Today the moment finally came to meet Abby. We left our hotel with our guide and another family and headed to the Civil Affairs Office. After we got there we went upstairs to the same exact room we met Lily in over 5 years ago. There were many families and very quickly the room gets chaotic and hot. As we were waiting I could see her peeking around the curtain from the room where the children were all waiting. I had planned to video tape our meeting but it's just so hard and there was no one to record. We are grateful for the pictures we were able to get. We met her and she was very calm and willingly went with us to sit down. We gave her the backpack we had brought and very slowly she began to explore it. Her face lit up when she saw the Minnie Mouse jewelry set and immediately put it on. She even slept with it last night. Over the next 20 or so minutes we sat and talked with the orphanage staff as they answered our questions and gave us some papers. We received a real gift of information on her from the time she has been in the Half The Sky Program.




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Once we left the Civil Affairs Office we had a funny moment. Us, our guide and the other family we are with all left to get in our van. We all got in and got settled. As I got in the van I smelled cigarette smoke and thought that was odd. The next minute our guide starts laughing as she realizes that we all got in the wrong van. I can only imagine what that driver was thinking. It gave us a good laugh. We then came back to our hotel and tried to play. She ate some snacks and then we had our first moment of tears. She calmed easily but I decided we needed to get out the room. We grabbed the other family and went to dinner. Now it's not too hard getting around here but it is hard to find people who speak or at least understand English. The first restaurant we gave up and left. It's never a good sign when there is no English on the menu. The next one started off a little odd but turned out to be yummy. She gobbled up some pepper beef noodles that were delicious and also ate French fries with ketchup! After we ate we came back to the room. She and I watched some Chinese kids cartoons on YouTube and then went to bed. She's very easy and went right to bed. Praying for a good day tomorrow and a little more of her personality to shine through.







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Location:Guangzhou, China