Thursday, July 4th

Thursday, July 4^th

Happy Fourth of July, everyone!

I hope you all have fun at cookouts and watching fireworks today! I’m kind of jealous that I won’t see fireworks this year, but that’s okay. I’m much happier to be here.

We have 4^th of July crafts for the kids, but decided to wait until tomorrow to do them, because it would be the real fourth at home… and we were hoping we’d have our luggage by then, which had some of our crafts in it. Haha. So far… no luggage. It’s been located in Guangzhou, and the airline is supposed to send it at some point. We’re just not sure when it’ll be here. SOON hopefully. Poor Charlie is using the same clothes over and over again. We’ve lent her some clothes, and she’s been washing them. But she seems to be doing well with them.

And let’s be honest, none of us smell pretty by the end of the day anyways. I’m sitting here typing this and I just smell awful. In the words of Amy, “I just smell like a trashcan.” There’s no way around it. No matter how much febreeze/body spray/perfume we spray on ourselves, we still just smell.

Yeah. It’s that bad.

It’s just so hot walking to and from the orphanage. And not to mention in the orphanage. And not to mention that the kids don’t smell so pretty either, so the fact that they’re climbing all over us doesn’t help. Oh well. They don’t care, and that’s all that matters. The kids and nannies love us anyways.

So today was a much more upbeat day in my book.

I slept all night until about 6:30, so that was good. Some of our team woke up at 1 and 4 am… so prayers for sleep would be wonderful.

Once we got to the orphanage, we went upstairs, dumped all of our bags in the baby room, and then went to get the big kids. We decided to take them outside and play with chalks and bubbles. So we took them all down to the elevator in a few trips, which actually wasn’t that crazy. Previous years it’s been so crazy getting them all to behave, but they were all so excited to be going outside, that they were so well behaved.

We got outside and started drawing with chalk. I played with little Drew. I started drawing a smiley face and he kept telling me to draw all the parts of a body. He would motion to draw the head, the body, feet, etc. It was funny. Soon I would draw something and have him mimic it. His drawings are very simple… lots of squiggles and lines. He can imitate simple things like squares and triangles. He would laugh when I would draw pictures and loved it. I traced my hands and his. He loved it.

 

After that we brought out beach balls, moroccos and bubbles. They loved those balls. I played catch with Taylor and then with the little girl from yesterday, Caroline.

Soon after we had a circle time with the kids. We sang songs and did hand motions with them. At one point I was holding Ray and we were doing the hokey pokey and he was smiling SO big, it made my heart so happy. He hasn’t been the same this year, he’s been quiet and not as smiley. But seeing him so happy made my day.

We brought out little apple sauces in pouches for the kids and they devoured them. Little Drew took the pouch and kept squeezing it all over and then trying to eat it. It was all over his hand, and naturally mine and my leg since he was sitting on my lap. I was so sticky by the time they were done with those, it wasn’t even funny.

From there we all just played a little bit here and there with the kids. I played with Taylor for a bit with the beach ball. It kept blowing away because there was so much wind today, which was crazy. We never have wind in Chenzhou.  

At one point Chun Chun came out and I ran over to say hi. She said that she goes out and sings a lot, so she’s not here very often… but her friend is going to have heart surgery, so she came back to be here with him as he goes through that. I told her I was happy to see her, and that I have a gift for her (if I ever get my checked bags back…).

We cleaned up and took the kids upstairs. Some of the kids were crying because they didn’t want to come upstairs…they love being outside.

Upstairs we just played with them all here and there. I took Avery and played with her for a bit. She loves being tickled and swung upside down.

I noticed Sarah wasn’t in the crib, and I started to panic a little bit. I looked in both the baby rooms and didn’t see her in those cribs either… but then I realized that maybe she was on an IV, so I went and check and she was in there all hooked up. She looked so pitiful. I guess she had a fever yesterday, which I kind of noticed, which is why she wasn’t upset yesterday. I asked Steve to come and read the label on the bottle hooked up to the IV, but he wasn’t sure what it said exactly, because some of it had writing over it. He said it had glucose in it? So that’s interesting.

One of the nannies told us that Jian (Macy) had been adopted, and I said I knew. I had saved some pictures on my phone of her that her mom posted on facebook, and so I pulled them out to show the nanny. She looked at them and smiled, and then kept scrolling through my pictures. For a long long time. It was kind of funny. She came across some really embarrassing ones. Oh well, what can you do? Haha.

At one point I got up to talk to Joy about Jian (She was Jian’s nanny), who was just adopted. I showed her the pictures on my phone and she was beaming while she looked at them, and loved seeing how happy she was. She told me that they wanted a young family for Jian, and when they saw their pictures they were so happy to see they were younger. She told me she missed her very much, but was happy she had a family and loved them. It was good for her to see that, I think. She told me thank you so many times.

By then it was time to leave. We ate lunch at the hotel today and then came back and played some cards in the afternoon.

Back at the orphanage everyone spent most of the afternoon in the baby room. Once again, I went to find some of the other babies to bring into the room… but most of them were still sleeping. So I went back into the baby room once again with no baby in my arms. Sarah looked at me and said, “Megan, will they let you take Sarah in here?” So I decided to go find her again. When I found her Joy was taking her temperature. While she was doing that (it took her a very long time) the baby next to Sarah started crying, so I picked her up and rocked her. She’s so stiff, I’m pretty sure she has CP. I ended up holding her all afternoon. She’s normally so serious, but I got her to laugh quite a bit when I tickled her. It was sweet.

 

I sat down in the big kid room where they were all watching tv. Sweet Ray came over and held my hand while he watched tv. He soon took my hand and wrapped it around his and then put his arm around my neck. He would stroke my hair and play with it. He’s such an old soul.

 

Joy came and sat down with us and tried to talk to me. I’m telling you, I need to learn Chinese. I keep kicking myself, because the nannies try to talk to us and I just can’t. She kept motioning she was so tired, jokingly of course. I asked how old some of the kids were. Julia came and sat with us for awhile… we talked about kids, she told us we were beautiful, and we laughed a bit… all through motions. I really do love her. She’s such a sweet lady. We found out today she has a daughter who is about 16 years old.

Eventually Sarah fell asleep, and my arm was so tired from holding the baby (and Ray), because she was just dead weight. I set her down in the crib because I could tell she was getting sleepy, and then went back into the baby room.

I’m telling you, walking into that room is heavenly. The air conditioners are always on in that room, and so when you walk in it’s absolutely wonderful. After holding that baby for over an hour, both of us sweating, it was so nice. Kathryn said that a nanny from the baby baby room handed her a baby and told her to feed it, and that there were other to be fed. So naturally I went in there to find one. They were feeding this little baby that I was eying yesterday, he’s so sweet. I fed him his bottle yesterday when I noticed it fell out of his mouth. Today she let me pick him up and bring him back into the play room. He’s such a happy little boy. They said he’s about 4 or 5 months. Shannon said he was one that they found when she was there in March. I named him Nathan.

Nathan didn’t finish the bottle that they gave him, probably had like 3 ounces left. But we played for a little bit, he grabs things very well, he shook the rattle I gave him. I also gave him a little teething toy to chew on and he loved that. He chewed on that thing for a very long time. Then I stuck him on his stomach, and all his smiles went away. He didn’t cry, but his face looked concerned. It was actually kind of funny. But he needs that time on his stomach to build those muscles. He held his head up pretty well, I was impressed. The nannies came back in and told us it was time to eat again… literally 30 minutes after he had his last bottle that he didn’t finish eating. But, oh well. I fed him some more of a bottle and he actually ate quite a bit of it.

We played for a little bit longer, and then it was time for us to leave again.

We went to dinner at what we call “the fried banana place”, because it’s the only place (that we know of) that we can get fried banana. And we LOVE our fried banana.  Haha. It was nice to get that again. I think it was the most that we’d all eaten over any of our meals… most of the dishes were empty! We enjoyed it a lot.

On our way home, very close to the hotel, Chun Chun and her friend were on the street singing with a microphone and karaoke machine. We stopped to wave at her and then wanted to hear her sing, so we stayed for a bit. She motion for me to come over by her, and she talked to me for a bit, which I didn’t understand, and then motioned that she was singing the song for me. So we sat there for awhile listening to her friend sing and then she sang a few songs. People kept coming by and giving them money. We drew a pretty large crowd around us, everyone taking pictures. I had a guy come up to me and start to rattle off a bunch of mandarin, and when I didn’t respond  I think he realized I didn’t understand… and just told me I was beautiful. It’s so funny to me that fair skin to them is so pretty. It was the end of the day, and I did not look pretty by any means, but they just envy and love our fair skin… which in America we try to tan to be darker. It’s so funny.

Back at the hotel we had devotions again, which was really nice. Amy read a devotion about love, and how since God is love, the best thing we can do is love one another. That is the best thing. And it really hit home as we’re on this trip, and we’re just trying to build this relationship, just trying to show love. And how we need to show them love if we ever want to be able to tell them and hope that they know the one true God who is Love, and who loves them dearly.

I thought it was very nice.

And Steve joined us tonight, which was nice.

And that pretty much wraps up the day. Prayers for luggage are still appreciated. Prayers for our guide, as he’s thinking through what we talked about tonight and reads over a little tract that Sarah gave him. Prayers for sleep. And of course, prayers for the nannies and kids.