Set...

Well, the bags are packed. I got it down to one large suitcase and this wonderful bag. Deep within the recesses of my big, black suitcase I have 20 bottles for babies with cleft palates, a photo printer and paper and ink to print 200 photos, small packages for several children whose families are waiting to bring them home, all of my clothes, chocolate covered coffee beans, and other necessities for 10 days abroad, and these...

A couple of weeks ago I got the idea that it would be fun to take hair pretties for the girls we will be meeting. I knew the boys needed something too, so we settled on mirrors, and I mentioned it to various friends that I was collecting hair bows and mirrors to take with me. Recently the packages started arriving and we have had the fun of seeing all of the variety!

This little mirror is a very special gift from a little girl named Grace, who was adopted from China herself. This is her mirror and she decided to send it for the children in China who don't have mommies and daddies. Grace is 3, so a special thank you to a special girl.  Another friend's daughter made headbands to send. I feel so privileged to be the one to take these precious gifts with me

My flight departs from Newark, NJ tomorrow morning at 10:40.  I think I'm READY!!  I've checked and double checked that my passport is in my bag, that my camera battery is charged, and that I have the bag of medication I always take and never (yet, thankfully) use. So all that remains is to try to sleep tonight (though with a 15 hour flight ahead of me maybe it would be just as well not to...) and to get up in the morning and go.

Ready

The house is cleaned. The laundry is washed, dried, folded, and (mostly) ironed. There are meals in the freezer. The VPN is installed on my computer and iPhone (you can't access a lot of websites in China without a VPN) The suitcases are filling up. I'm writing out schedules so that everyone knows what to expect and do to keep things running while I'm gone. My to do list is almost completed. I'm almost ready.

Tomorrow I need to finish packing and do laundry again just so I'm sure it is as finished as it can possibly be when I leave on Saturday morning. Then it is all up to Keith and the crew for a while! They are very capable and I really don't worry about leaving them to fend for themselves. As a matter of fact, Keith is a pretty detail oriented person and I know I'll come home to the house at least as clean as I'm leaving it.

I am so blessed to be married to such a wonderful husband and daddy! The children look forward to spending more time than normal with him while I'm gone. They keep talking about all of the fun things they are going to do with Daddy! And I'm so glad because I have a hard enough time thinking of leaving them and I'm so glad they aren't acting too sad about it or it would be even harder! The few times Eliana has said that she wants to go with me have been hard enough!

I've been thinking about and preparing for this trip for long enough now. It is time to go. Keep praying for the team and for the children we will meet!

Single Digits, Visas, and a New Old Picture

NINE DAYS!! In nine days I leave for China. We have hit the single digits until departure phase of this journey, folks and I am getting more excited every day! I have suitcases in my bedroom and things are being added and my 'packing pile' is disappearing. As I promise to take more things such as packages for waiting children, special bottles for babies with cleft palates, etc. I begin to wonder how much clothing I will actually have room for. I may end up doing a lot of washing in the hotel sink and hoping it dries by morning! If I look a little damp and disheveled in all the pictures y'all have some grace, okay? Just remember that there are more important things than clothes!

On that note, guess what arrived at my house via FedEx today? My visa! Which means they will actually let me in the country when I get there! Woo! I always feel better when I have my passport back in my hands with the visa in it. It is so fun to flip through and see the different visas in there. Kazakhstan, China, Russia, now another one for China. I feel so blessed to have had the opportunities I've had. Every one of those trips are/were adoption or orphan related and I really marvel at the way God has called us to this ministry and how it has left such a deep impression on our lives!

Of course I've been thinking a lot about visiting the Shanghai CWI again and thinking about the time Eliana spent there. It is so hard to imagine a life without her or that we did not always belong to one another! You mean I existed without her and she lived somewhere else? No way! But she did. For 3 1/2 years she did. We don't know a lot about those years and we don't have a lot of pictures of her in that time period, so when another Shanghai mom recently posted some pictures of Shanghai kiddos we were so excited to see this one!


Eliana when she was still Wu Xing Yao!

I just read an article about one of the orphanages we plan to visit while in China. You can read it here. It is a fascinating read!

This is the last week to be entered in the iPad mini raffle/fundraiser. You can read the details here.  The drawing will be on Saturday evening and it is going to be fun! :)

Getting Ready

Lord willing, two weeks from now I will be in Shanghai!  Since Shanghai is where Eliana is from Keith and I spent our first week with her there. It is a special place full of incredible memories and I am so excited to be able to go back!

The SuperKids team is preparing to connect with children in orphanages in Shanghai and the other cities we will be in, we keep trying to think of ways to break the ice and alleviate some of the anxiety children may feel meeting a whole group of foreign looking and sounding people.  Here is a post Pat Marcus wrote about this.

One of the projects we plan to do is to take photos of them and then use this nifty little printer to print it out so that they can have a picture of themselves to keep. I am collecting hair bows for the little girls  (so they look and feel exceptionally beautiful in their pictures!) and mirrors for the boys so that they have a special little something all their own. When you think of how there are no mirrors that younger children can see and use in the orphanages you can imagine how much enjoyment a child could get from a small mirror!  We are even taking Velcro so that we can put mirrors where babies can enjoy them! 

Anyway, I've been trying out the photo printer to be sure I know how to run it and everything.  It is such a fun, amazing little thing!  The photo quality is great. And it is just so much fun to watch. It prints the colors in layers, so first you see just yellow, then the reds are added, and so forth until you have a beautiful, full color photo.  I really can't wait to do this with the children in China!

Can I ask y'all to be praying for the team and for the children we will be meeting?  The potential for good is so great,  pray for health and safety and strength so that lots of sweet kiddos can be blessed through this trip!

Also, a HUGE thank you to everyone who has donated toward my trip costs!  I appreciate it so, so much! 

You still have a chance to win the iPad mini through the rest of this week.  The drawing will be on Saturday evening at 7 PM, so if you want a chance to win be sure to donate before Saturday evening!
Here is a little refresher on how you can enter to win:

* Each $5 donation into my SuperKids fund gets you 1 entry into the drawing. $10 gets you two entries; $25 gets you 5; $100 gets you 20 and so on! (Just look on the top right of the blog for my “Donate” button! It’s easy to donate with a credit or debit card this way. It’s easy and safe and there is no charge to you! You do not have to have a paypal account to send us a donation! We will have a record of each donation, the amount donated and the giver’s information.)

One Month

One month from today, Lord willing, I will be boarding an airplane bound for China. I am really getting excited! It seems surreal in a way, to think of going back, to think of spending time with the children I have spent so much time thinking about and praying for in the 17 months since we were there to adopt Eliana. That trip changed our perspective on so many levels. You just can't go into an orphanage, no matter how nice it looks, and see the children and not be changed. You cannot walk out of those doors with a treasured daughter in your arms knowing that there are so many left who do not have families to cherish them without it changing the way you view life. Or at least we couldn't! And now I'm going back. Back to that same building that was home to our sweet daughter for the first 3 1/2 years of her life. And I'm so excited and scared all at the same time! I experience so many emotions when I think of Shanghai! I feel gratitude. The nannies there took care of my baby! The staff prepared her file so that she could be adopted! I also feel fear. I don't know what her life was like there. She doesn't talk about it much. She obviously doesn't want to. Will I find out more than I really want to know? But mostly I feel humbled and honored to be able to go back, to be able to help other children find families who will love them and cherish them as they deserve.

So right now I'm preparing on many levels. I'm making sure I have what I need. I'm getting my visa so that I can enter the country. I'm thinking about ways to break the ice with children who are nervous because of all of the unfamiliar people. And I'm also preparing my heart. I know it will be hard. I know it will be taxing physically and emotionally. I know I'm going to struggle seeing so many children in need of families. But I also know it will be worth every moment of it to be able to love on those children and to be able to provide more complete information to families considering bringing them home, not to mention the joy of being able to give families who are matched with a child the treasured gift of updates, photos, information, etc. about the child they are longing for.

Friends, can you join me in praying for the children we will meet? And for the team members who are going? If you have a child in any of the orphanages we will be visiting why don't you leave their name and which orphanage in the comments and, while I can't promise to meet them, I can promise to pray for them while we are there. It is going to be a wonderful trip!

Made it to Guangzhou!

Eliana is truly amazing!  Yesterday morning started early (have to love that good old jet lag!) and apparently we were a little too noisy because little Eliana was up by around 5.  We got all packed up and there was simply never a quiet time for her to be able to take a nap.  Check out time was noon and we were going to grab a quick bite to eat before our guide came at 12:30, but he came early so there was not time to get anything.  I had some snacks for her so I knew she would be fine for a bit.  So it was off to pick up the last of our paperwork in Shanghai.

Our guide then dropped us off at a shopping area where we had a couple of hours to browse and get something to eat.  I had her in the Ergo carrier and she fell asleep for a few minutes as we walked and grabbed some lunch at McDonald's.  By now we were all very tired!  Eliana does not really want Keith to carry her when we are out and about like that.  And while I am more than glad to do so it is exhausting!  She only weighs around 26 pounds, but even that gets heavy after a while!



Shopping in Shanghai!

Anyway, our guide picked us up around 3 to head to the airport.  Since we are here over one of the biggest Chinese holidays, we wanted to get there in plenty of time just in case it was overly crowded.  As it ended up, we still had about 2 hours to wait for our flight once we were through security.  We got something to eat for our, by now, very hungry little girl then found a place to sit down.  Eliana played and was generally sweet and happy.  I'll have to admit that by now it was become a bit of a struggle for me to be as sweet and happy as she was being!



Watching airplanes.

Finally we boarded the plane.  I really expected a struggle with needing to strap a very exhausted little 3 1/2-year-old into a seat.  But no, she was totally enchanted with the seat belt and buckle.  Throw her own personal light into the equation and a magazine out of the seat pocket and you had delight and entertainment for as much of the flight as she could keep her little eyes open. She did cry briefly when we were landing, but that was it.

She went soundly to sleep as we were driving to our hotel and only woke up briefly as I put her pj's on her.  She whispered her own special little sound she makes when she wants a bottle and made the accompanying hand motion.  I was more than glad to give her this comfort!  She barely even started drinking it before she was out again and now it is 7:15 AM and she is still asleep.