Rewind to China~Part 1~

I have been praying & praying about how to post about our journey to Gabriel in China.  I have realized that now over 2 months ago the Lord again was teaching me with every step we took.  Oh, how I prayed for His attention to be put to another in His lessons.  This third time was hard & to be very honest I did not handle the discipline of the things I was learning from very well at all.  I was a mess!  That is a nice way of putting it actually.  I told a dear friend the other night I praise the Lord once more that Tony & I are still married.  Yes, it was U-G-L-Y!  My prayer is that I will blog/journal this and be able to recount and remember the valuable lessons the Lord taught me and one day look back on those lessons and put them to use the right way..

Our sweet daughter Grace went with us this time to China & it made the experience totally different.  There was such peace with her being with us this time.  Having sweet Grace sitting between us holding our hands was such a blessing from above.  The Lord made sure to provide the money we needed to take Grace back to her birth country.  Tony had sold his motorcycle and he was blessed to get the fair amount he wanted for it.  It had a been a custom "Peace Officers" edition and the Lord even provided a fellow law enforcement officer to purchase this prized possession.  This money put Tony's mind and heart at peace that we could indeed "afford" the extra airfare, sight seeing and overall remaining adoption expenses.  My hubby does not do well with using credit.....he just does not do it.  In his line of work he never wants to put us in an uncomfortable position with credit card debt.  I can not even explain to you how we praised God for the asset of that bike.  I can tell you every pretty day my sweet husband hears the rumble of the exhaust pipes of motorcycles a look of longing crosses his face.  Here in middle TN it is a riders paradise.  Oh, what we got in the place of his "dream" Harley......this is what we were blessed with.

I know to some it is not a sacrifice but to my bald man's heart it WAS & STILL IS a BIGGIE!  God bless him he has never grumbled once....he knew the Lord had lead him to sell it.  This was his only passion or love other than his Grace, Winston & me.  This is what he had wanted for a long time and worked so hard to get.  No, he would do it all over again for his Gabriel but I pray the Lord blesses us once again in the future to allow the ordained provider of this family to have another "big-boy toy".  The only toy he ever spent any money on.  You see my man does not do sports, hunting, fishing or electronics.....he is a Harley man.  A quiet man who does not drink, smoke and has the poorest man mentality ever when it comes to fashion.....he never spends money on himself.  He just loved to get on that bike and ride. 

OK, I veered there.......back to the flight to China.  Grace was the most perfect travel companion imaginable.  At age six there could have been so many issues with her but she did not show even one.  She is an amazing child and she was so focused on the gift of a brother.  We were blessed with 4 exhausting days of sight seeing with her in Beijing.  We went a little rogue this 3rd time around and made all our travel arrangements so we toured the capital city with non-adoptive travelers.  This rocked!!!  No offense to fellow adopter's.....it was just really refreshing to meet other people abroad.  People from Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Qatar and other areas of China.  Grace was a super star with this group of wonderfully warm people.  She was the only child on the tour and they were amazed at her stamina and so were we!  We would board a bus to tour at 7am and some nights not come off that bus until after 9pm.  It was intense and we now laugh at how sore our bottoms were from sitting in the hours of traffic.  The traffic was worse than usual because remember we were there during China's national autumn festivals.....people take off 2 weeks to a month to celebrate and Chinese love to shop & travel so every street was bumper to bumper.  Below are some great shots of Grace being loved on by everyone....including our tour guide Tony who was a great guide and really funny guy.  He told us Grace reminded him of his little sister and bought her a medal when she did the whole section of the Great Wall in pouring down rain, eating a ice cream cone.  It was precious and oh, how the Lord made sure that this portion of the trip built Grace up......He knew she would need it on what was yet to come.