Day 4 with Benjamin!

Both boys are doing really great.  They have adjusted  to our family better than we could have hoped for.  Benjamin is still so much like a baby, which I love.  He will lay in my arms and just snuggle and smile at me.  He is so sweet and loving.  Samuel seems older to us than 2.  He is very smart, inquisitive, and can pretty much get into, or on to, any and everything.  He has amazing dexterity and strength.  And has a smile that melts our hearts.  He is also very loving which is amazing at this point in the process.  We feel so blessed to be their family and just love them both so very much. 

This morning at breakfast, an elderly lady kept trying to talk with Joy and Hope.  She thought Joy was deaf (used sign language to ask us) because Joy wasn’t answering her questions (in Chinese) and a waitress came by and said something to her.  They carried on a long conversation, which we have no idea what they said, and then she gave us a thumbs up, pulled out an envelope of money (Chinese yuan) and gave each of our kids $100 in Chinese money.  When we met our guide later in the day, he said that the hotel manager had called him and told him that the owner of the hotel was having breakfast and met us and was very moved by us adopting our kids.  We had no idea she was the owner of this hotel.  She also asked the manager to get the contact information for the local orphanage (Benjamin’s orphanage) so she could visit and see how she could help.  You never know how you will impact other people when you are just going about your day.

We met our guide in the afternoon and went to Green Lake Park.  It is a large park area with several garden areas, a lake, and a lot of little carts and shops set up with people selling their wares.  Also, many people dancing, singing, playing instruments, and just enjoying each others company.  We have seen this in every city we have been to in China.  People here are very social and they tend to gather in parks and public areas. 

There was an error on Benjamin’s paperwork, and while we were at the park our guide got a call to come and pick up the corrected paperwork.  We decided to stay and take a taxi (actually 2) back to our hotel after we ate dinner.  We had heard of a French Café on Foreigners Street but the problem was, neither our guide, or any of the local people knew where either of these were.  But we wandered around the area of town we thought it was in and saw so many interesting things.  People will just set up a crock pot of sorts, and sell food that they are making on the street.  Others cut up fruit and sell off the back of their bike.  We finally found the restaurant, with a little help from a westerner we saw on the street, and had a nice meal and ended with crepes for desert.

We are going to Benjamin’s finding spot tomorrow morning. I had a few emails of people asking what this was when I wrote about Samuel’s finding spot.  It is the place that a child is left, and where they are found by someone that usually takes them to a police station.  Then they are transferred to the local orphanage.  In Benjamin’s case, it was in a tunnel.  We will be visiting that place tomorrow.  Then we come back and pack up our room and will be heading to Guangzhou in the evening.  Guangzhou is where we do the American end of the paperwork.  We will get visa’s for our boys to enter the U.S. and at that point they become American citizens. 

Pray for us as we travel.  The hardest part of the trip is traveling from city to city and going thru the Chinese airports.  But not nearly as hard as the long flight back.  Which we will be asking for prayer again when that time comes.