The Orphanage Visit

Hubby Gene here once again. I'll talk a little about our orphanage visit on Friday, though I am sure Keri will post her perspective at some point. We drove from Guangzhou to Maoming starting early in the morning--departing at 6:30 a.m. It's about 5 hours to this neighboring city to the southwest. This is where Zoey was found and lived her life up until a few days ago.

Maoming is much smaller than Guangzhou. It's filled with tens of thousands of people on mopeds. I've never seen so many motor scooters. We got to the orphanage just before lunch time. The staff led us up to the fourth floor playroom, where we met many of the caregivers. We got pictures of several children whose Lifeline parents asked us in advance to contact. We gave out some care packages to these kids and talked with the orphanage director.

Then we met Zoey's foster mom. It was really a rather unemotional experience, which surprised us. Zoey cried when she and some other teachers left the room, which was one of the few times she has showed any kind of great emotion, so we took that as a good sign. We gave her foster mom a gift and soon left the room. Our travel group had gathered some money and given it to the orphanage and they showed us the large pile of diapers they were able to purchase with the money.

The orphanage was comparatively nice, based on others Keri and I have seen around the world. They kids had good food, a roof over their heads, indoor plumbing and obviously had some good education resources. They took us to Zoey's preschool classroom and we saw her little chair with her Chinese name printed on the back of it. Her former teachers played with her there a few minutes.

Finally, they took us around front to Zoey's "finding spot"--the place where she was abandoned. We posed for a picture there, but neither Keri nor I felt like smiling. Zoey is abandoned no more, so we felt that we kinda checked that off our bucket list and were soon ready to move on. The orphanage director treated us to a nice lunch, and then we started the long ride back to Guangzhou.

I should mention that about 2/3 of the way back the headlights went out on the bus, so the driver kept going, on the highway, in the pitch black dark, and we were all scared to death. Keri started singing "Jesus, Take the Wheel" to lighten the mood and after some prayer and nail biting we arrived safely back at the hotel. I was gonna do room service at that point, since we were so tired and it was around 8:00 p.m., but we found out a room service hamburger was $30, so I opted for McDonald's instead.

The orphanage visit did shed some light on Zoey on the behavioral side. Honestly, though, we will have to wait until we get home to get her on a regular schedule and begin addressing her needs in earnest. The visit was really just a puzzle piece for us, and hopefully God will show us how this fits in her personality and behavior as we get a few months down the road.

Zoey is really a sweetheart. We love her smile and her laugh. She readily reaches for Keri and has begun repeating English words when we read to her. When she goes bathroom she says "bye bye" to her poop as it goes down the toilet. Keri has pulled out some matching outfits, which Eden just loves, and we've gotten lots of great pictures.

Today (Saturday) is more paperwork and finalizing matters before Monday's U.S. Consulate appointment. Just a few days left now before we hit the airport for home. Keri and I are both ready to be back in the States. We continue to ask for your prayers for us for safe travel, for Zoey's bonding and for God to be honored through our actions and speech here on the other side of the world.

Orphanage and Finding Place

Today we got up a little later and left around 9:30 a.m. to visit Eden's orphanage in Wuhan as well as her "finding place." Both experiences were a little different than we anticipated.

The orphanage was quite large and cares for about 600 children (half at the orphanage, the other half in foster-care), most of whom have some kind of mental or physical birth defect. We were told that now that domestic adoptions are permitted in China, there are fewer orphans in the orphanages, but those that are in orphanages are more likely to have a birth defect. We toured several floors and met with the orphanage director. After the tour (which was somewhat controlled in that we only saw a few areas) all the families pooled our money and asked the director what we could purchase for the orphanage. We ended up buying two color TVs for some of the classrooms.

The orphanage director is a pretty good guy and we think the facility is well run. When we signed the first set of paperwork on Monday they provided us with an album of Eden's photos every month since they put her on the adoption list. They obviously took a great deal of time and effort to document the lives of the children who live there.

We thought the orphanage visit would be very emotional for Eden, but she ended up remembering the place a little, I think, and was relatively calm and even happy at times during the visit. We saw the spots where the photos we had prior to the adoption were taken and it was kinda neat for us to see where Eden had spent her days up to this point. We were told her foster mom lived nearby but we had no contact with her today.

After a quick lunch we visited the hospital where Eden was abandoned. Unfortunately the guide did not have enough information to tell us exactly where in the hospital she was abandoned, so we ended up just taking a few pictures outside of the building. Like everywhere else in China, the hospital was crowded and we wondered exactly how anyone could have left her without being discovered.

It's becoming more and more clear to us that the grieving process for Eden is just that--a process. She's still active but a little distant, and I think I would be accurate in saying she is a little sad most of the time. When we got back to the hotel this afternoon she had a good cry, and we've been encouraging her to express her grief as much as possible. The bath tonight again was a Defcon-One episode. Also tonight daddy had his first comforting session while mommy made the unacceptable decision to leave Eden for 10 minutes to take a shower.

Our behavioral specialists have told us to expect all of this, but I think we thought that Eden would be more physical in her displays than emotional. Like, perhaps she would not let us touch her or pick her up or comfort her. Actually, that's no problem, but she does seem a little detached and sad and that hurts us to experience with her. The specialists have given us some additional advice through email and we continue to help her along even as we know that we probably won't totally register as "mom and dad" for quite a while yet--weeks, even months from now.

Tomorrow we're going sightseeing in Wuhan (there's like, only two things to see in a city of 11 million--go figure). The activity today was welcomed by all the families and tomorrow we'll probably get some good activity and wear the little one out just in time for her nap. On Friday, we leave for Guangzhou and the American Consulate appointment so Eden and Uncle Sam can meet.

Thanks again to everyone for your notes and prayers. It's a great blessing to us to read our emails in the mornings and hear from you. If you're wondering where all the great videos from our trip are on our blog, I could tell you that it's some internet issue, but the fact is, daddy forgot to pack the cable from the camera to the computer and so those may have to wait until we get back.

Oh, please be in prayer for our Wuhan guide, "I", who is not a believer, but has been asking some interesting questions on the bus today...