There's no place like HOME!

I can’t believe tomorrow is the day!! We’re finally going home!! We had dinner tonight with some of the people from our group who are still here with us. Some of the others have already headed home. We will miss the friends that we’ve made on this journey, but we are SO ready to go home. We are hopeful that all the changes that go along with home will not set Sophie back, as she has come so far these past few days. We really feel so blessed to see so many improvements so quickly. I’m sure with continued prayers, she will make this next transition into her new home relatively smoothly. I feel confident that she’s already feeling loved by us, and maybe even having some mutual feelings of her own. ;) God is good, isn’t He? :)

Now, if we can just survive that plane trip. :) As much as we want to BE at home, we are not looking forward to the process of getting there. Please, please pray for Sophie to stay calm during this trip. She gets so upset during the bus rides. I’m really hopeful that the plane will be different. We’re just a little nervous, though. Ok, really nervous. :)

I don’t have any new pictures from today. In case you haven’t noticed, this trip has not been exactly as I had planned. If so, I would have had tons of great pictures from every day, not only of Sophie, but of everything we saw in China, as well. As it turned out, we didn’t really get a ton of Kodak moments from Sophie, nor did we get to see too much of China. But, that’s ok. We got Sophie!! And she’s perfect. And that’s all that really matters! :)

Speaking of things not going as planned, I do have a story about that. One of the main things that I wanted to do while we were here was visit Sophie’s orphanage. This was not only where she spend the first 14 months of her life, but it was also the place where she was found. I really wanted to go there to see this place myself, to take in every detail, to take pictures, to ask questions, to memorize it as much as possible so that I would have something to tell her if she ever wondered about the place where she spent the first year of her life. This was very important to me. But then, when she was having such a hard time and grieving so heavily, I began having doubts, especially considering it was a 3 hour trip and her hatred of the bus rides. I just didn’t know what to do. I just put it out of my mind for the first days because, at that point, we were in survival mode anyway. Then, some people from an adoption forum that I’m a part of began telling me that maybe I should consider an orphanage visit. Sometimes, this helps children deal with their grief, possibly by giving them a sort of closure. So, again, I was really struggling with this. One day in the middle of an “episode,” in desperation, I called our guide and asked her if she could arrange the visit. She said she would and get back to me. But almost immediately, I began again to worry that it might set her back. What if she regressed? I prayed and asked God to fix this. I did not know what to do. If she needed to go, then He would need to make it happen. If she did not need to go, then our guide would need to forget that I called. Sure enough, two days later, when I saw our guide again, she told me that she forgot about the orphanage visit. :) Not only that, but this morning, we met a lady who has a daughter at home from the same orphanage as Sophie! We compared stories, and they were almost identical (which tells me that the nannies truly do love those babies.) Well, she did go for the orphanage visit and said that she has regretted it ever since. She said it was the wrong decision, and it set her child back from the progress she had made up to that point. Now, I’m certainly not saying that no one should go back to visit their child’s orphanage. We did with Gracie, and it was a great decision. What I’m saying is that God has been so good to us through all of this! We have had such a tough time here in China, but He has never left us. He’s been here with us the whole time, and I’m so thankful He cared enough to not only help us make the right decision, but then give us that confirmation. :)

So, the next time I blog, it will be from HOME!! That's so exciting! We're just about packed. We will leave our hotel in the morning at 10:00 a.m. (which is 8:00 p.m. Memphis time), and arrive in Memphis on Saturday night at 10:30. A LONG trip, but we can't wait!!

A few random pics we did manage to get.

People carry huge loads on bicycles!

The food you see on the street is a bit less than appetizing.

But KFC delivers! And McDonald's, too! :)

View from the Pearl Riverboat Cruise. Beautiful!

Another view - same cruise


We're coming HOME!! Did I mention that?