Wednesday, December
16, 2009
CONSULATE CEREMONY/
GROUP DINNER
DH here. As we come to the end of our China journey and begin a
whole new journey with all of the E’s, I am reminded of all of
the divine connections and blessings that God has provided us on
our journey to Enick and Elijah. Everywhere we go people ask us,
two boys? We say yes two adoptions at the same time. Then they
say you very lucky? We never see two boys at same time. Let me
shake your hand (Chinese superstition). We knew when we asked
China at the beginning of our journey that this adoption would
be different for us. Each step along the way has been a step of
faith and God has brought the right people across our path and
into our lives at the right time to help make this all possible.
From JT with
Both Hands Foundation to
our families, friends, complete strangers, our church family,
our wonderful adoption agency Madison Adoption Associates to God
our provider, we have been blessed at each step of the adoption
process. It hasn’t always been easy but this I know that Nicole
and I are stronger in our faith and are willing to do anything
and go anywhere for God. And so the life of FAITH continues as
we head back home with a super-sized family and some super-sized
expectation for the things that God is going to do for us in the
next year. I got a plaque while we were here with my favorite
scripture on it in Chinese and English, Hebrews 11:1. “Faith is
the foundation on which our Hope(Confident, joyous, expectation)
is built.” Our Faith is stronger and our expectation is great.
It also amazes me the people that are brought into your life
that before were complete strangers to now part of your lives
forever. We are grateful to have spent our entire trip with the
Wallace family and able to be part of their journey to Caragen.
What a great family that we have come to love dearly and such a
sweet young lady that now is part of their family forever. We
look forward to keeping in touch with y’all.
Now onto today. We got up and spent some time talking to the E’s
at home for a while, headed to breakfast where Enick threw a
major fit because he was touching all of the food on the
breakfast bar, headed back out to pick up a few t-shirts since
we are out of clean clothes and then headed back to the room
until our consulate appointment this afternoon. We met in the
lobby at 2:15pm and took off with our traveling buddies to the
US Consulate. It took us around 45 minutes to get there with all
of the traffic which resulted in two power naps from the boys.
It is just so hard to stay awake during those car rides for
them. We sat in a crowded room with about 35 other adoptive
families waiting for them to call our names so that we could go
up to the drive-thru and sign some paperwork for the boys
Visa’s. After everyone had signed, one of the consulate
officials came out did a little PR speech about all they do at
the consulate and then we all raised our right hands and swore
that everything that we submitted was as accurate as we knew it
to be. We then hit the road back to the hotel where we met up
with the rest of our group and headed out to a traditional
Cantonese meal. The restaurant we ate at was known for its
pigeon dish so of course we had to try. I did the Enick test and
he didn’t like so I passed (especially when we saw the pigeon
heads on the plate). The rest of the food was pretty tasty with
several vegetable dishes, rice, peppered beef , sweet and sour
chicken and of course watermelon for dessert. The Emperor (aka
Elijah – he was quite spoiled and is quite picky with what he
will eat so I have named him the Emperor) did not like much of
the meal and ate mostly the rice and he loves watermelon. After
our tasty meal we headed to Starbucks for Nicole to get
something to eat. Reminds me of our first anniversary when we
were dating and went to the Peppercorn Duck restaurant and then
went home and had pizza later. Tomorrow our travel back to the
E’s at home begins with a late checkout at 2pm, Red Couch photo
at the White Swan with our traveling buddies, pick up boy’s
visas at 5pm and then head to the airport around 7pm. We have a
quick flight to Hong Kong where we will stay overnight then onto
our 14 hour flight to Chicago on Friday. We will go through
customs when we get to Chicago where the boys will officially
become US Citizens and then we will have a 4 hour layover and
hit the air again for OH. Please pray for the Emperor as we have
three more flights before we are back with all the E’s in Ohio.
We will try to do a quick post tomorrow morning and then we will
update everyone once we get home. Praise the Lord that our
travels abroad are coming to an end and we can eat some real
food and sleep in a real bed.
To All our E’s at HOME:
We know you are having a great time with your new guests at Nana
and Pappy’s house! We are glad you can have fun! We miss you all
and can’t wait to hug you all! We start toward all of you
tomorrow night! We love you bunches! |
Their attempt at an O-HI-O
The beauties from Tianjin
Why is he sleeping?
Oh I see!
Want some?
Arghh! |
