Coming Home! Last post from China

This is our last day in China. We leave in the morning!! 

We are so excited to hug everyone and for you all to meet Arayla. Feel free to meet us at the airport if you want to join the welcoming party. We will be arriving in Nashville on Saturday 11/22 at 6:20 PM. American Airlines flight #1643 from DFW. (See our full itinerary below.) We only ask that everyone be sensitive to Arayla. Everything will be new to her, plus we will be coming off some long, grueling travel in a very cramped space. She might be fine and happy. You never know. But we will not want a lot of people trying to hold her, and if she seems to be overwhelmed we will have to give her space and time to adjust. To give her space we usually just put her in the angel stroller and she is perfectly fine for anyone to talk to her, maybe just one or two people at a time, while in her safe spot.

Please pray for the flights, especially the 15 hour flight, for peace and rest for all three of us. Praise! We found out our new friends, Stephen and Melissa and their 10 year old son, who we met here in Guangzhou will be on the long flight from Hong Kong to Dallas!! So happy to not be alone and to have others to talk with and pass the time.

Also, please pray for smooth transition at home. Rest and sleep for Arayla in her new room, fun playing with new brothers and sister, minimal problems with jet-lag, and strong bonds to start and keep building at home.

We don't have the words to thank so many of you who have followed our journey, prayed faithfully, cared for our children at home, offered to help any way we needed. We are so overwhelmed with gratitude and love for you all. We know you all have schedules and struggles of your own, but you have rallied around us so sacrificially. Some of you have helped transport Zethan to and from school and looked after him with love. So thankful! I have to send a special thanks to our Fellowship Bible Church community group who came over and cleaned our house top to bottom! WOW!! Thank you all so much! I know many of you have already or will sign up to bring us meals. Thank you for loving us with Christ-like love and grace. We know nothing any of us do has any motivation other than how good God is to us. And God is SO GOOD! He proves it over and over, through His promises and His people.

Act 4:32 Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common.

Phil 2:2 make my JOY complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.

Phil 1:27 Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I will hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel;

These verses express how I think of the fellowship we have together in Christ. I say that not in a generic sense, but very purposefully God has put us in a tightly-knit, loving community of faith for such a time as this. All striving together for a common purpose for lifting up Jesus and displaying the beautiful gospel! This journey for Arayla started a little over a year ago and now we're almost home. But the journey God has all of us on to glorify His name in all the earth goes on and on. Honored and humbled to walk this journey with you.

We were sitting in the room this afternoon wondering how to wrap up this time in China. We needed a picture or something to signify the ending of one chapter and the beginning of the next part of this adventure. As we made our way down for supper tonight we came to the lobby and noticed a bunch of balloons over to one side, so we went to investigate. You may not believe what we discovered there.

It looks like God made it just for us! We both wanted to shout "Our God is amazing!!" Then we were walking back from supper and ran smack into another adoption family that we had not met, in fact they had just arrived in Guangzhou. We talked with them for a few minutes, found out they are believers and their newly adopted daughter's middle name is JOY.

Last thing I want to share is a beautiful poem written by our dear friend. She wanted to express her thoughts and emotions about our blog posts. Hope she doesn't mind me sharing and hope this touches your heart like it did ours...

Stargazer lilies,
Angel signs, funny signs,
Relief and peace,
Adrenaline and exhaustion,
Beautiful bonding.
Yes she let you put a bow in her hair.
Sunrays,
Rest days,
Culture,
God getting glory,
Blessed by this story,
Heartbreaking but earthshaking,
Miraculous grace,
Pot holes,
And shooting through holes,
You'll soon slide home, safe.
Thank you both so much for the blog. You are both, truly, civilized tourists!
I look forward to my chance to meet Arayla. She has already changed me.

Here is our travel itinerary:

Leaving the hotel at 7:45 AM (China time) on Saturday morning, 11/22.

Flight #: CX5783
Airline: Cathay Pacific
From: Guangzhou
To: Hong Kong
Depart: 09:50 AM  (Friday 7:50 PM in Tennessee)
Arrive: 10:55 AM
Flight time: 01HR 05MIN

Flight #: 138
Airline: American Airlines

From: Hong Kong

To: Dallas/Ft Worth
Depart: 01:40 PM (Friday 11:40 PM in Tennessee)
Arrive: 02:55 PM (US Central time zone)
Flight time: 15HR 15MIN

Flight #: 1643
Airline: American Airlines

From: Dallas/Ft Worth

To: Nashville

Depart: 04:40 PM
Arrive: 06:20 PM
Flight time: 01HR 40MIN

We are ready for the JOY CELEBRATION! See you soon!!

Trip to Consulate and Zoo

We are in much better spirit today! Yesterday we were feeling homesick. Our friends were leaving, and we were just bored with the waiting. Today we feel we're over the hump and riding downhill now. It was an eventful morning. We started out the day early. After a quick breakfast we met our guide's sister Lily. Our guide Kelly could not meet us this morning because she had to take another family to the airport. Lily was very nice and accompanied us to the US Consulate for the oath-taking ceremony. It was quick and painless. We were finished by 9 AM.  Then what else could we do but go to the ZOO!?

Sun rising in downtown Guangzhou on our way to the Consulate.

Cool looking curvy building

Walking the busy sidewalks

We arrived at 8:30 AM and we were done by 9.

Last stop for adoptions before leaving for America

Never too busy for a family picture!

Our guide Kelly on the left. Kelly's sister Lily on the right.

Since we have nothing else to do we went to the Guangzhou Zoo. It is one of the 3 largest zoos in China and only 7 dollars, yes $7 total, for all three of us to get in!

We had not been to this zoo before, and we were very glad we went. Took our minds off the waiting to go home.

Arayla has her map. What should we see first?

Just me or does this tree look like a heart with love shining through the middle?

Funny sign time! Here are a few we saw in the zoo.

Brealcfast?

I know the feeling, Mr. Bear

Be a civilized tourist, mmmkay?

Let it be known that many Chinese people follow this rule like they follow traffic laws, which is not at all. We saw people feeding animals all over the place.

These trash cans for "other waste" are next to each one for recyclable stuff like plastic bottles and aluminum cans. We found it funny that there is a shirt pictured here. Couple questions must be asked. Do they have disposable shirts in China? ...and... Do these shirts get put in the wrong trash can on a semi-regular basis? 

The picture on the sign is of children catching goldfish to take home as pets.
Goldrish?  Heappy?

Enough signs, Yah Yah! Let's see some animals!

First up, the Tigers.

Gave us a big yawn

Magnificent animal, but sadly trapped in a small cage. :-(

Looked like this tiger was about to pounce.

Then he lay down and watched us.

Biggest one we saw. There were lots of opportunities to get close-up looks at animals in this zoo.

Mama and baby hippo

Going in for a swim

Wolves

Brown bear

We were within about 15 feet of this guy. He was sitting on the edge of a concrete moat on the other side of the bars.

Evidence of people feeding the animals, We also witnessed illegal feeding of monkeys and pandas.

White Lion

Adorable little red pandas

People were dropping food to them which is why it's sitting up. People NOT being civilized tourists!

Kangaroo

Giraffes

This is actually a legal feeding. Good job, people. Very civilized of you.

Rhinos

Zebras

White Deer

Camels

Elephant

We loved these beautiful flowers that looked like they came from a Dr. Seuss book. 

Continuing with our Zoo theme for the day, we walked to this neat place near the hotel, Zoo Coffee.

Decorated in a zoo motif with stuffed animals all over,

Gorilla greeted us

Sat surrounded by oversized stuffed animals

Arayla laughs at everything so no problem!

It was a special treat to end our day.

We don't drink coffee so we got delicious mango smoothies.

Thanks to a coupon from our friends, we got 2 smoothies for the price of 1.

Back at the hotel room Arayla let me hold her in my lap for a long time. It was glorious!!

I will leave you with some Arayla laughing that is guaranteed to brighten your day. Love you all. Thanks for praying. We really felt uplifted today. Tomorrow is our last day in Guangzhou. We will be packing up and getting ready to leave for HOME early on Saturday!! We will be flying from Guangzhou to Hong Kong and then from HK to Dallas. Our last flight from Dallas into Nashville is scheduled to arrive at 6:20 pm on 11/22. See you soon America!!