Update on Meili...

Fun, Fun! We got an update on Meili today. Her cleft lip has been repaired and the cleft palate surgery can wait until she comes home.

Here are some other updates:
Height: 75 cm or 29.5 inches tall (I was 22.5 inches when I was BORN!)
Weight: 9 kg or 19.8 lbs
Teeth: 5

They also said that she can sit, crawl, and is learning to stand. Her fine motor skills are good and she pick up toys and holds a bottle. She likes to watch TV and holds toys with both hands. She knows caretakers and her name. She understands her caretakers' facial expressions. She is active, busy and alert.

CAN'T WAIT!!!!

Shopping fun!!!

This weekend we went to Chicago to hang out with my parents for Thanksgiving. It was so nice and relaxing and fun. One of the fun things we did was go shopping for baby stuff. We went to a bunch of thrift stores and found a lot of great stuff including lots of really cute clothing and sleepers, a coat, and a snowsuit. One of the fun and unexpected finds was a stroller for tall people (with extendable handles) for only $28 (used but in great shape). Those strollers are SO expensive when they are new. We also found the Little People barn (the original kind - from our childhood) that moos and a bag of the original Little People and cars. We also went and registered for other stuff at a baby store which was fun too. Here are some fun pictures of the Little People stuff we found! I can't wait until Meili can play with these toys (and us too!)

Happy Birthday!

It's Meili's first birthday tomorrow. Too bad we're gonna miss it. She got her first birthday card in the mail today, how sweet! Happy Birthday Meili!

the process...

Last week we met with our caseworker to sign some papers. Now those will be sent to China. Once they have been translated and processed (could take about a month) a travel approval (TA) will be mailed to us. After that comes, we can start working on visas, plane tickets etc. Here's a map of China showing Zhejiang Province, where Meili is living right now.

MEET OUR DAUGHTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here she is:
Meili Jiang XinYi (pronunciation: May-Lee Gee-ong Chin Yee)
Date of Birth: November 21, 2005
Current Home: Wenzhou City, Zhejiang Province, China
Estimated GOTCHA DAY: January 2007
Proud Parents: Liz & Henry

Waiting Child

Please keep us in prayer this week as we consider two different girls from the "Children of Promise" list. These are two young girls who have some unique needs and are waiting to be placed with a family. Pray for wisdom for those in the decision making process - that they will find the best placement for these two special girls.

the ticker again...

While we wait...

Right now we have a lot of waiting to do. One fun thing is hearing from other people who are getting or have gotten their referrals recently. It helps remind me that things are moving along. I've also been trying to find some kind of simple stroller that's made for tall people. So far, I can't tell if that even exists. There are some pretty hefty strollers with extendable handles but we want something simple and light. And, since I'm bored with looking at these recent posts, I'll post a favorite picture from our China trip.

Home study update

We met with our case worker today to update our home study. We have to be re-fingerprinted by the US Department of Customs and Immigration (in case we committed any crimes in the last year.) We also have to get updated physicals and security clearance from the department of social services or something like that. More paperwork. Boring... Oh well, soon we won't even remember all this paperwork stuff. =)

time to re-apply

Well, it's been over a year since our home study was complete which means that next week we have to meet with our case worker to update our home study. Also, since our immigration fingerprinting expires in November, we'll have to re-apply for that soon too. All told, another $600 or so in paperwork. Too bad the US government refused to extend the time frame for fingerprints to be good or to make a easy renewal process. This is the kind of stuff that gets me really bummed out.

HILARIOUS! Panda Attack...

Panda bites drunk Chinese man, man bites panda back at Beijing zoo

Gu Gu, a six-year-old panda, eats near the entrance to its enclosure at Beijing Zoo on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Greg Baker)Audra Ang, Canadian Press

Published: Wednesday, September 20, 2006

BEIJING (AP) - A drunken Chinese tourist bit a panda at the Beijing Zoo after the animal attacked him when he jumped into the enclosure and tried to hug it, state media said Wednesday.

Zhang Xinyan had drunk four pitchers of beer at a restaurant before "stumbling to the zoo" nearby and stopping off at the pen holding a sleeping 6-year-old male panda, Gu Gu, on Tuesday, the Beijing Morning Post said.

"He felt a sudden urge to touch the panda with his hand" and jumped over a waist-high railing down into the enclosure, the newspaper said. "When he got closer and was undiscovered, he reached out to hug it."

Startled, Gu Gu bit Zhang in the right leg, it said. Zhang, a 35-year-old migrant labourer from central Henan province, got angry and kicked the panda, who then bit his other leg. A tussle ensued, the paper said.

"I bit the fellow in the back," Zhang was quoted as saying in the newspaper. "Its skin was quite thick."

Other tourists yelled for a zookeeper, who soon got the panda under control by spraying it with water, reports said. Zhang was hospitalized.

Newspaper photographs showed Zhang lying on a hospital bed with blood-soaked bandages and several seams of stitches running down his leg.

The Beijing Youth Daily quoted Zhang, a father of two who was visiting Beijing for the first time, as saying that he had seen pandas on television and "they seemed to get along well with people."

"No one ever said they would bite people," Zhang said. "I just wanted to touch it. I was so dizzy from the beer. I don't remember much."

Ye Mingxia, a spokeswoman for the Beijing Zoo, confirmed the incident happened but would not give any details. She said Gu Gu was "healthy and uninjured."

"We're not considering punishing him now," Ye said in a telephone interview. "He's suffered quite a bit of shock."

China has more than 180 pandas living in captivity. A 2002 government census found there were just 1,596 pandas left in the wild. But state media has said a new study by Chinese and British scientists has found there might be as many as 3,000.

In 2003, a college student trying to take a photo of a panda in the Beijing Zoo jumped into the enclosure and broke his bones in the fall, the Beijing Morning Post said.

It did not say which panda it was or if it attacked the student.

© The Canadian Press 2006

Out of the review room!

The December 2005 dossiers (including ours - December 5) are out of the review room. That means all of our paperwork was done right and everything has been approved. It doesn't speed anything up for us. But it's one more step that we are through. Now there's really nothing to do but wait.

In the meantime....

Here's another favorite picture from our trip to China... Some of our nice traveling friends at the Great Wall.

Rumor Queen

The "Rumor Queen" gets emails and info. from people all over the place and in various stages of their China adoption. She sometimes makes predictions based on the recent trends in referral times etc. This is one of her latest thoughts on referral times.

Quoting Rumor Queen "As a reminder, my most recent good and bad case scenarios are:

	Good Case Scenario	Bad Case Scenario
September Referrals	08/16/05	07/28/05
October Referrals	08/30/05	08/22/05
November Referrals	Well beyond 9/11	08/29/05
December Referrals		09/07/05

So, she predicts referrals coming in December for people whose paperwork was logged in (in China) last September. We weren't logged in until December 06. Based on the time frame here, it could be July of 07 before we get a referral. Hmm... patience...

Estimating.... traveling....

A family from Bethany who was logged in on July 26, 2005 reported that their case worker estimates that they will travel anywhere from mid to late November. We didn't get logged in until December of 2005. There's a possibility it could be next spring before we go... We'll just have to wait and see. Depending on how things go, we'll likely have to re-apply for our I171 immigration form (filing cost is $545). Like I said, guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Highlights (newsletter part 4)

- Forming relationships with Christians in China

- Worshipping with our students in Chinese and English

- Having delicious Chinese food for almost every meal (Henry ate a duck foot!)

- Climbing the Great Wall

- Learning “Jesus Loves Me” in Chinese

- Developing strong relationships with our teaching team

- Singing “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” really fast and erupting in laugher with our morning group

- Leading worship before and after English lessons each day

- Witnessing the passion that Chinese Christians have for God

- Hearing familiar hymns like Amazing Grace sung in Chinese

- Learning more about the history and culture of China (and of our future daughter)

- Being treated to Peking Duck

- Buying cute squeaky shoes and traditional Chinese dresses for our future daughter

- Squattie potties & split pants

- Getting even better with chopsticks

- Seeing Pekingese dogs all over the place!

- Being immersed in a different culture

- Hearing Chinese spoken everywhere

After Christmas?

Many people are trying to make predictions about how long families are going to be waiting for their referrals (to be matched with a child). There's really no way to tell how long or short things will go. Apparently one large agency is predicting the time frame listed below. LID stands for the date your application was logged in at the Chinese agency. (Our LID is December 5). If things go like this agency is predicting, we would not be matched until around March or April. We can't say for sure, things could pick up a bit. Either way, it's not very likely that we will get a referral before Christmas.

LID 7/14/05 to 7/28/05: August referral (13 month wait)
LID 7/29/05 to 8/12/05: September referral (13-14 month wait)
LID 8/13/05 to 8/29/05: October referral (14 month wait)
LID 8/30/05 to 9/13/05: November referral (14-15 month wait)
LID 9/14/05 to 9/28/05: December referral (15 month wait)
LID 9/29/05 to 10/13/05: January referral (15-16 month wait)

A Typical Day in Beijing (newsletter part 3)

7:30 A.M. delicious Chinese breakfast in the guesthouse restaurant

8:10 On the bus to Kuanjie Church

9:00 - 11:00 Whole group time (learning Scripture and worshipping together) and Small group time (English lessons)

11:15 Walk to a local restaurant for lunch

12:30 On the bus back to the guesthouse

1:30 – 5:30 Lesson Planning, Free Time and Supper

5:30 On the bus to Gangwashi Church

6:30 - 8:30 Whole group time (learning scripture and worshipping together) Small group time (English lessons)

8:45 On the bus to our guesthouse

9:45 Free time – often bedtime!

Sightseeing and Free Time (newsletter part 2)

Although we spent a lot of time teaching and preparing our lessons, we did have a nice amount of free time each day. Our group was quite adventurous and had a big list of all the things we wanted to do during our stay. We came up with a master plan/schedule so that we wouldn’t miss a thing. This kept us pretty busy but it was worth it!

During the first weekend in Beijing we spent time at the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, The Forbidden City, The Summer Palace and The Temple of Heaven. We also had an orientation session that weekend. It was all great but we were SO tired!

We took the first two teaching afternoons off and then jumped into our own busy plans. We spent free afternoons and evenings doing a variety of activities like: bowling, shopping at the Pearl and the Silk Market, foot massages (OW!), the Beijing Zoo, Hou Hai Park, Full Body Massages, the Night Market, a Hutong rickshaw tour, and some more shopping.

On the weekend, between our two weeks of teaching, we took a train to Chengde which was a mountain resort for some Chinese emperors. The architecture there is beautiful and quite different from buildings in Beijing. It was fun to have a weekend adventure!

Teaching (newsletter part 1)

This is part of a newsletter we wrote about our work in China. This article is about our teaching experience. The two pictures are of our evening and morning classes.

The stated purpose of our trip was to teach English but it was much more than that. In fact, the relationships we formed with our students were more important than any English lessons we taught. While teaching English made it possible for us to come, worshipping together was what really reinforced our unity as members of the worldwide church of God. We were blessed by the love and warmth we were shown by our students.

The two groups we taught were quite different. Our morning group was a group of mostly older people who spoke no English and were very eager to learn. We taught them Psalm 23, the Beattitudes, many worship songs, and basic English vocabulary. The students were very appreciative and encouraging to us and loved teaching us “Jesus Loves Me” in Chinese.

Our evening group was made up of high school and college students who all spoke English quite fluently. They wanted help with pronunciation and new vocabulary. We enjoyed teaching them, and especially liked playing Uno and just sitting around and talking with them.