A Clear Sign

Yesterday we woke up to a beautiful, clear day. Sherry said this was what they called fall weather which they only get about one month out of the year. We started out a little later in the morning yesterday and went to an international church service. We had to show our passports at the door, as the citizens here are not allowed to attend. It was great to worship with people from all over the world. There were about eight pastors who each shared briefly on the topic "One World, One Dream" as the Olympics theme was this year, but specifically regarding the unity of the universal body of Christ. Before leaving church, Anita braved using the typical Chinese toilet. This is a porcelain toilet set into the ground which you squat over. During most of our trip, we have waited for the "4 or 5 Star" bathrooms, but sometimes you just gotta go. After church we visited a jade factory and had a chance to purchase jade. It is a tradition here to wear a jade bracelet, specifically a bangle, on the woman's left wrist. This bangle would be then passed to the woman's daughter when the girl turned 16. At $400-1000 per bracelet, we decided we could not afford this tradition! Then we had lunch and headed to the Great Wall. All I can say about walking on the wall is "Stairmaster Level: 10." But what pretty views we had! After that we had dinner and Madison and Anita went to a Chinese acrobat show. It was amazing! The boys stayed in the rooms because they wanted to swim one more time in the indoor pool. It was also our desire to make sure they got to bed early and for Matt to begin packing our bags. Our suitcases were picked up last night at 10:30pm so that we can all get out early this morning for our flight to Jiangxi where we will meet Sinclair! Got to run, got to get on plane, today is Gotcha Day!!!!!

After almost 12 hours of sleep, we woke up feeling great and completely switched over to the time change. We had a wonderful breakfast in the hotel and began to meet people in our adoption travel group. There are sixteen families in our group. One couple, the Nakagumas, have been exchanging emails with us over the last 2 1/2 years (but mostly in the last few months). It is so nice to meet them in person. Another family, the Landinos, are acquaintances of ours through a mutual friend and who by some amazing coincidence happened to decide to adopt around the same time as we did and are here with us also. It is so nice for our kids to be around another family--the Landinos have four bio children ages 6 to 15--and it is so nice to have people we know here with us, too. We learned so much about Chinese culture today, but I will only share here enough to explain our pictures. We started out in Ti'an men Square, a political area, which still had some Olympic displays out. In the middle there is the people's monument which has eight inscriptions for each of the eight people's revolutions in China's history. It was here that we began our celebrity status as foreigners and our children were asked to take many pictures throughout our day with the local tourists. After that we headed to the Forbidden City where we walked for about two hours. On the doors of the buildings are brass knobs which are supposed to give you good luck if you rub them. We had a nice Chinese lunch served family style with a large lazy susan in the middle of each table. Next stop was a pearl factory where we learned so much about fresh water and salt water pearls and were able to purchase some if we chose. Then we went to the Summer Palace. Here we learned about the mythical creature Ching Ling, which has the parts of many animals. Boys are often called Ching Ling, meaning that they can do anything. There was a bronze statue of a Phoenix as well, representing beauty and the emperess. After that we went to a silk factory where we learned how silk is made into cloth and had a chance to purchase silk items. Finally, we had dinner and headed back to the hotel. What a day!

We are so glad we had almost a whole day in Beijing before our tour began. After checking in to our hotel and getting our things arranged in our room, we headed out for lunch. Where do you think we went? Oh, yes, the golden arches! I guess we figured that was the best chance that Elijah would eat some protein. He had only eaten rolls and fruit on the airplanes. So, we got to look at a picture menu and point to things. No Diet Coke here, though, so Anita will have to cope. After that we bought some water at the Chinese Wal-mart ("Carrefour") which is right next to our hotel and bought water bottles. The kids were so excited and needed to burn some energy after that, so we let them swim at the indoor pool. They had a blast, especially since it was pouring rain outside at this point. For dinner, what do you think we had? Well, KFC, of course! By the end of dinner, Elijah was nodding off. We all crashed in bed by about 7pm to be ready for our busy Saturday.

Anita's parents and Matt's mother and stepdad brought us Smith's to the Los Angeles International airport (aka LAX) on Wednesday night. It was so nice to have them pray with us before we left, and we were so blessed to have had the extra help at the house with the last minute details of leaving it for two weeks!
We boarded our flight with Asiana Airlines at 12:20 am on Thursday morning, August 28th. The kids were so excited to stay up late. Asiana Airlines was great! The plane was very nice and even in coach class we got hot towels to wash our face at bedtime. All the seats had a personal screen to view various channels of entertainment and movies. I think each of the kids watched at least two movies during the flight. Elijah probably slept the most--I cut off his movies at 2am Cali time. Madison slept the least--almost none. Except for the crick in our necks, it was a great flight.
We were a grumpy crew as we arrived in Seoul, Korea, at about 6am Korea time, but overall the kids and we were doing very well. The airport was nice and empty. We all stretched out across the chairs and slept. It was so nice to sleep stretched out flat! We were there two hours and then got our connection to Beijing. Madison and Brevin both slept the entire flight. When we got off the plane we said, "We're in China! Guess what? We're in China!" The airport here is really nice having been remodeled prior to the Olympics. Our America World guide, Sherry, informed us that the airport is in the shape of a turtle because the turtle is a symbol of longevity. I love all the symbolism that is part of the Chinese culture.

We still can't believe it, but the Smiths have arrived in China!

China, here we come!

"God is not in the vastness of greatness. He is hid in the vastness of smallness. He is not in the general. He is in the particular." -Pearl S. Buck

This is the quote that came up today on my Words to Warm a Mother's Heart flip calendar and which was penned by the author who showed me Chinese culture (beyond Chinese New Year, watercolor, and calligraphy, that is). It truly speaks to how the details of our journey have fallen into place, especially over the last two weeks. Let me show how true this quote is. About two weeks ago, as the Olympics in Beijing commenced, we did not have the final amounts--the largest amounts--that would be due for our adoption. God first moved by helping Matt to close a large sale which would pay him just over $7700. The glitch was that the commission would not be in our bank account until October. Several days later, we received the invoice for the cost of our in-country travel for our whole family (hotel, flights in China, etc.) and the amount was?...that's right, just over $7700. It seemed that Matt's commission was meant to cover this expense, but how would we pay it on time? America World graciously extended the due date for the in-country travel until August 20th, but also needed to know how we were going to get the $5,000 for the adoption finalization and the $1000 we would need for meals and incidentals in China. But God is in the particular and He knows every detail of our lives. On August 19th, we heard from two people: one who said we could borrow their credit card to pay for the in-country travel and another who wanted to loan us $5,000 cash. We were in tears! Meanwhile, our ChipIn fund (see the left column of this blog) has gone up to $450 and others have given gifts of cash which will cover the meals and incidentals. We give the GLORY to God! We have wondered over the last year and a half why was God allowing our income to be less and less, knowing that we had the adoption ahead of us? I believe it is so that Matt could not say, "See what I did? I worked hard, and I'm a great salesman, and that is what brought this baby to us." But God says, "I AM."

Labels: faith

As this whole adoption has been a walk of faith for us, we continue to be stretched. With only 12 days before we depart from China, we still do not have all the funds to get our whole family there and back. We have dreamt of taking Madison, Brevin and Elijah with us to meet their sister as that seems most right to us, but the ultimate goal is to bring our baby home. We continue to step out in faith as I am going to the Chinese Consulate today to apply for visas for the whole family. We will wait and see what they Lord will do!
"Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west." Isaiah 43:5 (New International Version)
If you are new to our sight, please read the posts from June entitled "The Whole Story, part one" and the "The Whole Story, part two." Thanks for following our journey.

The Social Welfare Institute of Poyang (formerly Boyang) County is where our precious baby has been cared for since birth. All the babies who are placed there are given the surname "Bo", in our baby's case, "Bo Zheng" (In China the surname comes first and the given name second). We will most likley not get to visit the orphanage itself when we go to get our own little "Bo Beauty", but some families have.

We have found a Yahoo! group with families who have adopted babies specifically from SWI Poyang County. It has been great to connect with some of these families and read about their experiences. Some families who have gone to the orphanage have shared pictures with the group that you will see below. One group was at the orphanage as recent as June, and we have seen one photo that may possibly have Bo Zheng in the picture! We have been asked not to post pictures of babies whose faces are recognizable, but we're glad to have copies of these photos.

The orphanage building is fairly new and seems to be run by very caring people. There is no heat in the orphanage except for small space heaters, so the babies are very well-bundled during the cold months. Although Poyang is one of the poorer areas of Jiangxi and Jiangxi is one of the poorest provinces in China, we have not heard any reports of children that are malnourished that come from this orphanage. In fact, Hero formula is manufactured in the Jiangxi province and the Poyang orphanage evidently has a good supply.

Through the Yahoo! Group we were able to acquire the orphanage's address and send Sinclair Bo-Zheng a care package. We sent her a photo album with headshots of all us in hopes that this will help her recognize us when we meet. We also sent her a very soft pink teddy bear that has a ladybug on it. The teddy bear slept with Anita for a few days before we sent it out since baby's are so in tune with scents and smells--anything to help familiarize her with us! And lastly we sent a disposable camera for the orphanage workers to photograph Sinclair with her caregivers and friends for us to have a memoir of her first home. All of these were sent with a note in both English and Chinese (thanks again to the Poyang families Yahoo! Group) which indicated what we hoped that the workers there would do with these items. Many families have said that their baby's caregivers did take photos and brought their baby's gifts back with them when they were united with their forever families.

Here are the pictures we can share:

Labels: China orphanages, Poyang County

We now have our concrete travel dates! We will be leaving for China on August 27th--only 26 days from now! We have our U.S. Consulate appointment in Guangzhou on September 8th and will return home with our whole family on September 10th. Anita is so excited she was skipping into the kitchen this morning!