almost home

We're in Hong Kong!  In less than 24 hours, we'll be in the air headed home, and we can't wait.  However, we slept well last night in nice accommodations, and we're looking forward to our day here.  Our plans right now are to go to the Victoria Peak.  We'll take a cable car up this mountain, and then hopefully we'll go to the Ripley's Believe it or Not auditorium.  There are also several restaurants up there, so that's probably where we'll have lunch too.  Then maybe back to the hotel for packing/swimming, and then sleep and fly home.

 

Thursday we spent a little time shopping for our souvenirs, and then we spent the afternoon getting to and from the U.S. Consulate office for the swearing of an oath.  This was kind of neat.  There were 2 shuttle buses full of families adopting that were taken to this office.  We each waited for our child's name to be called, and after about 40 families had received their paperwork, a lady at that office led us in a group oath.  She shared that there are approx. 9000 international adoptions each year, and about 3000 of those are China children.  Almost everyone we met here was adopting a special needs child.  It's really kind of neat to see all the families with all the different children and their needs.  That night we had dinner with one of the other Faith families.  Tim and Katie are similar to us in that they have 4 biological children, and they were doing their first adoption, and they are believers.  It was so nice to have dinner with them.

 

The hardest thing I have seen here with the adoption process is how many of these families are not Christians.  I guess I had on my rose colored glasses and thought that most of the families that would spend the time, money, etc to travel across the country for a special needs orphan would be Christians.  Not so.  We did meet quite a few that were, but there were also plenty that were not.  There is a man that owns a shop in the area, and he is a Christian.  As a free gift, he'll right your adopted child's name in Chinese and tell the meaning - it's really pretty.  While we were in there a lady asked him if he would be willing to do her other son's name -Jacob.  He smiled and said "good name, Biblical."  She kind of laughed and said that actually she was Buddhist.  Broke my heart.  I was near her little adopted girl at one point in the store, so I placed my hand on her and silently prayed that God would put her places with Christian influence.  Later this same woman tried to haggle on prices with the owner and then we think she lied to him saying she had run out of money, and asked if he would come down on his prices any more.  (He had already come off some for her.)  Tim offered to pay the difference, but she wouldn't take the money.  Then she walked out of the store and returned quickly with a 100 RMB bill.  We think she had the money, and she was just trying her hardest to get a lower price.  We also spent a good bit of time with a lady who prayed to her deceased mother.  The crazy part is that this woman was very likeable.  She had a big heart for orphans.  She and her husband have 3 biological children and 3 adopted, special needs children.  We need to be praying for orphans and for Christian families for these orphans.

 

Yesterday we spent our morning getting ready.  The two big girls and I ran out for 2 more things we wanted to purchase, and to pick up some food for our journey to Hong Kong.  When we got back, Lily was red-faced with tears.  Tim said she had cried big for about 20 minutes, and then she just hid herself in the bathroom.  She wasn't treating him very nicely, and it was killing him.  As long as I'm around though, she seems to be fine with him.  We all know that having Molly Kate and Annie around will help her bond with Tim too.  Plus, Chinese men have little if any facial hair, and several people have said his beard is probably a little frightening to her.  Who knows? 

 

I wish I had a little more time to blog this morning, but it's 10:30 a.m. here, and we still haven't had b'fast, so I'll blog later.  Pray for safe travel, seats together on the plane, and keep praying for bonding.