Grateful

During this Thanksgiving season, we look back with awe and gratitude at the past year. We are amazed, first and foremost, at the greatness of our God and how he has faithfully carried us through every aspect of this journey. His hand was so evident from the beginning and continues to make itself known as Josie so rapidly and beautifully adjusts to life here in the Snoeyink household. If she weren't here, flourishing and growing in her own unique ways, our trip to China would seem like a distant memory that may or may not have "really happened." As it is, it already seems so far away, like a dream we look back upon ever so fondly. But if the trip seems distant, Josie herself certainly does not. It has been incredible to watch her attach to us and learn the sign language for "more," "eat" (both of which she repeats continuously), "please," "thank you," and of course, waving and blowing kisses. She now loves taking baths (she tugged at her clothes today until a confused Leah removed them only to watch her run to the bathroom and reach behind the shower curtain until Leah realized what she wanted), helping to put away clothes and dishes, and as we found out today, even going sledding down the hill in our backyard all by herself. Our hearts continue to melt at her squinty-eyed, toothy smile, contagious belly laugh, and the way she has so quickly become a treasured, indispensable part of our family. Our journey to China is complete, but another has begun. We are so excited to see what God has in store.

Not only do we praise God for His continued faithfulness, but we are so grateful for the way His characteristics were manifested by so many of you. What a joy to be reunited and be able to again experience fellowship face to face. Your encouragement and generosity have meant so much to us...we have loved the notes and delicious meals made by many of you! It is truly humbling to be the recipients of the grace found in the body of Christ, and for that we are forever thankful.

Enjoy a few pictures from Josie's first month in the US! We love you all and hope that you experience the joy of the Lord this season.
Love,
Hannah (for the Snoeyink 6)

Home

Aunt Amy is right.  Home is indeed a beautiful word. 

We arrived home this afternoon to a big sign on the garage door (Thank you Kerrs and Knapps!),  a clean and organized house (Thank you Grandma Snoeyink and Aunt Karen!), a stocked fridge, freezer and cupboards--with balloons on display next to dishes of candy and snacks and delicious baked goods...and even a new family picture in a frame (Thank you for all that stuff DeLanos, Roelofs and Wildes!), a repaired stove (Thank you, Grandpa Snoeyink!) that could heat up a yummy meal (Thank you, Grandma and Grandpa Prominski!).  We arrived here riding wave after wave of prayers offered on our behalf (Thank you all!).  We are tired but thrilled.

One of the many unexpected joys of this experience has been the affirmation that we are surrounded by loving people who are willing to pray for us and invest in our lives.  The body of Christ is an amazing thing.  At the risk of sounding greedy, will you please continue praying for us when you think of us?  Because even though today marks the end of one part of the journey, it is really a beginning.  As far as Josie knows, after all, this whole thing is just now getting started.

We would like to pray for you too.  Please tell us how we can do so specifically--now or at any time in the future.

We love you and look forward to seeing you soon!

--The Snoeyink 6

Josie's first moment in the house.  She stepped across the threshold and was scooped up by these crazy people.

                   Two happy Grandmas!

Chicago! ...again:)

Thank you for praying us through a long day (or is it days...we're not sure?) of traveling.  We are back in the hotel in Chicago!  Praising God for a wonderful trip to China, smooth travels, and that we have Josie here with us in the U.S.A.!  She traveled well--most of the time--and had people laughing at her smiles and giggles while we were waiting in airport lines.  She is belly laughing in the room at the moment.  A few days ago we sure didn't think we would be typing those words today!  But she is opening up.  We see lots of joy on her face--and a pretty strong stubborn streak sometimes, too.  Praise the Lord we have her almost home!  Can't wait to see you all soon!

Citizenship

We are enjoying the country of China, but we are grateful we live in America. It was heart-warming to see the Stars and Stripes flying over the US Consulate office in Guangzhou yesterday.  We had an appointment there which brought us one step closer to finalizing the paperwork.  Now when Josie sets foot on American soil she will be an official American citizen!  We want her to embrace her Chinese heritage but we are excited about this step and what it represents.

After that appointment we visited a huge zoo where we saw a wide variety of animals. While our zoos back home might have one or two of the "big" animals, this zoo has over 25 tigers, dozens of elephants and rhinos, a pride of lions, a pack of wolves, and...whatever you call a large group of pandas and giraffes! It was amazing. They also have three little month-old pandas that you can watch online. They're very proud of them.  The babies won't be on display at the zoo for a couple weeks yet.

Josie is blossoming.  She has been easy to care for this week.  Happy to be held, and happiest to be fed! She loves to eat. While we rode a "safari train" and ogled the huge camels that were ten yards away, Josie gobbled trail mix.  She was much more interested in the food than the animals.

Tonight will be our last one in China, Lord willing! A van is scheduled to pick us up at 6 AM Wed.  (that's 6 PM Tuesday, Michigan time) and drive us to the Hong Kong airport where we hope to take a 12 hour flight to SF, and another from there to Chicago, where we plan to spend the night. Please join us in asking God to take us safely HOME by Thursday evening!  Woo hoo!  As excited as we are, we will miss this place.  We will also miss our new friends Mike and Dawn and their adopted son Roy. They are from Pennsylvania and we connected with them instantly, sharing the unique intimacy of Gotcha Day, then many walks and meals together since. We expect to stay connected with them.

Thank you for praying! We love you!

The U.S. Consulate

That bear in the middle is catching a piece of raw chicken thrown by a zoo keeper from about 30 yards!

Josie's checking out the panda.

Some of the English translations on signs were funny...

...and some were just weird!

If you must do hours and hours of homework it might as well be outside...
...in bare feet...on the pool deck...near the palm trees...in October...in China.

Although still rare, these smiles are being seen more often!

Saturday

The past few days have been filled with loving on Josie, completing paperwork, and seeing some of what life is like in Guangzhou. We are beginning to see a few smiles from Josie...she is starting to peek out of her shell and we are so thankful!!  She's still serious most of the time, but we caught some smiles on camera, as you can see.

Yesterday we went to a beautiful park where we got to witness lots of Chinese culture, including older Chinese citizens engaging in all kinds of exercises, dances and games.  It was really peaceful and fun.  Some were doing tai chi, others were exercising at playground equipment, others were playing ping pong or badminton, and various groups were even singing together.

Today we walked through a Buddhist temple. It was very interesting to learn about the religion, but extremely sad to watch people of all ages bow in prayer to gold statues. The smell of burning incense and general aspects of spiritual darkness were heavy, and we were burdened by the way many Chinese people have been led astray. Please join us in prayer for these people who lack the truth and saving knowledge of Jesus.

We are praising God that He answered prayer today by finalizing Josie's passport and lap seat ticket for Wednesday's plane ride home.  We are so excited to bring her back to the US!

Love,
Hannah, Leah and Lydia

We flew over 8000 miles for this little girl's smiles!

This is the spot where Zen Buddhism was "invented."
Leah is not impressed.

Between the five of us, Josie gets held ... a lot!

Pictures

We have enjoyed sightseeing in China the past few days. Our time has been well balanced between relaxing in our hotel room with Josie and being out and about, experiencing Chinese culture and taking care of her visa, passport, and medical visits. Enjoy a few pictures from Tuesday-Thursday!

This artist wrote Josie's name on a wall hanging we purchased for her room.

Josie had to go through a few medical tests.... she was thrilled.

We found a starfruit tree!

It's not easy to do homework when your new little sister loves to snuggle.

Experimenting with the many different musical instruments sold by this Chinese vendor.

She's too big for this crib so we flipped it upside down and wedged it between our beds.  That way when she crawled out she ended up on one of our beds instead of the floor.  But that experiment was short lived.  

We ended up getting rid of the crib and pushing the beds together.  She gets to sleep with us for a while...a habit we'll have to break when we get home. 

The diaper changing committee...

A Chinese grocery store

"Show me your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths; guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long." -Psalm 25:4-5

Josie

Thank you for your blog comments and emails. We read them often and praise the Lord for this connection with friends and family back home.

The first 24--36 hours with Josie has been....pick a word...Exhilarating. Bewildering. Joyous. Puzzling. "Indescribable" might be most suitable.

Here's a sound bite: Josie is beautiful and sweet. And she is confused and overwhelmed.

We'll share the long version next, but don't expect you to read it all. One purpose of this blog is to keep friends and family informed. Another is to preserve these early memories so we can reflect on them later. So that's what this long story is for:

I think the Lord gave me (Kent) a ten-second taste yesterday of what Josie is experiencing. We rode in a van with our translator and another adoptive family to the Civil Affairs office for an interview and to fill out more of the endless paperwork. We brought along some of the papers we needed but not all of them, so I had to take a cab back to the hotel by myself. The translator explained to the driver what I needed. He drove me along a route I tried to memorize, waited for me to run up to the 14th floor and take the papers out of the safe in our room, then he took me back. Because of construction and traffic he dropped me off a couple blocks from the Civil Affairs office. I had to wend my way through a sea of people, down what you and I would call an alley for about 500 yards, turn left, then locate the Civil Affairs building a little ways down on the right.

Simple, right?

Nope.

The landmarks I had tried to memorize were now blocked by new trucks and buses and throngs of different people, bikes, and police officers...The buildings were all enormous and the same shade of smog gray. Each was taller than any of the "skyscrapers" in downtown GR and they seemed to have been dropped there with no rhyme or reason. 35-50 story behemoths with only a clogged alley to access them, high rise old-looking apartments with power lines 7 feet off the ground and laundry hanging from bamboo scaffolding stacked as high as I could see. Every doorway in the alley was a flea market-like shop selling to the locals. One stall for copper wire, another for air compressors, a third for pulleys of all shapes and sizes...stall after stall of random stuff.

When I turned left the street was jammed with delivery vehicles and men unloading what looked like fruit and smelled like rotten fish. The workers gave me sideways glances that made it clear I didn't belong, and I had to press myself flat against a truck to let three bikes squeeze past that were loaded with more boxes than I can fit in our van back home.

I walked as far as I thought I needed to, then I stopped.

It didn't hit me until this morning that this was a glimpse of Josie's day: for a few seconds I was dizzyingly lost. I made a slow 360 and realized that not only did I not know where I was going, but I no longer knew where I was. Surrounded by people, I was totally alone. None of them looked like me. As far as I knew, none of them spoke my language. If I kept going forward or turned around and went back I would be hopelessly on my own. So there I stood. Paralyzed. I don't remember having time to be scared but I was certainly using all my faculties to try to notice anything familiar. Like Josie, my eyes were wide open and my brain was working overtime to pick out anything I could recognize. And as is the case for her, the thought of smiling or laughing at that time never crossed my mind.

The difference between Josie and me? I had the assurance of my heavenly Father protecting me. As I prayed and looked around, an obviously American man came out of a building just behind me to my left (left? I thought it was on the right?). I recognized something about the door he opened so I hustled over and asked, "Civil Affairs?" He gave me a most welcome smile and said that it was. Upon entering the enormous building I realized I had also failed to notice which floor my family was on when I left them. I turned around and caught up to my new dear friend and he said he thought it was the 8th. When I got on the elevator there were 37 floors to choose from...that would have taken a while to figure out! But my now beloved bosom buddy was right. The elevator doors opened on the 8th floor and there was Amy, with a look of relief on her face that must have mirrored mine.

Josie is craving that relief now as she cries sadly in the night. Everything and everyone around her is unrecognizable. We do not speak her language and she cannot tell us what she needs. She is suffering the paralysis of the hopelessly lost. My prayer for her as she cries out is that our heavenly Father will answer, and that He will use this obviously American man to help rescue her. I want Josie to be awash with that same relief and joy of finding her family. But I know it will take time.

You might be aware that Josie is classified as "special needs" because of a blood disorder called Alpha Thalassemia. We are not sure to what extent that is affecting her. She has been fairly listless since we met her, content to be held and snuggled and rocked, which quite frankly is OK with us. Although she is able to walk on her own she clings to us. We feed her like we would a wounded and frightened baby bird. But she can eat. That's promising. She'll eat anything and everything we put in front of her. Last night she showed some stubbornness, which is a good sign too. She was not going down without a fight into that OSHA-disapproved crib I turned upside down and wedged between our two beds so that when she crawls out of it again she will not fall to the floor. But crawl out of it she does, right on to Amy's chest where she sleeps fitfully.

The trouble with being adopted by a Science teacher and an Occupational Therapist is that your parents are constantly assessing your skin tone, gait, fine motor skills and facial expressions, or lack thereof. Maybe we should just give her a break and let her get used to this new normal. Soon enough she'll probably be running around and getting into everything...and we might miss these calm, quiet, clingy days. For now we empathize with her and mourn with her even as we rejoice over her and do our best to build a foundation of security for this little girl who feels so lost, though now she's found.