"Once our eyes are opened we cannot pretend we do not know what to do. God, who weighs our hearts and keeps our souls knows we know and holds us responsible to act." Proverbs 24:12

We have arrived in Zhengzhou, Henan Province!  As our travel group of 4 couples stepped out of the plane, we all cheered when we realized the weather outside was at least 15 degrees warmer than Beijing- at 40 degrees F, it felt like Florida!

We were met by our new guide Vivian who quickly escorted us onto our van to the hotel.  She handed out a page of new information about each of our children, and the van feel silent as we all read – we read about what brand of formula Ben (Xiao Yong) likes, what brand of rice cereal, his favorite foods (many), that he likes orange juice or hot water in his bottle as well (everyone drinks hot water here), that he has only 5 friends living with him, including only 1 other boy, who is our new friends in Atlanta’s son to be- they are leaving for China next month.

They also said about him, "His personality is simple and honest. He is an independent boy.  He smiles a lot.  He likes others playing with him.  He gives you cute smiles when you play with him.  You can hold him when he cries or gets fussy.  He likes new toys. We haven't found anything he is afraid of.  He can stand by himself now. He is learning to walk.  He can walk several steps with holding by adult.  He is very lovely.  It's very funny that when nanny pack her things up before getting off work, he will watch his nanny and show the sad expression on his face.  He will hold the nanny's hand, shaking it and saying goodbye when nanny goes out the from the door.  He likes to watch cartoon movie.  He feels very happy and jumps in his walker when he watches the the TV program he finds interesting."

I quickly told Vivian that we would very much like to visit the institute, particularly on the same day we also have to travel to the main city nearby, Xinyang, to get Ben’s passport.  She first said, “um, no, this is too far to do in one day, I am sorry.”  My expression must have been very obvious, because the next moment she said, “one minute, one minute, I will see.”  She got on her cell phone and spoke for several minutes in Mandarin to someone, then came back and said, “Ok, Luoshan County is 1 hour from Xinyang. When we go buy the train tickets today, we will get tickets for a later train so we can go.”  So WE ARE GOING!  This was so, so important to us, both to get pictures of our friend’s child for her, and to see where Ben has lived for the past 14 months,  to meet his nannies and maybe even hear more about his life.  Later Vivian told us the institute director is “very, very kind.” He personally is picking us up in Xinyang and driving us the 1 hour to Luoshan County!!

We also found out that we get Ben earlier than we expected-tomorrow morning, NOT afternoon! 

So meanwhile, we have been settling in to the hotel, unpacking all of our stuff for Ben.

They just rolled in the crib so now it feels REALLY real!!!