First Full Day in Lanzhou

Today we went to the Civil Affairs building and made everything official.  Aaron and I put our red fingerprint over each of our signatures and Rebecca put her red hand print to signify her signature. While there, we were able to talk to the assistant director some more and Rebecca was able to play with her and another orphanage staff member who accompanied her today. Ms. Zhou was a staff member who woke Rebecca each morning and took her for exercises, since she came to the orphanage nearly 3 yrs ago.  You could really tell that both the assistant director and Ms. Zhou loved Rebecca and all of the children at the orphanage.

I had pictures from a few friends who have recently adopted from Pingliang as well and both were super excited to see them and how well they are doing.  The assistant director was really excited to see all of the children and asked me to email her their pictures.  I also had a few pictures from updates that I showed her and asked more details about and a video I got about 1 month ago.  She was able to tell me the names of the boys in the video and a little about each.  One is in the process of being adopted and the other has a CHD and she said was not available for adoption. That made me really sad to hear.

They walked out with us and said good-bye to Rebecca and I could tell they were really happy to see she had a family but also sad to say good bye.  It brought me to tears.  Just thinking about Rebecca losing all that she's ever known and all of her caregivers.  I know she'll do great and God has great things planned for her but it was still a sad part of my day.  Those were the tears I'd been waiting for. Now we begin praying for her little heart to be open to receive our love and for her to not be anxious and afraid of all that lies ahead.  Big changes for such a little girl.

We then ran to a mall to get diapers, snacks and a couple other things and lunch from KFC. :-)

Came back to the hotel to grab our gifts (I forgot them all this morning but Jessica was going back to Civil Affairs this afternoon and was dropping them off and then would drop the others off with the orphanage staff at their hotel) and Rebecca just burst into tears.  We knew the time would come and know that more days lie ahead and boy is it tough.  I just held her and let her cry and whispered calming words into her ear.  I think it was a combination of grief and exhaustion.  We heated her up a bottle, she let me hold her and give her the bottle and she promptly fell asleep.  That gave me time to update my blog.  She's still napping and my prayer is she'll be less anxious when she wakes up.  She is a happy little girl and very smart!  She's going to be a joy to have in our family and she has already blessed us in more ways than she'll ever comprehend.

Putting our red thumb print over all of our signatures to assure they are really ours.

 

 

 First picture with Baba

 

 

Putting Mei Mei's red hand print on paper as her signature to finalist adoption.

 

Mei Mei playing with Ms. Zhou while paperwork is getting finished.

Notary getting papers ready

Mei Mei with the Assistant director. 

Mei Mei with Ms. Zhou and Assistant director. 

Assistant Director and staff worker, Ms. Zhou looking at pictures of friend's children who have been adopted from Pingliang SWI over the last year.

Us with the assistant director and Ms. Zhou