Our first morning!

All three of my men here slept in until almost 8:30. I was awake at 6:00.  Still keep waking early, but it is alright. Thank you to my friend who instead of praying I would sleep later, prayed for those quiet hours.  In the quiet this morning, I was overwhelmed pondering our day yesterday.  God has been so gracious to us.   Joshua did very well yesterday. He had tried to tell us, through our guide, that he wanted to go for more chicken for dinner. We told him we would go back for lunch today. I can't remember if I posted about how he dipped everything at lunch yesterday - fries and chicken nuggets into sauce, chocolate sunday, ketchup - all at once. Last night, we went to the chinese restaurant here in the hotel.  We are getting pretty good using a combination of charades and some notes from our guide -- although somehow bottled water seemed to be translated - sprite.  That was better than the previous evening when we got hot steamy water in glasses - then got sprite, to which they later added hot water...   He wasn't sure what he thought of the cooked broccoli that came first - but after giving it a sniff, decided to try it.  He took the sprite, poured it into a teacup and started dipping everything in the sprite - peanuts, the broccoli, chicken kabobs.  We'll have to work on that later, but then again, we don't usually have sprite with dinner. At least he ate a pile of broccoli - something fairly healthy!  We arrived when the restaurant opened at 7:00, so we were the only people there to entertain the staff.   When he was done eating, he became very quiet. I wasn't sure if he was overly full, overly tired or starting to feel a bit sad. We headed back to the room and put in Finding Nemo because I had heard other people say that their children enjoyed it even when they couldn't at first understand it.  He watch for a while, then went and sat on his bed looking very sad and serious.  I had dozed off just before that happened and awoke to hearing Pete ask if he was alright. He tried to say something that Pete couldn't understand and we could see he was feeling sad.   What a helpless feeling to see your son feeling sad and have no words to communicate. All I could do was pray for direction.  Pete sat in front of him and I sat next to him. I grabbed the blanket Sarah had made for him and wrapped it around his shoulders and just snuggled him.  We could see he was trying to be brave as a few tears slipped from his eyes. We just held him and spoke gently to him for a while.  He was very quiet, but he let us hold him that way.  After a while, we tried just using our pocket translator to translate some words -- he didn't seem to respond to that.  Then, I remembered how much he had enjoyed pictures and found the little photo album I had brought with some pictures of family.  I pulled that out and he really enjoyed looking at it.  We then decided it was late enough in the morning back home to make some phone calls.  We showed him pictures of Pete's parents first and called and got his mom.  We showed Joshua the pictures, he recognized her saying "hello Li Meng " we then got Sarah up and on the phone - showed him her picture and the blanket.  He had a big smile when she said "Ni Hao Li Meng".  We got all of the kids up then to say hello.  He got the idea and came over to say "Ni Hao" to them.  We called Rachel at the Bennetts and called my parents. My sister is visiting them now, so we got her too.  He clearly seemed to understand who we were calling and it was just what he needed.  Before we were done talking to everyone, he and Mark and crawled into their beds and fell asleep.   The boys are up now and playing with cars.  Joshua is doing a lot of chattering.  He wanted to wear the same shirt that matched Mark from yesterday.  The first thing he did this morning was find his pendant to wear.  We couldn't get him to take it off until he was ready to sleep last night. I'm so glad we got that for him. Someday, he will understand the verse on it from Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified, do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go." Our family has had these pendants for 2 or 3 years.  It is still amazing to me that it wasn't until the day after we chose the name Joshua that I remembered the verse on the pendant...    He has given us great big nice hugs this morning - I made it through yesterday without tears, but this morning I've had them several times...

It is well...

And now there are six!  We have another son!  All is well... We are so very thankful for all of you that have prayed us through to this day.  We were very nervous this morning with all of the issues that have come up with our province. We arrived at the office and sat in the waiting area for a very long time and then in a big, rather dark office with a HUGE conference table waiting for officials to come and for our son to arrive. We were getting mixed information from our guide about when this would happen. Every time her phone rang, we were anxious that perhaps there was a problem. We could tell she was talking about us, but couldn't tell if it was good or bad. Finally, she told us that the registrar was busy and would be late and that Li Meng and the doctor were also arriving later.  So, we sat in the big room, waiting and waiting and waiting.  We wondered when we would be instructed to wear the dreaded masks.  So far, no one had said anything, but it was just us and our guide in the big room. Then - in came the familiar face of the orphanage doctor that had delivered Anna into our arms, and right behind her came Li Meng.  No officials, no masks, no instructions -- just meeting our son.  What a sweet, sweet moment it was.  Thank you so much all of you that prayed for that moment.  All of your prayers were answered. We had about 15 minutes to just get to know each other. We gave him a backpack filled with a few treats - the one like Mark's that Pete had purchased at the market. Then we showed him that we were all wearing our shield pendants (the ones with Joshua 1:9 on the back) and gave him his.  He arrived wearing the football shirt that the boys had sent and Mark was wearing his.  We were then sent for pictures.  He did great at pictures.  Nice big smile. We had to wait around the photographer studio to wait for the pictures, so we walked down the alley to get something to drink. He also picked out some gum that he was very excited about.  It was so fun to watch him just be a little boy - jump out of the car and skip behind Pete when we went inside. Our guide was asking him questions in the car.  I couldn't tell what she was saying, but I recognize a few words and recognized him saying "Mei Guo" - which means beautiful country and is the Chinese name for America.  He was saying he understood where he would go to live with us. He knew who all of us were.  He understands Joshua is his American name. He understands this is a special day and wasn't shy about asking for things.  We had about an hour's worth of paperwork after we returned from pictures. The boys explored their backpacks. Joshua found an art craft I had put in there that is really pretty cool.  You trace shapes onto this black wax coated paper.  He loved it and stood next to me for a long time working on the different shapes.  When you scraped off the wax, it was translucent and colorful, so I would hold his work up to the light to admire it.  I loved that if I was busy and talking with officials, he would nudge me to show me the next drawing for me to admire. After our paperwork, we were dropped off at our hotel for a couple hours to rest and have lunch (that is what we are doing now...)  We explored the street and found a fast food chicken/doughnut restaurant.  Joshua was very eager to eat and was hungry from getting up so early to come here from Shihezi. After enjoying the drumstick, he dove into the french fries.  He loved dipping them in sauce, and then in his chocolate sunday!  He was having a blast.  He understood that we wanted both boys holding a hand. I took Mark's hand and Pete took his.  We went to find some sunglasses for him because it was very windy and he got dust in his eyes on the way to lunch.  He had no fear of being in the crowded market area and was not shy to see what else this new daddy might buy for him today.  He asked for new sandals. Since he kept trying to fix the other pair, we bought some for him.  He asked for some clothes too, but we told him we had others for him. When we got back to the room, we showed him pictures of the other children with the gifts they had sent for him.  He clearly understood that each gift had come from each child and repeated their names. As we went through the bag, we hadn't gotten to James' gift yet, so he pointed to the picture of it.  He was DELIGHTED with the little lego car kit and spent the next half hour following the instructions to put it together.  It is fun to watch how he uses his arms and hands - so much like Anna, but a bit more advanced since he is older. He is clearly very smart and very capable.  He doesn't really bother trying to speak Chinese to us since he knows we don't understand, instead he uses hand signals. He has a sweet, deep voice. When playing with his cars, he was singing a little tune. It reminds me of Anna.   He is a very happy boy today. We know every day will not be like today - but today is a gift, truly a gift. Mark is being a very good sport.  Joshua is a good inch taller than him and is getting lots of attention, but Mark is taking it all in stride. Well - we have to meet our guide in five minutes for our passport appointment.  No time to proofread -- forgive any typos -- but I just wanted to get this post out for all of you -- I know it has been long awaited.

Making Friends Along the Way

Today was a long and tiring day with a few challenges along the way. It was a good day, though, and we are again so very thankful for all of the prayers.  Throughout the day, we were blessed by kind and friendly people.  Since our Beijing guide had to leave for Guangzhou on Friday, she arranged for another guide, Lily, to take us to the airport today.  She was incredibly sweet and completely enamored with Mark within about 30 seconds of meeting him. She kept hugging him and touching his face and wanted a picture taken with him before we had left the hotel.  We learned lots about her on our way to the airport, exchanged pictures of our children and her son and exchanged email addresses.  Her son is going to college in California.  Maybe she will come visit some time!  She was a huge help to us at the airport. As we were checking in at the counter, Mark somehow managed to get his middle finger caught in the luggage conveyor at the counter! So now, picture a screaming redhead with blood gushing everywhere in the Beijing airport.  All this happening as we need to find our way through this huge airport, past another set of temperature scanners, hoping his already unsettled tummy stays under control in the midst of his throbbing finger...  Lily helped us get ice and a kind woman handed us a bandage.  We ended up having to go to the medical clinic to get more bandages. Pete insisted we were NOT taking Mark into the clinic and they wouldn't give him any antiseptic without seeing the wounded finger. We bandaged him up and calmed him down so he could bravely walk through security and temperature screening. The security guards kindly allowed him to carry ice through security when we explained (hand signed) what had happened.   The last time we had made the same flight, it was a very difficult flight.  However, we were blessed this time to be sitting next to a woman and her son who spoke English and were very friendly.  There was also another American on the flight who took notice of us and made sure we had pillows and blankets and checked on us at the airport to make sure we knew how to get around. The young man next to us was a rubix cube experts of sorts and had a new type of rubix cube too. Mark did great on the flight -- no complaints about his finger or tummy. Like our flight three years ago, lunch came with a "muslim" sticker on it.  However, this time it was recognizable food and actually tasted pretty good.   Our guide, "Wendy" was waiting for us at the airport.  She is very friendly and full of interesting information about the city. Once at the hotel, she had us fill out a multitude of forms in multiple copies. Last time, we had done much of this in the office with Anna, so we were happy to do much of it in advance. Then we went to the bank to exchange currency before our appointments tomorrow.  Before she left us, she helped write out some things we might want to order for dinner -- that ended up being very helpful.   After she left, we went in search of water.  We are in a very different neighborhood than last time. Definitely a shopping district.  I can't even count how many stores are in a three block radius of us - it has to be hundreds.  In front of the shops and in the alleys between the main street, it is crammed with vender after vender selling all sorts of clothing and accessories. I've never seen so many shoes or socks for sale.  There are also people walking around selling all sorts of things from belts to kittens, bunnies and turtles.  There are carts of fruit and loud music of various sorts blaring from the stores.  There are cars honking and tons of people. It is truly difficult to adequately describe. The goods seem to be very, very inexpensive.  I bought some hairclips for Anna for about seven cents each, we got some "adidas" sport socks for about 30 cents each.  There was a cute little girl selling beaded necklaces for 1 yuan each (about 15 cents) so I couldn't resist buying a couple of them from her. It was facinating just to wander the streets, although Mark quickly tired of the noise and stimulation. One young man asked me where I was from and when I told him I was from the US, he told me he was from Kazakstan (just across the border from here -- there are many Kazaks), but he didn't look Kazak to me.   On the way to getting water, we stopped for a bite to eat at a fast food place because Mark hadn't eaten much on the flight.  We thought it was similar to a McDonalds, but it was quite different.  Most of what they sold was chicken in various forms. We ordered a couple kabobs, a drumstick for Mark and some fries.  It was so, so spicy!  Now, I really like spicy food, but this left my esophagus tingling until we were at the supermarket!  The cashiers spoke little English, but were determined to try to sell us more food -- three of them were trying to convince us to try their special "ice flakes" which looked like chunks of fruit floating in something. We passed on that...we also passed on the "fresh corn water", but I'm posting a picture.    We had dinner at the hotel. I don't have any strange dishes to report to you because there was not one word of English on the menu.  The friendly staff - about five of them - helped us order.  It was good and inexpensive and the most interesting thing was lamb, so it was pretty safe.   The time zone here is intersesting. The whole country stays on Beijing time, so it is 10:30 and just now getting dark.   We are all in a bit of shock that we are really in Urumqi!  Our guide is picking us up at 9:30 and taking us to the notary office where we will meet Li Meng!  His orphanage is about a 3 hour drive from here, so we don' t know if he is staying somewhere in the city tonight or getting up very early tomorrow. We are nervous and excited and cannot even imagine what tomorrow will be like. We spent the evening getting our gifts for the officials in order, filling a backpack for Li Meng and getting settled in our room so it will be somewhat orderly for him.  Wow!  Thank you for praying for us and for this little boy whose world will change forever tomorrow. It is amazing how life can completely change in an instant.

A Quiet Day

At least, it has been a quiet day for Mark and I.  Pete has a friend from work that is here on business this week. The two of them went out to take a bicycle tour.  He checked in a couple of times and theyhave had a great time. Now they are back at the Pearl Market to see if he can purchase another of those nice backpacks so Anna can have one too. We discovered they have really nice front straps that will work well with her shoulders. Hopefully, he can negotiate another $10 purchase. We'll see. Mark was feeling a bit weary and didn't want to spend another hot day walking around Beijing. He and I have had a quiet day here at the hotel. We tried making balloon animals -- I think I need step-by-step instructions. We took a stroll around the hotel, visited the gift shop, played ping pong, got a soda from the platinum lounge, sat on the sun deck and now he is watching National Geographic channel -- bug wars!  I spent time this morning getting our bags ready for the flight tomorrow. We've been very comfortable here at the Sheraton for the past week, but we're ready to move on.  I also spent some time reading a great book a friend loaned to me - "Parenting the Hurt Child."  It is a great book. We don't really know what issues we might face with our new son. Our motto in adoption has been to prepare for the worst and expect the best. Today feels a bit surreal to me. With the quiet day, there is more time to think about the coming days. We have waited, prayed and prepared SO, SO long to meet our son. It is hard to believe that day is only two days away.  I'm not sure what else to do to be ready. I sort of feel like I do the day before a half-marathon.  I know all of the training and preparation will be put to the test soon.  I'm resting today and trusting in that preparation and trusting that our gracious God, who set us out on this journey to begin with, will fill in any gaps we may have missed. I'm sure there are things we've done to prepare that weren't necessary and will be other things that I will have wished we had done.  This has been a journey of many steps. Sometimes they have felt like they have gone backwards.  We are so thankful to have so many people praying for the steps of these next days. Tomorrow, we will meet up with a colleague of our Beijing guide who will make sure we get checked into the airport for our 5 1/2 hour flight to the far corner of China. Another guide will meet as at the airport and get us checked into our hotel. The next morning, she will pick us up and instruct us for the meetings with officials in the province and meeting our son.  In most provinces, meeting the child and conducting the official paperwork happens over two days, however, in this province it will all happen on Monday. The remaining days will be spent waiting for his passport to leave the province and getting to know him.  We haven't made definite plans for our two free days there and hope to find out if there are things he would like to see or do. We are scheduled to fly to Guangzhou on Thursday provided there are no issues with getting his passport. Your prayers for that detail would be appreciated. Thank you also for praying for Mark.  He is a bit weary today, but has been doing very well on this trip. We've been able to find food for him and supplement it with things we packed along with us. He has been a very good sport and has gotten quite good at saying "Ni Hao", "Xie Xie Nie" (Thank you) and "Tsai Jian" .. to the delight of all. I can tell this experience is really helping him to have compassion for his new brother. His prayers for him this morning were so sweet. A couple days ago, he crawled up next to me on the couch and said, "I really think Joshua is going to like having you for a mom."  It was so sweet and was what I needed to hear in that moment. Today was Anna's 5th birthday!  We stayed up late last night so that we could talk with her when she woke up and say happy birthday. This morning (her evening) we called to sing happy birthday to her. She seems to have had a good day. Grandma Shirley was making her favorite - Orange Chicken.  The kids seem to be doing well...the long separation is hard for all of us.  What a great moment it will be when we are all reunited again. There is another family here in China that I became aquainted with over the past several months.  Another mom of 5 that home educates, runs and was adopting a boy with a limb difference...  We won't cross paths because they leave Guangzhou the day before we arrive. I just checked in on their blog and read that they received a phone call two days ago that her mother-in-law had died in a tragic accident. The same day, their new son had a bad fall and injured his affected leg.  Please pray for the Wong family.

Lessons

Today I was reflecting on the many, many lessons to be learned along this journey.  This morning, we learned a lesson in adjusting our plans and expectations.  When I had learned we were going to be here for a week, there were some people I wanted to try to see. One is a family that has been living here for the past couple of years. However, we learned they are actually about 3 1/2 hours away by fast train. We decided not to try to make that visit since we have been asked to stay in Beijing specifically this week. The other was a visit to Harmony House. We had learned from another family that visited last week, that they were in need of desitin for the infants. The night before we left, Pete went to two different stores buying as much as he could find.  (This would be part of the reason our bags were overweight...)  We had made arrangements to spend today visiting the children there and yesterday had purchased some treats at a Walmart type store to combine with some gifts my boys had accumulated for the children here at their birthday party last fall.  We were very, very excited about this visit. However, all week, I was feeling a bit of uneasiness about it. The situation with illness is being taken very, very seriously by the adoption officials in our province and we've learned, by the officials here in Beijing as well. After spending some time praying about it this morning, Pete and I decided making this visit would not be worth getting ourselves or this ministry into trouble if any of us or any of the children there should happen to show any signs of illness in the next week. It was a very, very difficult decision and a personal disappointment.  We were able to send the desitin and our gifts with their driver. It was a lesson in holding our expectations loosely and keeping focused on our mission here.   Another lesson in expectations is about meeting our son. We received a call last night letting us know that the officials in our province will require us to wear masks to all of our meetings on Monday.  We, of course, have said we will do whatever they require of us. It is hard to imagine meeting our son for the first time with all of us wearing masks. If things go as they did last time, once we are finished in the civil affairs office, we will be whisked off for passport pictures.  Since our photo will be taken with him, that may be the first time he gets to see us with our masks off. Please pray that this will not be too frightening and unsettling for him. I'm not sure how they will explain it all to him. It is even more important for me to not get too emotional and cry when we meet since he will only be able to see our eyes!    Mark has learned a lesson about home sickness. He was very disappointed about not getting to go play with children today and that led to expressing great sadness at missing his brother, James. We were able to talk about how Joshua might feel sad at times when he thinks about his friends from the orphanage.   Lessons in Chinese culture.  I think I've learned that there is a lot of competition that runs deeply in this culture.At the Forbidden city, we learned about the great scholastic competition that occurred for the Emperor to select his officials.  I think this deeply held tradition of competition might explain some things about the aggressive driving and aggressive sales people. I'm posting a picture taken inside the pearl market . We never saw any pearls -- we were looking for backpacks for Mark and Joshua. Any visitor to China must experience these markets at least once. They are completely overwhelming to me. We were only there about 20 minutes and made at least 50 "friends" who all wanted to give us a "cheaper price" on everything we could possibly need. Pete did negotiate a good price on two very nice backpacks for the boys. She started out telling us she had sold one to her other "friend" for 650 yuan, but would sell one to us for 350.  He ended up getting both of them for a total of 130 (about $10 USD each). I can't stand the whole bargaining thing and really do want to make friends with each person who drags me by the arm into their little booth. I just have to walk away while he talks, but then I'm dragged into another "friends" booth...  Good thing I have no money to spend!  Another thing that seems to be a competition is the architecture here. The buildings are incredible.  I keep trying to take pictures for James (our future building engineer/architect) of all of the interesting buildings. I'm attaching a picture of a building that is completely unbelievable.  Behind it was a high rise hotel that was COMPLETELY charred. It had burned on Chinese New Year.   We saw some other amazing architecture when we visited the Olympic stadiums. When Mark was so sad this morning, we let him choose how to spend our day. He decided the stadiums sounded more interesting than the zoo.  He was really hoping to swim in the water cube. The Birds Nest is really incredible. So huge and unique. We just sat inside for a long time. They are setting up an elaborate stage for some production. Workers were busy sewing together the turf. We watched some acrobats on pogo stilts rehearsing with fans. There is a picture taken outside the Nest to give perspective on JUST how huge those bird's nest twigs really are. The area between all of the stadiums is an immense walkway.  It is really pretty and relaxing with nice music playing all of the time. The other picture is taken inside the water cube. The water cube is covered in an interesting facade.  Inside we could touch a sample of one of the "bubbles" that surround the building. Mark was not able to swim at the Cube, but he and Pete are off for Mark's daily swim at the hotel. It is the nicest indoor pool I've seen at a hotel.   We were on our own today since our guide had to travel to Guangzhou to meet up with the rest of our travel group. Did you know we are part of a travel group from our agency? It is hard to tell -- since we haven't been with them at all. They all left the day we arrived here to meet their children in various provinces. The rest of them flew to Guangzhou today. Half of them will still be there when we arrive next Thursday -- so we'll feel like part of the group for at least the last few days...   Thank you for continuing to pray for us and to follow our journey.  Tomorrow will be our last day to see Beijing.

Photos from Thursday

Mark taking a break on the Great Wall....after the Wall...Future Olympian???

Photos from Wednesday

Mark at the Square and Mark with some of his fans at the Forbidden City.