Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Maria's Big House of Hope - Luoyang, Henan province. We woke up early (actually Gabi was up at 2:00am and 4:00am, and Grace right after I got Gabi back to sleep. This was my 3rd night of hardly any sleep and I ended up giving Gabi some melatonin at almost 5:00am just to get in another hour for me and some rest for her or she was going to be really cranky for our first day at MBHOH. It worked, thank goodness!

We had breakfast at 8:00am in the 2nd floor lounge area then went right to the closest room to hold babies. In this room, there was a little girl that was probably 1 1/2-2 years old that had severed cerebral palsy. She was lying on a mat in the corner of the room. Grace went right to her and crawled on the mat and smiled & talked to her. She just started beaming at Grace and did this for the 2 days we were there. As we were leaving on Wednesday, Grace asked if she could go hold her one more time and we took a sweet picture with her. I will try to post pics when I can. We held & played with most of the children on the 2nd & 3rd floors on this day. The cooks fed us well and it was great to stay there and eat there because it gave us more time with the kids. That afternoon, Mikey & David took us into the city and we walked around a bit and did a little shopping. Most of the group (not me) ate egg bread that was cooked right on the street by a vendor. Joe's hat decided to stay in China... in the river. It flew off right in the middle of taking a picture. The little girls had a "tea tasting" and I was startled to hear Gabi look over at Mollie and act like she was speaking Chinese. She never missed a beat and acted like she knew just what she was saying. Ha! It was pretty cute to see Grace, Gabi & Mollie sitting at the little table tasting the different teas that the shop owner was letting them sample. We all too soon had to end our little jaunt and get back in the bus. As we were driving back to MBHOH, Gabi looked out the window and said to Mollie, "Look, Mollie, there is the Eiffel Tower!". It was a tall crane! We decided not to burst her bubble. ; )

The afternoon & evening was spent with a tour and more playing with the children. Fun, fun, fun! Some of the children are starting to recognize us as we come in their rooms now. There are about 6 rooms on each floor that are really big and have an open play area, then 1 or 2 rooms on the side with baby cribs. They all have wooden floors and are painted in cheerful colors with characters/themes painted on them. This place is amazingly clean! The ladies are constantly sweeping & mopping. We were really impressed by the cleanliness. Later this evening, Steve, Connie, and I stayed up late getting the gifts ready for the nannies the next day. There were about 60 nannies on the day shift and 150 children. Those women work so hard to keep everything clean, neat, and calm for the children. I can't wait to take pictures so you can see what a wonderful facility this is. Most of the babies have a cleft lip/palate, need a heart surgery, or have cerebral palsy. Those are the most common ailments. Once the children recover from their surgery, their orphanages that they came from send for them to return from wherever they came from. They typically bring in a new group and take a recovered group....which will hopefully be put on the special needs lists with different adoption agencies and find their forever families.

We have big plans tomorrow to take a 2 hour fast train to Xi'An in the Shanxi province.