Hidden Blessing In The Midst Of Big Disappointment (China Day 12)

We were up and at 'em early this morning.  In fact, today was the first day we actually had to set an alarm clock!  We were in the lobby at 7:30am, all packed up and ready for the 3.5 hour drive to Yangjiang City to visit Helen's orphanage.  We were greeted in the hotel lobby by our guide with some bad news.  A typhoon was sweeping across the province and it was directly over our destination.  We took the advice of one of our agency folks here to cancel the trip.  After looking at a weather radar map online, we saw just why they were making such a big deal out of the storm:

This has been one of the worst storms southern China has seen in several years.  They say heavy rains could continue for the next 24-48 hours, so please pray that we make it to Hong Kong safely on Thursday, and that our Friday flight back to Detroit will be on schedule!

Unfortunately, today was our only chance we could make the orphanage visit, so it's not going to happen.  We were pretty bummed, but we took it as a sign that we just weren't supposed to make the journey.  

Because the typhoon was already pushing heavy rainfalls upon Guangzhou, we spent most of our day in the hotel room.  This turned out to be a blessing in disguise.  Throughout the day Helen opened up to us more and more.  She started smiling at more things.  She started responding to our talking and touches more naturally.  She even let her little voice be heard a few times!  Overall it felt like today was intended to simply be a day of bonding between the three of us.

We did head out late this afternoon to join up with another adoptive family for dinner.  This is the family we met in Detroit during our layover enroute to Hong Kong.  They're heading back to Hong Kong tomorrow, so it was one last time for our families to get together here.  It's been so great to build new friendships like this one during our time here.  We joked tonight that we have family vacation destinations lined up for years to come, based on where our new friends live:  Nashville, Myrtle Beach, Branson, etc.  :-)

Tomorrow contains our final steps to complete the US portion of the adoption.  We'll head to the US Consulate bright and early in order to apply for Helen's visa and take the official oath.  Later in the morning we'll have a final exit meeting with our agency.  Then we simply wait around until about 4:30pm Thursday, when Helen's passport & visa will be delivered. At that point we'll hop into a van and make the long drive back to Hong Kong.

Please continue to pray us through this home stretch of our journey!  We only have three more nights in China before we head home!!!  Pray for energy, our reunion with the other kiddos, and our adjustment to the "new normal" back in Iowa.  For those reading this back home, we can't wait to introduce you all to our new little blessing.  Here are some new pictures from today.  Check out that smile!

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