The last hurdle

We are on the home stretch of our time in China!  Today we have the last step before we can come home:  our US consulate appointment to get Zane's visa. His TB test was negative - yeah!  We did have one little girl in our group with a positive skin test, and we all had an anxious morning praying for that family.  Fortunately her chest x-ray was negative.  There have been a couple US families detained in China because of this new requirement for a TB test right before they leave the country. 

 

We continue to fall in love with our little boy.  Even when he has a "meltdown", I can usually smile to myself and empathize with the stress he's under in this transition and all the stuff he's gone through in his short life.  He seems to understand us more and more, but is not really vocalizing any English yet.  He does get frustrated when we don't understand him…he tries to point to what he wants & it is trial and error until we get it right…. or we have a little temper tantrum!  Fortunately, they usually don't last very long - just until we can distract him onto something else.

 

It has really been a team effort with Monte and I. We are taking turns doing the different things for Zane that serve to "bond" us with him.  It's been fun just to see a couple little things that are already better for him.  When we got him, his skin felt extremely leathery and dry & for a couple days he was constantly scratching himself.  We immediately started doing lots of baby lotion after his bath & that has been a sweet bonding time.  Now his skin feels like it should…plus he's not scratching himself anymore!   He does seem to be bonding to us.  We got our first "kisses" from him Sunday!

 

It's been a really busy week with appointments or other activities every day.  That's made it somewhat difficult to have a set schedule.  Poor Zane has missed his nap a couple of days and had brief sleeps on the bus…. but when we get back to the room, he's had just enough sleep to pretty much defeat naptime…then he starts nodding off at dinnertime!!!

 

I'm attaching a photo at True children's home where Zane spent a little time after his surgeries.  We are standing in front of Zane's old crib!  He didn't act like he remembered much as he was very young when there, but it was still special to see it.  We also got to meet other special needs children currently being cared for there.  They are so precious!  It was much nicer than I imagined & has a really low  (2 to 1) child to caregiver ratio. The orphanages are more like 6 to 1.  

 

So we have gotten more info re: Zane's story!  In addition to True Children's home (which provided his surgeries and initial foster care), Another foundation called Pearl River Outreach also helped our little boy by funding another foster family to care for him after he went back into the orphanage's care.  So, basically, he spent most of his life in 2 foster homes.  It is obvious that he's had great care.

 

On Sunday we got to visit a Cantonese/English church service.  It was open to anyone, which was surprising to us.  They had translated several popular contemporary songs into Cantonese.  It was such a blessing to sing "In Christ Alone" together in two languages (Zane's and ours!)  The speaker talked about the grace of God....which was special to me because Zane's name means "God is Gracious".  We met a man from Zane's home city of Zhanjiang, who was very enthusiastic about our English name choice for Zane...this was made us feel very good, since it is something we thought and prayed about very seriously.

We have loved visiting China, but are getting tired of living in a hotel room.  We are ready to come home & get into a more normal routine! 

 

Blessings to you all!