An Honest Post and Really Great Pictures

We have had a full few days and Joy continues to do wonderfully. We've enjoyed swimming and playing in the sprinkler. Joy loves my favorite cat Elvis, named after the singer because he has extremely loud meowing. Joy is amazingly laid back and just goes with the flow. The sad part of that is that she probably has learned to do that to survive. Be happy, life just happens to me. I'm not complaining... it has made jet lag, language barriers much easier than they could be but.... Eventually I know her passiveness could harm her and will need to be addressed. Right now as she learns to trust us and in turn share her life with us we are really enjoying her. She enjoys new experiences and is very confident in new situations. She is very loving toward us... actually she is affectionate toward anyone that shows her attention in the least bit so those things will need to be addressed. I am glad that she seems to trust anyone and looks at life through rose colored glasses yet she doesn't grasp the difference between family relationships, friendships, acquantances, or strangers. The good thing is that she will let us help her do her hair, get dressed, even ask us for help with things so hopefully she will easily in time learn to distinguish family relationships from other relationships. We are glad we will be meeting with our social worker soon to talk with her about other things we can be doing before English language is established to help Joy with healthy relationships and development. So anyone that has any been there done that experience please offer advice for things to do before communication is established please share.

I also never posted about Joy's cardiologist appointment on Friday. AWESOME just doesn't seem to do what God has done for her heart! Our cardiologist said that from the echocardiogram and from the way her heart sounds now he would put her repair and how she is doing in the top 10% of repairs done anywhere. I think I've mentioned before that through a series of just miraculous events she was able to have her second heart surgery done by one of the top cardiologists in China at the age of 3 1/2. Another part of Joy's story is that through this series of miraculous events and God using His people the organization An Orphan's Wish raised money for her surgeries. Then through another series of miraculous, God-sized events we even know about the first two events and have met via computer some of the people He has used to help her. We have Skyped three times with them and they have shared with Joy about who Jesus and God are to which Joy said, "I've never heard that before." Makes my heart sad but happy that now she will hear about Him every day.

And now we pray even more diligently for those in China that don't know Him and especially her foster Nai Nai and her foster parents who are not believers yet. Her Nai Nai is 84 years old so I'm sure she has thought about eternity. The tears in her eyes as she was saying her good-byes to Joy will be a memory forever in my mind. If only they could see one another again in eternity! Here are some things and people that we will never forget and will pray for continually from our trip to China:

-Joy's foster Nai Nai and her foster mom and dad
-Bruce Lui (a guy we shared with on the train from Guilin to Nanning)
-John (our guide in Guilin)
-Ting Ting (our guide in Beijing that we left our Bible with)
-An Orphan's Wish, Grace and Hope Foster Care, Half the Sky, and Guilin Orphanage (all of these organizations have had an impact on Joy's life... they are able to help more children from donations and support... the first two are Christian organizations there in China as God's hands and feet loving the lonely and broken)

On a funny note here are the things I won't forget:
-Spending the last four hours of our long flight to China in the bathroom with Grace because her stomach was upset (you know how nasty those bathrooms are toward the END of the flight)
-I just thought the above was nasty until my new daughter, Joy, had to go to the bathroom REALLY bad on our train ride from Guilin to Nanning... words don't even come close... it was a squatty potty but the things that surrounded it, even coming out the door were just unimaginable. Faith had to go to and after telling her over and over you can hold it I took her and showed her and she put her hands over her face and said, "I'll wait."
-The smells of China... we went to the International Food Market on Saturday and I had to smile when I smelled it walking up. I looked at Grace and she had this little smile on her face kind of giggling. I'm so glad that they had this experience with us. Who would have thought our Walmart smells funny to others?