Very Close Now!

We arrived in Emalyn's province about 3 pm today. It's a bit surreal being so close to her, but still a day away from holding her. We met our guide, Helen, at the airport and she brought us to our hotel to get settled in. Although we were all so tired we didn't do much settling. Instead we all took a nap. We're still debating whether or not that was a good idea. Adair is still asleep from that nap and looks about how Mommy and Daddy feel.



We moved her from the bed to the stroller and tried our best to wake her for dinner, but she wouldn't budge...this could mean a long night for us.

Driving into Nanchang, we realized we were wrong about this city. While it is not overly Westernized, it definitely isn't small. There is a population of over 3 million in the city alone, but we've only seen one other Westerner since arriving. The city is cloudy, smoggy and everything is very close together. In typical Chinese fashion, there is a lot of horn honking, outrageous driving (hince the honking), motor bikes, and walking. According to Helen, the majority of the people here live in apartment buildings. One of every two windows we passed had laundry hanging out to dry. Many times the windows were fifth, sixth, seventh story, so we asked Helen how often people lost their clothes. I'll try to grab a picture next time we are out. It was quite humorous!

We also learned a lot of Nanchang history and geography from Helen. Nanchang is surrounded on three sides by mountains. One of which has been made famous by the village that inhabits it at 1400 kilometers. The village has its own post office, government, etc. and is completely self sufficient. On the fourth side is China's largest fresh water lake. Nanchang is also where the Red Army started.

Moving on to the reason we are here, Gotcha Day is tomorrow! We are experiencing a wide range of emotions tonight. From excitement to anticipation to pure fear. We know our lives will be forever changed for the better tomorrow, but they will also be completely unfamiliar for a while. We learned when we got here that, as I suspected, we are the only adoptive family getting our child tomorrow. In fact, it's so nonchalant that we've been given the choice of having it in the lobby or in our room. I'm sure you can guess what we chose...the lobby just seems like a spectical, so we've decided to go with our room. I just have visions of them knocking on the door and handing her to us... We also found out that it is just the orphanage director bringing her. Her nanny is not coming. This breaks my heart because I know she is the one who knows her the very best and I fear we won't get many answers to our questions. It also leaves me wondering "why?". And, we have been discouraged from attempting to visit her orphanage, we will likely never have the opportunity to meet her or thank her for caring for our daughter.

Gotcha day will take place around 3 or 3:30 pm her and 1 or 1:30 am there. Please pray that it would be a sweet time. That the orphanage director would know Emalyn and be able to answer many of our questions. Pray that God would guide our every step and every word of our conversation with him/her and that He would walk beside us as we walk into this next phase. Pray that He is preparing Emalyn's heart even as she sleeps tonight and gives her visions of us. Please also pray for Hank and me, but especially for Adair that we would trust God's leading as we walk where we know He has called us.

I promise to update as soon as possible after she's in our arms tomorrow. Thank you for praying with us.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone