a different kind of trip

We found out last weekend that we got our official Travel Approval to go to China, and a couple days later got back our passports with their Chinese visas (above, on left). But we were disappointed to learn that the US Consulate did not have any available openings until October 21st to schedule us for the finalization of the adoption on the American side of things. I guess this is what should be expected when you are working with bureaucracies from two different countries!

So we will be traveling to China on October 9th. But this isn't my first trip to China.

I first traveled to China in the summer of 1997 (see visa at top, right side) when, along with five other college students (Shawn, Sharon, Qny, Momi and Angie), I spent five weeks in Yangshuo, Guangxi (near Guilin). We traveled through Hong Kong and southern China by boat, train, airplane, bus, taxi, bicycle and foot. We saw breathtaking landscapes filled with limestone mountains and terraced rice fields, picturesque towns with pagodas and ancestral shrines, and amazing cities with skyscrapers that climb to the sky. We spent our time with a school full of kids (mostly around 13 and 14 years old). We learned Chinese and taught English. We played basketball and ping pong and learned tai chi and mahjong. We snacked on "sheep-on-a-stick" at roadside vendors, dined on some odd-looking pizza at "americanized" cafes while they showed movies (like an "edited" version of Braveheart), and accepted invitations to traditional Chinese meals (where I was first introduced to beer... "Gan Bei"!). We tubed down the Li Jiang and bicycled to Moon Hill. We haggled in the marketplaces and took lots of pictures. We danced and laughed at birthday celebrations and wept, hugged and set off firecrackers at good-byes. The most amazing part for me was answering the girl who asked, "Teach me how to pray," and hearing my closest friend, Cook (pictured below), tell me that he believed. It was an awesome trip, and I can't imagine what my life would have been without it.

Now 11 years later, I will be going on my second trip to China. Like before, I expect to see a lot of amazing sights and experience meaningful moments. But this trip will be a very different kind of trip. Two weeks instead of five. Through Beijing instead of Hong Kong. Probably pretty comfortable accommodations throughout. Again, I will be there with five others with me... but they'll be my family members Amy, Ben, Will, Mimi (my mother-in-law) and Kate. But the purpose of this trip is to adopt my daughter! We will arrive in Beijing, meet our agency workers, adjust to the new time zone and then meet our daughter in her home province of Jiangsu. We have to spend a week together with her there according to the Chinese guidelines of international adoption. Then we will go to Guangzhuo to the US Consulate to swear on oath that we will take care of her and raise her well. We are so excited to finally be with this little girl that we have planned for and prayed for for so many years.

I can't wait to return to such a beautiful and wonderful country that I have grown to love dearly. Though this is an extremely different kind of trip, I'm not sure this journey would have happened if it weren't for the impact of my first trip to China.