Birthdays, Bye-Byes, and back to Beijing...

I will apologize up front for any typos in this post, as our plane back from China landed at 4:55 am this morning and I am trying to stay up until I normally would so that I can get onto the right sleep pattern as soon as possible. With that said, I realize I may not make sense at times, but wanted to post about the last day of the trip before my memory faded even more than the current state I am in!

For some reason we had a different bus on the trip to the orphanage today. I'm guessing maybe because we had to check out of the hotel and have all of our gear loaded before we left in the morning, so we needed a bigger bus. This was the fanciest bus I have ever seen in China; brand new inside, two microwaves, and two couches that fold down to beds. As much as I enjoyed it, I have to say I felt guilty driving around in it as we passed the poorer regions in Chaoyang as we approached the orphanage. As we pulled up, I wanted to grab the kids and take them for a cruise around the city!

It was fun to see some of the children dressed in their tutus for our annual birthday party. Before the festivities began though, many of us wanted to hang out with the children upstairs one last time, as we knew they would not be coming to the celebration. Josh snapped lots of scenic photos out of the third and fourth story windows, so you can see the beautiful farmlands around the facilities.

Lychee fruit, bananas, nectarines, watermelon, etc., were brought out in plenty to begin the celebration. We sang "Happy Birthday" to all the children and then ate the elaborately decorated cake. They even had such details as "AWAA" written on a white piece of chocolate, in honor of America World Adoption Association, which Visiting Orphans is a branch off of. My birthday wish was that these children have access to this amount and type of food everyday (well, minus the cake). They were so enthusiastic about all of it. Some ate until we thought they would pop!

We did things a bit backwards today, as after we ate cake, we went with the nannies to prepare dumplings for lunch. This year the new administrative director joined in the fun, and created some unique dumplings that demonstrated he is a "master chef!"

I was pleased to be able to hang out with Flower for a bit. I first met her back in 2007, and she now attends a massage school, but is back to the orphanage for the summer. As we said our goodbyes, some of the nannies handed out gifts of bracelets and necklaces. Saying goodbye is never easy, but it is through this experience where I truly feel like we mean something to the nannies.

I am excited to say we will be joining up with LIGHT to provide extra nutrition and protein to the children at Chaoyang, particularly those in the upstairs rooms that don't get much. They have a program that has been up and running, but the funds were running out, so was good timing for us to step in. I am hoping we can partner with this group even more in the near future. I have a few more specific stories I want to blog more about later, but for now I must get some sleep. Thanks for all the prayers that went up to make this trip so successful.

*A special thanks to my husband and to Liz Gividen for updating posts in my absence!

Tutus Anyone?

In the News...........

This morning we were in two local papers. I posted a photo of one that had multiple pictures. It was of the morning we spent at the park with the kids, and once again the headline lauded us as "golden haired, blue eyed," which really only describes three of us on the team. Today was also tutu day at the orphanage! As you can see from the photos, we had a lot of fun making/wearing them with the children. Even some nannies got in on it. We also spent a lot of time with the children upstairs, playing, singing, even reading scriptures to some of them. It warms the heart to see them settle down with a song or just begin to relax in our presence. It takes such little effort to make them smile, yet it goes a long way!

Looks like the elevator will not be finished before we leave, which is too bad. Most construction seems to go slowly here for some reason. I am sure that part of the reason is that everything is done the old fashioned way, by hand. The canteen (cafeteria) next door that was halfway finished last year seems to be no further along this year.

Today was our last full day here, so we enjoyed a hot pot meal and went out to the square one last time. We handed out glow sticks and glow balloons, and once again had a following. I think it will be good to get back somewhere where I won't stick out in a crowd so much, but then again, I think we will all miss that part a bit:) Tomorrow morning we will be back to the orphanage for what will most likely be a tearful goodbye. We then head to the airport for a short flight to Beijing. We are hoping it is our first flight to actually be start to finish on time. I am not sure whether or not I will get a chance to blog before our early Sunday morning flight, but I will try to check in.

Celebrate!

Park and Prizes

I'm not sure, but I think today is Thursday! We spent the morning at the People's Park riding carnival type rides with the children. It was fun seeing the smiles on their faces (unless they had been spinning too much), and we were excited to see that they had brought one child in a wheelchair that we requested, but disappointing to see that not all of children who should be there got to come. Next was lunch with the kids at KFC...boy, some of those little ones sure can put down the french fries, and I think some of them just learned the joys of ketchup!

The afternoon was spent having the ceremony to award the nursing contest prizes. It was decided to hold it at the nursing school instead of the orphanage so it could draw the attention of more nursing students. The ceremony was much more formal and organized than we anticipated. It was attended by many nursing students, officials, and media. It was funny because the front row was reserved with name tags in Chinese, except one English one marked "Toni" that I easily recognized:) None of it was interpreted for us, so we clapped when they did when each speaker spoke. Then it was my turn, and that was interpreted by Ying. I just told him that if I said anything offensive, please change what I said. It must have went okay, because at dinner the director asked what I did for a career, and responded that he could tell I was a teacher because I was simple and precise with what I stated. I think that was a compliment. Anyhow, we each left with a volunteer certificate (Mark and Angela, I have one for each of you), and it was fun to award the prizes to the top volunteers. However, between being very hot inside and a bit nervous, I was eager to get it over with. Following the ceremony we, our group and the nursing students, headed over to the orphanage to hand out with the kids some more. Despite all that has been accomplished, it felt good to get back to the focus of why we are here.

On a side note, please keep Josh in your thoughts. He has some teeth that are going to be pulled when we return to the states, and they are causing him quite a bit of pain right now, with some possible infection. Thanks!

Wednesday's Highlights

Wendesday's Update... Angela, you are missed!

Sorry I am a day behind, but I was so exhausted after a long day yesterday that I didn't have time to write before I crashed! One of the girls we met at the square came with us for the second day, which is always great to see. I know the group did a craft with the children representing "God so loved the world," and did a lot of playing. I don't have any photos from Wednesday morning, because I spent the morning in meetings with government officials to talk about how this past year's nursing contest went (we agreed to fund the awards for a contest last year to get local nursing students involved year round with physical therapy in the orphanage), as well as what to change. I knew very of little of what was being said, so nodded my head a lot in between translations! One thing I have learned over the years over here is that nothing is ever done quickly. With that said, we next ventured to the bank where we exchanged money for the awards and air conditioners that we were going to shop for. Ying and I then decided to walk to the restaurant to meet up with the rest of the group for lunch. Turns out it was way farther than the "couple blocks" we were told it was, so we walked a couple miles carrying backpacks in what was our hottest weather so far. I haven't been so happy to see a bottle of water in awhile. Even though the rest of the team was done eating, there was still plenty of food left.

We headed back to the orphanage for the afternoon, which I was thrilled to spend the time back doing what I love best, hanging with the kids. We left a bit early though so we could take showers before the water was turned off for 24 hours, and head to the local church for Bible study. It was such a joy to sing "Amazing Grace" in English while the rest of the room was singing in Chinese. After the study we were asked to introduce ourselves and sing a song. Most of us knew "Lord I Lift Your Name on High," and our audience was so gracious that it didn't matter how we sounded! The leader requested a group photo afterward, down in the sanctuary, which turned out more to be a photo session. We would finish with one photo, then a church member would grab someone else from the group for another one, then another person would jump in the photo, and so on. Bob was popular because they said he looked like "the man from KFC," and Josh was told by a few that he was "so handsome." Overall it was a wonderful experience.

 

Angela, if you are reading this, you were asked about so many times at church! You are loved and missed greatly here:)