Today at the orphanage we decided to switch things up a
little bit. Shannon thought it would be better to spend an hour in with the
babies and then the rest of the time with the big kids.
This morning it seemed like all of the babies were on an IV.
They say they’re sick with a cold or fever, so they’ve been giving them the
fluids to make them better.
We grabbed a few babies and brought them down to the baby
playroom. We sat and played with the babies for a bit. Nathan must be getting
new teeth in because he LOVES to chew on his fingers and mine. By the end of
the hour I had drool all down my arms, haha.
When the time came to bring them back to their cribs, I set
Nathan down on his back, and he immediately flipped over on his stomach and
looked up at me. I gave him a little kiss goodbye and he looked at me and
started to cry. It broke my heart.
I walked into the room where the older kids were, and most
of our team had brought them down already. Carrie was left in the room, so I
waited with her while she used her walker to get to the elevator. Sarah decided
to stay with me and help. Carrie does well with the walker, but she’s still a
little slow with it. She’s just not used to being able to walk. I think once
she uses it a lot, she’ll be able to run around with it.
Once we got outside, all the kids were blowing bubbles. Annie
brought really cool Gymboree bubbles and bubble blowers, and the kids love
those. Little Ray loves to blow bubbles. Drew kept trying again today. He kept
spitting all his drool at the blower, but he eventually got some bubbles out
and he was SO proud! :)
I sat down and sweet Cameron came up to me again today. So
I started to rub his back a little bit. He absolutely loves it. He eventually
came and sat in my lap, once again, and laid on my shoulder. He’s such a
sweetheart. Just wants that physical touch. I had Julia blow bubbles to him and
he LOVED it. His face lit up and he smiled so big. 
When he got tired of sitting in my lap and left, little
Penelope came and sat in my lap. I rubbed her back, as well. She kept looking
at me with a tiny bit of a smile while I rubbed her back. She loved that, too.
Soon I started to run my hands through her hair, and then I scratched her legs
a little bit, and she reacted with a big smile. All they want is that physical
touch. That soft touch of simply getting their back rubbed or
scratched—something that we get all the time at home. I eventually warmed her
up to letting me rub her belly, and then I started tickling her. She laughed
and laughed. That’s the first time that I’ve seen her open up this trip, and it
did good for my heart to see that. She’s a sweetheart. She’s very quiet, but
she’s sweet.
Julia had given little Lena one of her bracelets yesterday,
and today she was wearing it as a ponytail on the top of her head. I kept calling her Cindy Lu Hoo all day. She
was so cute.
Eventually she saw something that caught her attention so
she got up and ran off to find it. Annie had recorded a video that Jian’s
(Macy’s) mom had posted on her blog with pictures of them getting Jian and then
coming home. Which, I will say, made me cry so hard the first time I saw it.
The song that she put the pictures to was the Ho Hey cover by Lennon and Maisy,
which we’ve been listening to in our rooms everyday throughout this trip, and
the song is just SO sweet. Anyways, I went to get Annie’s camera to show Jian’s
nanny, Joy. When I went up to see her and show her the video she recognized the
pictures of Jian’s mom and dad and said, “Oh! Jian!” And I smiled. She and
another one of the nannies sat and watched it. They smiled and laughed at some
of the pictures. They loved seeing the one of her swimming. They asked me on a
few where they were, and when they saw the picture of their house they went,
“oohh! So pretty!” and smiled when they saw her looking in her room. They again
told me that they missed her very much, but they were so happy that she was
happy in America. It was so sweet.
I stood with Joy and then rubbed her arm a little bit and
she smiled and laughed, because she must’ve been ticklish. She made a face
like, “Ohh that feels good!” So I kept doing it a bit and she kept laughing. It
was funny. Then she decided to scratch my back a little bit, too. She is
precious.
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| Precious Little Sarah |
I eventually brought the big kids inside and back up to
their room because it was time to leave. When we got into their room I noticed
sweet Sarah was in the crib lying down. I went over to give her a kiss and
noticed that she was so clean. They must’ve bathed her today. So I gave her
kisses all around.
We ate at the hotel again today. After lunch Julia, Makenna
and I went to get ice cream from KFC again… because the rest of the team had
gone before lunch without us. *sigh* But it still tasted so good. Can’t get
over it.
Back at the orphanage we spent most of our afternoon with
the babies. As we walked up to the orphanage I could hear little Sarah’s cry.
She has such a distinctive and loud cry. It’s so pitiful. When we got upstairs
I went to the big kid room to get Sarah and then brought her into the playroom
again. She had big alligator tears on her cheeks. :’( The nannies had propped
her up in the crib to be sitting up, so she didn’t like that at all and cried.
In the baby room I rocked her around the room. She always has to be rocking or
bouncing up and down… she just likes that stimulation. Otherwise she just
cries. When she’s lying down she rocks her head back and forth and kicks her
legs a lot. But if I’m not rocking her while I’m holding her, and she can’t
rock her head at all, she starts to get fussy. So I have to always be
rocking/bouncing and walking. I walked by the air conditioning unit a few times
and kind of lingered and every time she would wince a little bit and get fussy.
I guess they’re just so used to it being hot (like, her shirt was literally soaked
with sweat today), that when they get cold it shocks them. Oh well.
As I was walking around with Sarah, Amy was walking and
talking with baby Charlotte. We gave them a little pep talk and I prayed for
them as I walked around. Amy told little Sadie, our cheerleader, that she
needed to do a cheer for Sarah and Charlotte, that they need to fight! Haha, I
love it. It made me laugh. Love her sense of humor. So thankful for Amy and
Julia.
As we were still rocking, we got some GREAT news about the
heart babies. After my meeting with Helen yesterday, I emailed Cathy at Show Hope with Sarah and Charlotte's (the two heart babies) information and the orphanage’s contact
information, and told Helen that these were my “friends”, and they’d be
contacting them. Today Helen came into the play room with a few sheets of paper
and asked us if this email she had printed off was from my “friends” I had told
her about. Amy read the email aloud to Julia and I. Tears welled up in my eyes
as I read all that was being offered—all that these babies could receive from
these wonderful people. I told her these were the people I was talking about, and
asked her what she thought about the email, if she was open to that, etc. She
said she was, and that they were going to get a CT scan on the girls and then
send it to New Hope (not quite sure it was a CT scan, pretty sure they meant
some kind of heart scan, because things get lost in translation). We were all
so excited. Helen said the director still has to approve it, and that she will
think it over.
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| Beautiful Baby Charlotte |
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| Baby Charlotte needs heart surgery to make those toes a healthy pink! |
So here’s where you all come in: PRAY. Pray that the
director is open to this, that she sees this as a great opportunity for the
babies. I genuinely believe that the director is trying to help the kids and
she wants what’s best for them. So I think that she will be open to it. We’re
just praying and believing that she is. Our God has already done so much
already, we’re believing that He will take it all the way. I believe He can.
Please pray with us?
So we were so excited about everything. All three of us had
tears in our eyes and were just beaming.
Sarah had started crying while we were talking to Helen and
getting super fussy, and was tired of me holding her. So I sat her on a cushion
on the ground. She started grinding her teeth again, so I tried to find a
teething toy for her, but she wouldn’t chew on it for too long. But she was
grabbing it and trying to get it in her mouth for a little while. I was so
excited about that.
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| Little Sarah (a tiny 2 1/2 years old) on her way to the hospital with Joy |
I went to pick up another baby who was crying and then Joy
(the head nanny) came running into the playroom and checked Sarah’s diaper and then ran out of
the room with her. She was carrying a bag so I looked over at Shannon and Steve
and they said that they were bringing the babies to the hospital RIGHT THEN to
get the scan. Which is HUGE. It was literally 20 minutes after I had confirmed
with Helen. PRAISE GOD.
So I ran out to the hallway to see if they were bringing
baby Charlotte, too. Julia said, “oh they just went to change her diaper.” And
when I told her and Amy that they were bringing her to the hospital, we were
all just so excited. We waved them off, Julia ran to give her baby a kiss and
they were off. I prayed a silent prayer that everything would go okay. GOD IS
GOOD.
We all stood there in the hallway completely amazed, tears
in our eyes, praising God. He is so good. There is hope. We’ve come a long way
this week…from believing there was nothing that I could do for these babies, to
making steps to getting them to receive the care they need.
I’m so excited. I can’t even express how happy I am right
now. Ahhhhh!
I think it’s a good sign that they were so willing to get
the scans done so soon. Hope. There is Hope. HE is our Hope.
I went back to the playroom and played with Nathan for a
little bit. He eventually got very sleepy and so I held him and started rocking
him. He instantly fell asleep when I picked him up and put him in my arms. His
nanny came around a few minutes later with a bottle and told me to wake him up.
I tried to wake him up, but he was OUT. I sat him up and tried a bunch of
different think and he would not wake up. Finally I got him to open his eyes
just briefly enough that I stuck the bottle in his mouth. He sucked it down,
half awake, half sleeping. It was the first time he ate his bottle without
getting the formula ALL over him.
When he finished I brought him back into the baby room and
laid him in his crib. He actually woke up, which was sad. But he was fine. He
rolled over and looked all around. On the way out I gave his nanny a hug and
told her thank you. She smiled really big. She’s always smiling. She has so
much to do with those babies, but she always has a smile on her face. We found
out today that she lives about 1 ½ hours away… and she stays here most of the
time except for the holidays. I thought that was interesting.
I went into the big kid room and they were playing with some
scratch off crafts that Amy had brought. Most of the kids had someone helping
them, so I sat down and watched for a little bit. Mia tried to take someone’s
camera at one point, so I stepped in and got her away, and hugged her in my lap
for a little bit. Then I gave her a kiss on the cheek. She kind of looked at
me, studied my eyes for a little bit, and then put her cheek towards my face,
like she wanted me to give her another kiss. So I did, and she laughed. One of
the nannies had called her over to finish her craft. I looked over at her and
she was looking at me. I smiled at her and she smirked a little bit. She would
go back to her craft, look up at me, and then see I was smiling at her and
smile so big. She repeated that a bunch. Her nanny was saying, “pai pai sho”
(that is definitely not how it’s spelled, so sorry about that haha), which I
realized from my sister’s Chinese videos was what they say for “clap clap”. I
eventually waved Mia over. She kind of just looked at me funny, and then
eventually came to sit with me. She would have me scratch some of the paper
off, and then she would want me to clap. We did this for a good 20 minutes
straight. I’m sure the people around me were so annoyed. I would clap and say,
“yayy!” or “clap clap” or “pai pai sho”. She thought it was so funny. And she
loved it. When we finished the whole craft, I said it was all done, and
she looked at me, we clapped, and then she gave me a big ol’ hug. And wouldn’t
let go for awhile. She’s a sweetie.
By then Steve was saying, “Okay, time to go!” and so we
picked up a little bit. Mia dragged me to the corner of the room where a few
other kids were, and she wanted me to keep clapping. So I would clap with them
while saying “clap clap” in Chinese. I walked into the playroom to get my
stuff, Mia still following me and us both clapping and repeating “clap clap”.
She laughed and laughed. Along with a few other kids that we walked by in the
hallway.
I said goodbye and she didn’t want to let go of me. But I gave
her a kiss and she smiled so big.
Agh. I’m just so overwhelmed with all the good that today
brought. God seems to know just what we need and when we need it. And I am SO
thankful. Singing praises to God tonight.
I just wanted to thank you all who have prayed with me in
this whole pursuit of helping the heart babies. Words cannot express my
gratitude to you all. Please continue to pray that things move along and that
we can get them moved to New Hope in Beijing where they can get the surgery they need. So excited about what God is doing. So
thankful for all my prayer warriors back home.
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| Sarah thanks you for praying for her! God is listening, people! |
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