A Visit to John's Foster Center

Today we were fortunate enough to go to John's Foster facility. Our CCAI guide here in Zhengzhou, Yisha is really amazing. She arranged for us to drive the 2 hours each way to a town called Jiaozuo, and she came with us. It was nice to get out of crowded Zhengzhou with 8 million people, cross the Yellow River and end up in less crowded Jiaozuo with only 2 million people. That is the same amount of people who live in our entire state. China really does have a lot of people.

Eagle's Wings is located in an apartment building in town. It is fairly run down on the outside, but really nice inside. There were about 4 nannies, 9 kids and the director there to meet us. Yisha explained to John before we got there that we were just visiting his friends and the nannies and that he would be returning with us. He went in easily, hugged the nannies and sat on the floor. Donna the director gave us a tour of his bedroom, and then we heard it. A terrified little boy looking for Mama and Baba. He was so scared. Poor little guy thought we had left him there. I ran to him immediately and he didn't get out of our arms again the entire time we were there. I was so grateful actually to know that he wanted to come with us.

 Each day is getting easier with John. Actually on the car ride back to Zhengzhou, he got a little too comfortable. He started pinching our cheeks, slapping our faces and pulling our hair. I'm pretty sure he has my skin under his nails. He wasn't trying to be mean, he was just being a little crazy. Let's hope he gets this out of his system - better on Rick and I than on the kids back home.

In this picture above he is looking at a photo book of our other kids with their arms in the air showing their excitement to see John. This John did all on his own.

We went to Walmart today. Here are a few things that are different about a Chinese Walmart vs. an American Walmart.