August 21-24, 2004

Subject: What we have been up to the last few days


Wow. I am so sorry we haven't updated in the past few days! I'm sure
you must be dying! :-)

The last 3 days have been the most tiring but the most joyful. We
are so enjoying ourselves here in Beijing. I am sorry we haven't
beena ble to update. We haven't been able to get the laptop to hook
up, so I have been using the business center. Okay so here's what
we've been doing..

Saturday August 21, 2004







Today we went to Langfang Childrens Village, right outside of
Beijing. I have been wanting to come to this place for quite some
time now. For some reason, we got to this website
(www.chinaorphans.org) and we have felt so drawn to it. LFCV is a
childrens home that cares for the special needs orphans in China.
Most of the children are dropped off at the orphanage gate, or they
go to orphanages around China and try to find the sickest babies and
children to help. We were so impressed by LFCV. It is such a
wonderful place. We were given a tour by Jeff Owens and Lisa
Bentley. The first place we went to was the House of Peace, and they
showed us a video of a Lisa's son, Levi. It is amazing! Levi was
found in a field severely burned with burns over 70% of his body.
The doctors didn't think he would make it. But we met little Levi
and he is the most adorable and wonderful child. He has such a sweet
smile annd he enjoyed playing with Sera. We toured the rest of the
childrens village and stopped by the House of Love. There is a
little girl there named Esther, who we are in love with! She is 2
years old and just gorgeous. She was born with her twin attached on
her back, (like a tumor) so they removed it when she was a baby and
now she is fine! A beautiful and healthy active little girl. We went
to visit her during naptime, so they were all trying to sleep and we
didn't get to interact with them too much, but just seeing these
kids was wonderful! Kathy Lowe, we met Rachel and she is adorable.
She wasn't too impressed with her bear, I think she was very tired.
I got some picture and video of her. Langfang was wonderful. We also
got to hold two heart babies. One named Thomas, had just come back
from the hospital the day before after undergoing heart surgery. He
was beautiful and we enjoyed holding him. Believe it or not, Steven
Curtis Chapman's brother is interested in adopting Thomas! Steven
adopted his third daughter from China from Langfang last month! We
also met Baby Fayth, who has a very severe heart defect. She is
beautiful and was flirting with Claudio!!! We were so impressed by
LFCV and are hoping to come back and maybe do some mission work with
them!!! After we came back from Langfang, we all fell asleep we were
so tired!!

Sunday August 22:















Today we were going to tour Beijing. The Great Wall, Forbidden City
& Tian'an men Square. We also met the other 3 couples in our group
that would be touring Beijing with us. Patti & Bill's daughter Lily
(age 2) is also from Beijing, Arne & Debbie's daughter Johanna (14
months) and Tom & Lisa's daughter Elisabeth (11 months) are from
Kuiyuan City in southwestern China. Our group has been wonderful.
They are all so sweet and we love them dearly. Our day started out
meeting our guide, Bruce. He is a wonderful guide and has the cutest
accent.. a touch of a British accent in his voice! We weren't able
to visit Tian'an men Square because the government was having a big
celebration, so we are hoping to go sometime next week. Instead, we
spent most of our morning at the Forbidden City. It was very nice
there.. where the Emperor of China lived. It is huge though!! Sera
had her first encounter with a squaty potty there.. not a pretty
site!! After we left the Forbidden City, we went to The Friendship
Store.. saw some people make some cloissone (spelling?) pots and
vases.. what a delicate process it is! We ate a very good lunch and
then went shopping!! I think we bought Emma at least 10 chinese
outfits (all very cheap) and all of our family a chinese outfit. We
also met some Canadian couples who has judt gotten thier daughters.
They were all so beautiful and very tiny! Most of the girls were
18/19 months old and they looked like 9 month old babies!! We had a
nice time at the Friendship store. After that we went to the long
awaited GREAT WALL!! and boy is it great! Looking up at the pictures
you want to climb all the way to the top, but I hear it is not
easy!! I decided not to go up and stayed with Debbie, we went the
easy way!! The rest of the guys went and climbed. Sera said it
looked so easy.. but was soo hard. The steps ranged from about 5/6
inches tall to 3 feet!! They were very steep and also very uneven.
She almost made it to the top, but didn't want to push it with her
asthma. Most of the guys in the group went very far!! Claudio got up
pretty high too. They had a great time and we took lots of pictures!
Once we left, it took almost 2 hours to get back to the hotel.. and
we still had an acrobatics show to go to!
anyways.. once we got back to the hotel we had 30 minutes to showed
and change before heading out to the show. We didn't even have time
for dinner. But it was worth it. The show was wonderful and we had a
great time. It was almost like Cirque du Soleil (sp??) but more
dareing!!! We were so tired by the end of the show and once we got
back to the hotel, we crashed!

Sunday August 23








Today we went to the Living Hope Oprhanage in Zhaoxian. Our adoption
agency started this orphanage nearly 4 years ago for children who
had no homes. It is such a wonderful place. The bus ride is not!!!
We were told 3 1/2 hours to get there.. it soon turned into 4 1/2
HOURS! The bus ride was horrible and I was beginning to get upset
about the whole thing. But once we got to the orphanage it was so
worth that horrible ride! The kids were so precious and all smiled
sooo much. We had a wonderful lunch there and the kids did some
performing for us. They sang songs and danced it was awesome. The
guy who runs the place (I think his name is Terry) is incredible. He
lives with these kids and takes wonderful care of them.. they even
call him Daddy! He introduced each child to us and told us how they
came here. All heartwrenching stories. Some of them were sol by
thier parents, some their relatives were jealous and gave them
away.. most of the kids' parents have died and their grandparents
can't take care of them. But they are doing so well here at the
orphanage. They all smile so much and we had an incredible time.
There was one little guy who had just come to the orphanage 2 days
ago. He was so tiny and looked about 2 years old. All of the kids
were so good with him and holding him and playing with him.. it was
so sweet to see the love they had for this sweet little boy. Leaving
the orphanage was hard.. it was a wonderful experience and to any
Living Hope families, I say do it!! Go there and give the kids hugs
for me. The bus ride was awful, but so worth it!! Once we got back
to the hotle (4 hours later) we all were tired (Sera had a meltdown)
we did enjoy some dinner with Patti & Bill but then went to bed!

TODAY TUESDAY AUGUST 24!!

Today is GOTCHA DAY!! the other 5 couples in our group arrived and
most of them went to the Summer Palace and PeKing Duck restaraunt.
We learned yesterday that our $3000 mandatory cash donation much be
converted into yuan and the hotel didn't have enough for all the
families. Claudio and I were uncomftorable carying all that money
around especially in public since it is so crowded! Instead Bill &
Claudio went to the back and Patti, Sera and I went shopping. There
is a great mall here just across from the hotel and we bough some
diapers. We will be going back later today for formula!! Well thats
what has been going on the past few days. Sorry for all the typos
and misspellings. The computer here is kind of weird and we are all
so tired and excited. We go to the orphanage at 12:20.. so in 2
hours!! AHH we are so excited!!!!

Elena, Kayla and Ian we love you and miss you so much and it was
good to talk to you last night!!

I am going to upload some photos for you to see. Enjoy and thanks
for following our journey. The posts will get better once we get our
Emma Grace!!

Nancy, Clau and Sera