Visiting Yangchun City

Mikelle and Zoe Mei

dental office on the street of Yangchun

  Next to the gate of House of Grace

  Entrance gate to House of Grace

Sasha's Orphanage Visit

Fun on the four hour drive to Yangchun 

 the courtyard where Sasha used to swim and play

 Inside Sasha's orphanage where she used to watch tv

Oxen on the way to Yangchun City

More Pictures including Flight to Guangzhou

The Past Two Days

It is nighttime here in Guangzhou.   Yesterday we spent our last hours in Hohhot and as Zoe peered through the window of our hotel to the streets of her providential homeland below, I thought about the differences between life here and in the United States.   The modes of transportation, the housing, the dusty streets and smoggy air, the food, water and lack of freedom of religion to name only a few.   We are truly blessed and without the chance to see how others with such a different life live, I don't think we can truly understand all that we have been given.


We said goodbye to our amazing guide Jessie and sent her on her way with three Bibles for her and her friends, special letters of appreciation and prayers that she too might come to trust in Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior.  We saw her kind heart this week when she wept with us in the orphanage as she saw the children who spend their lives without a family.We had a three hour flight to arrive in Guangzhou by 7 pm and the girls did great.   Zoe fell asleep until the smell of warm Chinese food awakened her senses and Sasha spent the whole flight sitting in the row in front of us with a little boy whose family we had met in Hohhot.  As for Mikelle - she just made me laugh as we did the chinese stretches they showed us on the tv!
Today was a bit rough on all of us.   Zoe has learned her own way of dealing with things in the orphanage where the children become "streetwise" and tough pretty quickly.   Plus she is afraid of many things just like Sasha was but in addition has been without parents for longer and not in the care of a Christian women like Sasha.   She goes from being happy to mad and upset very quickly and sometimes we are just not sure what caused the problem.   I can only begin to imagine what things are going through her mind and how she must wonder who these strange people are who are taking her to all these different places and speaking in such a strange language etc.  I pray continually that she will grow to love us and come to know Jesus as her Lord and Savior at an early age and follow Him all the days of her life.


We had our medical appointment at Shamian Island, did some shopping there and then came back to our hotel for more paperwork.   Dinner tonight was at 1001 Nights which is a middle eastern restaurant which was wonderful.  Tomorrow off the Sasha's orphanage - a long emotional day again for sure.   Please keep us in your prayers as we strive to serve God to the best of our ability.

"From the ends of the earth, I cry to you for help when my heart is overwhelmed.   Lead me to the towering rock of safety, for you are my safe refuse, a fortress where enemies cannot reach me.  Psalm 62:2-3

Visiting the Orphanage

Ni Hao from Hohhot Inner Mongolia!   It is the end of an eventful and emotional two days.  Zoe was up off and on throughout Tuesday night and when she woke up Wednesday morning she had a 101.5 temperature and her cough and cold that she had when she came to us seemed worse.   After some breakfast we actually ventured out with her because she seemed to be feeling better and our guide wanted to take us to the Hohhut Museum to find out about Inner Mongolian customs etc.  Then before dinner we walked to the store and bought the girls traditional Mongolian clothing – so cute!
The orphanage hall

These are some things that I have observed about Zoe so far.   When she eats she holds her bowl of rice and puts her head all the way down to it.   I’m told this is because at the orphanage the nannies want the children to be neat and not talk or play when they eat and so they learn to focus on the food in front of them.  We have watched at every meal as Zoe scrapes her bowl clean and eats every last grain of rice.   When we hand her a cup at any time other than after her meal she will not take it because drinks are for after meals and also because at the orphanage she had a cup that is her cup and ours is different than the one she is accustomed to.     

If she receives a snack she eats it in very small bites.   We bought a treat that is the size of an oyster cracker and Zoe takes 10-15 bites to eat it, savoring each little morsel. As I watch her eat crumbs the size we easily sweep off the table my heart was again broken for the life of the children who have no family.   I have watched as she repeatedly sits and fidgets with her fingers and hands in such a way it is obvious that she has spent many days with nothing to do.  She still has uttered only a couple words that must be mandarin and hangs limply when I pick her up.  According to the notes we received from the orphanage she had finally begun to talk again four months after her arrival in the orphanage from the foster family.  I went to sleep last night with tears in my eyes and prayers to my Lord for help with this little girl He chose for our family.   I felt very heavy burdened as I drifted off into fitful sleep.

This morning we rose early after our first night with everyone sleeping until 5:00.  We left our hotel at 7:30 for the three and a half hour drive to Baotou to visit Zoe’s orphanage.  Our van had no seatbelts for us and of course no car seats either.   But the girls were amazing for such a long drive including a 20 minute traffic jam.  We were so close to semi’s that if we put our windows down we could have touched the trucks!   Drivers drive on the edge of the road all the time even if there isn’t a lot of traffic.   The driving is definitely different.  Baotou is the largest city in Inner Mongolia and the sudden size of the place felt surreal.  

The Baotou Social Welfare Institute houses around 200 children from birth to 18 years old. We were only able to tour a small portion of the orphanage and as clean as it was and as kind as the staff were, it was still heartbreaking to see the children all sitting on their rubber mat in their room watching tv.  When we arrived in their room they rushed to talk to us and touch us.   If only words could describe how it felt to see these little children in such need for attention.   We were able to see where Zoe ate, slept and played and that was all they allowed.   They did not allow us to photograph any of the other children.   We met Zoe’s nannies and saw Mrs Xue who started the international adoption program in Baotou who we had also visited with when Zoe came to us in Hohhut.   As we were leaving we also met the orphanage doctor.   We were told that they were very excited to meet our family because we had sent our photo album with the family pictures and it made them very happy that Zoe was going to be joining our family.   We asked why Chinese adoption is taking so long and we were told it is because the government of China hopes that the children would be adopted domestically and by slowing it down they hope parents from other countries would stop adopting from China.   

I was a concerned how Zoe would react to being back in the orphanage and thought she might cry when she had to leave, but she instead she cried when I set her down to see her friends and when the nannies took her from me to hold her.   I was not sure what to do when that happened, but Dave was right there telling me to take her back from the nannies and that was all I needed to hear.   

We had made arrangements to meet the foster family who live in an older part of Baotou, but after we left the orphanage we made the decision not to go because the foster parents had told the orphanage we were coming to visit, even though they had been asked not to tell anyone.   Apparently, the foster parents are not allowed to have adoptive parents come to their homes because typically they are very poor and the government does not want parents to see where the children live.

This did not prepare me for the area where Zoe’s foster parents lived.   Instead of visiting them, we just drove around the area and it was unbelievable.   Pictures can be very deceptive and the ones we received of Zoe’s foster family’s home definitely were.   The best way I can describe where Zoe lived for one and a half years of her life would be ruins.   Crumbling hilly narrow curving roads with houses that seem to be connected, which share a community bathroom and are more than 200 years old.   We even saw three cows and a calf tied together in front of one house.   This area was made up of all moslem and our guide and driver were not comfortable in the area.   The pictures I have included show the area a little but the video we made is much better!  The “Hui” or Chinese moslem can be somewhat dangerous and sometimes steal babies so we were glad that we did not meet the foster parents in the end!  

We returned back to our temporary home at the Holiday Inn and finished our evening with ice cream at McDonald’s.   I’m quite certain Zoe has never had ice cream before and she loved it.   Each night I become more certain she has never had a bath in a real bath tub as she is so afraid of the water.  Today’s experience confirmed this for us.   The time together in the car ended up being a wonderful bonding experience and tonight as I go to sleep I will be praising God for the changes we saw today in Zoe.   She actually said a few words, but we couldn’t understand them, and she and Sasha had such fun squealing and playing and running around the room.   My God is so great!

Raise this Child

I have formed this little child

You hold within your heart.

My mercy and My goodness

Have been there from the start.

The face, the hands, the smile

I shaped all that you see.

Take this gift I’ve given you

And raise this child for me.

Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me.”  Matt 19:14

Our Two Angels

The End : To another day.

An end to a wonderful day has almost arrived.   We've seen Zoe's personality blossom bit by bit.   It is so cute to watch her try to figure things out.   For example, today she wore capri leggings which apparently she has never had on before.   So she tried to pull them down, but they weren't long enough so then she tried to make shorts out of them by pulling them way up on her thighs!   Anytime she gets her hands on something she tries to keep it all for herself by hiding it or holding on and grabbing more things to fill up her arms.   And when she sits waiting (ie dinner etc.) she fidgets with her hands as if just trying to occupy herself.   So many of the little things she does make my heart break.  And yet on the flip side she shows her ornery spirit and strong willed attitude.   She definitely has a mind of her own.   I can't wait to get her home and all settled.  In the meantime, the adventure continues with shopping, going to the huge grocery store (they always seem to be down in the basements below the shopping malls); trying to find food when we speak little mandarin, and trying to get the food we want in restaurants.   It really is all a wonderful adventure and I write this blog so we can remember it all to share with Zoe when she is older.  By tomorrow I will have forgotten half of this already because my mind will be full of all the experience of that day.

We miss you so much Brady and wish you could have been here with us.