Zhanjiang SWI... blessings from Heaven!

Well, I want to say that words fail me as I try to describe the events of today, but I’m going to describe it so that wouldn’t be entirely true. It was amazing, incredible, unbelievable, spectacular, moving, intense, emotional, wonderful, surprising, miraculous, mind-blowing, remarkable, astounding, inconceivable, fantastic… just a few words that come to mind, but they still aren’t quite right. Cosette and I are both going to need some time and space to process today’s events. Perhaps I’ll write more about my thoughts and feelings another day. For now I’ll do my best to simply describe the events of the past 24 hours.

As we prepared to leave Liaoning we asked Maggie, our guide, to explain once again to Daniel that Cosette and I would be leaving the following morning, Saturday. That we would go to Cosette’s orphanage and return the next day. This was not the first time we had told him, but we wanted to be sure he was not surprised. He was sad at first and resistant, then as he began to understand that John would be staying with him, that our big suitcases with all Cosette and my things would be there with them he began to accept it.

The flight from Shenyang to Guangzhou was relatively uneventful. It was fun to experience Daniel’s excitement over flying. Everything was new and exciting. Mama cha, Mama cha! (Mom look!) was repeated about a 100 times. We arrived in Guangzhou around midnight Friday night. The kiddo’s were wound up, we had a crib in the room instead of cots for the kids and it seemed we had about a dozen other problems with the room, but we were so exhausted we couldn’t think straight so we asked for the cots and told the guide we would deal with the other issues in the morning. By the time the kids were asleep it was after 1 a.m. Yikes, I thought, I’m going pay for this tomorrow. BTW – John was amazing today. He sat between the kiddo’s on the plane and basically took care of them the entire trip. It was a great break for me.

This morning Daniel woke up first. He was surprised and scared when he woke up. He couldn’t figure out where he was and he started crying at the top of his lungs. Poor little guy was really scared. Of course, I collected him and took him to our bed to try to calm him down and get back to sleep. Well, the first happened, but not the second. He and I were both operating on about 5 hours sleep!

We had arranged to have lunch with Snoopy’s parents (Snoopy was our exchange student who lived with us for 10 months back in 2007). They came to our hotel and directed us to a private room for an amazing banquet. There was course after course of amazing food. Plenty of things I didn’t recognize, and things I did too. What a wonderful extravagance! After the meal, we collected our suitcase, said a quick good bye to Daniel and John and were whisked away to the airport. Mr. Gu (Snoopy’s dad) is clearly a man of significant influence because we were treated like rock stars. We used a private entrance to the airport, waited for our flight in a luxurious room, had the security process done in that private room, and were served tea and treats while we waited. Then when it was time for the flight, we were driven in a private van to the side of the plane where we boarded the plane from a private entrance. Amazing, and beyond first class!

After the 45 minute flight we were met by a contingent of SUV’s that drove our group, now about 10 or so people to the orphanage. I video taped much of the drive, not knowing when we would turn a corner and be there! Good thing John is a great editor, we will need it! Anyway, we entered the orphanage grounds where some of the elementary children seemed to be putting on a performance. We stopped and watched for a few minutes. There were at least a hundred people there milling around the courtyard so when suddenly someone introduced the two people next to me as Cosette’s foster family I was completely thrown. These too, standing here watching? “Yes”. Well, I immediately started to tear up. Imagine! These are the hands that held my princess; the loving voice that sang to her; the arms that held her; the eyes she looked into trustingly for 12 months! What to say? How do I start to tell them the depth of my gratitude? How do I convey to them what a gift they have given me? My head was spinning. Fortunately, we were invited into a conference room inside to talk, so during the 5 minute walk I had a chance to collect my thoughts.

Cosette seemed shy and a little un-engaging. I believe it was just too much for her. How does she process what she was experiencing? If it’s putting me in a tail spin, imagine how she was feeling? I simply can’t!

Once in the conference room and seated, I was able to have a conversation with her foster mom and dad. I asked many questions, they told stories of her babyhood, they gave us a picture of their family, including Cosette, during the time Cosette was living with them. Both moms cried, her foster dad’s eyes swelled with tears several times but he held back. It was… words; help me with the words… a miracle! In the picture above and to the left you see Cosette's foster parents seated next to us. We had prepared a book of photos for them. Pictures of Cosette over the years. We put our phone number and address in the book in several places, hoping they will contact us again. We have no way of contacting them, this is not allowed by the orphanage.

Mr. Gu (Snoopy’s dad) had an schedule, so fairly quickly we were whisked off again. This time to go to Cosette’s finding spot, Potou hospital. At the hospital we took pictures, had a look around and finally went to the maternity ward. Mr. Gu said something about perhaps Cosette was born here so he wanted us to have pictures in that area and with the nurses. It was good to be able to go there. So many times, nightly for many years, we told Cosette her story before bed. We would tell about the hero’s her birth parents were to have found a way to save her life by bringing her to the Potou hospital where people who know how to take care of babies would find her and take care of her. Now we were standing in the very spot where the “crowd of people” reported they found a baby, my baby girl, Cosette! It’s all a little more then I could take.

As we walked around the courtyard, through the corridors of the hospital and drove through the surrounding streets I couldn’t help but think “does she look like any of these people?” “Could any of them be aunts or uncles, cousins or sisters?” She and I talked about that a little. I don’t think she was quite ready for that conversation.

At dinner and then later in the hotel as we talked about the day she asked me quite a few questions. She is really working on putting it all together in her head. She was clearly exhausted physically and emotionally and wanted me to stay in bed with her as she fell asleep. She wrested her cheek on top of my hand, holding tight to my arm. She is clearly feeling things she is unable to articulate.

An amazing day! I’ll post a few pics. For the fellow Zhanjiang parents, I’ll post more pictures tomorrow. We did not tour the orphanage, so I probably didn’t get a lot of pics that would be of much interest to anyone other then our family.

Feeling blessed beyond measure!
Tonya