Orphanage Visit

I am really struggling with this post. Orphanages are sad places. My mind and heart are working to process what we experienced today and it is a very emotional ordeal.

We left the hotel at 7:30 this morning for the three hour van ride to Baotou to visit the orphanage where Caleb lived. Let me just say that riding for 6 hours in one day in a van with an active toddler and no car seat was no picnic. He slept some, but good grief I don't know how in the world we are ever going to survive the flight home.

When we got to the orphanage we put Caleb in the carrier. I wanted him to feel securely attached to me in a literal sense when he went back into that place. Here we are outside the gates of the orphanage.

Caleb has a friendly personality and usually loves to get down and run around but he was very quiet and serious when we approached and went inside. This orphanage is huge...all these buildings are full of children. Unimaginable.

 

This was the wall as we walked into the orphanage.

 



Several nannies excitedly approached and held out their arms to him and he shook his head "no" and held onto me! I was very happy about this!! We walked up to the room where he lived and some more nannies came over to greet him. He still refused to let them hold him and they pointed into a little kitchen area. Well, apparently he knew what this meant and signed to us to get down. (Did I tell y'all he knows quite a bit of sign language?!) He followed them in and we stood at the door. They got some treats out for him and told him to give them kisses and he'd get a treat. Clearly they know how to work my son. He kissed them, got his treat and ran back to me!!

 

We went to the room where he lived and another nanny grabbed him and hugged him tight. She told us he is a "very very smart boy" (our guide translated). He let her hug him but didn't really hug her back and quickly reached back for daddy!

 



 

His nanny said she wanted to show me his bed. I followed her and Steve followed me, carrying Caleb. As soon as they entered the room, Caleb started to cry and shake his head and sign "NO!" so Steve took him back out and I stayed long enough to take a quick pic. I'm assuming he was crying for more reasons than just that they'd made him sleep on pink sheets.

 



Next, we went to a room where my dear friend's daughter is currently waiting for her family to come get her. Jennie and I became fast and close friends after meeting early in our processes at a fellowship picnic our agency had. Our families got close as our kids are all close in age and we all have lots in common and we were overjoyed to be matched from the same orphanage! Caleb will always have a friend, right at home in Louisville who is from his same birthplace and orphanage! God is SO good! I took a lovey and a family picture album to this sweet girl and got some pictures and video for Jennie. I was trying to get a good pic of Caleb with her little girl, but those kids did not want to be still and pose for pictures like I had in mind! Oh well, we plan to have LOTS of future opportunities to capture our Asian cuties having fun together!

As we were leaving, one of the ladies that was in charge of adoption at the orphanage introduced us to this little boy. He is four years old and has hearing loss. She said he does not have a family yet and really wants to be adopted. She asked if we could help him find a family. Heartbreaking. There are no words.

We walked out of the orphanage and met the directors. We posed for a group photo with all the families here with us and the orphanage directors.

As we left, we stopped and took pictures at each child's "finding spot." This is the spot where they were left abandoned, found, and taken to the orphanage. This is very emotional for me and I am still processing it all. I have chosen not to share this as I feel protective of certain parts of our story as it is really Caleb's story to tell if and when he chooses to tell it. I want to be able to tell him as much as I can and to answer all the questions I will be able to answer for him as he grows and asks about his past. I have pictures to show him and memories stored up in my heart. I am falling more in love with this hilarious, playful, smart, handsome, fearfully and wonderfully made child every day. I grieve for the mother who felt him move within her and then made the unfathomable choice to leave him behind. I can't imagine her grief at feeling that she had no other choice and I will spend every moment I have left on this earth being incredibly grateful that she chose to give him life.

Passports and Inner Mongolia Musem

Last night we ate at the Italian restaurant in the hotel with the other families we are with. It was fun! Each family ordered their own pizza as they had it on special and it was super cheap and sounded great to all of us after lots of Chinese food all week. It was different than pizza at home, but delicious. They also served us some bruschetta type bread that we all enjoyed. Caleb wasn't a big fan of pizza so we clearly have some work to do:)

After dinner, we came back to our room. We had gone to the store earlier and I bought some Chinese baby food pouches. Caleb had already eaten most of the American ones I had packed! I thought he was still hungry since he didn't eat much pizza so I offered him some of the Chinese baby food. I couldn't read the package but it had a picture of sweet potatoes and apples, which he'd loved in the American version so I thought it was safe. He eagerly took one bite and then adamantly refused any more! Thankfully I had stuck some flavored instant oatmeal packages in my suitcase and we had bought some bananas at the store too, so he had oatmeal and banana for his supper! He took another bath which he loved as much as the first one and then it was bedtime. I offered him a bottle which he refused and then I sat on the bed and cradled him and began singing to him. He got really still and just looked up into my eyes as I sang and gradually I watched his eyes close and he fell sound asleep in my arms! I laid him in the crib at 8:30 and we didn't hear a single peep out of him until 5:45 this morning! Much better than the previous night! He fussed just a tiny bit when he awoke but quickly calmed and gave us PRECIOUS early morning smiles!

We all felt much better today when we got up after a good night's sleep! We skyped the kids at home and ate at the breakfast buffet and then this morning all three of our American families, along with our guide and driver piled into a van and went to an official government building to obtain passports for the kids to come home. (There are no car seats in China, we all just held our kids!) We made one stop where the dads all went inside a building to check all the adoption documents for any errors. They quickly came back out and we went to the next stop which was where the passports were issued. This did not take long at all and soon we were each handed a Chinese passport for our child! We were about to take pictures and our guide stopped us and told us there were no pictures permitted at this government building.

Our official decree of adoption!

After our official business was done, we went to a museum of Inner Mongolia. Caleb fell asleep in the van for just a few minutes sitting on Steve's lap. (We were told he takes one nap a day, but yesterday he fell asleep in the morning during the signing of the adoption documents and then today he fell asleep in the morning in the van and then again inside the museum, so we are not sure if he is just on a weird schedule and is tired from waking up so early or if he may need two naps a day.)

 

Caleb and I out front of the museum with the city behind us.

The museum was really neat. Our guide told us a lot of things about Inner Mongolia and the history of the area. Apparently, Inner Mongolia has a LOT of dinosaur fossils! We saw the second largest complete dinosaur skeleton in the world and it was found right here where Caleb is from!

 

As we walked around the museum we had our first experience with people taking cell phone pictures and even video of us! We had heard that this happens to a lot of people when the go to China for adoption, especially in certain parts. It is very rare to see a "foreigner" in Inner Mongolia, and our guide told us that we should take the attention as a complement. She said they think we look different and beautiful and they want to take pictures to show their friends. It is BIZARRE. We just laughed about it and joked about them thinking we are celebrities! (For the record, we are the ONLY non Chinese people we have seen so far in IM!)

 

Caleb had barely dozed off in the van before we got to the museum so he was very sleepy. He fell asleep in the carrier for about 30 or 40 minutes.

 



We saw the dinosaur exhibit, an exhibit all about space exploration in China and another exhibit all about Inner Mongolian history. I loved being able to learn about my son's birth place!

This picture is a Yurt (on a cart). Historically, Inner Mongolian people lived in these!

This picture is in the museum and represents the beauty in nature in Inner Mongolia.

 

 

The outside of the building was very modern looking. Our guide told us it was very new and that they had recently moved into the new building and had to take great care in moving all the exhibits to the new location.

 



 

When we left the museum we asked our guide if they could PLEASE take us somewhere for some American food and they took us to a KFC!! The ladies stayed in the van with the kids and the guys jumped out and got the food. They apparently had to cross some crazy traffic on foot so I was glad we stayed behind! They came back and Steve had gotten us popcorn chicken and fries. The popcorn chicken was very spicy and sometimes made of dark meat, so it was different than in the US but DELICIOUS. A very welcomed taste of home! Caleb loved it too!! We ate it in the van and then played in the hotel room and outside for awhile. Caleb loves to run around outside! We figured the fresh air would be good for him (although the air here is never very "fresh"!!! The smog and pollution are really bad!) so we took him outside for some play time.

 

 

 





We came inside and now Caleb is napping. Steve and the other guys went with our guide to a special shop to look at souvenirs from Inner Mongolia.

Caleb seems to be doing great. He is letting me put him to sleep and for the most part seems to be listening well to us and beginning to trust us! We feel your prayers and appreciate them so very much!! Tomorrow we visit the orphanage. It promises to be an emotional day as our kids venture back to that place and say goodbye forever and leave with us as their true and legal parents. Please keep their little hearts in your prayers as they do this. Even though they are young, it is a very big day for them and for us as we see the reality of their earliest days.

Much love and more soon!!

Orphan NO MORE! He's a Porter!!!

Gao Wen Qi, Status: abandoned orphan  Caleb David Bao Porter, Status: Treasured Son!!!

He is ours! We are officially his parents! It is completely surreal to think about and wrap my brain around it all!

Monday morning we woke up early, skyped our kids back home and ate the breakfast buffet. We hadn't slept all that well despite our best efforts (and medications!). After we got cleaned up we ventured out to the store for supplies with our guide and the other couples here with us for adoption. We walked several blocks to a mall. Malls in China are nothing like malls at home. They are completely vertical. There are countless floors and escalators that just go up forever! Another family in our group bought a stroller and some toys and then we went to the supermarket. The grocery store was in the basement of another similar shopping center/mall with many floors and many different types of shops. We got some peanut butter, jelly, bread and a few snacks for the room so we wouldn't have to eat out every single meal. We made it back to the hotel with about half an hour before we were to meet in the hotel lobby for our "gotcha." We put our purchases away, and made sure our diaper bag was prepared and then we met in our room with the other couples for a prayer time before we went down to the lobby. I cannot overstate how wonderful it is to have other American like minded friends here with us on this journey! God has really blessed us with our travel companions!

We got down to the lobby and our guide was waiting for us. We all sat down and we were all so nervous. The orphanage van was running a few minutes late, so we waited nervously for a few minutes. We all had suckers or treats of some sort ready to offer our children. Often, the children are very scared at gotcha. They can't comprehend what is going on! They haven't spent months or years preparing as the parents have and to them it must feel like an alien abduction! They are handed over to strangers who look, smell, sound and act differently than anything they've ever known! We were all ready to offer some treats to ease their fears and soothe them.

The van pulled up outside and we all got to our feet. After that, all I remember is seeing Caleb holding the hand of a nanny walking towards us. We walked toward him and his nanny said his Chinese name and he reached up for us! We swooped him into our arms and hugged his neck! We spent the next few minutes huddled together talking to him and loving on him.

 We quickly learned that he loves to be active and walking around. We took turns walking around with him while the other was filling out paper work. The lady that brought the children from the orphanage gave me a copy of his "finding ad" and a cd full of pictures of him from the time that he was found abandoned and brought into the orphanage up through the present! These items are such treasures to me as I didn't get to be there for the first 20 months of his life, so anything I can get from that time is so valuable. (When an orphan is found abandoned in China, an ad with the child's picture and where he/she was found is run in the local newspaper to give the birth parents an opportunity to come forward and claim the child).

 We had twenty four hours of time with him before the official adoption, known as the integration period. We took him up to our room and played with him. He is so playful! He loves to laugh and play and get into everything! We spent some time outside blowing bubbles and some time inside playing with some toys we brought. Overall he did very well. He started to get tired and we tried to get him to relax enough to fall asleep on one of us but he was fighting it. We tried putting him in the crib and he seemed very afraid, so we got him out and played a bit more. Eventually he melted down. I'm sure he was exhausted physically and emotionally from all the change. He cried and screamed and didn't want to be touched at all. We picked him up and put him in the crib and sat on the floor on either side of him and sang to him and he cried for maybe a minute before he was sound asleep. He slept about 45 minutes. He woke up crying, but quickly calmed and then was back to his playful, active, happy self.

We went to dinner at the hotel restaurant with one of the other families here. Both the babies ate like there was no tomorrow. That is very common among kids who have been in orphanages. Caleb wants to have food with him at all times. We let him carry around a Gerber Puff in each hand pretty much all day. Sometimes these kids haven't had enough to eat (though Caleb doesn't look like he's missed too many meals!) and it takes them awhile to trust their new parents and to learn that they will always be fed. It is sad, but we will love him through it and allow him to know that the food is there as he learns to trust us.

 After dinner we gave him a bath. We weren't sure how this would go as we have heard lots of kids are afraid of baths at first. Well, he LOVED it! In fact, he did NOT want to get out! He even stuck his face in the water and blew bubbles! It was so cute! It was fantastic to get him clean and smelling good. He had not been bathed in awhile. We finally made him get out when the water had turned cold and his skin was super pruned.

 The orphanage said he was still taking bottles, but so far he won't take one for us. I don't know if he doesn't like the American formula or if he is just getting enough at mealtime and doesn't need the nutrition or why he isn't interested. I offered him a bottle after his bath but he refused it, so we brushed his teeth and got him all ready for bed. This time he let me sing him to sleep in my arms! It was awesome! I laid him down and he slept in his crib for about 3 hours and then at about 11:30 he woke up crying. I picked him up and cuddled him close and he fell back to sleep. This time, however when I tried to lay him back down he cried again. He seemed scared, so we put him in bed with us and he slept there till about 4:45 this morning at which time he was up and ready for the day, full of energy.

We skyped the kids at home and ate the breakfast buffet again and then this morning, we went to a meeting room here in the hotel and completed the adoption. A civil affairs officer and some notaries came and we did a bunch of paper work and an interview and he officially became our son. Caleb fell asleep on me during all the paperwork. (That is what happens when one wakes up at the ungodly hour that he did!!)

We played and ate lunch and now he is napping.


Please keep us in your prayers as we continue to get to know him and earn his trust. He will grieve the loss of all that he has known and we have seen glimpses of that already. Also, both Steve and I are desperately missing Jasmine and Joshua. We really don't know how we will possibly survive until we see them again...it feels so far away! Please pray that we can move past this homesickness so that we can be our very best for Caleb in this most tender time!! We love and appreciate all of you and we can't wait to be home as a family!!

The Great Wall (Saturday Part 2) and arrival to Hohhot (Sunday)

After our time at New Hope, we met up with another couple that our guide was serving and went to lunch and to visit the Great Wall of China. We went to lunch at a Chinese "hot pot" restaurant. Everyone has a hot pot full of broth spiced to their liking and they bring out many meats and vegetables to cook in your hot pot. It was sort of like a fondue type of experience, but very Chinese. It was pretty good. I was surprised by how much I liked some of the vegetables. The boiled meats were ok but not all that great.

 

They brought us these little juice box things with a very thick, sweet tea in them. It was supposed to balance out the spiciness of the food. 

 

After lunch we headed to the Great Wall. It took us two hours to get there and we were still in Beijing!! I cannot over state how massive that city is!! We rode a chairlift up to the great wall and got to hike on it for awhile. It is truly unbelievably amazing. It is 4,000 miles long...longer than the breadth of the USA! It was built over hundreds of years by different emperors, starting 2,000 years ago! I can't fathom how they did it. It is way up in the mountains and made of large rocks. Our guide told us fascinating things about Chinese history as we walked.

 

Here we are on the chair lift.

 

 

The view looking behind us on the chair lift.

 

Standing on the Great Wall. With my honey. Surreal.

 

This taken through the window of one of the watchtowers.

A group shot of all of us. Our guide, Angela, on the far left and then Tim and Karen, another couple, here for adoption, that Angela was serving.



We hiked for awhile and took a lot of pictures and enjoyed the view, then we rode down the mountain on a toboggan! It was so much fun!!

 

After the Great Wall, we went to dinner. This time our guide took us to a restaurant where we could try famous Peking Duck. It was ok, but not my favorite here. Though I've been pleasantly surprised by how good the food has been, I must admit I am really ready for some good old American food!!

 

We went back to our hotel after dinner. We are still not quite acclimated to the time change. I've been falling asleep early and then waking up super early...like 4 or 5 am wide awake. I am never wide awake early in the morning at home!

 

We checked out of our hotel Sunday morning and our wonderful guide took us to the airport. There we met up with two other families from our agency who are also here for adoption. We will be with these families for the remainder of our trip...up until we say goodbye to them at the Chicago airport! We were SO happy to finally meet as we had connected through facebook but never met in person. We are so excited to have other Americans to talk to and to go through this process with likeminded friends!! We had a safe and uneventful (short) flight to Hohhhot and are all checked in at the Sheraton Hotel. It is lovely and so far we are having much better luck with internet here!

 

Tomorrow, around 11 am, we will meet Caleb for the first time! They are bringing our babies to us at our hotel! We have a guide here who is serving all three families and she will be helping us and serving as our translator here in Hohhot.

 

Please be in prayer for Caleb. Though we have been preparing for him for quite some time, we will be new and strange and probably quite scary to him at first! Please pray for his heart to be open and prepared for us and that we can bond with him and ease his fears quickly! 

I'll post about Gotcha Day as soon as I can!!!

New Hope Foster Home (Saturday part 1)

Saturday we visited New Hope Foster Home. Our wonderful guide, Angela, picked us up at the hotel and we set out. We drove about an hour to the outskirts of Beijing and stopped for some fresh fruit to take as a gift to the nannies and children there. The fruit market was small and the lady inside kept pointing at me and talking to Angela. At one point she walked over and touched my arm in an odd way. Angela explained that the lady had many questions as they don't see many westerners there. She explained we were here for an adoption and the lady had many questions about that. She also said that when she was touching me she was telling Angela she thought I must be freezing. I had a hoodie on and was nice and toasty. Chinese people bundle up and wear crazy amounts of layers. They keep their buildings burning up. I feel like I've been consistently hotter on this trip than any time before in my life and I am a very cold natured person. Outside it has been pleasant 60s to 70s but they keep their buildings very hot and they don't have a way to turn on the air yet because the government controls when air conditioning can be turned on and they say it is too early. So we are hot all the time.

We got to New Hope and were able to deliver the fruit we had purchased as well as a big suitcase full of supplies that we brought. New Hope Foster Home started in the late 90s by a Christian couple who opened their home to care for sick orphans that would otherwise die. Their story is amazing. I just read about it in the book "House of Hope" by Elisabeth Gifford. It quickly grew into a large foster home in Beijing and they have a few other facilities in other provinces, including Maria's Big House of Hope in Louyang. This was a very full circle moment for me as my first thoughts of adoption were triggered several years ago when I read the book "Choosing to See" by Mary Beth Chapman. The Chapmans lost their daughter, Maria, adopted from China in a tragic accident and the book told the story of their amazing journey of faith and healing. The Chapman family got involved with the founders of New Hope and when they opened the facility in Louyang, they named it for Maria. When we found out Caleb had been at New Hope, we contacted them and asked them if we could come visit. They were very welcoming to us and we were able to get a suitcase of supplies to bring them from the US and Show Hope (the orphan care foundation that the Chapman family started) paid the extra checked bag fee for us! We were so blessed to be able to help other orphans as we make our son "one less."

New Hope is an amazing place. They take great care of the kids and treasure them. I was able to see the room Caleb has had and the bed he has slept in for the past year. Here is the place where he was given his daily bath.

This is me taking in the room where he slept.

This sign was hung above the door to the bedroom. I cried when I saw it.

 

Caleb's bed.

After seeing the inside of the home, we were taken outside where many children were playing with nannies. Caleb's nanny recognized us from showing Caleb our pictures! She was very excited to meet us! She came over to us and very excitedly began talking. Angela translated for us and she was telling us how she was so glad to meet us and how much she loved Caleb. She said she was so very sad when they took him to back to the orphanage for adoption and she begged us to send her pictures for years to come so she could always know how he was doing. She really seemed to genuinely love him like a son. She told us we were so lucky to get to be his parents!! This meant the world to me! Many people have told us that he is lucky to be coming into our family and while we appreciate that as the compliment that it is meant to be, we feel that we are the lucky ones to get to experience this amazing journey and the blessing of who he will be in our family. It was so kind of her to say this! She told us many things about him, that he is pleasant and fun and busy and happy. She said he loves to eat and we laughed about how that means he will be a perfect fit for our family! She also told me his daily schedule and routine. She showed us many pictures of him on her cell phone and told us that she misses him so much. She wanted a picture taken with us and we absolutely wanted one with her! What an amazing blessing. I thanked her for loving my son so much for me until I could get to him!

 

We spent time outside playing with the children. I got the privilege of loving on a little boy that a friend of mine is adopting. I've never met her as they live in another state, but we connected through our agency's facebook group. I was able to send her pictures of her son and get some video for her as well. These children are beyond precious. It was so heartbreaking to know that they were all abandoned but I am so thankful that they are being well cared for now and I pray that every one of them finds a loving forever family!!

 

This is me, squeezing my friend's son and telling him his mama is coming soon!

 

These sweet boys were full of love for us!

This beautiful little girl had a thing for my husband! She just wanted him to hold her!! She needs a loving daddy!!



 

 

"Orphans are easier to ignore before you know their names. They are easier to ignore before you see their faces. It is easier to pretend they're not real before you hold them in your arms. But once you do, everything changes."  David Platt, Radical

 





 



Getting to Beijing!!

We are in Beijing! It is so surreal. After all this time and working toward this goal, we are in our son's birth country just two days away from having him in our arms!!

We left Louisville at abut 10:40 am Thursday 3/20. We got up and took the kids to school and then  my parents took us to the airport. It worked out well to have that routine for the kids stay normal and they were super excited because it was Grandparents day at their school and they were having a special program and all their local grandparents were coming to school to see their program, visit their classroom and see their school. We took them to the school parking lot and got out and gave them our last goodbye loves instead of dropping them in the car line as usual. I really tried to hold it together but the kids could tell I was getting teary. Thankfully, instead of getting sad, they just made fun of me for being a cry baby. Good thing they didn't see me after we pulled away!!

We had a short flight to Chicago on a TINY airplane. I was so claustrophobic. It was terrible. We couldn't even stand up straight in the aisle. Thankfully it was only 50 minutes or so before we landed and got off that plane. I do not look forward to doing that again with a 20 month old after our loooong flight to get  home! We grabbed some lunch at the airport in Chicago and ate quickly, went through our passport and visa check and then boarded the flight to Beijing. Thankfully, this plane was much better. It felt like it was a hundred times bigger than that dinky thing that took us to Chicago!We originally had another person in our row of three seats, but the flight was not full and the flight attendant was very helpful in re-arranging people to maximize comfort. She saw our long legs and let the other lady in our row move to another row where there was only one other person. I don't think we would have made it if she hadn't done that. Airplanes are NOT made for tall people. It was so uncomfortable. We were in economy plus which we upgraded to for extra legroom. We kept joking about taking out an extra mortgage or something so we could upgrade to first class on the way home. I'm also not looking forward to that never ending flight with a 20 month old, but am SO glad we bought him a ticket so we know we'll have the whole row for the three of us!!

We had a window seat which I was really looking forward to, but we were right on the wing! The wings of a 777 are MASSIVE. We basically could hardly see anything but the wing, but it didn't matter anyway because they darkened the plane and asked us to close our windows for most of the flight so people could sleep. We tried to sleep but couldn't get comfortable enough. We watched some movies and some TV, read our books and worked crossword puzzles on Steve's phone. They have  a decent selection of TV and movies on demand, but the touch screens were not very good. I watched "The Book Thief" and Steve watched the recent Nelson Mandela movie. I had thought I'd watch more movies but ended up feeling restless and needing to stick with lighthearted stuff. They had some episodes of Friends that were in English with Chinese subtitles so that was fun.

The flight pattern from Chicago to Beijing takes you way up north over Canada and Alaska and then west to Beijing. The screens had an option that showed you the flight pattern and where you were, altitude, time remaining, km travelled, etc. It was very cold in the air. It read an external air temperature of -80 for most of the flight the windows got a bit icy! It was also weird that it was light outside for the entire trip. Because of the areas we were traveling it was daytime everywhere we flew while we were flying over!

We landed at about 3:40 pm local time (3:40 am home time!). We went through customs which was super easy. It was basically just a couple guys watching us walk by and randomly selecting bags to be scanned. They didn't open a single bag that we saw! Definitely not like the TSA at home!! I know going through customs in Chicago on the way home will be a way different story!! Our guide met us as we came through customs. She had a sign with our names on it. She had a van and a driver and they brought us to our hotel.

Beijing is beyond huge. Over 20 million people. Huge buildings packed in everywhere! It is significantly larger than NYC. Hard to conceptualize and we've only seen a fraction of it!! They drive like MANIACS here and traffic is insane. We had heard about the crazy driving and it definitely lived up to its reputation!

We got checked into our room and I took a quick shower and then we met our guide in the lobby along with another adopting family she is currently serving and we all went to dinner. I had heard that Chinese food is WAY better in China and boy is that true! I always thought I didn't really like Chinese food, but the authentic Beijing dinner we had was amazing!! Our guide ordered for us and everything was family style, meaning we rotated the turntable and served ourselves out of the large portions they brought for us all to share. It was super yummy.

After dinner, we hit the sack. We'd been up over 26 hours at that point and basically fell into bed. As I'm writing this, it is Saturday night in China and today we visited the New Hope Foster Home and the Great Wall of China. I can't wait to blog about that, but I'm so tired...the jet lag is still killing me! Pictures are taking forever to load...tomorrow morning we fly to Hohhot,  Inner Mongolia where we will meet Caleb on Monday. Hopefully we won't have internet issues there like we've had here. We moved rooms in the hotel tonight because we had problems with our internet in the other room. It works now, but is slow and the pictures take forever to load. I have lots of pictures I want to share, so hopefully I can do that tomorrow! It was an awesome day and I can't wait to tell you all about it!

The Lord has done this and it is marvelous in our eyes Psalm 118:23

So much to catch up on!! The last month (or 3!!) has been a blur of activity and happenings in the Porter house. Lots of exciting news!
 
First, as of December 2013, our adoption is FULLY FUNDED!!! WOOHOOOO!!! Praise the Lord!! When we started this journey, just about a year ago right now, we knew without a doubt that God was leading us to this, but we had no idea how we would pay for it. We both have good jobs and are in no way struggling to provide for our family, but we certainly did not have an extra $35K just lying around! We stepped out in faith knowing that if God was truly calling us to this, he would be faithful...and he truly has!!  We used savings to start the process and we were blessed to receive 4 grants that took care of over a third of the cost. The rest we raised. Through purchasing cookie dough, eating at Chick-fil-a, giving us your old stuff for our huge yardsale and donating generously to our Both Hands project, YOU helped us get here. We cannot express our gratitude enough. Seeing God's provision and perfect timing in our funding along the way strengthened our faith and humbled us.

On January 3rd we received word that China had issued our Letter of Acceptance (LOA). This is the big important document that leads into the final leg of the process. We had to wait for it to come via FedEx from our agency and then sign and return it to them so that they could send it back to China.  After this, we applied to United States Custom and Immigration Services to allow us to bring Caleb into the US as a citizen. That was approved on January 28th. Steve and I also obtained our travel visas in January. On Monday of this week, after China re-opened from their week long New Years festivities, our paperwork was dropped off in China to get Caleb a visa to leave China and enter the US. This typically takes about two weeks but we've been told it could be slightly delayed due to the back log from being closed for their holiday. After that process is complete, we wait a few weeks for travel approval! It is feasible that we could have that travel approval in a month or a little more! We are planning for travel at the very end of March or the early part of April!

We are finished with adoption paperwork until we are in China finalizing the adoption! The next task we will have is to book our flights! While we are waiting, we have a massive amount of training we are doing before we can travel. Our agency requires 9.5 hours of online video training and then a workbook from each of us. This is really excellent training about taking care of these precious kids that have had such a rough start in life. It is intimidating and it feels like a lot of work (it doesn't feel like we are done with adoption paper work with all this to do!!) but we know it is vital that we are prepared for what we may face and how different this will be than when we welcomed our "bio" kids into our family.

Yesterday, we received our final update and pictures! This included his current height, weight and foot length so that we know what to pack for him! We also found at this time, that he is in a group foster home in Beijing! This is great news! It is a foster home run by Christians and has an excellent reputation. Though it is still a group home and not a family type situation, they have much smaller caregiver to child ratios (1:2) than the orphanages. Also, this gave us additional information on him and additional pictures through their website! Another mom from our agency's facebook group recently adopted a girl that had been at this foster home and she was able to visit it when she was in China. She had wonderful things to say!

I love the attentive look on his face as he plays!!

We have been busy in our home this month preparing for his homecoming! We moved my office out of the fourth bedroom and into the basement and converted it into a nursery! It was a lot of work, but oh so much fun to see it nearing completion! We still have a few details to finish up, but our boy is coming home to a panda bear themed nursery! While we were at it, we decided to paint and redecorate our bedroom and upstairs hallway as well.

Look closely...do you see what he is looking at?? This was the BEST treat!! Last night we got pictures from the foster home of him looking at the family photo album we sent him!!!

This one really choked me up. He's staring at his brother and sister!!!

His nannies are telling him that we are his family and that we are coming!! I know he is so small, but I can't tell you what it means to me to know this!!! My sweet sweet boy is being told that he has a family! In a few weeks, he will be in our arms. Forever! What a miracle!

The Lord has indeed done this and it is marvelous in our eyes!!