We Wait

This is a picture of dear friends, Ken & Jen and their beautiful daughters, Katie, Maria and Wara. When Katie was young they adopted Maria and Wara from war torn Sierra Leone. While they were waiting for the travel approval to go to Africa, I woke up one morning with a poem in my head for Maria, framed it and gave it to them. I had not kept a copy, so yesterday I asked Jen if she would send it to me.

I was amazed by the mirror of the words I had written 10 years ago to my thoughts and feelings about my own daughter-to-be. I have reprinted the poem here and included Megan Ling's name, where Maria's was.

Ken & Jen, thank you for your loving, stable friendship and for your part in our Journey. I did not know then how my experience with your daughter would affect me, but I am so thankful that it did. The fabric of adoption is a beautiful weave.

We Wait

To Save, A Soul,

One Face Among the Many There.

We Know, We Love,

You Even Though You're Far Away.

We Wish, We Plan,

Your Future Is So Clear To Us.

We're Glad, We Can,

Share Our Loving Home With You.

We're Sure, We Can,

Create A Sense Of Hope For You.

To Be, Part Of,

The World That Is A Happy One.

We Wait, We Pray,

We Want The Time To Speed Along.

Each Day, Creeps By,

But Someday Soon We'll Bring You Home.

Into, Our Lives,

God Has Sent His Special Gift.

Your Face, Your Arms,

Our Daughter, Megan Ling.

Copyright, 2008 Linda, Simply Family

The Fabric of Adoption

Through some internet exchanges, I recently "met" another American adoptive mom who lives in China and who met Megan Ling last July and had taken some video and photos of her. Here are a few of my favorites. It is amazing to me how the adoption community is so interwoven. Thank you, Brenda, for bringing even more joy to me!

3/22 Easter Fun, Still Waiting

Still no Travel Approval. :(

We can no longer expect to travel on April 3rd, but at least it does not conflict with the Geography Bee for Matthew and Mary Alice will not miss her school play.

We will most likely hear something about our Travel Approval next week and then we will know more. There is still a possibility for Travel on 4/11.

Our friend, Ken, picked up Jasmine Ying on Monday and they had several moments of overwhelming hysteria, before she snapped into an accepting and excited attitude and settled into her new adventure. He did travel to Chaoyang SWI but did not see Ling. She was most likely napping, as the timing was after lunch. We were disappointed, but understood that the orphanage cannot disrupt the children's lives and patterns. He gave the nannies the album for her and they promised to show her.

We are keeping ourselves busy with the Bunny Hutch, below.

Matthew made this cool, very big paper structure.

3/16 An Amazing Discovery Before Breakfast!

Honestly, I can't believe it. I recently received some updated photos from the orphanage through www.BlessedKids.com (I paid them to request and send some photos) and was astonished to realize that Ling has changed so much that I barely recognized her. She is on the far right in the red jacket, in the photo below. These pictures were taken on December 13, 2007. I actually saw these photos a month ago on the VisitingOrphans Blog, and had NO IDEA this was Ling.

I am going crazy with waiting to be with her!

3/15 Sweet Things for Sweet Ling

This is a picture of Ling's rocking chair, which I just finished recovering to match the room.




This is Ling's Asian Bitty Baby in her new back carrier.
It has a little section where Ling can carry her baby's things and Ling's snacks when we are in China.
I love the bear in the front!

Megan Ling's Chaoyang Friends, soon coming home!

All of these children are waiting for their "forever families" to come and get them. Jasmine's family is picking her up this Monday!!

Hopefully, we will not be far behind.


Jasmine Frances Ying sitting next to Megan Ling

Sofia Bao

Min Ping

3/12 Megan Ling's Photo Album

These are sample pictures of the photo album that we sent to Ling with the Chinese-English captions. Mary Alice decorated the cover with these beautiful lady bugs. I included a caption at the end that said (in Chinese) made by your older sister (jie jie-pronouced gee-gee).

3/10 Matthew Qualifies for the NYS Geography Bee

After winning the Mill Middle School Geo Bee in November 2007, Matthew (pictured far left) tested in January for the NYS level Bee. He just got the letter saying that he made the cutoff. There are only 100 students in NYS eligible to participate. The competition is in Albany, on April 4th. It may conflict with our trip to China, we will just have to wait and see!!!

3/8 Passing the time!

This is what is happening at our house this weekend!

3/3 Megan Ling, Your room is ready!

Dear Megan Ling,

We have been all very busy getting your room ready. We have cleaned out your closets, ordered and installed brand new shelves and rods (www.easyclosets.com--loved them) and had your border and walls painted by a wonderful local artist, Diana (if readers are interested, contact me privately and I can connect you to her). Daddy worked hard finishing the long list of tasks I had for him to do (and he never complained!!!)

Mary Alice helped me arrange the furniture and organize your dollhouse. We had a great time doing it all. We took pictures to make a photo album for you and some friends are going to take it to China when they adopt your friend, Ying from Chaoyang, this month.

We were hoping to come and get you in April, but that looks unlikely at this point. Probably May. It's hard to wait.

Here are pictures of your bedroom.

Jasmine likes your room!

This is where you will keep your toys.

This is where you will keep your clothes.
Kind of empty right now, but your Grandma's seem to be taking good care of filling it!! :)

Diana painted Matthew, Mary Alice and you, so you can easily see it from your bed!
We absolutely love this part of your room!

This says Min Bao Ling, which is your Chinese name.

And Aunt Sue made this for you! It's your English name.
What a lucky girl to have two names!
Thanks, Aunt Sue!!!

Now all we need is you, Ling! Do you have any idea how much we love you???

Women Ai Ni (We Love You)

XOXOX

Mama

2/4 Getting ready for Megan Ling

I am so excited to finally have Megan Ling's face in mind. For so long I have been imagining her, it is really nice to be able to think of her and know what she looks like. I have begun working in her room and setting up her little bed.

I organized her books and Mary Alice made her new alphabet dividers to keep them orderly.

We had an artist come today who is going to paint a border around her room with Chinese Symbols such as Love, Joy, Wisdom, Peace, Family etc. She will also paint butterflies and flowers to match her rug. She is going to paint three children near the door, to resemble Matthew, Mary Alice and Megan Ling. I think it is going to be very lovely. Here is the "before" picture.

1/27 Friendships Formed Across the Miles

This is a picture of my new friend, Elizabeth, and her beautiful family. Linsey was adopted in 2003 from Hunan, and Luke was adopted in 2006, from Hainan. Elizabeth, lives in California (we are in NY). She and her church team went on a Mission Trip to Chaoyang SWI in July 2007. The trip is documented in her blog http://visitingorphanschaoyang.blogspot.com/. Thanks to Elizabeth, for helping me achieve this wonderful goal of blog ownership! I always wondered how people did this and had no idea it was so simple. I had it all done in an hour!

This is a picture of Elizabeth's daughter, Amy, holding our daughter, Megan Ling, during the mission trip last summer.

This is a picture of my friends Susan and Richard, their son Harrison and their newly adopted daughter, Hannah Miao Miao, on Hannah's Gotcha Day, December 10, 2007. Susan and I met at the Great Wall China Adoption Conference in Tampa in November 2007. I am sure we were meant to cross paths, as she has been instrumental and inspirational in Eric's and my decision to open our hearts and minds to an older waiting child. Hannah is blossoming in her new family and I am so happy for all of them!

1/25 Visiting Orphans Mission Trip to Ling's Orphanage 7/07

We were fortunate to immediately find the blog of another adoptive mother who led a ministry trip to Chaoyang SWI last summer (http://visitingorphanschaoyang.blogspot.com/ ). She and others on the ministry trip shared many photos of Megan Ling with us. We are most grateful. The trip was taken in July 2007. Ling was 3 years old at the time.

When I asked what she knew about Ling, she said

"What can I say about Ling? She is a doll baby!! A couple of my girls just claimed her as "their baby". She loved to string beads, eat anything and everything we had, and follow us around. She was a snuggler too, my girls loved that!

We are so relieved to see that she is well-cared for, happy and connected with other people. The internet is an amazing thing. Without it we would never have been able to have this wonderful insight into our little girl's China life.

Here are more photos at Chaoyang SWI, including a birthday party for all the kids, and a group photo of the whole orphanage.

I love how bright and cheerful Visiting Orphans has made it!

These are some of the Chaoyang Nannies, and one of the ministry angels.