March 4, 2007

This morning we had the opportunity to attend a church service at the Shamian Christ Church. We really enjoyed it. We went to the bilingual service, along with about 7 other couples from our group. Two of the songs they sang, we were familiar with. They were "Make Me a Servant" and "I'm Coming Back to the Heart of Worship" (don't know the title, but you know which one I'm referring to). In between, the congregation would sing worship songs in Chinese. At one point, I heard Gracie singing and looked down to see her little lips just moving and she was singing away...in Chinese, or her version of it. Steve was holding Gabi and a couple minutes later, he turned around and said that she was singing with them. I just cracked up. Here were two little girls that didn't understand what they were singing, but they were trying their best to worship with them. How precious is that? Anyway, I was touched to be able to sing along with the congregation praising God. I really teared up when I realized that this was Gabi's first Sunday to be in a church, at 10 1/2 months old and that she was already singing along. Bless her little sweet heart.

Today marks our one week anniversary as Gabriella's parents. I have been remembering the emotions that we felt on that very special day. I really can't even describe the feelings we felt when we were heading to the Civil Affairs office, knowing that she was already there and would soon be placed in our arms. We waited a little while before they brought the babies in. Our group of 10 parents, 1 grandmother, and 5 siblings was in a medium sized room. We had to fill out some papers and make certain that all of the information was correct. We found 3 mistakes on ours and that kept our minds occupied for a bit. Then before we knew it, they brought in the 4 and 5 year olds to their parents. They both were quite upset and cried. I was watching them and sympathizing with them when they announced the Baker's names from our Lianjiang group. They went up and received their daughter and I stood there in amazement, as I recognized her little face from their pictures and reality began to sink in. Steve immediately said, "We're next" and we were! We walked to the front of the room just as they said our babies' name and in a split second she was in my arms. It was surreal. She looked right into my eyes. When I hugged her she pushed me back and looked at me again. We took a couple of quick pictures and went to sit down and look at her. It was quite warm in the room and she was dressed in a long sleeved shirt and quilted pants and jacket. I took the jacket off pretty quickly. It felt unreal to be there holding her after such a long wait. She didn't cry. She would look at us and squirm a little bit. I gave her the tag with her name and picture on it to play with. She loved it and slobbered all over it. We couldn't get it away from her. As the other children were given to their parents, many of them cried. You can imagine how the volume went way up in that room over a period of 5-10 minutes. Gabi started to whimper a couple of times and I would start walking with her to distract her from the others that were crying. We walked down the hall after a few minutes (it was much cooler and quieter). Gracie and I sat down on a couch. I gave the baby the soft blanket I brought for her. She immediately put her left thumb in her mouth, the blanket in her right hand and up to her face, and lay her head on me. It was the sweetest thing ever. I said, "Oh! We have another blankie lover." Gracie started to cry. I asked her what was wrong and she said, "I'm just so happy!". I was crying too. Steve was watching through the video camera. It was a very precious moment.

We feel so blessed to be able to have the opportunity to be Gabriella's parents. Thank you all for your support and prayers. We feel it even here in China. We love getting the notes some of you have posted on our blog, as well as the emails.

xoxo,
Jackie, Steve, and the 2 "G's"