Construction Projects

I've done a few construction projects with my boys over the years. We've built a barn, built an addition to the barn, done numerous things to our house, renovated a large 100-year-old house, and restored a car, to name a few. Now that I have a daughter, it will be interesting to see what we can get involved in together.

Deb found one of those things a few days before Christmas, on sale at a local grocery store. It was a gingerbread house kit, complete with everything needed to make a gingerbread house. It became one of the gifts that Abigail opened on Christmas day. She was thrilled.

We set up a table by the woodstove and spent a few hours on it on Christmas day. I had to remind her many times that the ingredients were not to be eaten yet as they were needed to build the house. She managed to snoop more than a couple gumdrops, mini-jawbreakers, and colored sprinkles before the project was done. She also wanted to begin eating the house as soon as it was done and I had to convince her that Grandma needed to see it before we began eating it.

I did most of the icing as the bags were rather large and difficult to squeeze, but Abigail dictated where all the candies were placed. The two gingerbread people almost didn't make it as they were coveted by a girl with a newfound taste for candy.

We did have enough ingredients to complete the house. The leftovers strangely disappeared over the next day or so. There are other candy lovers in our household.

The Gift

Among her other gifts, Abigail received eleven dollars for Christmas. For her, it's been one sensory overload ever since we came home from China and now having her very own money was just one more new thing that had to be experienced to the fullest. She counted it multiple times, usually at the top of her voice. "ONE DOLLAH ... TWO DOLLAH ..."

She keeps it in a purse that she found in her dress-up box, a shiny black affair that might be seen in the movies. All her worldly cash is in that purse, ten one-dollar bills, a one-dollar coin, and a bunch of small change.

The other day, she was trying to communicate something to Deb. "Mama, money, car," she told Deb. After a little bit of exchange, Deb figured out that she wanted to buy a car. She thought first that Abigail wanted to buy a big car like David just bought.

"No, little car," Abigail corrected. "Scott, Chad."

She wanted to buy matchbox cars for her cousins. Wow. This is probably the first real money she has ever had and she wants to spend it buying gifts for others.

She went along with Deb to Target so she could buy cars for her cousins. She also wanted to buy cars for her brothers. At the checkout she had to have a quick lesson in sales tax because the cars were a dollar each and the total was more than four dollars. A little extra small change and she had her gifts.

Deb ran into her sister outside the store, and they decided to send Abigail in after her cousins, who were still in the store. David was with them. Abigail ran back into the store shouting the names. For a little girl, she has a rather big voice and it could be heard all over the store.

The boys were in the video game section, playing one of the video games. When Abigail came up to them with her "secret" gift, they scarcely acknowledged that she was even there. Abigail does not cry easily, but Deb could tell she was near to tears. As she hustled David out of the store, she gave him a quick lesson in receiving a gift from a sister. "When we get outside, I want you to give her a hug and let her know that you like the gift," she told him.

David, who still is learning how to have a sister, shot back, "I don't want to create a scene!" Giving his little sister a hug in a public place is like suicide for a teenager.

They did manage to get that situation patched up and when Abigail came home she was quite excited about giving her last "secret" to Josh. Deb managed to coach Josh briefly ahead of time so he made the proper noises and Abigail was happy. She had a chance to spend some of her Christmas money which she was dying to do ever since she got it and she was able to give gifts to others in her family.

Good News for All the People

Along with our CD of Chinese Christmas Music, our missionary friend left us the DVD of the children's version of the Jesus film. This DVD has been dubbed in 17 different languages, including Punjabi Indian, Tagalog, and Mandarin. We have been watching the Mandarin version with Abigail as a family. She has been absolutely riveted by the story. Sometimes she scarcely moves or blinks her eyes. And even though we've only been able to understand three Chinese words the entire time (Hello, Father, and God), we, too, are riveted by this true story.

"The Word became flesh and dwelt among us."

"Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift."

This is indeed good news for people of every tribe, tongue, and nation.

Merry Christmas from the Friend Family.

The Great Wall of China, David Style

[Deb Speaking] Today was a hectic, busy day. Since it's right before Christmas, I really didn't have time to read to Abigail like I like to do every day. I am a firm believer in reading aloud to my children as I think it exposes them to good writers and it's a wonderful way to spend time together. I still read to my 17- and 15-year-olds several times a week.

Today I decided I needed a little help, so I asked David, our 15-year-old to please read to Abigail. I had selected the book The Great Wall of China by Leonard Everett Fisher. I thought Abigail might enjoy seeing the Chinese characters on the side of each page, and David could learn a little bit more about the Great Wall, which we had seen in China.

It's sounds like a foolproof win-win, doesn't it?

As I bustled about the kitchen, I stopped to tune in to what David was reading in the living room. I was hearing that King Bob and his general Kluken were involved in this great building project. I had never heard of a Chinese emperor named "Bob", and "Kluken" is David's favorite made-up word.

I did not have the time to interrupt, but later David said to me, "Mom, I hope you weren't intending that book as a history lesson for Abigail. I didn't know how to pronounce the names, so I made up my own."

I then took the book and read the first paragraph. It reads as follows:

About twenty-two hundred years ago, King Cheng of Ch'in conquered the kingdoms of Han, Sun, Yen, Yueh, Ch'i, Chou, Chao, Ch'u, Wei, Wey, Wu, and Lu. Tiny Ch'in became a huge empire: China. And King Cheng became Ch'in Shih Huang Ti, the First Supreme Emperor of China.

Hmmm. Sometimes a little improvisation IS necessary.

A Multicultural Christmas

Abigail loves to dance. We discovered this after she went to the ballet last week. She was enthralled by the ballet and has dipped into her big box of dress up clothing for some strap-on wings and a baton with streamers at each end. She will use these props when she dances around the kitchen.

A friend of ours came over last night. This person is a missionary to China and has lived in China for several years and so knows the language. He talked with Abigail for quite a while last night. Or, rather, she talked to him. She has a way of dominating the conversation.

One of the things he gave us was a CD of some Christmas music, all sung in Chinese. Deb put it in the player today while she and Abigail were washing the dinner dishes. Abigail perked right up when the music started and immediately asked Deb to make it "bigger" (louder). So they did the dishes to a choir singing well known Christmas music in Chinese, loudly. I could hear it quite well from downstairs where I was building the fire.

When the dishes were done, Abigail began to dance. Soon the Clifford-the-big-red-dog slippers came off and the baton and wings came out and she was choreographing all kinds of moves to such favorites as O Come All Ye Faithful and It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.

She took a short break to call me upstairs and ordered me to participate in the dancing. So I danced, and Deb grabbed the video camera. Not a good combination. But it's all on video anyway, this big Dutch guy and a little Chinese girl dancing the Virginia Reel to Christmas Choir music sung in Chinese. Deb was laughing so hard that she couldn't hold the camera still.

She finally stopped at track 13, sweating and complaining that she was hot.

So if you want to experience a different way of celebrating Christmas, come on over, and Abigail will show you how. And this time, I will be holding the video camera.

Cooking with Abigail

[Deb Speaking] The headline in my cooking magazine said "Awesome Asian Dinner: Try something new tonight! This delicious menu with Asian flair is guaranteed to shake the winter doldrums out of any weeknight."

Perfect, I thought. Abigail will be happy because she likes most anything. I'll get to try out some of my new Asian oils and sauces, and the guys will love it.

I soon had Abigail happily stir-frying the vegetables. I was doing it in my regular frying pan and she was showing me with exaggerated motions how it was supposed to be stir-fried. My pan did not allow for such Chinese cooking ballets.

Next, we made the sauce for the cod using the sesame seed oil. Definitely a different smell than my olive oil or canola oil. Well, that oil certainly spread its aroma all through the house. Josh claims it nearly knocked him off his feet when he walked in the door.

The stir-fry vegetables were tasting pretty good until I added the cornstarch broth mixture. There's something about stir-fry vegetables in a gelatinous mass that just doesn't seem right.

As I'm writing this, I'm looking over the recipe, and I now know why it was a gelatinous mass. I was so busy teaching Abigail what was a tablespoon, teaspoon, etc., that I used four tablespoons of cornstarch instead of the four teaspoons that were called for.

Abigail had been busily sampling the stir fry vegetables three our four times before I created the gelatinous mass. After that, she quit sampling it, but dutifully ate it all at dinnertime.

I had not yet made rice for dinner since Abigail has been home, so I got out my new rice cooker, my Jasmine rice, and decided to add part of the package of fried rice that I bought from Meijer. I thought, "Hey, I'm so good at making minute rice, this can't be so hard."

I threw the two together and didn't bother worrying about the correct amount of water. It will all just boil away anyway. When Abigail tasted that mushy disaster, there was such a look of stricken horror in her eyes. She tells me my Chinese is bad, but to add insult to injury, I can't even cook rice. I quickly decided to redeem myself.

I threw the mush in the trash and measured the rice carefully along with the water. It's amazing what happens when you follow directions. The rice was good. I cannot say the same for the rest of the dinner. It did shake us up as promised, however, and the smells of that dinner now captured in my stairway will continue to remind all of us of it.

The next meal I'm making: beef roast with potatoes (with NO Asian flair).

Language Issues

One of the big fears that people (including ourselves) have about attempting to speak a different language is that a mispronunciation of a word will be funny or perhaps even offensive to the listener.  This is especially true in languages like Chinese, where a difference in tones can change the meaning of a word entirely.

I never stopped to think it could also be true in the other direction, until now.

Abigail has been picking up English words rapidly, and has begun putting two or three words together occasionally.  She knows the words for her favorite treats.  Chocolate was easy.  The Chinese pronunciation is actually quite similar, sounding more like "chocaLEET" (at least according to Abigail, who asks for chocaleet often).

Abigail has also discovered chocolate ice cream.  She was asking for this yesterday and we were so focused on the language that we missed the pronunciation.  It took one of our teenagers to point it out to us.  Josh asked us, "You know what she's saying, don't you?  She's asking for chocaleet ass cream."

We will be working to correct the pronunciation.

Cook's Privilege

Over the last decade or so, ever since the kids have become aware that the choice of food they eat is made by someone within our own household, they have sought to influence the type of foods that are put on our table. They have used such methods as bargaining, complaining, mini hunger strikes (sitting with a still-full plate long after the meal is over), and even horse-trading with a sibling ("I'll trade some of your hot-dish for that bowl of fruit").

This all reached a head on Monday, when we had a mixture of stir-fried foods (chicken and vegetables) served in pita pockets. David, after requesting that his food be served out-of-pocket, commented rather wryly, "You know, the height of civilization is when the meat is put here and the potatoes are put there." With this, he pointed to opposite sides of his plate.

Our self-proclaimed kitchen-diva, Deb, is aware of these techniques, mostly because she pioneered most of them on her own when she was a kid. So we've developed the concept of Cook's Privilege, which basically says, (s)he who cooks the meal gets to decide what the meal looks like. Since she handles the majority of the meals, she sets the agenda and the menu. Deb also has the final trump card. She does all the grocery shopping.

An extension to Cook's Privilege is this: The cook gets to lick out the bowl, or distribute the frosting-coated spatulas to whomever the cook chooses. I invoke Cook's Privilege whenever I make our malts; I get what's left in the blender. Depending on how the ingredients go together (and sometimes how thirsty I am), this can range from nothing to several ounces.

The cook also can experiment. We have been introduced to new dishes over the years, some really good, and some not so good, because Deb occasionally finds a recipe in a magazine or from a friend that she wants to try out. Sometimes she will change the ingredients to suit her taste.

I've done my own experimenting over the years and have discovered that just a little bit too much of certain ingredients can make the difference between a good malt and a great malt.

With all the chaos in our normally well-run household, the cook was changed for Saturday's dinner. Deb was running behind in many of the things she was wanting to do, so she assigned David the task of preparing dinner. David's assistant was Abigail "I'll-eat-anything-except-peas" Friend. The menu was already set: we always have pizza on Saturday evenings. David just had to make the pizza and get it in the oven.

This time, it was David who had Cook's Privilege. Another aspect of Cook's Privilege is the ability to snoop on the ingredients as the meal is being made. Abigail caught on to this really quick. Pepperoni slices, eaten one by one, are really good when it's getting close to dinner time. So are small wads of cheese.

We had, by far, the cheesiest pizza on record. I think there was extra sauce under all that cheese also. David made the pizza how he likes it and he likes extra cheese.

Now I think we need to introduce the concept of Cook's Curse. With all the extra cheese, the sides of the pan were very crusty from the cheese that had become fused to the pan, and that made the pan very difficult to clean. It took three days to get the pan clean. I think David got out of cleaning the pan this time, but Cook's Privilege may result in Cook's Curse next time.

Abigail really likes to help out in the kitchen. It will be interesting to see what happens there when she has Cook's Privilege.

Information Gathering

It's amazing what you can find out about a person when you can actually communicate with them. We had the chance to do this on Friday with Abigail, sort of.

We had an exchange student over from Hong Kong on Friday afternoon. Deb had a whole list of questions that we wanted to ask our daughter. Up till now our communication has been using a very limited vocabulary, usually one word at a time, accompanied by hand gestures. Abigail understands quite a bit, but asking her something about her past or how she feels something (for example) just isn't in the range of possibilities for us right now.

They started out by looking through a couple picture books that we had from the orphanage in China. Abigail started out fairly quietly but it didn't take long before she warmed up to the situation and began to talk non-stop. It became very difficult for Deb to inject anything into the conversation and Abigail dominated the conversation for the most part. Once in a while, Deb would be able to interrupt to ask a question, and often times the conversation just continued on through the question, with Deb having to interrupt again to ask for an answer.

This went on for an hour and a half. I had set up the video camera ahead of time, so I got the whole conversation recorded. The next day we were back on our own and Abigail was telling us she wanted to listen to some Chinese tape. It took us a while, but we finally figured out she wanted to watch the video that we had taken the day before. So she watched herself for a while. I think she would have watched the whole thing again if we would have let her.

We did manage to get a fair amount of information, despite the difficulty in asking questions. We found out that she was not allowed to go to school for at least two years, and when she did go, it was usually for three hours per day or less. She didn't really know why she did not go to school, but it did answer the question why she seems to be a couple years behind in her math skills.

She did say she likes it here. That was good to hear. She said it was a bit boring at times. I think the 'boredom' may be mostly the difference in environments. She helped care for the younger children quite a bit at the orphanage. Here, there are no younger children, only two older teenagers who are still grappling with the concept of a little sister.

The boredom can't be from the lack of activity. Our household, to a large extent, is still operating in chaos mode, where things are happening faster than we can process them. David bought a car on Tuesday and the boys and a friend of ours trailered it home on Thursday night. So in addition to a new child in the household, we now have a non-functional car sitting in the driveway: David's new project. We had a visitor when Deb and Abigail left for a church function on Saturday, and Abigail was amazed to see four cars in the driveway. She counts rather loudly and announces the result at the top of her voice. "FOUR!" she shouted, as she and Deb got in one of the cars. With our little scorekeeper away with Deb for a while, David and I spent a couple hours trying to get his car started. We were unsuccessful.

In the chaos of the day on Friday, Deb lost her list of questions and so wasn't sure if she had covered them all. Perhaps she will get another chance. Deb and Abigail are meeting the student again on Monday to take a trip to the Siagon Market, a local oriental food store, to shop for food that Abigail might like.

We'll have to see what kind of dinners are served at the Friend household in the next several days...

Noise

Abigail has discovered the intercom.  Now she is not only noisy, she can be noisy through the entire house at once.

Some Observations on Adoption and Adoption Travel

Here are a few random observations from when we were in China

• A year spent doing paperwork is an incredibly long time.
• It seems like only yesterday that we first received Abigail's referral over a year ago.
• Mixed race families are something to be stared at. We've been stared at from a distance of two feet, we've had numerous cell phone cameras stuck in our faces and I think Abigail got sick of all the questions that were directed at her.
• Personal space isn't.
• Chinese people talk too fast. Everything sounds jumbled together.
• Pavement lines and traffic lights are only a suggestion.
• There's always room for one more on the city bus.
• Life in China is a continual game of Chicken. The first person who flinches loses the right-of-way. And one person in our travel group who has adopted five times said it is now much better than when he first was here six years ago.
• Gotcha Day is hell. There really is no other way to describe it. The days following are much, much better.
• Little girls look much better with longer hair than they do with a buzz cut.
• You haven't experienced the REAL China, up close and personal, until you have had to throw up into a squatty potty.
• Hong Kong currency is prettier than US Currency.
• Chinese currency is a pain in the neck. I ended up with a whole pile of paper bills, many of them worth less than 1 Yuan. The money exchanges wouldn't take anything less than 10 Yuan, so I have lots of souvenirs. In addition, the Chinese appear to use their paper currency until it is completely worn out. Some of those souvenirs I have look like torn rags.
• It's a lot easier for a young person to learn English than it is for an older person to learn Chinese.
• Pizza Hut pepperoni pizza tastes exactly the same in Xi'an as it does in Grand Rapids.
• Chinese pepper is white, looks exactly like flour, and makes you sneeze violently, even in small amounts.
  

Cash and Travel

I saw this announcement a few days ago:

The CCAA has sent a notice to all agencies that they are increasing the $3000 orphanage donation. This is referred to as a "donation" but it is actually a required fee paid by all adoptive families. It is now being set at 35,000 RMB which at the current exchange rate (6.8812 to 1) is approximately $5086. This increase is required of all families traveling after January 1, 2009 and must be paid in RMB not dollars.

This is a fee that all adoptive families must hand carry, in crisp, new $100 bills, to China. Since many of the other fees are also paid in cash, the amount of cash carried to China adds up to many thousands of dollars. While the major hotels will accept credit cards, it appears that many transactions are still done in cold hard cash.

So I flew to China with a stack of $100 bills hidden under my clothing, feeling like a walking ATM machine. Traveling after January 1 will make that stack 20 bills larger.

China is actually quite safe for foreigners, and we never really felt threatened while we were there. We could walk around the streets by ourselves and even though we were very obviously foreigners, we really didn't have to worry about crime. The one problem that does exist pretty widely is pick pocketing. I read several accounts of people getting pick pocketed right outside the Bell Tower Hotel in Xi'an, where we stayed. When we were in Detroit on the way home, we ran into another family coming back from China. They lost $2100 in Guangzhou to a pick pocket who used a cigarette burn as a distraction.

So we were pretty vigilant about how we handled the cash, and kept most of it in the hotel safe when we were able.

I also really didn't understand why they required NEW $100 bills. It seemed to me that used bills were just as legal tender. And some of the Chinese money we received when we exchanged these new $100 bills looked like tattered rags.

I know now. Counterfeiting is also a problem in China. So when exchanging money at a bank, all the bills are run through a universally finicky scanner, which seems to reject about half of the bills. It was not uncommon for me to carry some money into a bank and then sit there for a half hour or more while the teller ran several of the bills through the scanner again and again and again. Then they would hold them up to the light and examine them. Then they would get the manager who would run them through the scanner 10 more times, bending the bill, snapping it between their fingers, or waving it in the air between each pass. On a couple occasions, the manager finally signed off everything just to get things moving again.

So money was always a concern. Especially since the financial "burn rate" was so high. Looking at the dwindling pile of bills in the hotel safe, I felt like a personal economic stimulus package. I bailed out the airlines, the railroad, several taxis, the orphanage, way too many government agencies, several hotels, numerous restaurants, a bunch of street vendors, and even a rickshaw driver. I figured the economy would collapse immediately after I left. Several times Deb asked me if the money was going to last longer than the trip or if the trip was going to last longer than the money. I assured her of the former.

We did make it with some to spare. We did not get pick pocketed. Everything worked out. God is good.

Siblings

Today, for the first time, all three children were quietly playing together. It took a toy that has been neglected for several years. We still had the big tub of KNex and we brought it out, thinking that Abigail might like putting things together. She and I made a large flower just before supper. Now all three of them are in the family room with KNex scattered all over the place. It's time for Abigail to go to bed, but we don't want to disturb this moment. Deb and I have actually been able to chat downstairs by the fire for a half hour.

A New Normal

It has now been four weeks since we met our scared little daughter on a street corner in central China. Since then, a lot has transpired, and the events seem to be accelerating.

If you wonder just when life will be returning to normal for us, we would be the first to say that we have no idea anymore what 'normal' is. When 'normal' does happen, it will most likely be a 'normal' far different than the 'normal' that we have been used to. And that may not happen for a while yet.

On one hand, Abigail is making tremendous strides towards becoming part of our family. Her understanding of the language has been expanding more rapidly each day and we can now communicate with her to some extent about simple things. She is picking up new words each day.

It is a lot of fun to see her discover or experience new things. I had her out in the snow yesterday, on a tiny hill behind our house. Just slogging through ten inches of snow brought squeals of delight, and she laughed all the way down the little hill when riding in the sled. We tried to ask her if she ever had this much snow in Tongchuan, but I don't know if she understood what we were asking. She really is a delightful little girl. High maintenance right now, but delightful. I've even been seeing some signs that the boys are warming up to her. For a while, she was just an annoyance. She still is, but now just less so. So far we have not had any major meltdowns and grieving spells which are typical, perhaps they will come later. Part of that ever-shifting 'normal'.

On the other hand, other things have been happening that will keep life at the chaotic stage for a while.

We've had a lot of snow lately. We've also had a lot of visitors lately. We do like both, however the snow tends to wear out its welcome after Christmas. Visitors never wear out their welcome. Unfortunately, the presence of both at the same time made for a rather icy driveway and Grandma took a fall in our driveway on Saturday and broke her arm in two places. She has helped us a lot since we've been home. Actually, she has helped us a lot since our first child was born nearly 18 years ago. Now she is out of commission for a while. The boys will be disappointed. Grandma often bailed them out of doing their chores. Abigail seems to enjoy helping out; now she may get a chance to help Grandma as well.

This economic downturn has hit close to home. The layoffs at work made headlines in the regional news channels. Several people that I worked with quite closely are no longer there. I feel blessed to have survived with only a small pay cut.

Abigail is blissfully unaware of most of this, other than Grandma's arm being in a cast and sling. "Grandma, ouch!" is her description of the situation. Her ignorance is probably a good thing, as her 'normal' has changed much more than ours.

We'll let you know when 'normal' happens. Just don't hold your breath.

Photogenics

Abigail loves to have her picture taken and will strike up a pose whenever the camera is in the vicinity. She has found a kindred spirit in her cousin, Jada, who also loves to pose for the camera.

The Mandarin Fix

Learning a new language is hard work and I think that's one of the reasons Abigail clocks in 12 hours a sleep per night. She gets pretty tired by the end of the day.

We're using various methods to introduce her to the English language. Besides the rather obvious one of just being immersed in an English speaking household, Deb reads to her during the day, she plays Bingo with Abigail to teach letter and number recognition and pronunciation, she works with Abigail in telling time using a hand clock, and several other formal and informal ways.

So after all this hard work, Abigail has really enjoyed her break, her "Mandarin Fix", a CD with the story of the Shepherd of Qinghai, a Chinese story published by the Back to God Hour. A half hour of this, snuggled under a blanket, listening while it plays on the computer, gets her full attention.

And for a half hour, the house is quiet.

Friends

There really isn't a whole lot I could add to this picture, so I'll just let it stand alone and speak it's own message.

Adjustments

Abigail is adjusting well. Her English vocabulary is expanding every day and probably is up to a couple dozen words. She understands a lot more than that, though. We can tell her to go make her bed or put something in her bedroom and she will do it, although she would not be able to describe what she just did back to us. I'm sure the pantomimes that accompany nearly all communications help in this.

She is becoming very American in her eating as well. While she initially did not really like the breads that we eat a lot of (the Chinese typically do not eat baked bread; any bread or buns tend to be steamed rather than baked), she now eats just as much of it as we do. She loves meat and vegetables and nearly anything that gets put on her plate, except peas and perhaps broccoli. We're working on the broccoli. We understand the peas; none of us eat peas either. This is one battle we don't fight, and she's quite adept at moving the peas to one side with her chopsticks.

She rejected the use of chopsticks while in China, but has now picked them back up. I think she was trying to be American for a while and then figured out that it was much easier for her to use what she was accustomed to.

She also sleeps well. We will put her to bed at 8:00 and won't hear a peep out of her until 7 or 8 the next morning. She is not a morning person, and would rather laze around in bed for as long as possible. On Sunday, I got her up after some cajoling and then told her to make her bed. Deb found her several minutes later, sound asleep, back in bed. The way she stumbles around after just getting up is almost comical. Each step is laboriously taken with a shuffling thump that makes her tousled hair swing from side to side, and her dour expression warns us all to leave her alone in her sleepiness.

She has a delightful personality and loves to have fun. She's always laughing about something, and will laugh when others laugh, even though she has no idea what they are laughing about. She is mischievous and loves to tease, much to the chagrin of her brothers, who aren't used to this at all. She is also noisy. It's hard to communicate to her what an "indoor voice" is like, and she will announce her presence loudly, at any time, interrupting whatever is currently in progress.

She has a pair of dress shoes that she wore to church. She liked the clacking noises they made on the hard floors. She insisted on wearing those shoes on Monday and drove everyone nuts with the constant clacking and clumping as she stomped around the house. We have very little carpet in our house, so there was a lot of clacking.

We are having a harder time adjusting. The kids have recovered from jet lag just fine, we are still working on it. The tiredness at the end of the day is accentuated by the constant attention that Abigail demands. She does not play or work independently and demands constant attention. Yesterday was my first full day back at work, so Deb had Abigail for the full day. When I got home, Deb was visibly worn out, the boys were nowhere to be found, and Abigail was bouncing off the walls.

We were blessed with a dinner brought in by another church family, so it was nice to just sit down and eat. After dinner, Deb kept Abigail occupied decorating the Christmas tree while I finished up math and physics with the boys. When we got her to bed at 8:00, the silence was palpable. Deb and I fell into bed, quite exhausted, before 10:00, and both of us were awake at 2:30am.

During our family devotions, I am trying to emphasize a few of the fruits of the Spirit, especially patience, gentleness, and self-control. These are what we need a special measure of right now. Perhaps the joy and peace will follow. This is a huge disruption to the family, one that was not entirely unexpected, but difficult to live through nonetheless. It's one of those situations where we are forced to draw daily on God's grace and providence. It makes me think of how the priests carried the Ark into the Jordan River when the Israelites crossed towards Jericho. It wasn't stepping into a small shallow stream, it was a large river at flood stage. One step and they are over their heads. They took the first step, and THEN God parted the waters.

We are now in this over our heads. We are taking it one day at a time, and eagerly (OK, sometimes wearily) look forward to what God is going to do each day. We know that he will part the waters for us as well.

Pictures From the First Week Home

The day after we got home, it snowed. Enough to roll a large snowball.

Abigail and her Chinese American Girl Doll. Yes, we now have dolls in our house.

She even sleeps with the doll at her side.

Abigail loves riding in the car. She was amazed that David could drive.

Just after completing her first jigsaw puzzle.

Imagine This!

I regret not taking a picture; maybe I will be able to sometime, so you will just have to imagine. It was rather humorous watching Abigail try to eat a chunk of finger jello with chopsticks.

First Time at Church

Abigail was at church for the first time on Wednesday night. This is our Thanskgiving Eve service where several in our congregation share what they are thankful for. It is always a blessing to hear what God is doing in other's lives. We serve an amazing God and hearing how he has blessed others just makes Him more amazing.

This year, I was asked to share about our adoption trip. I wrote up a short essay and surprised myself by speaking calmly and clearly in front of all those people. I'll share that essay here as well:

Ni Hao... Hello.

Now you know a large part of my Chinese vocabulary.

We just returned from a trip to China this past Saturday. All four of us went to China, all five of us came back. Our newest family member, Abigail, is nine years old. It is really nice to have her back before Thanksgiving, because now we have so much more to be thankful for.

We thank God first of all for an amazing trip. We spent three days in Beijing, six days in Xi'an, six days in Guangzhou, and a day in Hong Kong. We traveled by plane, train, boat, bus, taxi, van, golf cart, gondola, rickshaw, toboggan, and on foot. I could show you our pictures, but there are nine hundred fifty of them and I might run over my allotted time. Through this all, God kept us safe and on schedule. He placed people in our path who took care of us through the entire trip. Our guide in Beijing was a believer. We met up with other believing families in Guangzhou whom we became friends with, one of whom lives right around here in Zeeland. We thank God for Mr. Gao and the other drivers that ferried us around. They were extremely skilled and navigated the city streets without a single mishap. Those of you that have been to China know that is no small feat.

He carried us through two of our family members becoming violently ill. These illnesses did not affect our schedule in any way.

He carried us through an extremely difficult and stressful day when we met our daughter for the first time. It was probably one of the most difficult days of our lives. Here was a scared little girl who would not even look at us when we first met her. Even though she knew we were the ones she had seen in the pictures we sent her, she refused to come near us, and when I finally got her on my lap, she was stiff as a board and wanted to get off right away. She sobbed miserably when it came time to leave her former caregivers and go with us to our hotel room. It was a heartbreaking scene.

We are also very thankful for the next day. Some of her sunny personality began to shine through and we saw her beautiful smile for the first time. Since that time, she has been adjusting well. She laughs easily, smiles easily, sleeps well, eats well and even likes to sit on my lap. She loves to be on the go and seems to have a strong desire to learn.

We also recognize both the privilege and the responsibility to share Christ with our new daughter. Since we were bringing her home shortly before Christmas, Deb asked her through our interpreter what she thought Christmas was all about. Abigail described a big man with a bag on his back and gifts. Deb described back to her the true meaning of Christmas; how the sacrifices done by the emperors and other sacrifices by other people all over the world were not enough to erase the bad things we had done, how God sent his own Son to be the final sacrifice. We celebrate his coming at Christmas and give gifts to represent his gift to us. When she was done translating all this to Chinese for Abigail, our interpreter told us, "Wow, I learned some new things today."

Abigail may not understand all the things that were said at that time, but we are thankful that she is now part of our family and will be able to hear it again and again. We are confident that he who began a good work in this little nine-year-old will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

We are very thankful for our friends at GCC who upheld us in prayer during our trip. This is a giant step for us. We are way outside our comfort zones and we are thankful for all the thoughtful gestures that many of you have done during this process that have provided support for us.

When we made the decision to adopt over a year ago, we really had no idea what the outcome would be. All we had were a small picture and a medical report. Nothing else. We've seen both the best and worst of outcomes in other adoptions. Adopting an older child adds more uncertainty to the mix, so it was truly a step into the unknown.

Now that we are home again we still have no idea what the future holds. Only God knows and we are thankful that the future is firmly in His hands. Each day for us brings new discoveries of what she is like. Some of those are pleasant surprises, some are areas that need to be worked on.

As an example, the morning after she came home, she was investigating this new home of hers when she came dashing out of the family room to where I was. "Baba, ka", she said, (Daddy, look!) and pulled me by the hand into the family room. With wonder in her eyes she pointed to what had excited her. She was just so amazed and enthralled that we actually had a piano in our home. She sat down later and plinked out a couple tunes, songs she had been taught by her foster sister in China, complete with singing the lyrics in Chinese. It looks like piano lessons may be in her future.

We appreciate your prayers as we continue this journey and we give thanks to God for Abigail, for our family, for our good friends at GCC, and most of all, for our adoption into the family of God.

Xie Xie ... Thank you.

When this was done, I motioned to Abigail, and she readily came up to the podium. I picked her up and was able to introduce her to the congregation. She beamed to a large room full of complete strangers.

Afterward, Abigail was a bit overwhelmed by the small crowd of little girls introducing themselves to her. Many of them are also Chinese adoptees so she should eventually feel right at home. She warmed up to them quickly and soon they were chasing each other around.

A little while later, she was on the floor, screaming in pain. She must have tripped and fell. She usually tolerates pain and we rarely hear her cry, so this must have been bad. We took her home, looked at the foot, and decided to put her in bed and check it in the morning.

We spent most of Thanksgiving morning in the St. Mary's Urgent Care Center. It wasn't all that busy, so we got in right away. This just means we wait in the examination room rather than the waiting room. Abigail seems very used to all the activity and sat very still for the x-rays. She seemed to enjoy mimicking all the beeps and noises that the machine made.

After another interminable wait, the doctor came back in and told us it wasn't broken. Another thing to be thankful for. It was only a bad sprain. She is now putting weight on it although she favors it somewhat.

It doesn't seem to slow her down. When she does't want to put weight on it, she just hops around the house on one foot.

She was excited to go to grandma's house for Thanksgiving dinner. I think part of the excitement is riding in the car. She was amazed that we could actually drive a car. She was doubly amazed when we drove to Grandma's house, and David drove the car. Imagine that, this crazy family I find myself in, and everyone drives!

Aftereffects

Jet lag has hit us. Hard.

Abigail crashed right after supper. She was up before 5am and went like the Energizer Bunny until after supper, when she suddenly fell asleep. It was all we could do to rouse her enough to brush her teeth and use the bathroom before tucking her in bed.

I came home from work at 10:30 this morning with my head buzzing. Deb had a three hour nap this afternoon so she is doing better than all of us right now. We will probably all end up in bed before 8:00pm.

The meal that was brought to us by a church member was a Godsend. By suppertime, we could barely navigate, so it was nice to sit down to a meal that we didn't have to spend time preparing.

Now that we're home, it would seem that the story is over. But this was just the first chapter. The bulk of the story is still to come.

Please stop by to meet the newest Friend. We love having people over. Especially unannounced. Then we don't have to feel bad if the house isn't picked up. And stay tuned here for further developments. Although there may not be the barrage of posts like the last couple weeks, we'll try to keep you all updated on Abigail's progress.

Details

I have re-arranged the last five posts to put them in the correct time sequence. So there may be one you have not seen posted before one you have already seen.

We're Home, Reprise

Now that most of the brain cells are functioning again, I can offer a few more details on our homecoming.

It's good to be back. We came into the Kent County International Airport just after 4:00pm yesterday. Our flights were all on time and uneventful as far as flying goes. Abigail didn't want to sleep on the long flight from Tokyo to Detroit. She found everything else that was happening too interesting. She was glued to the movie even though she did not have the earphones on. We told her to sleep multiple times and she would get down in her seat. But when she thought we weren't looking, she slowly raised herself up to peer over the seat in front of her. We put her in bed at 6:00 pm and she slept until 4:00 am Sunday morning. 10 hours. Not bad. I made it until 2:30 am.

She is definitely exploring the limits. Whenever we had a soft drink at a restaurant, she has used her straw to blow bubbles in the drink, often splashing it all over the place. We finally took her drink away at the last Pizza Hut because of it.

On the plane, the flight attendant gave her a coffee straw with her glass of orange juice. She leaned over the glass really close and blew one bubble in the juice. Then I saw her slowly look over in my direction out of the corner of her eye. She saw I was watching her and quickly looked away again. She does know what "no" means but likes to see just how far she can push things.

After leaving 80 degree weather, we arrived home to a blistering 29 degrees. Summer is definitely over.

We arrived home to a warm house (we had left the thermostat set at 45) and several gifts from our dear friends at Grace Community Church. There were signs on the wall, flowers on the table, and food in the fridge. Thanks, GCC, for everything!

We're Home

We made it. Abigail is now running around the house, looking and marveling at all the new things. I'll post more to take care of remaining details after we get some sleep.

Radio Silence

It's been a little while since the last post, but we are still alive and kicking. We are currently waiting to board the plane at Hong Kong International Airport. The radio silence has been due to lack of internet access, or more correctly, lack of AFFORDABLE Internet access. We are all doing well and can't wait to get these long hours of travel over with.

Abigail is definitely NOT a morning person. However, she knew we were flying today and so made it out of bed at 5:00 am with only moderate protest.

Additional posts will follow as time/internet access allows.

A Day in Hong Kong

We spent all day Friday walking the streets of Hong Kong. We were actually in Kowloon, which sits on one side of Victoria Harbor, with a commanding view of Hong Kong island across the harbor. The view during the day and at night was impressive, if you had the right viewpoint. From the streets, you can see nothing. The streets are the most amazing urban canyons I have ever seen, with narrow streets, even narrower sidewalks, and 20 or 30 story buildings rising up beside the sidewalks. When we tried to walk three abreast (Deb and I holding Abigail's hands), we took up the entire sidewalk from the side of the building to the road.

Our hotel room on the 19th floor offered a great view of the city, with the picture below taken from the hotel window.

Our hotel was right on the waterfront, and a large promenade along the water allowed for a nice walk along the city, and a great view of Hong Kong Island at night.

The next few pictures were taken on the waterfront promenade

The Friend Siblings in Hong Kong

Abigail, assuming her desired role as director

We arrived here in Hong Kong late last night (Thursday). The hotel is right across from the train station so we just had to drag our luggage across the street. When I made the hotel reservations, I was told this was one of the more reasonable hotels in the area (without running all over Kowloon). We are finding out that it is one of these posh business hotels where the room is expensive and all the other essentials (like Internet access) is an extra charge. The woman at the front desk tried to sell us an upgraded package which included breakfast, Internet access, and a bunch of other stuff for "only $150 per person" [Hong Kong dollars, or about US$20]. I was told this was a great deal because just to get breakfast was HK$180.

As she was listing off the great benefits of this special package, she looked at Abigail and asked if our children were noisy. We serve a business clientele, she told me, and so the children need to be kept quiet in the restaurant. So I just got told that I'm not welcome unless I can keep a lid on the kid.

And, by the way, this special package is only available if we pay for two day's worth. "I only need one day," I told her. "We need to leave the hotel before breakfast is even served on the second day." She was already writing the figures down on the hotel tab and I was seeing some big numbers add up in a hurry, so I told her we would pass on the special. If we're not welcome, we'll spend our money somewhere else. We'll see if we can forage on our own for meals.

And forage we did. We had a not-so-special breakfast at a train station restaurant, and then Deb and Josh and David went out scouting the city. Abigail and I stayed back because she was complaining that she wasn't feeling well. This is one of those things what we have to learn about her, especially since we cannot communicate yet: is she not feeling well just because she doesn't feel well, or because she doesn't feel like walking?

Deb and the boys returned later to say they had found a bakery which made some excellent cheese bread, and they found some sort of chicken/ham thing at a grocery store deli which was underground. Leave it to Deb to scout out a good deal. The chicken/ham things were fantastic, and we bought more of them later on for the next morning's breakfast.

Abigail is not a bread fan, but she did eat the chicken/ham thing and an orange. That's one english word she knows, "gorange". Oranges have been a staple for us during this trip.

Abigail does like pizza. On our way back to the hotel, Josh, our 17-year-old Hong Kong navigator, was leading us through the city streets, and found a Pizza Hut on the second floor of one of the bazillion buildings there. I know this sounds like we're wimping out, going all the way to Hong Kong and eating at a Pizza Hut, but our diets have been so crazy the last few weeks and we have had two of us get violently ill, so something familiar was a welcome sight. And it's something we all like.

Goodbye Guangzhou

We're on the move again. I'm writing this aboard the train from Guangzhou to Hong Kong. Abigail was excited to ride the train and now she has been talking non-stop. I think the Chinese woman across from us thought that Abigail was trying to make conversation with her because she was responding back for a while, but it was obvious that she just wanted to read. She had her book in her hand and earphones in her ears. I think she finally figured out that this conversation had no end and lapsed into silence. Abigail's side of the conversation continued on unabated for a while before I got out my keyboard and began to type. Now she points out whenever I type her name.

Our swearing in ceremony was a little anti-climactic. We and 52 other families piled into a fifth floor room at the US Consulate, turned in some paperwork, raised our right hand, said yes, received a brown envelope, and were done. A bunch of people cheered. I had a little trouble hearing what was going on because the room was so noisy. If we were to eliminate the waiting around, the actual process took perhaps five minutes. Of all the states represented there, Michigan had the most families, with four families.

We now have her passport back with an immigrant visa and all the paperwork to hand off to the US Immigration people when we land in Detroit on Saturday.

Abigail has enjoyed the other kids from our travel group. She and two-year-old Simon, who calls her his big sister, were chasing each other around the lobby of the US Consulate building while we were waiting for the rest of our group to arrive. They are always happy to see each other. The cool thing is, they live only about ten miles from us so they will be able to see each other again in the States.

Waiting at the Guangzhou Train Station

Wednesday

Today was a rather lazy day. The only planned activity was the dinner cruise on the Pearl River in the evening. Our consulate appointment was also today, but our coordinator was the one who went to the consulate. All we had to do was assign one of us to wait by the phone from 11 until noon in case there were paperwork problems. There weren't. We did some shopping at the local souvenir vendors. Josh found a copy of the movie National Treasure 2 which he got for 15 yuan (a little over two bucks) and we watched it at night. There's a reason the cheap copies are cheap. Several times during the movie, the dvd froze up but then started going again a few seconds later. We enjoyed the movie, however.

We took the hotel bus to the dinner cruise. On the way, Abigail and Michael were peppering Leila (our coordinator) with questions about what was going to happen next. I'm sure there's many questions in their heads and will be for some time to come.

When we were in Xi'an, Abigail thought our hotel room was "home" and after Jane told her we would be leaving for a different place, Abigail wondered how we were going to take all our stuff along (the furniture) and if someone else was going to buy the room when we were gone.

The communication gap is still pretty big. Abigail understands "eat", and when we told her that we would eat on a boat in the evening, we thought we had communicated it to her successfully until Abigail asked Leila if "eat" and "boat" meant the same thing.

Abigail loved the cruise. She stood on the top deck next to Deb and squealed in delight many times, perhaps not so much with the lights along the river, but with the motion of the boat and the wind in her hair.

Eating ice cream along the Pearl River. We got a tip from another family that the Magnum bars purchased at the 7-Eleven were really good. We would agree.


Dinner on the boat. Abigail now understands that "boat" and "eat" are two different things because she has now experienced them both. She has experienced more modes of travel in these two weeks (plane, taxi, bus, car, boat and [soon] train) than in her entire life.

The "we were there" picture

Abigail found the whole experience highly delightful.

Lights along the Pearl River

Leaving Tomorrow

It's hard to believe, but tonight is our last night in Guangzhou. Tomorrow afternoon we have a swearing in ceremony at the US Consulate, then we take the train to Hong Kong where we'll stay for a day. It's late, so I'll post more later. Josh bought a copy of the movie National Treasure 2 and we watched that after we put Abigail to bed, so now it's bedtime for us as well.

Consulate Appointment

Today, our consulate appointment was at 11:00. I spent the time in the hotel room, waiting by the phone. Our coordinator attended the appointment and handled all the paperwork and said she would call before noon if there was a problem with the paperwork. It is now noon, and I have not received any phone calls, so our paperwork must have been deemed acceptable. Yippee!

That paperwork consisted of a bunch of forms that we spent over two hours filling in on Monday, a bunch of notarized documents that we got in Xi'an, Abigail's passport, the adoption certificate, and some paperwork we brought from home.

Other than some post-adoption reporting requirements, this is the end of the paperchase.

The Red Couch

It wouldn't be a complete adoption trip without the picture on the red couch at the White Swan Hotel (sometimes jokingly called the White Stork). So, here's ours:

The newly adopted kids in our travel group

Another First

Abigail said her own name for the first time yesterday. Up until now she would readily identify Mama and Baba and her two ge ges, Josh and David, in pictures, but when asked who the little girl was, she would just point at herself and not say anything. Yesterday she pointed at all of us and said in turn: "Mama, Baba, Josh, David" and when she pointed at herself, she said with near perfect pronunciation, "Abigail." Now she seems to use her name readily.

Pictures from Tuesday

On our outing to Baiyun Mountain, we had another opportunity for a family picture. We are finding out that Abigail loves to have her picture taken as much as she loves to take pictures.

The Friend siblings

The route down from the mountain. If it hadn't been such a hazy day, the view over Guangzhou would have been marvelous.

Lunch. Give Abigail some instant noodles and she's happy.

We had dinner at a Cantonese restaurant. Abigail loved the seaweed looking stuff and ate it with great relish (and perhaps a little bit of theatrics).

Simon Sprick has taken a liking to David and wanted to be held several times by him. David had to be taught how to pick up and hold a two-year-old. He asked us, "How do you pick up this thing?"

Our travel group. The Spricks, Friends, Lowes, and Cravens.

Father's Joy

Today we took a trip to Baiyun Mountain. Josh and David made it all the way to the summit. Tim, Abigail and I made it quite a ways. We took a golf cart up most of the way and walked a fair ways towards the top. We stopped at the tablet forest area and had a scroll made of the meaning of Abigail's name in Chinese calligraphy. There was quite a discussion between our translator and the artist, and even some of the people watching about how this should be done.

Since our guide and translator here is not a Christian, she wasn't quite sure how to explain "Father's joy", which is what the name, Abigail, means to the calligraphy artist. So all of you out there who can read Chinese calligraphy tell us if it turned out right.

A Chinese Dutch Girl

Well, it happened today. Abigail and I had just a girls' shopping trip. The guys wanted to get off the island and head into the crowded, chaotic city and check out an electronics store. I decided to stay back with Abigail and try the quiet little shops around here. I felt we had enough vocabulary and she was understanding more and more every day that I could take her shopping and that if I didn't want to buy something, she would not throw a temper tantrum. We have had a few discussions about whining and that when I say no, I mean no.

I knew that Abigail was very interested in one of the feathered hackey sacks that people here are always playing with. The way you shop in China is you ask several vendors what the price of an item is to get a baseline (and believe me, it varies widely) and then you begin to bargain. With an item as cheap as the feathered hackey sack, it didn't take us long to figure out that the typical price for one was five yuan. This is a little over seventy five cents. I know it's not much, but a Dutchman just has to get it for a better price.

I told Abigail that five was too much, and if she could get it for three, we would buy it. Boy, did she go to town. She would go up to the vendors, ask them how much in Chinese, make her offer, and if they told her no, she would walk away.

After trying this for a while, I realized that three was probably just a little bit too cheap. So I told her if she could get it for four (not five), she could have it.

Now she started in on her new price offer. In one shop, the female shop clerk told her, no it was five. Abigail would shake her head and tell her no, I want it for four. Finally, the woman sent Abigail to the owner of the shop and Abigail and he sealed the deal at four. I must say it was great cheap entertainment for me to see her haggling the way the Chinese love to do.

The shopkeeper spoke excellent English and he told me that he is trying to teach his son to be brave and do this as well. He then told me laughingly that when he agreed to Abigail's price, she told him that he was a good man. We also bought a little butterfly baret from him that Abigail was very excited about. He also did Abigail's name for her in calligraphy. When I told him Abigail's name, his face lit up and he said, "Oh, from the Bible! I'm a Christian, too." And he shook my hand.

After this, Abigail was through shopping. She wanted to play hackey sack. I was never athletic when I was young, and I have not improved with age. Abigail took me to the park in the heart of the island and made my try to play hackey sack. We were quite a spectacle for all the Chinese that were all around. I think they marvelled that somebody could have as little coordination as I. I could tell that Abigail had never played before either. Finally, a Chinese woman had pity on us, and gave Abigail some tips on how to play. Her tips did nothing for me, of course. Later on, Abigail dragged us all down to the center of the island to make us all play hackey sack.

A group of Chinese playing hackey sack

Monday Pictures

Today's big event was going to the Safari Park. We went with two other families

Kamryn, Findlay, and Abigail

Feeding the giraffe.

We were treated to an elephant show, where the elephants did all sorts of amazing things.

The park had a small amusement park, and Abigail had her first ride on a couple of the different rides there.

Snack time.

Posing by the giant Panda bear.

Dinner at Lucy's when we got home.

Playing with Simon Sprick in the hotel playroom across from our room. We met up with the Spricks in Beijing and then again when we came to Guangzhou and found they live about 10 miles from us.