Wednesday, August 7 Guangzhou

Wednesday August 7

Today we had our appointment with the US consulate in Gongzhou.  There we met about 20 other families who also had their appointment time at 10:00 am this morning.  We have seen several other adopting families in the hotels throughout our stays in Nanchang and Guangzhou and they are always a refreshing sight and a welcome opportunity for conversation.  I must say, that just being there today at the consulate felt like welcome familiarity and a taste of being back in the states.  Surrounded by Americans and their precious little chinese children, having an American speak to the families to give instruction without a Chinese accent, feeling at ease for an hour to talk freely about God and our beliefs, it also had some toys for the children while we waited, and nice, clean, American style bathrooms:).  The appointment lasted about 1 hour, in which all 20 families were seen to, and I thought how wonderful it is that these appointments take place Monday - Friday!  That is a lot of adoptions!  Then, we walked around the area and did a little shopping.  We are trying to bring back enough souvenirs to give Kailyn something from China until she is 18- still working on that.  

This morning Kailyn woke up when I was in the shower, and she only fussed a little until Andrew got her and let her sit in the stroller in the bathroom with her Cheerios.  Progress.  Overall, she is a happy little girl, and I think she is becoming more secure, at least today she has seemed to have less anxiety in general.  The boys adore her and she loves them back.  She even wanted Joseph to hold her for a minute yesterday.
Also- she definitely knows what happens at McDonalds.  We went there yesterday with her in the stroller.  She was holding her Cheerios and when we entered the doors she threw it down.  She know she doesn't need those Cheerios there!  McDonald's is the place where we get the ice cream!

We are currently praying for the resolution of one problem.  Our guide informed us that our article 23 ( a doc we need in order to pick up Kailyn's visa tomorrow- our flights are Friday!) didn't process .  Nothing that we did wrong, but they have recently redone some of their documents and it is slowing things down.  So we need it to go through or else our flights will have to be  rescheduled-  that is very bad and would be very expensive.  Our guide seems to think everything will come I in today though.  Praying.

I also wanted to record that I am so glad that because Kailyn's orphanage is in the province of Jiangxi, we have been able to see two very different provincial cities in China.  Guangzhou is very clean and well groomed, it has modern clean store fronts and I will say the driving seems to be much more like what we are used to in the states.  But I am guessing this is not the typical standard of living throughout china.  Nanchang was very different.  We stayed in a beautiful 5 star hotel, but outside the surrounding area was jam packed with apartment sky rises, dirty, smelly streets and alleys, and store that are similar to what you find in third world countries where the store may serve as business and home, and where as tourists, you don't eat the food served there.  In Nanchang, there were some beautiful parks, and some landscaped areas, but we also saw many more poor, beggars, handicapped and homeless.  Also, in both cities, there are police security everywhere you go.  Our guide did tell us that China really doesn't have a lot of violent crime, and our biggest concern while we are here would just be pick pockets.