Beijing Day 2

Hello from cold Beijing! We started the day after eating some breakfast by bundling up in a bunch of layers, hat, gloves, and headed out to find the forbidden city. It was a longer walk than we expected, but we found it! We decided to go to Tiannamen square and look around. There was a huge line of people going into this building, and we figured that was where people could view Mao. We found where people were going in and started walking toward the line. A man let Joel and I through, but stopped David, saying something in Chinese, and pulling on his backpack. Then he proceeded to literally pull David across the street to a building. At first I was a little freaked out that we wouldn’t see him again, but then I saw that the building was marked bag check. David was not allowed to go into the building to see Mao with his backpack. Then we got in line which was about 15 minutes long, basically a huge herd of people going towards a security check area. When we got to the security area, they wouldn’t let us in because we had our cameras and apparently there are no cameras allowed. So David took the cameras and Joel and I went in to see Mao who was preserved in a glass tomb thing, with a statue of him, and most of the people were bringing flowers in and putting them in front of the statue. Definitely an interesting experience. I am pretty sure we were the only white people in the whole place.

After that we toured the Forbidden City. Joel’s favorite thing here were the cauldrons that they used to use for storing water for fighting fires. It was pretty cold, so we also enjoyed going to the inside museum displays.

We were super tired after all that walking so decided to take the Subway back to the hotel. Apparently everyone in all of Beijing had the same idea. When the subway came, it was already full but we pushed our way in. The door almost closed before David could push his way (literally) into the subway. The subway was so crammed full that Joel’s face was pressed up to David. The next stop no one got off but a bunch of people got on, even though I thought there was no way another single person could ever fit. I’ve been in packed subways before but this was crazy.

We went back to the hotel and took a nap and then got up to go for a swim in the freezing pool, but it was still nice to swim a little. Then we went to the yummiest restaurant. David was so excited to find a hot pot thing (not sure what it is called, but it has rice and beef and some veggies, and the pot is super hot so that the rice gets all crispy – yum). Joel was too tired to enjoy being adventurous for this meal, but David and I were excited to have some real Chinese food.

Tomorrow we are going to try to get to the Great wall on our own. We plan on taking a bus, so pray that we make it to the right bus and make it back too! If we still have any energy left tomorrow night, we will try to go to the acrobatics show.

FYI, we are having some computer problems so communication might be intermittent. We will do our best to at least post the big news as it comes in.

Well, we made it. Man that is a long flight/travel time. Joel did wonderful on all legs of the trip, asking questions about just about everything.

Upon getting to Beijing we had the always fun experience of getting and riding in a taxi. They always moan and groan about where our hotel is and luggage, but we just push on through. Although this time, I just about didn’t get in the taxi quick enough before he was moving too fast to catch up.

We made it to our hotel in China two minutes prior to the New Year and we are beat. We are going to make a quick call to the girls and the head off to bed. We have a lot of stuff planned while in Beijing; forbidden city, great wall, dance show, etc. before we actually get to Josiah on Sunday.

On our way

I'm sitting at a table in the Seattle airport sipping my Starbucks peppermint mocha, on our 3 1/2 hour layover. We drove to Portland last night, which ended up being a 6 1/2 hour drive (it usually takes about 3 1/4 hours) due to an unexpected snow storm. Even the forecasters were apologizing on the news for goofing up. This morning we got up bright and early (actually it was still dark) to drive to the airport, and were pleasantly surprised that the roads were clear. Now we are gearing up for the long flight to Tokyo and then Beijing.

Joel is doing great so far. He was so cute on the short flight from Portland. We were in a tiny propeller plane, and he said a comment about almost everything. "Woah, we are taking off" "Woah, we are turning" "Woah, we are in turbulence" "Is it always this bumpy when landing?" It is like experiencing flight for the first time, enjoying each and every thing. (Even though Joel has flown on multiple airplanes since he was a baby) Hopefully the next two long flights are fun for him too (and hopefully he sleeps some too!!!)

We are all super excited to meet Josiah in 4 days. We know that many of you are already praying for us, and we really appreciate that!

Hannah and Olivia, we love you so much and hope you are already having a fun time with Nana and Grandpa. On the flight here, Joel said he wished Hannah was with us, cause there were cotton candy clouds, and Hannah really likes cotton candy clouds. He said he would let her sit by the window and look out.

Faithfulness

David here. I just want to share God's faithfulness in our lives during this process. One aspect of adopting is the financial component. With Olivia, God moved in amazing ways to provide the money necessary for us to pay for the adoption without going into debt. During our decision making process for Josiah, for me, money again became the crux of the issue. Seriously, four kids, do you know how much that costs? College? Ouch! Is our house big enough? Nope. Cars? Getting old and small..... Cost of adoption $25k. You get the picture. Eventually God worked in my heart by helping me remember that He has always provided in tough times, as long as we are working in His Will. So started our journey towards bringing Josiah home.



As our blog demonstrates the many milestones, I wanted to provide some financial ones too.
April worked hard to provide some extra money through cutting back on spending (even though we are pretty frugal already), ran a marathon (and raise $175), and did some babysitting (1,900).

Family, friends, and church members provided another 3,100 in donations.

We also applied for a number of grants, which we never really thought we would receive. The Gift of Adoption Fund (see link on sidebar), provided us with a grant which propelled us from the "how in the world can we make this work" to " wow, look how cool God is". This was a big moment for me, as leading up to our notification, I was really really stressing about how we were going to afford it without going into debt or borrowing money (just ask my wife... I was not a happy person). It was in this moment that God put His finger into our lives and made it clear. You and your family are part of my plan. You are doing and in My will. I have provided. I am providing. Much like Joshua, I put a stake (Joshua used a altar of rocks) in the ground in my life to never forget the amazing provision God can and will provide.

We also made the decision to bring our son, Joel, on our trip. This added to our cost and we started to wonder if it was the right decision, even though we had prayed about it.... we started to second guess ourselves, especially as over the last month (Nov/Dec) we had a number of medical bills and procedures which were unexpected and really started adding up. And the car broke.... how easily we forget God's provision sometimes and allow worry and money to so impact our lives. It put me in the position of, okay I know God will provide BUT we only have a few weeks (2) before we leave.... How in the world will this work out? Through prayer and conversations with family and friends we knew it would work out.... but... but...but... yah you get the picture.

Last week we were notified that we received another grant from Show Hope (see sidebar) which covers the cost of bring our son, the extra medical bills, and remaining balance for the adoption.

In all, it demonstrates the provision of God, and a constant reminder that we are in His will as we add to our family.

We are going to China!!!

We got our Travel Approval on Monday! Found out last night that we got the consulate appointment that we wanted, so we leave for China on December 30th! We will tour in Beijing for a few days and fly to Xi'an on Sunday January 3rd. We will finally meet our son, 8 1/2 months after seeing his face for the first time! We are so excited!! We will return home on January 16th. Joel is really excited for the trip too, and is keeping his own blog at joel2china.blogspot.com. I will post our more detailed itinerary once we have it.

Please pray for Josiah's heart that it is ready to meet his forever family, and that we will enjoy being a family of 5 for these last two weeks. And a-packing we will go...

Testing email posting

This is just a test to see if posting from email is going to work, because blogspot is blocked in China.

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Nutcracker

Joel and Hannah were in the Nutcracker ballet last weekend. Joel was a soldier and Hannah was a mouse. They both did great!!! It was an amazing performance. They performed three times over the weekend. Here's a picture of the two of them after a performance. Aren't they so cute?!!

On the adoption front, we are still waiting on TA. Could be here any day or as long as a few weeks from now. We can't make any travel arrangements til we have TA and are able to request a consulate appointment.