Gotcha Day!!

Hello everyone!

If you hadn't noticed, I didn't post yesterday. It was a baaaaad (sheep sound, here) day. It started off fine enough. We met Stella (social worker) at the orphanage and went with the kids to the library where they played in a special area for little kids. We hung out there for about 45 minutes then went and had lunch at the cafe in the building. The 5 of us, including Stella, then headed back to the hotel so that John could take a nap. That was the first time he had been to our hotel.

Here is John playing outside the library. It had been raining so he was playing in the water.



John is such a little trooper. Sweet boy came in our room, played a round for a bit, then fell asleep for one and half hours. No fussing, no fighting, no screaming. I have to tell you, I don't expect this to me the norm. I think he is in shock, so to speak. The ladies that work in the orphanage say he talks non stop, but we haven't found this to be the case. That is one of the main reasons I don't think we're seeing thre real John. But for now, I am totally digging the no fussing thing though.

John finally let David carry him. This was a big deal!


Our first problem started outside the hotel. In the madness of getting 4 adults out of the taxi, handing John over to David so I could pay the taxi driver, and actually paying the driver,  I misplaced my wallet. We scoured the room and called the front desk. It was nowhere. Of course, we then had to call and cancel all of  our credit cards. Unfortunatley we did not have much money on us and when we cancelled the VISA credit card that left us without a way to pay for things. The debit card would not work. It was the middle of the night at home so there no one to help us. Thankfully, David  had his work AmEx card. He was able to pay for meals with it until we got somebody on the phone in Ga. Apparently AmEx is not accepted as worldwide as the commercials would have you believe.

Later that afternoon I began to feel weird. Kind of a thirsty, nauseated, cold feeling. I knew something was wrong when we were riding in the taxi back from the orphanage, and I was cold. Westerners are not cold in Hong Kong. If we're cold then the locals are freezing. It is really comical. The locals are decked out in hats, scarves, and heavy coats and we're in pants and short sleeved shirt. I honestly would have been more comfortable in shorts for most of the time.

Anyway, I digress. I got back to the hotel and puked. Well, that explained it. I'll spare you the gory details but it was food poisoning. I have no idea what I ate, but my body was having no part of it.  The blessings in all of this are 2-fold. Number one, I was the one and only one who got it. I would've felt awful if Holley Kate had been sick. If David had been sick then he wouldn't have been able to take care of the credit card/money issue. So, praising God for that. Number two, it couldn't have happened at a better time. John had already been here and had his nap. I didn't have to worry about getting him back to the orphanage and explaining what was wrong with me. I also didn't know at the time if it was the flu or some other such bug.

Today was Gotcha Day!! It was just great. I'm not sure that John really understood what was going on though.  They had all the kids in a semi circle in the room. They sang song after song. John got to go in the middle of the circle and sing and dance. He was the star of the day.

They did a candle ceremony where John held a (fake) candle and took it around to all the kids in the room. The children would put "good wishes" into the candle for him. At some poing during all this I looked around and noticed the workers crying. Crap, y'all! I lost it. And it just kept getting better. They started to sing the I Love You Barney song while John went around and hugged everyone goodbye. By this point I'm a blubbering mess and Stella is feeding me tissues.

All in all, it was really sweet and well done. After that they took him to each room to tell the room goodbye. We even had to go down to the office to tell the piano goodbye. It was finally time for us to leave. I think John was just done by that point.

I can't imagine how hard this was for John's workers. He primary worker, May Yi (sp), wasn't even at the going away party. She said she just couldn't do it. We did get to tell her goodbye yesterday though. She was such a nice woman. John was so blessed to have had such a kind loving woman to care for him.

Y'all would not belive John's suitcase they bought him. It is huge!! They filled it to almost overflowing. I had no idea he was going to come home with so much stuff. It wasn't just clothes. The ladies that work there bought him gifts!!



Can you believe it? It is 75% gifts. I'm just floored.

As I type this John is napping. We'll wake him up in a bit and head out for some exploring.

I found out some information about his biological parents which I'll share in a later post. My mind was really opened and my heart changed with this information.

I'll post some actual pictures of John over at my other blog.

We're praising God that John is officially ours today! It almost doesn't seem real. I guess once we get back to the states and settle into a routine, it will be more real for us.

Talk to you tomorrow, Lord willing.