Making Progress

Sorry for the delinquency in blogging. The past few days have been so busy it's hard to know where to begin. You should be able to view two separate slide shows...one of misc. shots of us and the other from the orphanage visit. First of all, Alina is doing great and is totally coming out of her shell. We are getting smiles and giggles all the time now. She actually seems to have a pretty strong will as we have witnessed some fit throwing (looking at that sweet face, it's hard to believe, I know) On Sunday we suprised Chris with a Father's Day t-shirt with both of the girls' hand prints on it. We also visited a Christian church on the island. Many of the young people in China are interested in Christianity and it was very encouraging to see standing room only for the church service. On Monday we flew to Shantou city to visit Alina's orphanage. It was an exhausting day for all of us with the travel to and from in the same day, but very much worth it. Her orphanage is not really an orphanage, but a welfare institute that houses about 400 residents including homeless elderly and children ranging in age from 0-24 (95% of them with special needs) The staff were very loving and seem to do the best with what they have which isn't much. It was so heartbreaking for see the kids. There was one little boy that struck me so much...if we had another $20,000 at our disposal I would adopt him in a heartbeat. Quite a few of them grow up in the institution and then become caretakers for the babies. Chris said a silent prayer for all of the kids that they would find loving families. For some reason, this orphanage only sees about 20-30 adoptions each year. More later... I'm having trouble again with the picture thing so I may have to try to post again later.