Guangzhou

Guangzhou was a real bother for internet access. It was either very expensive in the hotel, or very third worldish on the rest of the island. With the limited amount of contact I had with my son I asked him to post so everyone would know we're ok. The last post was his contribution. I hope you enjoyed it.

Now this is what I wrote after the first day. I'll update more about life at home when I get a little more time. (It's time for a bath for a very tired little girl)

Guangzhou, Day 1

We’re in Guangzhou and I feel like we’ve been busy since we got here. We’re on an island and it’s beautifully green in the midst of the water and concrete of the city. The hotel is full of Chinese people, Americans with Chinese babies and children, and many internationals. It’s huge. We have a floor attendant who directs us to our room when we get off the elevator. When we walk out of our door she pushes the elevator button for us and shows us to the one of the six elevators, which is lit to go down. Our room is made up two times everyday; they make the bed in the morning and pull down the covers in the evening, taking care of trash and dirty towels both times along with the general cleaning in the morning.

It’s taken a while to get this posted because we no longer have free internet access in our room. It would cost 300RMB ($37.50) to use it for the time we’re here so will take this to the Blendz coffee shop in town and send it for the cost of a cup of tea:o)

We had an illustration of the Chinese concept of space this morning on our way to breakfast. Our elevator was fairly full at our floor (14th). At the next stop were two Indian men with a small rolling carry-on. They decided not to get on because it was too crowded for them. At the next stop were 2 Chinese people that entered. At the next stop were more Chinese that got on – five of them! The breakfast room was something else. It’s a buffet with a LOT of good food. But it is very difficult to have a relaxing meal because there are so many people and babies. They put us at a table for two. That didn’t make it with all the plates we go through trying to find something that Katie will eat. She never eats the same thing two days in a row, except maybe boiled eggs, and usually shakes her head and waves her hand no at most of the things we offer. Today Jim brought an egg back to the table for her. She started to crack and peel it open (she’s very meticulous about it) and found that it was soft boiled. That was the end of that. She ended up with lots of fruit and Cocoa puffs!

Kerry and Carlo Nuss are here with all three of their girls; the youngest is Katie’s age. We got to see them but did not get a chance to talk very long this morning. They were on their way out for a tour. This afternoon Kerry, Katie and I shopped a bit and then met everyone else for lunch. We sat Katie and Marissa together and they started to get to know each other. Carlo took a picture. I’ll see if I can get it posted on this for you. When we prayed together my heart melted with the thought of all these girls together, One American, 2 Chinese and 1 Indian, all together in one place and will be together at home in WV, learning about the Lord together when most of these girls would not have had the chance to hear about Him where they lived. God is so good!

There’s lots of great shops with the typical Chinese vocal enticement to come into their shop and then to bargain. The girl at the shop where I took my laundry asked Katie her name. So every time we pass she calls to her in her Chinese name. Of course Katie turns and smiles :o) As Kerry and I were walking near the park one woman started to talk to us quite a bit. After a few minutes it started to feel very “Leoish” (Read my post from Beijing, if you haven’t, to find out what that means). Sure enough she gave her pitch for her shop. And we walked down to it with her. She had some very nice things and I may go back. I’m hoping to find some traditional clothes to fit her now and then for Chinese New Year next year.


I just found out that Carlo’s camera is not digital so I can’t post that picture. In fact, our digital fell on the tile floor in the room and is not working! Unfortunately that means we can’t send any more pictures. We still have our film camera but Katie will be very disappointed when she can’t see her picture immediately. That is something she’s done since the first picture.

We just ordered out from Danny’s Bagels. They only deliver. I got Linguini with shrimp because I thought she would eat it. In fact she loved it. After each forkful she would rub her stomach and say with a laugh, “mmm, good-a”, Danny only gave us one fork and knife, so I used the knife to eat. I can’t wait to see her try to eat with her knife at breakfast tomorrow!

From the Other Side of the Great Wall

In a recent phone call from China, Jim and Connie Skinner announced their plans to maintain a permanent residence in the communist country. While this shocked many family members (including this reporter), the duo seemed unapologetic.
"We've found a better way here," said Connie. "Kung Pao is my new favorite chicken," added Jim.
Unconfirmed reports place Jim, Connie, and their new daughter Katie in the city of Guangzhou. Since leaving the western-style hotel, they have taken residence in one of the many mud huts popularized by the local working poor.
"Who needs the internet when you have all these fishing nets?" quipped Jim.

Stay tuned for further "news" updates as this reporter tempts the would-be defectors with the welcoming sight of Newark, NJ.



EDITOR'S NOTE: Although they have no internet access, Jim and Connie would like you to know that they are safe, on schedule, and having a good time with their Souvenir. Today they were to have gone to the U.S. Consulate to receive Katie's visa. They expect to land on U.S. soil Thursday evening.

The next wonder!

We just took Katie to dinner in the hotel restaurant. They have a buffet with lots of Chinese food and some western, like steak and pizza, hamburgs and ice cream (sort of). I would carry Katie to one of the stations and she would pick out something. Some of it had to be cooked, like the noodles, shrimp, mushrooms, clams, mussels, squid, and ox, (but no cat dog or snake :o) ) The service was great, like always in all the restaurants we've been to. The waitresses do everything for you and are always looking for more to do. Jim got in trouble for trying to pour his own tea yesterday.

We took turns going to get some food and getting things for Katie. She tasted some of my cake and wanted more. I told her Baba would take her and she put out her arms and actually let Jim carry her to get some cake! When they got back to the table I told Jim that the cherries on the cake were probably spiked because the orange segment was. So Jim picked up the cherry and pop it into his mouth to find out before he let Katie eat one. It came right back out again, not because it was a spiked cherry but because it was a tomato!

When she was finished eating, but not finished picking out food to bring back to the table and decide she didn't want it, I took her upstairs while Jim took care of the bill. When we got in the room, she was sure I was planning to put her to bed, so she went to the door and started to cry and scream! I distracted her with a few things but she kept going back to the door. I told her that Baba would take her out so she started to yell at the door "Baba!" When Jim came back, the next wonder is that she let him take her out of the room to run around the hotel a bit, without Mama! They came back and had the best time, but she would stop and run to me if Jim did something that she didn't trust for some reason, but most of the time she would run around laughing and yelling in Chinese, "Daddy what are you doing?" The first picture was taken during their romp. The second was taken while they were excercising after her bath. She laughs so hard she can't stand up. Right now, Jim is trying to quiet her down a bit. She's using the picture book of English words we bought her to teach us Chinese.

Tomorrow we're on our way to Guangzhou. I am so looking forward to getting on with the next leg of our trip. We travel on Saturday, have nothing to do on Sunday. Doctor's appointment and Visa photo on Monday, Consulate appointment on Tuesday, take her oath of citizenship on Wed and receive her visa packet. And then head home on Thursday!!!! She becomes a U.S. citizen as soon as we go through customs.

The great thing about Guangzhou is that the Nuss family will be there with their 3 daughters, one Katie's age. I hope to spend all of our free time together. Then she'll see Marissa when we get back home. She will love being with other children. She watches them quite a bit when we see them. There should be a lot of them in Guangzhou. There are 17 families from our adoption agency alone.

You'll next hear from us when we get to Guangzou.

Stone Bridge 2

Please go back to "Hello Stone Bridge" and skip past the first paragraph to new material.

JS

The magic of Sunflower seeds - Or Is It?

Thanks for all the messages you've been sending. They're a great encouragement. I wish I could answer them all, but we can't get onto the blog itself. It's weird. We can get to the area to post, but we can't view it done.

So much has gone on in a little over 24 hours it's hard to know where to begin. When I woke Katie up from her nap (I think it takes longer to wake her than put her to sleep) we got ready to walk to the park. She was very quiet and still was not letting Jim hold her. The park was a little further away than we thought but not too bad. It's a beautiful park and I would love to see it in the summer. I think it may be the same one Laurie was at with Shae. Katie was quiet the whole way there and also as we walked through the park, which is VERY unusual for her from what we've seen. As we walked into the park, she saw 2 little girls walking out and studied them quite a bit. She continued to stay quiet. We paid for her to go into the area wtih the playground equipment but she shook her head no at every single slide, swing, horse and everything else in there. She didn't want anything to do with it. Again we were very surprised. I still don't know for sure what was going on. We thought of a couple of possibilities. First we thought that maybe she was starting to realize that this situation was more permanent than she expected and was starting to grieve. Then we also considered that maybe she finally started to relax with us and was just plain tired from the last few days. But we really don't know what it was.

When we got to the restaurant for dinner though, it appeared that there was a switch that was flipped and she started to have a good old time. Actually too good of a time. She had been building up to this at the last few restaurants we had been to. She starts playing around a little too much and then she dares us to stop her in a fun way. It's kind of hard to deal with it all. The whole restaurant is watching these foreigners with a Chinese girl and we don't really know what is expected of us or how they will interpret what we do with her, so it's a little intimidating. Today we decided to get room service for lunch and not go to a restaurant. We had a great afternoon with her. She spent a lot of time playing with her dad. And then we went to another restaurant tonight. I was dreading the routine but when we went to the table there was a plate of toasted sunflower seeds waiting for us. Or I should say waiting for Katie. She spent the whole dinner time husking and eating them. She never ate anything else, but they kept her occupied the whole meal. It was wonderful.

There's a few other things going on. Yesterday she started using sign language with us to try to let us know what she wanted. Then I realized that since the first day the only things she has really said to us were the words for bathroom (there's two different ones for different needs.) I think she realized from the very beginning that we couldn't understand what she said. Maybe somebody told her, I don't know. But she's using sign language all over the place now.

Also, yesterday as we were leaving the park, we stopped to buy a few things from some venders at the entrance. She wanted a pinwheel but there was only one broken one left. She was still in her somber mood but started to brighten up when she saw it spinning in the wind so I knew I needed to find one for her. I picked her up and then...she gave me a hug! Up to now she was very comfortable just being held, but this was new and great. And we did find another pinwheel for her.

She still isn't letting Dad hold her. He's allowed to play with her and do things for her in our hotel room, but as soon as we walk out the door, she doesn't want to have anything to do with him. We figure she just doesn't want to be seen in public with him :o)

I just had to stop writing to take care of a little girl who wanted to sleep but kept waking up crying. Our Chinese guide, Maggie, helped us find out that her stomach hurt. SUNFLOWER SEEDS!!

Mama

Well, the word for today is "Mama" - always. Mama has to carry her. Mama has to go where she goes. Mama has to do everything for her. Mama can't be out of her sight. But as for "Baba", she doesn't want anything to do with him. Even though we were prepared for her possibly doing this with one of us, it's not easy to have it happen. It's good that she is beginning to come to Mama for her needs though and in time, she'll be doing the same with her Daddy.

This morning at breakfast she did let Daddy take her to pick out some food from the buffet. He pointed to the boiled eggs and asked her if she wanted one and she said "yes"! Later our guide asked her if she wanted something and she said "no"! We were very surprised to hear her English.

We went to a "clothing exhibition" today as we were shopping. In some ways it reminded us of a home show. Besides all kinds of clothing, there were salesmen with their microphones selling things like apple peelers and special clothes hangers.

I'm including a picture of the streets of Yinchuan City and a picture of Katie working hard with her chopsticks.

It's a beautiful day in Yinchuan today. We're heading to the park after her nap. Tomorrow it should go up to 60 degrees. That's a real switch from the last few days.

Hello Stone Bridge

I hope some of you have been able to read about our adventure in China. First of all, let me say that I miss my students at Stone Bridge. You are absolutely great young people with a great future ahead of you. It is a privilege to work with you. Next, China is such an interesting culture. As I ate breakfast this morning, there were several young lady waitresses who doted over our new daughter. Just a nod and there was service from one of the many available. It was so much fun. I realized that in China, everyone who wants a job has a job. Everywhere we have gone, all the stores and restaurants have been loaded with workers. They are everywhere, ready to serve in an instant. At the restaurant last night, we had three ladies watching over our table. When my tea cup was half empty, they were there to fill it up. They don't get paid a great deal, yet they are well trained and know the value of serving others. China is a well ordered society. In general, people are safe wherever you go. As you know, people will be people, so as our guide told us, be on guard for your wallet all the time, and when you buy things, know that you can be "had" (have the wool pulled over your eyes), there are many ready to take advantage of you. Watch out for the quality of the goods as well; for example, you could be sold a pair of Nikes that look authentic, have the name on them, yet are very cheap substitutes. In China, it is a policy of "buyer beware".

I have to go to the store now, so I hope I will not get "taken" while I am there. I'll try to post again soon.


Mr. S from the stone age.


It's Thursday night, and much has happened over the last day. Today we received three documents. The first was a birth certificate, saying she was born on May 1, 2001; her birth parents and location of birth is unknown.

The second document is a statement of abandonment. Dong Fang Ying was found at the gate of the Children's Welfare Institute of Ningxia Region. The local police tried to track down her parents or next of kin, and the search was unsuccessful.

The third document is the adoption registration certificate. These documents are needed to get a passport back to the USA.
On Friday, we will get the final documents needed to then fly to southern China for the last leg of the trip. It was special for me to receive these documents. Here now is a little girl with a home. There will be many adjustments, but she now has a home.

One nicety about adopting a four year old is that she is potty trained and dry at night as well. One difficulty is that she is a tyrant when it comes to going to bed. Fortunately, my wife has had extensive training in this battle of the will. So far, we are winning. I think.

One word unknown in this region is "Sports". There are about 40 cable channels in Yinchuan and exactly zero sports programs. None. Any time of day or night. All forty stations are in Chinese. They don't even mention "Clemson" or the Buffalo Sabres. And as for the Terps, that word would not even pass through anybody's mouth unless it was perhaps some sort of Chinese slang word (and up to this point, it has not yet been reported).

My wife is posting many of the details....I hope you can read some of them. I have greatly enjoyed hearing from many of you. Please keep writing! Go Bulldog soccer!

Until next time,

Mr. S

The Grandma trick

Katie got more and more tired and more and more wound up as the day went on yesterday. After dinner I gave her a bath and then of course when it was time to go to bed, she started to cry. Then I remembered, when my neice Heather and my kids were little and my mother was trying to put them to sleep at her house she would bounce them on the edge of the bed. Well if you've ever slept on a Chinese bed you know that it is not something that bounces. So I cradled her and bounced her on with my legs and her tone of crying immediately changed then slowly faded. She started to relax and finally went into a wonderful, long restful sleep. Thank you, Mom!!!.

While watching her behovior, I feel that she is emotionally about the age of a 2 year old. She is challenging everything. Jim let go of her hand while we were in the store for a split second and she was immediately gone, running around the corner and down the aisle.

Right now she's watching TV. There's a children's show on with cartoons, singing and dancing. The show has songs in English, too. Almost like how Sesame street teaches Spanish.

We have a free day today and it feels so good, though I would much rather be on our way home. We still have to wait for her passport to be ready before we go onto Guangzhou on Saturday. But we'll be home one week from Thursday.

We took these pictures while we were shopping yesterday. The woman with Katie and I is our guide, Maggie, from CCAI. She's been great and is always ready to help us out.

The second day

Two very tired parents from excitement, jet lag and lack of sleep and a daughter who does not like to sleep do not match very well. We were told by her caregiver at the orphanage that she sleeps about 1 and a half hours after lunch and then sleeps from 8pm to 6am. Well, she hasn't taken a nap yet and she didn't go to sleep until 11 last night. She gets angry when we insist that she stay on the bed. Nothing else seems to bother her. We needed to leave very soon after Jim picked her back up to the bed, so as we were leaving, she didn't want to hold his hand or have him carry her. Only mama. We got into a taxi and she was just about to doze off when we got to the notary's office. So while we were there she got into overdrive out of exhaustion. It took a while to get her settled down again. In the meantime, we got this picture with the glasses. She loves having her picture taken!

She is still delightful, even through our exhaustion. She has been smiling and laughing since she woke up this morning (except when we made her stay in bed). She imitates things we do after only seeing it once.

We talked to our sons this morning, our time, last night for you, using Skype. It's an internet phone system that doesn't cost anything. It was great. Sorry we missed you Karen. You were on your way back to school, or there already.

I hope the picture gets posted with this. We have a little bit of a process to get it on.

IT'S OFFICIAL!!

Right after our last post, we went to the bank to exchange money and then took a taxi to Civil Affairs office. When we walked in there were about a dozen precious children singing when they saw us they all began saying "hello" to us with beautiful smiles. They loved it when we said Nihao. Before we were settled in the office, Katie was brought into the room. Her eyes were bright and she had a beautiful smile on her face. We immediately said "nihao" to her. "Mama", "Baba". The caretakers explained and she loved it all. After a few minutes she was taken out and we took care of the business. We were hoping to unload a pile of our cash, but we still have to deposit it into the bank. When we were ready to leave, she had a coat on from the orphanage, but I had brought one for her. We asked if they wanted to keep it for another child. I was afraid that Katie would object because it had a wonderful giraffe in it. But she loves her purple coat. Then I brought out her new hat and mittens and she beamed!

From the civil affairs office we went off to get a picture taken of the three of us together, then to lunch. Boy did she eat. She likes noodles, meat and sweets. We loved watching her working with her chopsticks. She's not very good with them yet, but she sure works hard at it. She loved it all. Everything was so new to her.

We came back to the hotel to get a much needed rest. She takes a nap after lunch and we didn't sleep much last night. We laid her down in bed, and I laid down with her. She yawned a few times, and then - she realized the fun adventure had stopped for a while and started to cry. She was in this strange room with these strange people and she wasn't ready to sleep. So we let her explore. I got out markers, crayons and paper and she loves it. Right now she is coloring in the Strawberry Shortcake coloring book. She is very meticulous, it's surprising.

This afternoon we went to the adoption registration office. Another family was there that we knew were in the area. For those from the egroup is was Jenn and her husband with Samuel. We had been following them around all day. We both finished all the adoption paperwork and now it's official. Katie is a now a Skinner!

She just loves everything that's new. She's playing with the toys that we brought for her and keeps looking at me to be sure that I approve of what she's doing. Of course Baba was also playing with the ball with her.

We have so much to learn about her. She is beautiful and delightful. She also uiuiiiiiii bbbbbbhhhhbbbbjvgf cffgf (that was a bit of her typing) checks out EVERYTHING! Vff gghhgdxda and is fascinated with it all. Baba's sleeping and she's getting busier. Gotta go.

On Our way

We're on our way to meet Katie! Neither Jim nor I slept very well last night. A mixture of jet lag and excitement. Continue to pray for her. We had a difficult time exchanging our money. One little black mark on the bill and they won't accept it at the hotel. We still have to get that taken care of before we leave in ten minutes.

Yinchuan

We're in Yinchuan now. We got here about 12:30 p.m. our time, 11;30 pm Saturday for you. The city seems to be completely surrounded by brown. That's all we saw from the air. Even when we landed the evergreen trees seemed to be covered in brown. As always in China there is a huge contrast of everything. We can look out of our 5 star hotel window onto trash piles. But there is also a water park a short distance away. That surprised me.

Tomorrow we go to pick up Katie. I feel a strange mixture of excitement and fear. I have no idea how we will react when we meet her. I just hope we don't frighten her. Please continue to pray for all the changes that are coming to her.

I haven't been able to post a picture yet. but I think I've figured a way to do it. Keep looking. There are a lot of things that I have not been able to do with the internet. I've had email messages bounce back and sites that I can't open. But I am getting your emails that you have posted on the blog. Thank you for all your prayers and wishes for us and Katie.

Beijing

We’re in Beijing! And Mom, if you’re reading this, we’re OK!

We went out for a walk this morning and it was quite uneventful for a while until Leo introduced himself to us as a student of English. He said he wanted to practice his English so we began to talk to him and his teacher Sunny. He said that he was traveling to Chicago next week and began to walk with us. He was very friendly, found out that we are in the country to adopt and said that his professor can write Katie’s name in calligraphy for us. Their office was very close to our hotel. Is this starting to sound a little fishy. Well we walked to their office building with them and were hesitant about going up to their second floor. Some things convinced us that we wouldn’t be mugged so we went up. When we walked into their office the walls were covered with beautiful paintings. I’m not sure that they really are going to Chicago or that he is really an English student but after a little bit of bargaining, where I spent too much, we bought a calligraphy of Katie’s name. Their “professor” wrote it out for us. As it was drying they continued to try to get us to buy more pictures and even tried to get us to exchange a couple of five dollar bills that were in bad condition. She assured me that they were real. I just told her that the bills would be fine to use in Chicago.

Interestingly, after we took a long time leaving the building, Sunny and Leo came out. I think they were on their way to find their next customers.

Tomorrow we fly to Yinchuan!

Key word for China? Be Flexible

Every time we've traveled to China we've been told over and over and over and over. Be Flexible.
Well, it's time. Nothing big at all, just enough to remind us where we're going. Our hotel in Beijing has just been changed.

Another note:
So many people have told us that they are praying for us AND Katie. Thank you. It is such an encouragement to us. We know that God is taking care of getting her ready to come home.

China Schedule

This is our schedule for our trip.

3/9 - Depart from Reagan National Airport, stop in Newark and then on to Beijing.

3/10 - Arrive in Beijing in the afternoon and go to our hotel to relax and rest (finally) We'll spend a couple of days in Beijing.

3/12 - fly to Yinchuan

3/13 - pick up Katie. Finalize her adoption in the afternoon!!!

3/14 - 3/17 - take care of other legalities and hang out in Yinchuan with our daughter

3/18 - fly to Guangzhou

3/20 - visa photo and physical for Katie

3/21-3/22 - U.S. Consulate business

3/23 - fly to Beijing, to Newark and then home

I don't know if I'll be writing more until we get to Beijing. And of course not much exciting until the 13th.

Please Pray

Most of all I'm concerned about Katie and all the changes that are coming to her. I believe God has been preparing her, but it still is not going to be easy.

Pray for our family that is not traveling with us. Joe and Jonathan are mostly staying with the family of a friend. Older kids, Karen and Dave are at school and doing a lot of traveling during that time. Pete and Jenny will be the only ones staying at home. Though Pete does have concerns for his traveling laptop that we're bowering :o)

Pray for strength for us and wisdom to do only what is really needed before we leave. There are SO many possibilities!

Pray for rest for us too, before we leave. I haven't been sleeping very well.

Pray for Jenn and her family as they travel to the same place as us one day sooner to adopt their Samuel.

Interesting and exciting news

Yesterday I posted for Norma. Her little girl is from the same orphanage as Katie and she lives about 90 miles from me. I thought that maybe her daughter might recognize Katie.
Today, I was going through my papers for Katie and putting aside what I need to take with me. I came across an update I received from the orphanage in August. It mentioned the name of two of her favorite friends. One of them is Ou Yang Qing - Norma's daughter!!!!

I've also changed the format of the blog so that you can add comments. You should find a link for comments under each of my posts.

Be sure I hear from you while we're there!!!

Norma this is for you

Show these pictures to Ella. See if she remembers Dong Fang Ying. I received these pictures in June, so she was there then.

Ok, it's time to do something real with this. We're leaving for China in 6 days!
First, here's a picture of our daughter. (If I can figure out how to add it) Ah! I did it.
We heard on Friday 2/24 that our Travel Notice arrived at our adoption agency, CCAI. On, Wednesday March 1st we got confirmation of our U.S. Consulate appointment in Guangzhou for 3/21. So then it was a flurry of activity to get our travel scheduled. Whew!
All of Thursday I was physically and emotionally drained. A new friend I met in the Yinchuan Families egroup started her blog, so it motivated me to get something done, but this is it for now.
I'll try to write a little each day, though
Thanks, Jenn for the encouragement to get it going!!

Setting this up

This is the first time that I have ever blogged. I need to post something just to see what it would look like...so here it is. I hope to learn little by little how to do this.