August 10, 2009

Dear Ones,
Guess What!!! We have located a wireless connection in the building…sort of. Actually, the signal is coming from the government building next door so we can only get a signal on the 5th and 6th floors on one side of the building. You should see us all huddling around the windows to get online. Nothing like war-driving at home! Jacob would be proud of us—that or warning us that we might end up in jail! But don’t worry, the prison would be an easy commute as it IS just next door.
We’ve had a great week here in Luoyang—it is hard to comprehend how quickly the time is passing. The days have been full. We are truly enjoying having the Show Hope group here—they have been a great encouragement and a wonderful help. We are going to miss them all as they leave tomorrow night on the bullet train for Beijing. Together we’ve sorted TONS of supplies, moved literally TONS of furniture, set up the pharmacy, moved cribs, painted the outside barrier walls, and lots of other odd jobs all this amongst many breaks to hold precious little ones.
We have gotten out a bit more while the group has been here. We made a trip to Carrefour (our favorite shopping place) and everyone was allowed to go wherever they wanted to for dinner. We went with the leaders for Brazilian food—come all the way to China to have Brazilian food (Don’t ask!). Actually, we had Brazilian food because Marcio, Joyce & Robin’s son-in-law, is Brazilian and wanted us to experience just a taste of his culture. It was pretty good food, albeit, quite spicy and often unrecognizable. The meat portions were definitely smaller (due to Chinese influence) however, they just kept coming. We did all allow Marcio to eat the whole tables’ allotment of chicken hearts which he was very pleased with!
Yesterday was an excellent day of rest…we think. It was definitely a break from routine. Mariah and I went to Longtan Valley with the Show Hope group on a hike—to marvel at the awesome work of our Heavenly Father and to beat our bodies up trying to climb out of the valley. It is quite a beautiful place. It was packed with people and we were frequently reminded of climbing up to the crown of the Statue of Liberty (over and over and over again). We were told that it was only about a 3 mile hike…no one said anything about the fact that it was straight up (see photos)! They did tell us that the last 300 stairs were the hardest and we could take a brief rest before tackling them…boy oh boy were we grateful for that rest! At the beginning of the walk they had built some sort of obstacle course over very dirty ponds (filled with boulders and fish) that you could try swinging across on…only a handful of the group tried it out and only one of the boys actually fell in…it didn’t look like something that would meet US Safety Standards…reminded us a bit of Indiana Jones’ bridge crossings. We had our day in the sun I’m not sure if any of the Chinese tourists came to see the valley or just to see us—we are celebrities just because we are foreign! I’m sure we’ve had more pictures taken of us than many a model…and I’m certain they weren’t good pictures as we were hot, sweaty, and exhausted.
We just had an exciting break---WE HAVE BABIES!!!! Mariah’s Ayis have been busily training—they’ve hired 16 new Ayis for her floor and we just had four new admissions. It was great practical application time for the newbies. You should have seen the Ayis’ faces as we handed them their first baby…it was precious. I was reminded of what a new mommy’s face looks like when you place her newborn child in her arms. These were little ones in desperate need of love and they sure got it…they were literally smothered in love and doting “mommies”. You should have seen the bathing room as each baby had at least four Ayis hovering over her and helping scrub her up…feeding time was pretty cute too. We left them all hovering over their new charges and watching them sleep. Currently they are all on the fourth floor as we still do not have all the necessities up here on the 5th and they really don’t want to spread the babies out before our return trip to Beijing and leave the nurses to cover an extra floor without Mariah. Hopefully, we will have everything in place to move the babies up as soon as Melissa is on her way back to the States and Mariah returns to Luoyang. We had to move Mariah’s office today as we realized that there is no place that will work for preparing bottles and baby food on the 5th floor besides the room that we had her office set up in. I think we have the rooms all labeled now and are ready to fine tune the flow.
This place is HUGE and with the size comes a million little quirks and problems that need to be worked out—just like any other new construction. We had a good laugh this morning when we walked into our 4th floor kitchen and everything had been pulled out from under the sink and there were towels everywhere. We asked one of the nurses when she walked in if they’d had a problem with the sink leaking, she said, “yes, it is leaking” we asked if they had told the maintenance man and if it had been fixed. She replied very matter of fact, “No. The pipes are too small. The solution is to not fill the sink.” We were thinking—“What else is a sink for if you don’t put water in it???” Ok—we know you’ve got to be laughing now too. Yesterday, when we were working in Mariah’s former office water began pouring, literally pouring, out of the air conditioning vents in the ceiling…they told us the solution was to not turn on the air conditioning—however, we did have them fix it this morning despite the effectiveness of the former solution and we are enjoying a cooler office minus the waterfall.
Melissa was able to visit the State Orphanage this morning. It was quite a privilege to be allowed into the facility as it has been closed to all westerners for quite some time and has always had limited access even when we were living there on our last visit. They had done a really good job of getting everything ready for our visit and the children were so excited to see us. One little one who was probably around 12-15 months old held onto me so tightly and didn’t want to let me leave…I would have loved to have scooped her up and taken her with me had it been permissible. While we were there an Ayi was conducting a preschool type class and we were able to observe part of it—I took some video and I was able to pick out a few words and sentences and thought we could watch it again in a few months and see if our Chinese has improved enough to understand the rest of what was said. It was a difficult visit, however, it was reassuring to know that we left these little ones in the Father’s hands, the One Who promises to be a Father to the fatherless…the only One who is truly capable of relieving their distress.
It has been fun getting to know the Show Hope team. One of the young men on the team is a Chinese orphan who was adopted by a home school family in the States when he was 12 years old…just months before he would have been declared too old to be adopted. He has such incredible insight into what these orphans experience since it has been his own experience and he has provided us with an additional dimension to our view of the orphans’ lives. In addition, even though he has lost a lot of his abilities with the Chinese language in the years since he was adopted he is still a great interpreter. The only problem is that he really blends into the crowds and is the hardest to keep track of when we’re going somewhere as a group.
This has been a piecemeal letter…we keep coming and going adding a little here and there…hope it ends up being coherent. We feel a little closer to home when we can share our experiences with you all and have little chats throughout the day.
We were just down with our babies again. They are sweet little girls. The Ayis were laughing at the fact that the eldest of the girls has a Chinese name that means, “Always Hungry.” Personally I think she needs to be on a continual feed to fatten her up so her name is probably appropriate for the time being—just keep the food coming! Another of the girl’s name means, “month of rain,” the orphanage workers are sure creative with their naming. It will be fun to get to know the girls and see their personalities come out…little miss “always hungry” can speak in Chinese…I’m glad she can make her needs known even if it means I have to learn Chinese childrenese in order to understand what she wants. It is such a joy to see these little ones being wrapped up in the love they have been so long starved of…my heart feels like it swells up so much that it starts to push the tears out. They have all been given English names now. We have Carissa, Ashlynn, Jerusha, and sweet Carolina.
Well night has come upon us, one more day has passed by…time to rest so we will be ready for what tomorrow holds in store.
From hearts filled with love,
Mariah & Melissa
P.S. you’ll never guess what’s playing on the IPod right now—“Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah…”