We got some serious stares!

Thursday was the first morning we had Joseph. We got some serious stares that morning, stop-in-your-tracks stares. At breakfast Coleman put his plate of food on a table to save for us, and two men came and sat down and started eating his food. There were no tables left, so we ate at a table right outside of the restaurant with an audience standing around us watching us eat as they talked about us. It was an "interesting" start to the day. We then went back to the Civil Affairs office for a couple of hours of paperwork. They rushed things for us so we could still leave from Shanxi, Joseph's province, on Friday, as originally planned. Thank you Lord!!

We then went to a Chinese Walmart. Check out the apples.

The Chinese writing didn't break the skin.

There the people were interested in us, yet pretty nice. They were very confused when we were trying to buy things for Graham, when they only saw two boys. Joseph has been our little interpreter when he can. Earlier we had asked him to tell our driver "okay" to show we understood, and Joseph looked at him and said, "okay", in English. We all had a good laugh at that one, even the driver.

This could be the longest word we've ever seen.

We got back to the hotel and the boys put together Joseph's new lego tank he had gotten while I started packing up. We then went out to a local mall to find an extra suitcase. Joseph helped us out in bargaining for the suitcase. On our way back to the hotel, rolling our suitcase, we saw the same window still with a long line of people waiting to get food. So we figured it must be pretty good. We got in line and watched what most people got and just pointed at the same thing when it was our turn. It was a type of bread that actually got better the more you ate, or we could have just been hungry. One had something inside, Steve didn't like it and couldn't tell what it was, so that was all I needed to know - I'll pass.

Friday was our day to fly to Guangzhou, but not until 7:30 p.m.. We had to be out of the hotel by noon, so after breakfast we finished packing up and went back to the mall to try to fill Graham's wish list.

"Walking" to the mall. Maybe this is why they stare.

The lit floor of the 5 story mall.

Joseph found a new friend. Graham this one's for you.

We checked out of the hotel and went to the Shanxi Museum.

This province is thought to be where the Chinese civilization began, so there were many ancient artifacts that have been discovered in Shanxi. This area of the museum was like a tomb, a little scary to Joseph.

We then headed to the airport. We had to wait an hour to check in because our flight was delayed. That's when the imaginary baseball came in handy. It was nice to see everyone's face, because at the Beijing airport everyone had on masks. After a while it makes you feel like you should have one on too. After checking in and walking to security I see my name in bright bold letters taking the whole screen above me. "Oh, kind of neat," I thought, until I see all 8 screens with my whole name and only my name on them. I nervously proceed to another security area where they ask for my passport and for me to open my suitcase. They take out a bag and ask me what it was for, so I demonstrated shaving my legs to answer their question of what the can of shaving cream was, (with a sigh of relief). You can not take any liquids on an inter-country flight, so I must have had too many ziploc bags of unknown liquids. They didn't ask about it, but Coleman thought it was his green Skittles spray that was the real issue. We think he might be right.

Long couple of days

It has been a long couple of days, with not much sleep. We got in from the airport late last night or actually this morning and were up early for Joseph's medical exam and shots. Please pray his TB skin test comes back negative. More later after sleep.

Joseph already mastering the DS.

Our little interpreter makes shopping a little easier.

We played imaginary baseball at the Taiyuan airport. We should have a picture of the locals looking at us. They thought we were a little loco and we proved 'em right.

Sounds of silence

All,

Steve and Lynley will be with out internet access for a day or so. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers

Jarrett

Gotcha Day

Our first sighting of Joseph from the 5th floor window of the Civil Affairs Office as he got out of the car.

Our first encounter. He was very reserved, but you wouldn't know it now!

Joseph feeling more at ease.

Part of the Pizza Hut menu. We had fried calamari as our appetizer. Joseph loved it!

FINALLY - We have Joseph

We have Joseph and all is well!!! PRAISE GOD!!! Everyone is asleep.

We are all exhausted and Steve is sick.  Please pray for healing for
him quickly!  We have an early appointment so we'll try to post
pictures to see your Wednesday night late.

(This is Jarrett posting for the Jackson's)- I know you really want to see some
pictures so I snapped this when I talked to them on SKYPE

Run away Crab and dirty Carpet

So, this is what color the carpet used to be! Yikes, not walking barefoot here!

There was a Christian Dior fashion shoot across from our hotel. You should have seen the number of cabs stopped to check out the beauties.

It is quite obvious that they are not used to seeing many foreigners here. It is very unlike Beijing and Guangzhou where we spent most of our time last year with May Lee. Even in the hotel we can't find anyone that can speak English, other than the occasional "Hello." We finally realized why everyone was staring at our shoes, we think it is actually at our legs, as we have all had on shorts. They don't wear shorts here. We walked with the Stevens (from Chicago), the other family adopting from this province, to find a restaurant for lunch.

On our second try we found a place with a picture menu, and some dishes were even in English!! Of course no one spoke a lick of it, but we managed. We refrained from the braised donkey meat or the fragrant skin jelly, but ordered what we think was a chicken dish and the other dish, well, all we knew was it had peanuts in it. They were pretty good. The food we ordered did not have English labels and we couldn't find any pictures of rice or noodles, so that was quite commical trying to order that.

We went to the Gongshuzi Temple, an ancient temple from the Ting Dynasty. It is a Buddhist temple, but not active anymore to worship, but they still come and bow to Buddha and leave incense and fruit offerings.

Wassuuuup?

This Cypress tree is 3,000 years old. We were wanting to count the rings to see if this was really true... but we didn't have a chain saw handy.

Steve thought this would be a great place for our summer home.

This place give great power. The muscles are strong in this one.

We went to a really nice restaurant for dinner. Though you walk in and you see tanks full of various fish, turtles, crab, etc. We wanted to order the crab, but he got away. It was quite entertaining watching the girls try to catch the runaway crab. He was quite quick! Our guide was with us and ordered our dinner for us. It was a beautiful presentation, then you taste the "chicken", and it wasn't so beautiful anymore. I think it was more like chicken knuckle.

Everything else was pretty good though.

Our dinner escaped!

We ate dinner in this beautiful restaurant.

We are so excited about getting Joseph!! We leave in a few hours to meet him at the civil affairs office. It will be about 2:00 in the morning your Wednesday when we get him, so by the time you probably get this he will be with us FINALLY!!!!!

We finally made it to China!

We finally made it to China! We landed in Beijing our yesterday

afternoon(Monday) and met our guide, Maggie who told us we wouldn't get Joseph until Wednesday afternoon, now!! We were supposed to get him our Monday, your Sunday, but because of the weather delay and missing the flight, we have to wait 2 days. I (Lynley) was trying to hold back the tears, when our guide, for some reason, proceeds to tell us how much Joseph has been crying because he doesn't like the orphanage. I don't know what else she said, I stepped off, I didn't want to hear anymore.

We met Robin Hill at the Beijing airport to give him 3 large suitcases full of medical supplies that were given to us for the Hope Foster Home for special needs children that he and his wife Joyce run.

Joseph was under their care for several years. That is where Steve met Joseph two years ago. Joseph was sent back to his original orphanage about 5 weeks ago, which is part of the adoption process.

The blessing of missing our flight was that our next flight to Shanxi was not for another 5 hours, so Robin took us back to the Hope Foster Home. There are probably about 50 kids there now. We were able to visit with Robin, Joyce and Katie, their daughter who is about Graham's age. Graham, Katie said, "Hi!" and was disappointed that she didn't get to see you, and says she misses you! They made us a delicious dinner, we even had special HUGE potatoes that are especially grown for McDonald's fries. Half of one of the potatoes is bigger than our large potatoes. They also gave us some of Joseph's "school work", where they had made him some books, and he had done some writing. Oh, it is so hard to be here and wait for him!

This is Crystal, Joseph's nanny. She is standing to the left of his crib.


Robin and Katie took us back to the airport. We took a domestic flight from Beijing to Tiayuan, the capital of Shanxi, the province Joseph is from. Joseph is 6-8 hours away in Lin Fen City. At the airport we were totally on our own, and the only white people around.

We were glad when we landed in the right city, but a little leery of finding three young guys waiting to put us in a van. It was a little scarey, especially when we had $10,000 cash hanging around our necks.

This is Gerome, our new guide, here in Tiayuan, in front of our hotel.

Here is $7000 changed into RMB, which equaled a little over 47,000RMB, for our orphanage fees. That was fun walking that down the side streets back to the hotel!

This is one view from our hotel window, 16th floor.

Here is another view.

Our blog is blocked here. We cannot access it, so we are going to try to email a friend to post it for us.