Love from Across the Ocean

Like that title? That was the headline for the article on us that was in Tuesday’s paper. It was actually a very encouraging article that I hope encourages some of the locals in adopting or fostering children. They snapped many photos when they were visiting, but selected one that included every one of us in it, playing with the kids. Yesterday there were more reporters and a photographer there, and evidently were going to be featured in a larger paper, The China Daily. That one is supposed to be online too, so if I get a link, I will post it here.

In the morning, when we walked in, we were excited to see that the ayis (nannies) had already taken most of the children, from one of the severely disabled rooms, out of their cribs and into the upstairs playroom. In my three years coming here I have never seen them do that, so that was exciting progress. What’s difficult is putting them back in, but I am hopeful that after seeing us interact with the children, this will be a more frequent thing.

At lunch, one of the local gals, we met at the square, Nancy, came and ate lunch with us. She is a very sweet and bubbly girl. She also served as our personal shopping guide as she took Micah, Tracie and I around a shopping mall last night!

Yesterday afternoon Mark, Ying, and I went to a store to buy some more flooring with some of the donation money. We wanted to replace a well-worn red carpet that they use in the main playroom with something that could be easier cleaned and maintained. Since it is in the same room as the playground, we decided to use the same flooring, so we returned to the same store that they had shopped at before. As we were waiting for the owner to return with some items, I walked around the tiny shop, I decided to buy a gift for Mike. When I tried to purchase it, the owner’s wife refused to let me pay for it, and then with a huge smile on her face, pointed to the calendar on the wall behind her. You can see for yourself what she was meaningJ What joy this lady had in her heart!

Today will be our last day, which is always an emotional day. The older children are supposed to be coming back from the boarding school to celebrate in our birthday party. I will try and post tonight, as we have an morning flight tomorrow back to Beijing.