Friday, July 5th

Friday, July 5^th

Breakfast today was really good… we had our noodles which tasted so good. We also had this dumpling thing that literally tasted like chicken pot pie… but it’s so delicious. We had it yesterday but asked for it again today because it was so good.

When we got to the orphanage today we got up to the fifth floor and little Al came running to the door and cried for one of us to pick him up. He’s always wanting to be held. And as soon as one person puts him down, he runs over to the next one to pick him up. He just loves to be held.

We brought the three walkers that were donated to see if some of the kids would benefit from using that. We had Carrie try one. She stood up and took a few steps, but would lose her balance and then fall over. We adjusted them to her height and had her walk some more, but would still tumble over a bit. But I think she just needs to work on her balance. She was happy, nonetheless, to be able to walk. We all clapped and cheered for her, which made her always smiling face even happier.

We took the older kids outside to play for a bit. We took out some little containers of bubbles which they loved. Sweet Carrie, as soon as we blew them at her, laughed SO hard. Her laugh is so contagious.

It’s really the simple things in life.

I sat down next to Sky and started blowing bubbles. She would smile and giggle when she would see them blow across her face. A few times she got so excited she stood up and jumped a little. She was beaming. It was so good to see her so happy. She’s such a sweet little girl.

So the reason why we gave Drew his name is because he drools all the time. As sad as that may sound… it’s so true. So we thought that it would fit. Well, today as we were blowing bubbles, he was going around to everyone and holding his wand up and blowing so hard, but all he did was spit. It was so funny. He loved it. He would just walk around and blow spit all over us. I think we all got a spit bath today. But he was so happy about it. It was the funniest thing.



Joy

After some time the nannies got everyone in a big circle to play a game. It was almost like duck duck goose, but when you were chosen with a handkerchief and didn’t catch the person, you had to go in the middle and sing a song. The kids loved playing it,    and it was so sweet to see the kids singing and the nannies getting into it.

At one point I was sitting next to Amy who was holding a little boy. He had the bubble container in his hand, but it didn’t have anything in it. Little Dora came by and was playing near us and he noticed that she had a container with bubbles in it, so he tried to grab it. But instead of getting upset, she ever so sweetly opened up her container and poured some of hers into his container. It was the sweetest thing ever. It honestly brought me to tears. Because as sad as it is, these kids have nothing. Absolutely nothing. So whenever we bring something out, they jump for it and climb all over us to get it, and once they do they hold onto it for dear life. Because that’s the only thing that they can claim as “theirs” at that time. So to see her willingly give up her bubbles, I was just so touched. And I’m telling you, this little Dora is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. She’s precious.

After that we brought all the kids inside to do some crafts. We brought out a tablecloth with flags on it and as soon as we unfolded it, the kids went wild. They were so excited. I think if we had let them play with the table cloth, they would’ve been just fine with that. Haha.

We gave them red, white, and blue napkins and sticky boards in the shape of the world trade center and the statue of liberty and let them rip the napkins up and stick them on the boards. They really enjoyed that, and many of the kids got really into it. It was a bit chaotic getting everyone the stuff they needed… there’s really no easy way to hand things out. Because as soon as they see one kid with it, they all go crazy and start climbing on you to get what they want. But as soon as they all got something, they were fine. They actually settled down quite a bit.

After they finished with that we pulled out stickers that we brought and let them stick it on paper. I’m telling you, it’s the simplest things that make them happy. They all loved it. It was cool to see how the different kid’s personalities showed through them… some stuck them all over the place, some on top of other stickers, and some were very orderly in straight lines.
Ray was so proud of his picture after he finished it. He kept posing for everyone and waving it back and forth. It was so funny. That kid has a lot of personality.

At one point I took a heart sticker and stuck it on Joy’s shirt. She smiled really big and gave me a hug. I really do love her. She feels like an aunt to me. I can tell that she really loves the kids, and wants what’s best for them.

Eventually it was time for us to go, so some of us took the kids upstairs and some of us stayed behind to clean up, because the kids had made a mess. We asked if they had a broom, and they said, “oh no! We can clean up! You don’t have to.” But we didn’t want to leave a mess for them. Although, they did help us.

When we got back upstairs they were giving one of the older boys the walker and he was learning how to walk with that. It was cool. I think they were excited to have them. Hopefully they’ll continue to give those to the kids so they can learn to walk. I think that’ll be good for them.

We ate lunch at the hotel today… and it wasn’t so great. I literally didn’t eat anything that came out. Except for a few bits of potato that was stuck in with some meat. We just got some weird stuff today. Some of which included a whole fish that was cooked and brought out. Yummm.

Kathryn, Annie, and I adventured out to the market today. We got some drinks and some different flavored Pringles to try. Kathryn lost her mascara somewhere so we went down to one of the cosmetic counters in the mall/market, and with our broken English we tried to tell them that we wanted to buy the mascara that she picked out. She wrote out a little slip and handed it to her… and then just stood there. We were so confused as to what we had to do. So she ended up walking us to a cashier that was in the center of the mall where she paid and then brought us back to get the mascara. It was kind of interesting. But now we know how things work in the mall. Haha.

Back at the orphanage, we went to play with the babies again. I went to find Sarah, she was in the crib propped up so that she was sitting up. I’m glad that they’re at least trying to get her to sit up. They do that with all of those older kids that aren’t able to sit up, the ones that are in the crib. They prop them up on the corners of the crib for a certain amount of time, and so that’s good.

I brought her back to the baby room and just walked around with her and bounced her for awhile. I spent most of my time walking around the room praying for her. I just hope she survives. I’m praying for a miracle with this one. But our God is great, He performs miracles every day. And that’s what I’m believing for.

She was a happy camper for the most part. I think she’s still not feeling well, so she would whine a little bit, but after I bounced her for awhile she was fine. She grinds her teeth, they ALL grind their teeth actually, and It’s horrible. It honestly hurts my teeth when I hear it. Shannon brought a bunch of rubber teething toys, so I grabbed one of those for her to chew on. She doesn’t like anyone changing her, moving her arms much (I assume it hurts), or anything like that, so I didn’t think she’d like the teething toy, but she took and chewed on it for a long time. I was so impressed and so happy. She was cracking me up because the way she would chew on it was so weird. She does some weird things with her tongue that I can’t even explain. Haha.

After awhile my arm got tired so I sat her in a little cushion and held her chew toy. But she eventually got tired of it, and she went back to grinding her teeth. *cringes* It hurts me to think about. She sat on the cushion for awhile and she kicks her feet a lot. She also rocks her head back and forth, but I think that’s because she hardly gets any stimulation. Because when I rock her or bounce her, she doesn’t do that. It’s just so sad.

I went to get baby Nathan for a bit, and when I got into his room he was sleeping. The nanny saw me looking at him and picked him up for me and gave him to me, even though I said I didn’t want her to wake him up. But she gave me his bottle and had me feed him. So I brought him back to the playroom and fed him. He wasn’t hungry at first and would just look around at everyone, smiling like crazy. He ate a lot of his bottle, and I think he was so happy to be eating, he kept smiling so big that all of his formula would spill out of his mouth! Haha. It was actually pretty funny. He ate most of his bottle though. I burped him and kept saying that he smelled really bad because the formula would dry all over his clothes and they don’t change them all day, and he did smell like that yesterday. But then I looked down and realized where a big portion of that smell was coming from. His diaper. It was spilling out of his diaper and all over my shorts and tshirt. Yumm. I was so thrilled about that. Haha. So I changed his diaper and then wiped off my clothes. It was pretty nasty. A nice mushy yellow color, in case you were wondering.

I changed him into some of the clothes that Kathryn brought, seeing as he now had formula and poop all over his clothes. He had on super cute pants with little monkeys over his feet. I loved it. :) I had him laying on his back for awhile, and then he started rolling over onto his stomach! I was so proud of him. He had been trying yesterday, but couldn’t quite get his arm out from under himself. But he got it now, and he loved it. After awhile his face looked to be a little red so I turned him over to his back again, but a few seconds later he rolled over again. It was so funny. He loves little rattles when I shake it in front of him, but he can’t do it himself. Though, he is only a few months old. His grip is so strong though. When he holds my hands I’m so surprised by how strong he holds on.

I kept saying that I could still smell the poop on my clothes and how gross it was… but then I picked Nathan up again, and realized that it got a LOT stronger… and upon checking further, he had pooped his pants again. He had a big day today, I guess. So I went ahead and changed that too.

We played for a bit longer, but soon enough it was time to leave. Whenever it’s 11:30 or 5:30, our guide ,Steve, will look at the clock and go, “Okay!! It’s time to leave now!”  Guess he doesn’t want to overstay his welcome.

We put the babies down in their cribs. I went to look at another baby and when I turned around again Nathan had already rolled over on his tummy. I guess he’s going to be sleeping on his stomach a lot now.

On our way out of the orphanage, we saw a dead rat on the road, and it was HUGE. Last year our guide had a rat run out and brush up against our leg, so we knew there were some around the orphanage. Our guide this year was even looking in the bushes and looked up at us and said there were rats running around in there. Ew. They’re so gross and big.

As we walked down the street one of the nannies was leaving work, she was all dressed up in her clothes and in her nice little wedges. I find it funny that most of the women here wear dresses or fancy clothes on the streets, and almost always have fancy heels or wedges. We were talking to her and she said she had a 24 year old… we were all shocked, because she looks so young. So Steve asked how old she was, and she said 48… we were so surprised. She’s so beautiful and looks much younger.

On the way back Julia and I saw this cart on the street that was frying some kind of tentacles… they looked like squid tentacles. We stopped and took a picture of them because… well, they were frying tentacles. I felt kind of awkward, but everyone around us thought it was funny. They probably thought we were crazy, but oh well.

And that’s pretty much all for today.

Shannon said she talked to the orphanage director about the heart babies. They said that they’ve been trying to give Sarah the nutrients that she needs, they’ve given her other formulas and such, but it just didn’t work. So I don’t know what there is to do about that. I’m praying there’s a solution somewhere. The director also said that they were going to have the blue heart baby, Charlotte, evaluated by a doctor today. I never heard the verdict on that. Hopefully tomorrow.

Please just pray for these babies. Their lives are so precious, and I want to be able to help them in any way that we can. This is life and death. And I know that they will be put on the list and be adopted if they get these hearts fix. So please pray for them.

**Please pray for Annie today! After devotions tonight she went to the bathroom and passed out. Besides some bloody lips, and chipped tooth, she seems to be doing fine. We’ve given her protein, sugar, and drinks with electrolytes in them. We think it is just dehydration. But please pray for her health and a good night’s rest. Pray that for everyone, for that matter. Thank you all! Special thanks to our nurses’ advice back home, Mrs. Miller and Mrs. Ervin!

 

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.

Wednesday, July 3rd

Wednesday, July 3^rd

*sigh* What a day.

My heart is so heavy.

I have so many emotions running through me right now. It’s been rough in a few aspects, and exciting in many. So… let’s start at the beginning.

Slept through the whole night and woke up about 7:15. We got ready and went to breakfast at 8. It was different than our traditional breakfast… it was sit down and our guide ordered for us rather than the cart coming around and us picking what we wanted. It was pretty good, but I don’t think any of us were too hungry, all too excited.

We walked to the orphanage, taking in all the sights and smells of Chenzhou. It’s so nice to be back. We’ve gotten lots of stares. I always forget that people stare and that we’re like a big show around here, and it’s always so shocking that they’ve never seen an American. So many “Hullooo”s from people on the streets, it’s so funny. Last night at KFC a little boy was eyeing us all night and kept coming near our table, so one time I said, “Ni Hao!” and he squealed and ran away. It was so funny.

As we approached the orphanage I noticed the nannies standing in the baby room looking out the window waiting for us to come. Tears swelled up in my eyes.

 We walked in and were met by Helen who gave us hugs. Little Mia came out of the school room and grabbed Elyssa’s hand and pulled her into the room. We found a few other kids in there coloring and playing. We got to play with them and meet some of the new kids that weren’t there last year… which of course just breaks my heart, because they’re all older.

There were only like, 8 kids in that room, and I think some of them were doing school, so we decided to go upstairs and see the other kids.

Immediately Ray came to see me and I picked him up and gave him a big ol’ hug. He’s such a sweet boy… but he wasn’t acting like himself today. He was so quiet. But he kept pointing at the tv and smiling, so we sat down and watched a little bit of Spongebob, haha. I rubbed his back for a little bit and he ended up snuggling with me while we sat there. I noticed out of the corner of my eye that my heart baby, Sarah, was in a crib.

After Ray decided to come off my lap I got up and went to pick her up. She’s just about the same size as last year. *sigh* It breaks my heart. She needs to get bigger. She hasn’t changed a bit since last year. She can’t sit up, she’s so fragile, she breathes so heavily, and she still holds her hands in front of her while she’s lying down. I picked her up and walked around with her. I tried to get her to sit up and after about a minute she’d start to whine, because she’s just not strong enough to sit up. Breaks my heart. I came back into the big kid’s room and laid her back in her crib, and went to play with some more of the kids.

I met a new little girl, she’s so sweet. She has some sort of mental disability… but I’m not quite sure what it is exactly. She and I played for a bit. She loved the simplest things. We clapped our hands, I scratched her arms for a bit, which she absolutely loved. They came around with a snack: fish flavored cracker sticks. So I spent some time feeding her and another little boy from the package.

 

While I was feeding the two, I noticed that one of the nannies had propped Sarah up against the corner of the crib so she was sitting up.            She looked so sad just sitting there… and eventually tried to fall asleep. She kept being woken up by everyone in the room. So once the kids were done with their snacks I went and snatched her and brought her into the baby room again. But of course, there were screaming babies in there, hah. So I took her and we walked up and down the halls. Occasionally she would fall asleep but then would wake up soon after because she heard something. I don’t know how this child gets any sleep.

 

Throughout the day everyone kept asking me, “Have you seen Cassie (the other heart baby)?” And I hadn’t. I had looked in all the rooms except one… and I honestly didn’t want to look, in fear that she wouldn’t be there. At one point Shannon asked me if I had seen her, and she mentioned that she didn’t see her in any of the rooms. I said I would ask, but needed a picture. I was terrified, though. Shannon said, “I’m almost scared to ask.” And that’s exactly how I felt.

She realized she had a photo album with all the kid’s pictures in it, so I took that into the other room and had Steve ask Joy where Cassie was. They sat there and talked for awhile. They asked what her disability was, and when I said she was a heart baby, they talked and talked and talked. And then suddenly Steve said, “She’s not here. She’s dead.”

My stomach dropped.

“She’s dead.”

Even now my heart is racing thinking of the moment.

My sweet Cassie has died.

I stood there in disbelief. How could this happen? She was alive just a few months ago.

I was sick to my stomach. Still in shock.

All the nannies and kids by then were looking through the photo albums, so I had to stay and wait for them because there weren’t a lot of our team around. I stood there, totally dazed.

Shannon came in the room wondered if I had asked, and when I shook my head she said, “she passed away?” And once I shook my head, it was at that moment that I cried. Tears filled my eyes. I needed to get out of there. Charlie came and gave me a big hug, which made me cry even more.

I looked over at everyone with the photo albums. Joy caught my eye, and I could tell she was concerned. She looked at me with the sweetest face—I don’t really know how to describe it, but it was caring. I gave a quick smile and left.

…and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t go bawl my eyes out.

It’s so hard.

I wish I had done so much more to get her help. I KNEW she and Sarah needed it. I should’ve worked so much harder.

I just lived in denial that it was really that severe.

The good thing is… I believe she’s in a better place now. I will see her again. And her heart is whole now, she is healed.

It’s just so hard to live with the reality of it all.

This is reality for those kids. This is the reality of an orphanage.

*sigh*

After calming down a bit, I went into one of the baby rooms with Julia, Amy, and Danielle. I helped as one of the babies was losing his bottle. I held it up for him while he laid in his crib. Joy came into the room, and she looked at me with her caring eyes and gave me a hug. She truly is like a loving mom. I was so touched by her today.

 

By the time the baby finished his bottle it was time for us to go to lunch.

I cried some more. And I’m just grateful for the team that I have who are so comforting. I’m so glad I’m here with close friends.

We went to the market to get water and whatever else we needed. We raided the oreo aisle, of course, stalking up on all of our crazy flavors.

Then we went down to lunch, which was good. I always love the food here. We went back to our room, blogged a little bit, and then headed back to the orphanage.

We spent most of our afternoon with the babies. Though, a few of the big kids were in the room with the babies. I played with Drew, an older boy, for a little bit. He loved playing with the baby toys. We also made a game out of him throwing the ball, and I would dramatically go and get the ball, sometimes crawling on the floor, sometimes rolling around, reaching as far as I could… the list goes on. But he LOVED it. He smiled and smiled. He’s such a sweet boy. Eventually we got into playing with some of the other babies.

At one point I noticed that we didn’t have a whole lot of the babies in the playroom with us, so Kathryn and I went out to find some more to bring in there. Walking down the hallway, Joy noticed my miss-matching socks and pointed at them and laughed. I said to Steve, our Chinese guide,  “She’s making fun of my socks!” and he asked, “Yes… why do you not wear the pairs of socks?” Haha, I guess that’s not normal in China. Although, I guess it’s not normal in America either.

When we got into the room where they sleep, I picked a baby up and asked if I could take him down to the playroom (of course using our bad sign language), and the lady (whom I’d never seen before) told me to keep him in the room. So I laid him down and she pointed to his diaper and kind of made it sound like she just needed to change the diaper. I offered to do it, but she said she would. While she did that, a little boy two cribs down started sobbing, the saddest cry I’ve ever heard. So I went over to rub his cheeks and talk to him, singing a song here and there. I think he was blind, because he never looked at me or anything. I continued to do this, and when she was done I motioned to her and asked if I could pick him up, just so I could rock him a little bit. But she shook her head. So… I took that as a no. I don’t know if she just didn’t understand me, or if I misunderstood her, or if she really didn’t want me to hold him. But I was sad, and felt so bad for the little guy.

I’d never seen this nanny before, so she may not trust us. Which I totally understand. But he needed to be held and rocked to sleep. *sigh*

This is the reality of an orphanage.

So I walked back to the playroom and I sat and talked with some of the nannies, which was fun. I love hearing them. We showed them pictures of some of the babies that have been adopted recently, and they were so happy to see them. You can tell they really do love the kids. Their faces lit up when they saw them and how they’re doing so well in their new families in America.

Time came for dinner, so they brought in a big pot of their rice mush and scooped it into bowls, and then let me feed some of the kids. So that was a lot of fun.

 

I played with a little boy named Su for awhile. He has been there previous years, he was Shawn’s (a past team member) baby boy, but he never wanted us to go near him much last year. He also couldn’t move much, could only roll over a little bit. But this year he’s a whole new boy. He’s so happy, so personable. He can sit up all by himself, He can crawl, and he can stand up if someone’s helping him.

I pulled out my phone to snap a few pictures, and when I turned the screen around for him to see himself, he thought it was THE funniest thing. He laughed and laugh and pointed at the screen. It was so funny.

 

Then at one point I stood him up which he LOVED. So I took his hands and we walked all around the room, and he laughed some more. He is probably the happiest kid I’ve ever met. He was so proud and so excited that he was walking around.

Then it was time to go. We cleaned up a little bit, said our goodbyes, and then left.

 

 

 

 

We went to dinner at the hotel again, and the dinner was delicious. It was sweet Emily’s birthday today, so we celebrated and got a cake for her! :)

 

 

We went back to our rooms, I took a quick shower, and then we had devotions as a group. And now I’m about to head to bed. 

It’s been a hard day, and I’m already just drained.

Please pray with me. I’m hoping to find out about some supplemental formulas for my sweet heart baby, Sarah, tomorrow.  I need to find a way to get her bigger and stronger. All prayers are so appreciated right now.

Travel: Sunday, June 30th-Tuesday, July 2nd

Sunday, June 30th-Tuesday, July 2nd

I just wrote the dates at the top of my page and cringed. The 30th-2nd… we’ve been traveling for 2 days. Non stop. *sigh* It’s been a long 48 hours…

But I’m currently sitting on my rock hard bed in Chenzhou, listening to the relentless sound of horns honking, and I couldn’t be happier, because that means only one thing—I’ve made it back to my second home.

This year I had a travel buddy starting from Nashville with me, so that was nice. Kathryn and I were probably 3 hours into our first flight to LA when we were literally about to die. And we still had 40+ hours to go.. haha. An hour in they announced that they’d be playing the movie Safe Haven for us, and we were pretty excited about that. After Safe Haven they continued to play some other tv shows which was a life saver.

When we got off that flight Elyssa met us at our gate and we went on a mini adventure trying to find our gate for the Beijing flight. We had to switch terminals and it took us a little bit to figure out how to do that…. Turns out we had to actually leave the inside of the airport, find a shuttle bus, and then take that to our terminal. Which meant that we had to go through security again. We weren’t too excited about that, but it was pretty empty because it was so late, so that was good. We found our gate and met up with our group. We spent the next few hours talking, charging phones, and doing a group devotion.

And then we were off! I got the middle seat… like always. *sigh* But that’s okay. We flew China 
Air, and we were so excited to have tvs in front of our seats, but after looking through the movies, we realized that most of them were Chinese dramas. Haha. So that was disappointing. I slept most of the way… 9-10 hours out of our 12 hour flight. And the other two hours I watched the “new” 007 movie, Skyfall, which I’d been wanting to see. So, I can’t really complain I guess.
 

We all survived the long flight. We got off and went through immigration. We were told when we checked in that our luggage would be checked all the way through to Guangzhou, but there was some confusion and we thought that we might have to pick it up and then drop it off again before we boarded our flight, though some of us thought we didn’t need to. But to be safe we decided to check the baggage claim and see if it showed up… and if it didn’t, we assumed it would be checked all the way through. So we waited for awhile, and none of our bags came up, so we exchanged our money and went on to our gates.
 

We got in line to go through security, our group splitting into two different lanes to go faster. Danielle and I stepped up first to have them look at our passport/ticket, and the lady checking mine 
kept looking at it funny, and then finally looked behind her and started yelling something in Chinese. 
All I could think was “umm… what is happening? What did I do wrong???”
 

Turns out our flight to Guangzhou got cancelled.
 

So the security guard came up and took my passport and ticket and started walking off and the lady was telling me to follow them. I freaked out because he was literally just walking away with my passport in the middle of the airport. I was so scared he was going to lose that.

BUT, he told us to go get our flights changed.

We met a nice friend, Beau, along the way… He told us he was supposed to be on our flight to Guangzhou as well, so he came with us to get our tickets changed. We ended up finding out that he’s from Guangzhou but was going to school in LA. He has VERY good English, so ended up becoming our guide throughout this whole fiasco, because at this point we hadn’t  met our guide yet, we were to meet him in Guangzhou. Beau was so sweet in trying to help us find our other two teammates, Julia and Amy, who we were to meet at our gate to our Guangzhou flight. But of course, not having a gate because the flight wasa canceled, we started to panic thinking that we’d never be able to find them in this crazy airport… and we didn’t want to book a flight without them. It was a hectic 
morning.

So we got in line to talk to someone about tickets and waited.And waited. And waited some more. Shannon and our new guide went to try and page Amy and Julia, and find info on how to contact them, get wifi, etc. While standing in line we witnessed a fist fight that was going down in the line next to us. So, that was interesting.  Also got cut off a bunch of times today. Welcome back to China.

Shannon came back, Sarah SOMEHOW spotted Julia and we all started flagging them down. Totally a God thing, because they were just across the room from us.
 

We got a little “I owe you” slip, and then we headed to the other airport terminal by bus to actually get our tickets from another airline going to Guanzhou that day. Beau was so kind in helping us find our way this entire time. He talked to everyone through our check-in, and then also asked about our luggage that was supposedly checked through to Guangzhou. Turns out, we had to go back to the terminal we were originally in and go find our bags and then recheck them. Oh the joys.

So a group stayed with all of the carry-on luggage we were lugging around, and then another group went to get our checked luggage. We went back on the airport shuttle, took another 15 minute bus ride to the other terminal, stood in line FOREVER to get on the elevator (I don’t know what it is about their airport system, but the elevators are so weird there and take forever to eventually come around. Not to mention that the people shove and squeeze their way in all the time), and then finally got to baggage claim. We were told that they couldn’t find our luggage, and we had to wait like an hour to get to it.

So we sat and waited. 

And waited.

And waited some more....

...when finally we spotted some of our bags that started coming around the carousel. We were so excited! Over the next hour or so our bags kept coming, but our flight kept approaching as well, and we weren’t able to get all of our luggage because we NEEDED to get on that flight.
 

So unfortunately, I don’t have my checked bag. :(
 

My checked bags had mostly orphanage donations. I carried all my clothes in my carry-on (because I just had a feeling that something like this would happen), so I’m just missing my bathroom stuff. Almost everything I need is in the hotel provided for me… so that’s good. Poor Charlie doesn’t have any of her stuff. Please pray that they track those bags down soon, and they’re able to get them to us!
 

Anyways, we had a couple walkers (for the kids with mobility issues) that we had check in LA that we wanted to find, so Beau and a few other people went to the oversize baggage while the rest of us brought our bags back to the terminal where our flight was taking off. We had two luggage carts with our bags, and getting onto that elevator is impossible to do with just yourself let alone two big carts.

We eventually got on, started getting a  little aggressive (hey, when in China, do as the Chinese, right?) and pushed our way through. Getting off was another story. The doors opened and literally no one would move. I kept trying to push my way out and no one would move for me. Poor Kathryn and Sarah had the carts and tried to get out while people were pouring into the elevator. It's rough. But we finally made it out, got a good laugh out of it, and made it to the terminal.
 

I swear Beau was a guardian angel sent for us, because we NEVER would’ve made it out with most of our luggage without him. Such a God thing, for sure. We had some interesting conversation with him, talking about what we do and why we do it, etc. God’s been giving us some interesting opportunities. Keep praying for us, guys!
 

So we got checked in, went through security with no problems this time, and we were off. Our flight was delayed… again. So we didn’t end up leaving until an hour after it was scheduled. Our flights have been pretty bumpy the last couple of days, which some of the people on our team do not like. So that’s been rough. We made it through, though, even though I thought for sure we were going to die from traveling so much. *sigh* SO much travel today.
 

We met our guide in Guangzhou, talked to him about luggage (hoping it’ll be here tomorrow or the next day, please pleaseplease pray!) and then we were off to the train station. Yes, we were able to take the train! Praise!
 

The train was nice and relaxing… AFTER we got on it.  Everyone was freaking out about getting on and off in two minutes. But we did it with time to spare.
 

When we got to Chenzhou, Mr. Ren, the director, and the head nanny (Joy), came to meet us at the station. My eyes filled with tears as I saw them. It was so sweet for them all to come see us, and they were so excited for us to be there. :) Made my heart smile—just what I needed after 42 hours of traveling.
 

So that was good.  On our ride to the hotel we were talking to the orphanage staff, and they were saying we’ll be at the orphanage at 9 tomorrow, but we’ll normally come at 8:30. The kids are excited to see us. :) Mr. Ren also showed us pictures of his new baby girl (I think she’s 3 months now?), and it was so sweet to see how he was beaming!

They also told us 100 degrees during the day in Chenzhou. Whoohoo. It’s going to be a hot couple of weeks. Haha.
 

We made it to the hotel, threw our stuff in the room, and went to eat. Oh yeah, have I mentioned that we haven’t eaten at all today because of our flight and luggage fiasco? Yeah, the only real food that I’d eaten from that point was the airplane food, and I wouldn’t consider that “real” food. ;)
 

So of course we opted for KFC. Fast, cheap, and familiar.
 

Joy, Mr. Ren and director came to dinner with us which was sweet. We ate, got our fries, and wanted to head to the market to get water for tomorrow, but it was closed. :( So we’ll have to have a market adventure tomorrow.
 

I FINALLY got my shower that I’d desparately been wanting. I can’t even tell you how gross I felt. Especially after it being so hot all day, everywhere we went. Just preparing us for the walk to the orphanage tomorrow.
 

Okay, I need to go to bed. So tired, and we have a big day tomorrow. Pray for us as we rest tonight (That we all get sleep!) and that tomorrow is a good day. So excited!