Thursday, February 15, 2007

It is with a bit of sadness in our hearts as we write our last update from here in China. After waiting two years for this journey , our time in China has come to a close. We realize though that this is not the end, but only the beginning of the extraordinary life that God has planned for our family!!! He has revealed Himself so clearly through every step of this adoption journey and has just reminded us that when we seek Him, we WILL find Him, right where He said he would be, with the lonely, the lost, the orphans, the widows, the poor, the needy, the hurting, the least of these… He said….

We are humbled that He would choose to use us to fulfill part of His plan here on Earth. We are not “good enough” to have been given this opportunity. We are quite broken, but somehow He sees through the brokenness and sees what He has made our family to be – a creation planned before time to bring Him Glory!!! We are humbled that we have been given the privilege of raising three beautiful children in the strength and admonition of the Lord. His grace and mercy are overwhelming to us. We are also humbled by the support He has given us through you , our family and friends. We could not have done this without you. You have been the wind beneath our wings!!!!! Thank You !!!!!

We began our day today with a birthday celebration for all of the girls. They all have either just turned one or will be turning one soon after we get home. Lottie will be one year old on February 25th!!!! We celebrated with pink balloons, singing “Happy Birthday” along with a tape that played the birthday song in both Mandarin and English, and each girl had a pretty pink pastry from the bakery here in the hotel. Lottie enjoyed hers as you can see from the pictures. We then went back to Shamian Island for one last time to pick up a few souvenirs we had ordered yesterday. It was a bit rainy today and therefore the streets were quiet on the Island. We were reminded by the rain today, how blessed we have been with good weather our entire trip!!!! God has been sooo good to us in sooo many ways. We went to “Jordan’s” one of the shops on the Island to get a few last minute things. Shannon had her picture taken with Jordan as she was one of his better customers. After the picture Shannon said “God bless you” to him as we were leaving. He came running back and said “ so you are a Christian???? I am too!!!!! I see you again in heaven one day” What a neat reminder that God is a very BIG God and yes, we will see some of our Chinese brothers and sisters in heaven one day. And our prayer is for the many Chinese who do not yet know Jesus, that they too will one day proclaim Him as Savior and Lord!!!

After returning from shopping we came back to the hotel and put our red, white, and blue on for the trip to the consulate to take the citizenship oath. We were not allowed to take cameras or video into the consulate but we took a few pictures on our way there. We now have Lottie’s passport and Visa in hand and she will be an official U.S. Citizen when she crosses customs in Chicago on our way home!!! We are excited to bring her home to America where she will be loved and cherished and have the many freedoms we enjoy as Americans!!!

Tonight we spent many hours trying to squeeze all of our stuff into our luggage. We still ended up having to check two extra duffel bags in addition to our allotted amount of luggage. And all of our luggage is overweight for sure!!!! But it is zipped up and the bell boys have taken it to load up to take to the airport early in the morning. We leave the hotel at 5:45 in the morning. Bright and early!!! We will have several hours of a layover in Hong Kong so we will take the train into downtown Hong Kong and meet someone Shannon’s dad works with to show us around a little bit. We leave Hong Kong at 6:20 and arrive home around midnight Friday night!!!! Whew!!! What a day it will be!!!

Before we close tonight we wanted to share some exciting news from our two young men at home!! Graham won the Awana derby last Saturday while we were gone. His car won all the races and even beat the returning champ from last year!! Way to go Graham!!! And Noah won the Reflections Contest for the County. He won 1st place for his film/video production. He filmed himself doing a short puppet show of his favorite place – the library - and acted out scenes from 3 book selections. It was quite creative and won him a 1st place ribbon. We are so proud of both of our boys and can’t wait to get home to shower them with hugs and kisses!!!

Goodnight from China!!! Our next update will be from HOME!!!! HOME SWEET HOME!!!!