Made It To China

As is usual for me, we made it to China but not without some unexpected challenges. For the most part the flight here, although long was uneventful. We left our house at 5:30 AM on Friday, January 7th and arrived at the Changsha airport roughly 24 hours later around 11PM on January 8th. Just one little problem -- they were expecting us a day later on January 9th so our guide was not there to meet us and we had not yet exchanged money. There was no exchange available at the airport and we were beseiged by taxi drivers wanting our business. Unfortunately, no one spoke english and of course none of us spoke Chinese. The perfect storm -- maybe not but it was not good. We tried to no avail to contact our guide and others at the adoption agency but of course it took about an hour for our cell phone service to become active and us to figure out the dialing issues. Then we got no answers. Our poor little girl being Chinese by birth was assumed to know the language by everyone and they all kept trying to get her to translate. Unfortunately what little Chinese she once knew she no longer could remember so she just responded with hello. Fortunately, Lisa was very quick to shield her and we got everyone to understand we would deal with it and did not need a ride. I left Lisa and our very, very soon to be daughter with the luggage and set out to find money or some other means of transport. Even if we did find transport we had no idea where to go and our reservation was not until the next day. After some aimless wandering and searching I found an ATM machine. Next miracle, it worked. Just one little problem, I had no idea what the exchange rate was and I was looking at withdrawing YUAN. Now that might not seem like a big deal but with exchange rates varying widely in different countries 100 YUAN could have been ten cents in USD or it could have been 1000 USD. Who know's? Back to the cell phone which now seemed to be completely activated and working. After some browsing I found the exchange rate was about 15 USD per 100 YUAN or about .15 USD for every 1 YUAN. Great, challenge #2 successfully met and overcome. Now back to challenge #1, get the money out of the ATM. For the life of me I could not remember my AMEX PIN so after a few tries I gave that one up. Next I tried my debit card. And yes, that worked. Now we had cash but nowhere to go. The airport was locking down so we had to leave. I went back to meet up with the rest of the family and luggage only to find Lisa had asked everyone who walked by if they spoke english. Guess what, she found one young Chinese couple who spoke just enough english to understand "hotel". They kindly escorted us to the airport hotel. With challenge #3 handled we worked through the language barrier with the hotel clerk via sign language and got a room. Cash only but it was about 1:30 AM and I was just happy to have a room. The guest quarters were fine but not what I would normally choose. The bathroom was terrible, no soap, shampoo and almost no toilet paper so we all decided we would clean up when we got to our ultimate hotel destination the next day. Now we get to the next day. Today was much better. We got up and had a very good meal at the hotel. Then we called and connected with our guide who arranged to pick us up and get us to our hotel. So much nicer. Five stars and it was welcomed by us. With cash in hand, credit cards accepted and a really nice room we should be well rested in a day or so. Monday is a free day we found and Tuesday we meet with officials and the adoption will be final by the end of the day. We then wait a few days to pick up our offical certificates of adoption before leaving for our next stop in Gangzhou. There we will need to complete all of the necessary requirements to get everyone home. This will take several days and then we head back. Now for the most important challenge. The trip has been hard on our young worldly traveler. As she got tired and frustrated with the rigors of international travel you could tell she was having a tough time. She had a lot of questions which we tried to answer and I'm sure she will continue to have questions as time goes on. I wondered when they would come and now I know. Nothing unexpected or unusual but I was hoping maybe we would skip that stage. Its tough to go from orphan to a caring foster family and bond with them and then suddenly find your world upside down with a new family you have hardly had time to meet, much less bond with. She is a tough kid but a kid all the same. Please pray for her and that over the next two weeks we can make this a special time that she can look back on one day and feel good about it. She so needs to feel that she is going to fit in and be loved no less than any of our other children and that she will have friends and happiness that she so deserves. More than anything we want her to feel secure and unconditionally loved and the bonding process can continue. It will take time but it will happen as the final part of her journey is now underway. Thanks to everyone for their prayers and support. Time for me to get some rest now.

PS: I will add to the blog as I can but found that while here we cannot access the blog directly through the internet. Only when I go throught the VPN set up for work and I go through their servers in the states can I even see the blog much less sign in to add to it. I suspect it has something to do with what is allowed to be viewed here. Hopefully the delays will be minor but just in case it goes dark I wanted to let you know what the problem might be. We can use email if needed. Good night for now.