Civil Affairs Appointment

Yesterday was a tough day. Emotions ran high and there were a bunch of tears, especially from one very scared little boy.

Peter slept well and only woke a few times in the night with crying. He is scared, confused and grieving. By morning, he was doing well enough that we left the room and had breakfast in the hotel restaurant. He watched Grace very closely and wanted to do whatever she did so he had a good breakfast of noodles, eggs, Cheerios, raisins and goldfish crackers.

After breakfast, we met our guide, John, and went back to the Civil Affairs office. We completed more paperwork and Peter officially became a part of our family! We also started the process to get his Chinese passport.

The director of the orphanage was at the office and Peter was excited to see her again. He stayed close to her and with her encouragement, he looked at Wendy and said, "Mama". Dave played ball with Peter and Grace while Wendy talked with the director and John translated. She was able to answer many of our questions and gave us a copy of Peter's "finding ad". We also scheduled a visit to the orphanage for this week.

After we left our appointment, we took a wild taxi ride through Nanjing to go to an embroidery museum. We traveled through the high tech corridor and saw many computer and software stores. It was interesting to see vendors openly selling copies of Windows on the street and software stores that advertised that they also sold Viagra.

We arrived at the museum and learned about the amazing loom work. It requires two people to operate for the creation of exquisite and intricate embroidered fabric.

The museum was under renovation so we had to walk through a block of rubble and mud to hail a cab back to the hotel. This was a bit of a feat with two two-year olds in tow.

We arrived at the hotel, finished some more paperwork with John, ate lunch and settled down for naps.

Tonight, we had pizza for dinner and the kids ate macaroni. It was new to Peter but he liked it and ate well. We headed back to our room for baths and some playtime. We played with a beach ball and some balloons. Peter and Grace had a blast! It was a answer to prayer to see Peter become engaged with us and enjoy himself. He laughed, spoke, and even smiled! What a joy! We are so grateful for your prayers. Yesterday, we were so worried about him and how scared he was. Tonight, we have hope that he will allow us to love on him. He is making eye contact with us. He's enjoying playtime with Grace and he even called Dave, "baba" (Mandarin for "daddy").

Thank you for all of your encouraging words and prayers.

Our pictures are here.