditional foods.  There were a lot of dishes on our table when we were done!  Then they took us to the train station where we had booked a sleeper.  We had a really relaxing, restful overnight ride, and at 6:45 this morning we arrived in Nanchang.  Now we are freshening up and trying to get ourselves organized.  Our guide, Mary, says Maia will be brought to the hotel around 2:00.  We are so excited!  I will attach some pictures of our day yesterday.  Next time we write it will be as a family of 8!!!!!

Up the stairs we go!

Sherry and her family

Sun-Yat Sen

Ethan Tebowing at the top

Old city wall

These girls asked to have their picture taken with Ethan. :)

I am Chinese!

Alaina and Sherry

Me and my honey

A big dinner!

Asleep in the train station

 Finally in Nanchang!!

Just three more days to prepare and then we are off to China!  In just six days our 18-month journey will all be worth it and we will have our girl in our arms. I have a million details to take care of before flying out but wanted to take a minute to say thank you so much to everyone who has helped and supported us in so many ways.  The family of God has really come together to bring this girl home and we feel so, so blessed.

We will try to blog every day while we are in China!  Leave us comments too, we love to hear from you while we are there!

Mindy.

We're going to China!

We received confirmation of our consulate appointment this morning: November 6, just what we had asked for.  That means we will most likely have gotcha day on Sunday October 28.

Over the last three days we spent about 4 hours on the phone making our flight reservations.  We were able to use award miles for everything, and after all was said and done, after paying taxes and booking fees, we had only spent about $600 for four of us to go over and five of us to come back.  Isn't God good?  Thanks to my parents too, who helped us out with the last miles we needed.

Now we are just waiting for our final cost amount.  We are pretty sure we don't have all we need quite yet, but as is His way God has worked that out too.  Amazing.

We also got some new pictures over the weekend.

It looks like her hair is growing and looking better.  She is still too skinny though!

We fly out of Seattle on October 25.  Just 31 more sleeps.  I wonder if I will sleep at all for the next four weeks?

TA!

Two beautiful letters in my inbox this morning.  TA=travel approval; it means we are on our way to China!

We have decided to wait just a bit in order to avoid the holiday and trade fair in China in October.  If all goes well, our travel date is October 25.

We are excited to stop in Nanjing and see Sherry on our way in, and to take high-speed rail and be able to see more of the countryside.

We have started a countdown chart: 35 days and counting!

Here we come Maia girl!

Overwhelmed!

We are simply overwhelmed by the generosity shown to us.  I can't think of a better word to describe how we are feeling.

Cakes for Maia was an unbelievable success.  We went in needing about $5000, and our hope was to raise $1000 that night.  Well, I went to the bank last night to make a deposit, and after all was said and done I deposited $2800!!!!  That means we need only $2200 more to make this a reality!

None of this could have been done without the generosity of our family and friends.  I know I haven't adequately thanked each one who has donated to us, but please know how grateful we are.

Now we are working on airline tickets.  No, we don't have our travel approval yet, but we are tentatively planning on traveling to China on October 25 and returning on November 10.  We are hoping to purchase our tickets with air miles but have run into a little glitch--nothing big, just some "transferring miles" issues--so if you would pray that the airline would show us favor and bend the rules a little for the sake of bringing Maia home, we would appreciate it.

I have put in for my maternity leave so I sure hope our dates are accurate!  The timing is very good because I will only end up taking 22 days of leave without pay (due to all the holidays in that time period.)  So all that time we were upset that things weren't going as we had hoped, God had better plans for us!  ( I should have known!  How quickly I forget!)

We are planning one more yard sale, and we still have donations of things to sell on ebay/craigslist coming in.  Amazing!  We are OVERWHELMED!!!

We are getting close, really close now; we are hoping to travel around the last week of October.

Our article 5 letter (really, I have NO IDEA what that is, other than the next thing we are waiting for and the last step before travel approval) will be ready to be picked up on Thursday this week, and then we wait for them to tell us to come get our girl!

We are really getting excited as it gets closer, but when that wonderful call comes, it will be time to send our last amount that is needed to complete the adoption.  The estimate is about $10,500.  Yikes!  We have $5000 of that in the bank and ready to go right now.  I know what you are thinking: that means we are still short about $5500.

That amount doesn't include travel to and from China or any of our spending money while there.  We are hoping to save a little by taking rail while in country rather than flying, and we know we can eat really cheap. We are going to try to use air miles for our flights (Darryl has built up quite a few, what with all his trips for work, and some have been donated to us as well.)  We do have $1500 set aside for spending money, but that's probably cutting it a little close.

Do I sound worried? I wouldn't be telling the truth if I said I wasn't.  I KNOW God is totally in control of this whole thing, but I wish He wasn't cutting it so close!

I know that He is the Father of adoption; after all, He came up with the whole concept!  He adopted me and every other soul who has ever chosen to accept His free gift of salvation, and He even placed His only Son in an adoptive family!  How cool is that?  As Christians we are admonished to "remember the orphans", and we have responded to that call the best we know how.

So now we really, really need Him to provide the last bit.

We do have a fundraiser coming up on Saturday the 8th, and I'd love to see lots and lots of people there, but really it's unlikely that we will raise all we need by auctioning 10 cakes, selling coffee drinks, and raffling a quilt.  But who knows?  It was unlikely that a crowd of 5000 could be fed with a few loaves and fish, but God chose to do it anyway!

Thanks for letting me tell you the truth of where we are financially right at this moment.  I'm excited for the day I'll be able to say "we are fully funded!"  Can't wait to share that with you when it comes.