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.

Chicago Images (What?)

The Jacksons are suckin' it up again this year. Well, we missed our flight to China again! If you remember last year when we were going to China to get May Lee, we missed our flight to Beijing. The good part last year was that a crew member was late, so the airlines took responsibility and paid for our lunch and hotel in Washington. We missed a day of touring in Beijing, but it didn't affect our timing for getting May Lee. We had many little things go wrong, lost luggage, etc., so we made a Jackson Motto - Suck It Up. So here we are again, but this time we are in Chicago and because the delay was weather-related all financial responsibility falls on us. What is so devastating to us is that we were supposed to get Joseph Monday - China time, but your Sunday night (China is 13 hours ahead). We had no touring day cushion this time. We are unsure how things will work out and how this affects the rest of our trip. We are waiting to hear when and how we get Joseph now. We leave on the same flight, just leaving a day later, leaving at 12:40 p.m. Sunday and arriving in Beijing the next day at 3:30 p.m., your Monday, our Tuesday.

Background info: we boarded in Nashville but sat on the runway for an hour and a half unable to take off because of visibility issues in Chicago. Of course I (Lynley) immediately cried and then prayed. We landed, and found our connecting flight to China had been delayed, so we thought we would make it, but then our plane sat for another hour after landing unable to get to a gate assignment to de-board. When we finally got out, we sprinted a mile to the departing gate to find the plane had already left. Instead of the "Journey to Joseph" it felt more like "The Amazing Race to Joseph". It was a roller coaster of emotions as the plans kept changing.

Please pray against the enemy as many things are going "wrong". Coleman has stayed cool and is reminding us the Lord is in control; He's going to work it out.

So, we sucked it up and tried to make the best of it. Good thing these clothes are comfortable because we'll be sportin' 'em tomorrow as well - no luggage. We took a cab to the Sears Tower. You can see our name is honored here as well. The elevator took us up 103 floors. We learned the Sears Tower is 283 Barack Obama's high. Here we are laying on the glass ceiling, freaky!

We had Chicago style pizza for dinner at Giordano's. Coleman said it was the best pizza he'd ever eaten. We all agreed, but then again, thought it could be because it was the only meal we'd eaten since 7:00 a.m.. We then headed out to Dave & Busters for a little fun.

Journey to Joseph (Short Version)

We find ourselves in the throws of our second adoption, an adoption that we would have never imagined undertaking. But, God had other plans for us. During the three year wait to adopt May Lee, our now two year old daughter from Southern China, God afforded me (Steve) the opportunity to meet a special five year old boy outside of Beijing, China. In July of 2007, one of my best friends, Jarrett Potts, offered me a free trip to China to work (really play) with children, in a foster home outside of Beijing for a few days.

Once I safely arrived at the foster home I found myself in a converted school full of special needs children, some with club feet, some with cleft lips, some disfigured, some with serious illnesses, some even terminal. Through God’s grace I was able to play with these kids, love on them and even fall in love with them. What an incredible impact these kids had on me. How could I leave here without one of these kids, without doing something? There were three older boys, in particular, that I really bonded with, one of those boys was named Dang DaJian, a five year old that thirsted for a father, a Baba (the Chinese word for Daddy). DaJian was a joy for me to be around, a very loving boy. Little did I know that God had already ordained him to be my son. This boy was not even available for adoption, he did not even have paperwork to be adopted. So why would God give me such a heart for him? Why would He allow DaJian to call me Baba when I was with him, does he know something I don’t?

Months passed, and we finally received May Lee’s referral in February of 2008. We traveled to China in March and brought our beautiful second daughter, May Lee, home with us in April 2008. Over the next several months we were overwhelmed with illness and eating issues with May Lee, doctor’s visits, various medical tests and weight loss. Would this little baby girl ever eat? Would she thrive? We found ourselves on a very difficult road with her health, but God is good and he provided us with praying friends, great doctors,and incredible wisdom. He gave Lynley the perseverance to provide what our daughter needed to heal. May Lee is doing great now, eating, walking and even pooping on the potty! It was all worth it, it is worth it, she is such a blessing to our family! It hasn't been easy, but God has always provided what we needed, when we needed it!

Through that summer of 2008, we had been feeling that there would be some big changes coming for us, but had not quite figured out what that was. Through all of this and the difficulties with May Lee's health, we could still not shake this little boy, DaJian (Joseph), from our minds, our thoughts, our prayers. We began to fast and pray how God would want us to be involved. We were praying that Joseph would become adoptable, that he would have a father and a mother. We were slowly figuring out that God wanted us to be that father and mother, but how? How was He going to make this happen? China does not let you choose your children, they choose them for you. How were we going to pay for another adoption?

We questioned how all this would happen, but God worked out every detail. He has put people in our lives, literally at our table and front door, to find Joseph's paperwork, have China allow us to adopt him, and to sell our house, which was not on the market. We have even been given an incredible financial blessing from my Father to pay for the adoption costs, and we found a new house (which also was not on the market) with a smaller mortgage, to help pay for Joseph's surgeries and medical needs. So, we have been preparing a loving home for Joseph and all we lack is our travel approval to fly to China to bring him home to his forever family. Lynley, Coleman and I will be traveling to China, while Graham and May Lee stay with my Mom and Step-Father. My Mom has been an unbelievable blessing with the amount of time she has sacrificed to care for our family. We hope to travel this September, 2009 to China to finalize Joseph's adoption. We look forward to caring for him, loving him and watching him grow into a man. God only asked us to be obedient, He took care of the rest. Don’t miss out on the miracle of adoption, after all God adopted us as sons and daughters!

FOR MORE DETAILS AND BLESSINGS READ THE LONG VERSION!

Joseph with Funcle Jarrett on Trampoline

Here is a movie of Joseph with Funcle Jarrett when we visited him at Hope Foster House.

Joseph on Bike Ride

Joseph with Great Wall Guards

Joseph is a little freaked out by the Great Wall Guards.

Here we are celebrating Lynley’s birthday with a great dinner at a local Japanese restaurant. We cant wait for Joseph to be with us during our next family celebration. Happy Birthday Lynley!