All I can say is WOW!!! It was such an awesome trip.
For those of you that follow mine or Karen's posts on Facebook will know that we have been to China or will be adopting a little girl from there. If you feel like reading a lot...then check out of a few of my posts here on this blog or the website Karen and I have created for our adoption journey.
The links are here on my blog site. Anyhow, getting back to the reason for today's blog...
We were offered an opportunity to go to China as part of a mission trip to spend time with some of the orphans at one of China's Social Welfare Institutes (SWI). While in China we had an awesome time, with the other members of our group, and our guide...well I cannot say enough about the ability, knowledge, and energy of Lily.
She made the trip so enjoyable in the way she cared for us and taught us so much of the Chinese people and their history. If only we in the United States knew as much about our own history as she did of hers.
Funny thing is our country's history is a little over 230 years, at the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Unlike China, which has been in existence for thousands (rough estimate...lol) of years to say the least.
But, any way I'll save that for another topic, enough said there. The main thing is the trip was awesome...oh, did I say that already? Oh well, get used to it, you may read that again before you finish this blog.
We toured Beijing for two days before heading to the province of Gansu for the purpose of our trip. We ended up going to the Great Wall, the Olympic Village and the Birds Nest, Tiananmen Square, and an older part of Beijing called Hutong Alley. The people in Beijing and Qingyang were very gracious and they also seemed very happy and just genuinely friendly.
Of course the province we went to (Gansu) had never seen Americans before, so we got lots of stares as the group of us walked down the streets of Qingyang. Gansu just isn't a tourist area and does not have the commercial infrastructure for business travelers. At least not until a fairly recent discovery of a large natural gas deposit there.
The building construction is at a peak there now. You cannot look anywhere and not see a building being erected somewhere. Anyway, we stayed in a very posh looking hotel, at least that is what it seems before you take a shower. A large amount of water will puddle up on the floor outside the shower because there is a drain in the floor as part of the plumbing.
That really did not take away from the amenities though. As a side note, I believe the hotel arrangements were taken care of by our guide prior to our trip. It really seemed to all of us that it was too much, especially considering why we were there.
The Qingyang SWI was very simple and the directors and staff (nannies) were very friendly and cared so much for the children. Every day when we pulled up in the vans, we would be greeted by the children standing in the doorway with huge smiles on their faces. We had fun spending time with each of them. It was so a joy to be there, even as we left at lunch and the end of the day they would stand in the doorway again and wave good bye to us as pulled out of the driveway. Of course the smiles were still there too. There is a new SWI being built about a mile up the road from the current SWI. The director showed us the architectural drawings and we also passed the construction every day on our way in the the current SWI. It seems that it is going to be a very nice complex with all the proper equipment for these children and the homeless elderly live there. Anyway, Karen and I did end up meeting a little girl that we hope to be able to adopt. We have requested more information on her and at the moment I am unable to elaborate more about it. There are so many policies and rules on the adoption process since the Hague Convention on International Adoption that I unfortunately cannot say any more about that topic. What I can say is that we hope to be going back to Qingyang to get our daughter, Robin, before the end of the year. Of course, this is only a secondary reason for the trip. The main reason for the trip was as a mission to all the orphans at the SWI. I went there thinking that I was providing a service and ended up finding my heart being opened in a way that I could ever imagine possible. I held a few of the babies and also watched an amazing little boy with arm deformities put on his shoes with ease. It made me realize that there is so much in this world that we are so unaware of. We go about our lives without any concern about some of the simplest things and end up feeling sorry for ourselves over really stupid reasons. These children press on with many real difficulties facing them every day. But, they remain happy and enjoy life regardless. And so many of here, who by the way, are more fortunate, perceive that life is so miserable. The children's issues are real, ours are imagined to be major road blocks for us, but are really minor in comparison. I commend them for the way they live their lives, they have no families to take care of them. The nannies are the only family they know, at least until they are adopted. Speaking of the nannies, they are awesome in the way they care for the children. In many cases the children in China with special needs are abandoned. There may be many reasons for this, but one is the parents wish for a child to care for them as they get older and a special needs child may not be able to. One other is that the Chinese people are superstitious and feel that children with deformities are a sign of evil and abandon them for that reason also. Many abandoned babies are also girls, for the reason of needing to have a boy to take care of them. If they have a boy the Chinese culture dictates that he will take care of them as they age. If they have a girl, she will more than likely marry and take care of her husband's parents. This will leave her parents to fend for themselves as they age. I learned this as Karen and I started this process as we have read many books on the topic. One in particular is " Wanting a Daughter, Needing a Son" by Kay Ann Johnson. It gave a whole lot of background on China's one-child policy and I was able to see first-hand a fraction of the result of this policy. I do not criticize China on its policies, they were attempting to control their rapidly growing population, but they just go about it in a way that is detrimental to human life. Of course China has a history of lacking in human rights...
Anyway, the time we spent was productive, even if Karen and I were only there a few days. We made friends with the people in our group, and the directors and nannies. All this even with a language barrier. We were able to communicate well with them. A smile has the same meaning in any language. That and two individuals there made it easier too. Lily of course and another young lady, Hope. Hope was considered our host and she was a college professor at a local college there in Gansu province and is in the process of attempting to teach the nannies English. That is also what she teaches at the local college. She made talking to the directors and nannies much easier if Lily was in another room. In one instance, she even had to ask me to slow down so that she could catch everything I was saying to translate it for the deputy director. We had a good time there and were even able to take pictures as long as we stayed in the room we were working from. The first day there we were unable to that. It isn't something you can easily do in some circumstances in China.
Overall, we had a very productive trip as far as the mission purposes and as a secondary note in our personal adoption journey as well. The course of the next few months or so will be very difficult for Karen and I. We will be working through the remainder of our wait trying to keep ourselves busy. We know there is a daughter there for us and it is difficult thinking about the fact that other people will be taking care of our "Robin" and that we are unable to hold and take care of her while we wait for the referral and final stages of this adoption process.
I ask that you pray first and foremost for all the children there. That the China Center for Adoption Affairs works diligently to process all the paperwork to get all the children ready for speedy adoptions. Then second that you keep Karen and I in your prayers as well, that our wait does not seem so long and we travel by the end of the year to go back to get her to make her a part of our family.
Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it...
God Bless Us All,
Bob
