TRIP TO THE ORPHANAGE

Ya'll better grab a cup of tea before you sit down to read this post, because I got a little long winded.

Today Mitch and Mitchell took a trip out to the Fuzhou Orphanage. It was a two-hour drive from Nanchang. Their description of the drive was hilarious. They said there were no shocks on the car, and they beeped the whole way, zipped around police cars and drove right through the middle of work zones. The roads were totally filled with potholes and so dirty that they couldn't even see the lines. Mitch says he saw his life pass before his eyes many times. :-)

There were cows tied to trees the whole way along the way. (Before I describe this next part, remember from a previous blog where I said the streets are packed with old mopeds and bicycles, and they are pulling carts and hauling things piled high?) Well, they saw a guy on a moped hauling planks of wood piled 6 feet high on each side of him. He could just see straight out through the planks to drive. They saw one moped with a really long rope hanging behind it with a guy on a broken down moped way behind holding onto the rope; and a bicycle with pieces of plastic piled so high they couldn't understand how it could balance. You have to understand, these things are on the streets and highways mixed right in with cars, trucks, and double-decker buses. It’s unbelievable how they survive.

At the orphanage they were taken to a board room and shown a file of Faith's papers - some we have, some we don't. There was a photo of her when she was a newborn. (Mitch took a picture of the photo)


They met the lady who found her when she was abandoned.

She said Faith was wrapped in a simple blanket lying in a box by the gate of the orphanage and she found her on her way into work early one morning. This is Faith’s “finding place.”

When Faith was a newborn, she stayed in the baby room of the old orphanage building, but Mitch & Mitchell were not allowed into it because it was closed and empty now that they've moved into the new building. (Mitch took a few pictures through the windows.)

They learned that she had been staying with a retired orphanage worker, her adult son, and his son, in a 100-square-yard apartment. Mitch asked if they could see the apartment, and they said no because the worker is completely retired now. Faith was the last child she was fostering.

This next shot may look like a random photo, but it is not. If you remember my earlier posts, there was a picture of Faith standing by a metal railing in a hallway of the orphanage. This is Mitchell walking down that same hallway.


The woman in charge of the kids' paperwork at the orphanage took them out to lunch. They went to... you guessed it... a Chinese restaurant. They tried to be very polite, so they ate duck feet, steamed egg, some type of gray slime, and something they described as spaghetti with fish eyes. :-) (We'll let you know tomorrow how that all pans out.)

So it was a worthwhile trip and they took lots of pictures around the city so that Faith will have them some day.

Tomorrow we are supposed to go to an area park with our guide but Mitch is on the phone right now getting us excused from the outing. We don't really want to head out again. ONE MORE DAY TILL WE LEAVE FOR GUANGZHOU !!

OK… so Faith can now say "Barney." Hooray, an English word! She understands when we say "put it in your backpack" and "put it in the trash." She peels little jellies open with her teeth and dumps the jelly in her congee.

You know I told you she has to have her shoes on all the time? Well, the boys are trying to train her to go barefoot and when they take her shoes off she yells, "High-Dee, High-Dee" (Chinese word for shoes). Mitchell just said to her, "Oh, take your stinking high-dees off!"

She was so tired this afternoon, she fell asleep sitting up on the floor:


With big brother, Matthew


Dad, the boys want you to know we visited a Chinese "bavillion" yesterday, but that they like the ones at the Morrisons Cove Park better.

Mom, guess what? We had a fifty dollar bill rejected today because there was a mark on the corner of it! Insane, huh?

Lisa and Sue, we can't wait for those grilled cheese and Pringles!!

When the guys left today I started to cry. Knowing it was 9pm there, I wished I could get on AIM and talk to some of Mitchell's friends, but I didn't know how. Stephen, I told Mitchell I would even have settled for talking to you… ha ha. Mitchell feels they should be counted for double school days because they've been traipsing all over China by day, and watching Discovery Channel all night. He says they've been racking up lots of educational television credits.

Tomorrow is half-way-to-home day. Praise the Lord! I miss you Christian and Gracie!!


Love you all,
Miss you like crazy!

Transitions

It is 11pm and everyone is asleep but me (Cherie). I just got Faith down. She goes back and forth between being happy and playing to being sad and crying. She is pretty insecure. When we walked into the government office this morning she cried. It seems like she's afraid we're going to leave her somewhere. She cries a good bit. That's okay, because I cry a good bit, too. I really want to come home because I miss Christian and Gracie like crazy.

Tonight at dinner (I say that like we actually ate something) the waitresses were talking to Faith as usual and she kind of gave them a little sour look, said something, and they laughed. I asked what she said and they told me, "I don't want to play with you." They can't understand everything she says because the people from Fuzhou speak a different dialect of Mandarin than the people from Nanchang, but they can understand a little.

We tackled brushing her teeth for what I know was the first time. It was easy to see that she had no idea what we were doing and that no one had ever brushed her teeth before. She has 2 cavities that I can see.

She has to have shoes on at all times. We try to take her shoes off and she hates it. She must never have walked around in bare feet before. Also, I think one of my biggest challenges is going to be switching her to a western style toilet!! She is completely potty trained, but on a... you guessed it... squat potty. So we will struggle with that when we get home because the toddler potty the hotel put in our bathroom is NOT western style. Oh joy!

Watching her eat is an amazing thing. Mitchell said, "You know it makes me sad watching her eat." If you have ever seen any TV commercials for groups like "Feed the Children," or something like that, and seen children eating... that's what she reminds us of. She puts her chin clear down on her bowl and shovels her food in while holding her other hand underneath to make sure nothing drops. When the bowl is empty she keeps scraping it and then scrapes her chin with her spoon and puts that in her mouth, too. Then she picks up her bowl and licks the rice off that was stuck on the sides. She eats Congee, which is like watery white rice, and everything else I give her - little vegetables, bread bites, little potatoes. She puts everything in the congee and eats it like a soup in the manner I described. She would just keep eating and eating if I would let her, but I don't want her to get sick. We said, "And to think, we throw leftover food down the disposal!"

At 9am tomorrow (9pm Tuesday for you) Mitch and Mitchell are leaving to visit the orphanage. It is a 2 hour drive and Matthew and I are going to stay here with the baby. We feel that if she sees the building she will think we are taking her back, so we thought it best not to take her.

Miss you all. We are making a list of all the things we want to eat when we get home - like pizza and Ritchey's ice cream and salad and chips and ....well....ANYTHING!!! And I want to hold my kids!

Love you!

Special Request for Lisa Parnell

This picture is for you.

Another Interesting Day

Everything went well at the notary office today, then we toured a pavilion from the Han Dynasty. It was beautiful. There was a traditional Chinese program and our guide, Helen, told us the stories of some of the paintings that were everywhere on the walls.
















































Lisa and Sue, we want to know if there is any western food at the White Swan??

Green Beans and Mighty to Save

When Faith eats, she holds her little hand underneath whatever she is eating, like rice or crackers, to catch every little crumb and then she makes sure to eat every crumb. She doesn't let anything fall. I gave her a little cup of green beans and she drank every drop of juice out of the cup and then ate every single bean and scraped out every scrap into her mouth. She never lets a bite of food go to waste. She listened to Hillsong United on my ipod. I called these photos "Green Beans and Mighty to Save"

We tried to brush her teeth this morning and that didn't go well. It is easy to see she has never had her teeth brushed before. She said 'drink" last night...IN ENGLISH. She chatters a mile a minute in chinese. I just keep repeating the English words of everything over and over again. I think it will be good when there aren't waitresses to talk to her in Chinese all the time. I think she will have to listen more intently to the English words we are saying to her.

We are heading to the notary office in one hour.

Missing Freedom - and Water.

Well, the boys say they can't find any way to upload a video. Everything is blocked out! I am thankful that we are able to get words and photos through.

The internet is crazy here...there isn't any internet. You can send email and look at basic weather or maps and that's about it. Everything is blocked. It's funny, friends of ours who came here for an adoption said that it's like you can feel in the air that there is no freedom. And now I understand what they meant.

At dinner tonight we sat for a long time because we said we wanted to kill enough time so that we could just go to bed when we got back to the room. Mitchell said he misses water. We discussed how when we get home we are going to stick our toothbrushes under the water, and splash water all over our faces, and shower with our mouths hanging wide open. It's funny the things we take for granted.

Be sure to see the next TWO posts.

Now Faith is the Substance of What We’ve Hoped For

“Gotcha Day“…It was a hard but beautiful day. Our dear little girl from the Fuzhou Orphanage was brought to us in the lobby of our hotel - by the orphanage director, a nanny, and a retired orphanage nanny who had been giving her foster care in her apartment. She was so beautiful and so sweet and so afraid. They stayed for about ten minutes. We took a few pictures and then the orphanage director picked up his briefcase and walked off with the nannies! What in the world must go through a dear little child’s mind at a time like that? It must be a feeling of total abandonment. She cried and I cried.















She cried for about an hour and then she started to come around and started to play ball with the boys and smile. Once she was content, we took her downstairs to dinner. She was absolutely hilarious - a little chatterbox (all in Chinese of course). She would look at us and rattle off these sentences in Chinese, over and over, telling us things and we would look at her and say, “I know.” Then we would look at each other and say, “We really don’t know.”

She chattered with the waitresses and it was hilarious. We figured she must be chatting with them about how dumb we are that we can’t even understand her.




























We just sat and laughed because she was totally self-sufficient – and ate like a horse! She fed herself with this big spoon so neatly. She even held her other little hand underneath the spoon as she brought it to her mouth in case anything fell. Then she wiped the rice that was stuck on her chin with the spoon and put that in her mouth, too. We tried to give her bottled water in a sippie cup - she turned up her nose at it and took the water bottle, held it under her arm, unscrewed the cap, drank, and put the cap back on. Then she sat it back on the table and went back to eating. We laughed so much. “None of that baby stuff for her,” we said.















She was happy as a lark all evening - went right to sleep, and slept from 10:30pm to 9:00 am.
She awoke this morning a little uneasy, but okay. Then, we had to walk to the civil affairs office. (That walk, and those offices, and this city are another story of their own which I will tell later…whoa!!!)
Anyways, she was ok until they made us put her in a chair to get her picture taken. She got afraid,
rubbing her arm back and forth across her eyes like she’s trying to hide.

We got that done and Mitch and the boys took her to a waiting area at the end of the hall while I went into a little room that was completely gray and completely empty except for one man in a chair behind a glass barrier (I cannot describe what this place looked like but I’ll try later). Here I exchanged dollars for yen and paid the orphanage and civil affairs fees. In the waiting area where Mitch and the boys were, there were about 4 other families either meeting their children or coming to do paperwork like we were. Faith was walking around a little and when our orphanage director walked into the room, she ran to Mitch. She started to cry and has not been happy since. She absolutely will not let me put her down and hangs real tightly around my neck. She’s asleep in the crib right now.

And that’s where we are. Please pray that she will quickly understand that we are forever. She’s very sweet.