christiana grace

Jeff told about the day they met their new daughter, Christiana (yesterday). I loved reading his description of the day and of China:

"We flew 2 hours to Chongqing and got off got our luggage and met our guide. We left our luggage at another bus that was going to the hotel there and we all boarded another bus to Fuling, a two hour drive into the mountains. This has to be the most fertile and beautiful places on earth! It is lush and green. You can't imagine how many mountains there are. . . . It is everything you think of China. It is peasant farmers with rice patties that are carved into steep mountain slopes. It is amazing to see the terrace gardens and the deep gourges and huge rivers. The cities are much more like New York. They are buildings piled on top of buildings but built on lots of mountain slopes. It's terrain is very much like San Francisco. The drive there included mountain passes with looooooong tunnels and huge bridges. You cannot believe this unless you are actually here. It was gorgeous! However, we were at the back of the bus with our kids and everyone is so going over in their minds what they will do when they recieve their kids that a few began to get car sick. We stopped and collected ourselves and continued on because no matter how sick we were there wasn't going to be anything stop us from this blessing! We drive into the city of Fuling and honestly it was GORGEOUS in it's natural beauty! The suspension bridges that went over the huge Yangtze river were amazing. I have certainly heard about the Yangtze but seeing it was awesome! It really was amazing! Anyway, we drive to the center of the big city with hundreds of skyscrapers built up and down the mountain slopes. We walk down to the orphanage and the suspense is just about to take our breath away. We walk into the courtyard and into a meeting room off the courtyard. The doctor/director of the orhphanage comes in and gives us a talk about the work they do."

This is definitely heartbreaking! Aahhgg!

"The unadopted children came too. They watched in the big picture windows while they handed our babies to us. They smiled but you could tell they wanted a mom and dad. It was heartbreaking! These beautiful children wanted to trade places with these babies." (I can hardly imagine being in their place. . .)

What a precious little girl!