Luoyang/Foster Family 11/26

JianHui's foster family had cared for him since Feb 2008.  They also foster a 10yr old boy from the same orphanage (he may have clubfoot also).  He called his foster mom Nai Nai (grandma) and his foster father Ye Ye (grandpa).  They are both retired.  Ye Ye used to work for a  tractor manufacturing company and his Nai Nai was a seamstress.  Some of the clothes Jian was wearing she personally made for him (we told her we would keep them forever!).  Great grandma also lived with the family.  Two orphanage staff traveled with us to visit the family as well as our fabulous guide Sarah Liu. 

Shaolin Temple 11/25

Shoalin Temple-Zhengzhou-11/25

civil affairs-pictures 11/24

Guangzhou

We arrived in Guangzhou on Friday evening.  Our flight was delayed and so were many other flight of families in our travel group.  We are staying at the Victory.  Our first night was spent in the presidential suite!  It seems the hotel had made a mistake and our room was already filled.  Our awesome guide, Rebecca, went to bat for us and landed us in the suite.  We have now been moved to our "booked" room which is two adjoining rooms with free internet, 4 beds, and two bathrooms.  I am glad we did not try to fit in only one room it would have been too crowded.  On Shamian Island there is A LOT of construction remodeling for the Asian Games in 2010.  It is hard to get through the streets. 

JianHui update:
We have an amazing new son.  Jian is happy 90% of the time.  He is always taking care of his mama.  If I give him food he will offer a bite to me first.  If I hand him his drink he will bring one to me.  He is happy to hold my hand (this may be due to his clubfoot-his balance is a bit off balance)  Today we borrowed a stroller for him.  It has helped to have one.  With all the walking it was too much for his feet.  Greg and I have taken turns giving piggy-back rides but I am happy to have the stroller now.  Jian told our guide that he has had two surgeries and that he will need more.  We only know of one surgery but believe that indeed he has had two.  Jian knows over 200 Chinese characters and he knows how to add, subtract, and multiply.  When he hears the guide adding prices he will yell out the answer.  The language barrier is hard but today we learned "wait a minute" in Chinese and it has been a lifesaver!  Jian wakes up with a big smile every morning.  We have had 2 meltdowns but they are short lived.  Both were caused by being told no and not listening.  He was mad and tried to call his foster mother.  He has the phone number memorized.  I had to slap his hand and take the phone away.  We visited a big shopping mall today and purchased a car for Jian.  He was so happy he could hardly contain himself.  He kept giving me and Greg big hugs and lots of smiles.  He loves to push the elevator buttons and unlock our room door with the card.  He sleeps great every night.  When we eat he thinks everyone should be finished when he finishes his last bite.  Nothing major but we do have a few manners to work on: blowing his nose in his hand, throwing trash on the floor, pushing, eating food off others peoples plates.  He has had several nose bleeds, one really bad our first night here in Guangzhou. 

I will try to post pictures soon--Greg takes 1000 per day and I have download and sort through them..........

Visiting Luoyang/Foster Parents

We met our new guide, Sarah, this morning at 7:30am to travel to Luoyang.  It was very foggy and Greg and JianHui spent the day very motion sick :( .  I don't think I am ready to completely debrief yet.  However it was an incredible day of shopping for supplies for the orphanage, letting JianHui purchase gifts for his foster mom-he chose toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap, laundry detergent, and shampoo-he is such a great little guy!  He even wanted to purchase black hair dye as he said she needed it but we had him put it back.  We visited his foster parents home and took pictures with his foster mom whom he calls Nai Nai (grandma) and foster dad whom he calls Ye Ye (grandpa).  We also met his 10 yr old foster brother (who was very sad) and his great grandma(also crying).  We took pictures of him with his dog, he wanted to bring his dog home with us....I felt so bad for him....it seems his foster parents had given both boys a puppy and of course JianHui wanted to bring his puppy.  We know he will enjoy our beagle, Ginger, although it won't be the same.  Nai Nai wondered who helps me with all the kids and now thinks I am a "Super" mom.  She asked us to please come back some day and she said JianHui I already miss you!  JianHui asked to call her tonight so we let him and he seemed peaceful after talking to her.  Earlier he told her that I do not understand him and he does not understand me and that I do not know how to use chopsticks!  I also discovered through our guide that he has been cold but did not know how to tell me.  So we are working on sign language for hot, cold, hungry, thirsty, etc. 

I need to wait for Greg to download the pictures and then I will post some.  We check out of our hotel tomorrow morning and arrive in Guangzhou in the evening.  Hopefully I will have more downtime then!

Gotcha Day

Gotcha Day

PHF

Finally An Update!

Sorry to all of you who have been waiting for an update.  This is the first chance I have had to update the blog. 

We arrived in Beijing on Sunday evening and spent the night at the Phillip Hayden Foundation.  On Monday morning, we visited with the staff and toured the facility.  We had a few hours to spend playing with the kids and learning more about the work PHF is involved in.  It was worth every minute we had.  Then we were off to the airport again for our flight to Zhengzhou.  Our driver enjoyed playing chicken with the oncoming traffic on our two lane road.  Thank you for your prayers!!  Our 5:20pm flight was late and we arrived a bit behind schedule.  Our guide, Queena and her friend Jenny, met us and took us to our hotel.  They informed us that we would receive JianHui the next morning.  We were completely exhausted (1 1/2 hrs of sleep the night before you leave for an adoption trip is not very smart).  As we entered our hotel room we received an update: JianHui was to arrive in 10 minutes!!  So back to the lobby we went.  Just a few minutes later, around 8:30pm JianHui arrived!  We were watching for him out the front windows but he surprised us by coming in from the back.  I first caught a glimpse of him in the reflection of the glass and then realized he was right behind us.  I turned to find him and he walked right up to us with a huge smile.  I knelt down and told him I was his mama-he pulled out his photo book and showed me his pictures of our family.  I then pointed to the picture of Baba and JianHui said "father".  The three orphanage staff members that accompanied him talked with our guide for a few minutes and then everyone came to our room.  We signed papers and then Queena said we needed to give them the gifts.  What??  I had not even unpacked a thing.  Queena said the orphanage workers needed to drive back to Luoyang as they had been in Zhengzhou all day.  Another agency had a large adoption group that had received their babies earlier in the day and JianHui had been transported with them.  I asked them to wait in the lobby for 10 minutes so I could put the bags together and thankfully they obliged and left our room.  Our late evening and bedtime with him was precious! 

I will post more about JianHui in my next post.  Things are going very well! 
We are off to visit his foster home in the morning and I will have to post more about Greg's "on stage" performance at the Shaolin Temple (Kung Fu) today!  JianHui is very proud of his "father". 
I will try to upload a few pictures after I get these kids to sleep....

We are off to the airport!

Next update from China! Thank you for your prayers! I think we will be able to post to this website, so check back soon.

Travel Website

Hearing reports that our blog access will be blocked during travel here is our alternate site:

Journey to Me
http://www.journeytome.com/
Click on Adoption Stories
Find the box that says Journal Users login here:
User name is: Samuel
Password is: Knorr

Plane Tickets and Snow!

We are set! We depart for China on Sat Nov 21st and return on Sat Dec 5th. We were able to use one donated airline ticket, thank you SO much F&D!!
Now we are checking the weather and it looks like we may have snow in Zhengzhou/Luoyang as it was 28 degrees today with light snow falling and then shorts weather in Guangzhou it was 82 degrees. If I only pack 4 outfits......I am going to have to figure this out.....hmmm.

We have TA/CA!

My heart is so full! I am singing praises! Our TA arrived at our agency today and we have a confirmed Consulate Appointment of 12/2. Our Gotcha Day is 11/24/09! Thank you Jesus! What an incredible Thanksgiving Season this is! Now we are working on booking our plane tickets, please pray we are able to use the airline miles donated on our behalf for 2 roundtrip tickets.....

Timeline LOA to TA: 1 month, 4 weeks, 2 days

TA is on the way!

We received word today that our TA is on the way from China. Now we are waiting to secure our CA (Consulate Appointment). Then we can book our plane tickets and go pick up our son! Hold on Jian Hui we are coming soon!