| Today was a remarkable day in the life of the Fung family. We left Jiujiang in the morning, cramped into a microvan with entirely too many people. Originally it was to be just the three of us with the driver, but apparently no one else had anything else to do so a number of them hopped in for a long ride to Yangchun with us. There were 9 of us in a Toyota microvan with all our luggage and the three large boxes of items for the orphanage, and the ride was over 3 hours. When we got to Yangchun all was forgiven. We had been given the supreme honour of an orphanage visit prior to being given Stephanie officially. This is an honour that hardly any families enjoy. We were grateful to get to visit the orphanage at all, and incredibly pleased to visit before the adoption became final. The pinkish building is the new orphanage building. They just moved in there back in December 2004 so it's really new. The building is part of a complex that combines senior's housing with the orphanage and Ms. Yu Hong Ying is responsible for everyone. Unfortunately, she had to go to Guangzhou because her new baby niece is sick so she couldn't host us personally and let us take Stephanie, but we did get to see her!!!! You can see some of the rows of beds in the orphanage, and you can see Stephanie as she came to us! What a happy, content, easy going little soul she is. She didn't cry at all, even though Brenda did. Going into the orphanage was something she wasn't sure that she could handle, and she broke down in tears just as we approached the fifth floor, but we just made our minds up that we wanted to see Stephanie and we went in. My goodness is she cute! She's lovely and content and smiled at us right away. She let us carry her around while we looked at the other babies and didn't fuss at all. She sure was dressed WARM....about 4 layers of clothing, with a fake fur jacket over top! No fashion statement here! Oh well, we'll fix her up soon. We aren't able to take her today, as I said, because Ms. Yu wasn't here, so they made arrangements for Ms. Yu to come back to Yangchun tomorrow morning. She's going to meet us for breakfast and then give us Stephanie for keeps!!! We said goodbye to Stephanie for a short time and we enjoyed a formal dinner with Ms. Chen, the director of Civil Affairs for Yangchun. She is the government official that accompanied Ms. Yu to the reunion in July in Virginia. It was relatively formal, and she had her driver give us a little tour of the city after dinner and then we called it a day! Tomorrow is a very very big day as we are to receive Stephanie right after breakfast, then we'll travel by van to Guangzhou with Ms. Yu. |
