Homesick

Family Vacation!

Woo-Hoo!

After several years of NOT getting away together as a family – Boy Scout camps, youth camps, sports camps, summer school, business trips, etc. filling our scattered summer days - we scheduled a week’s vacation for our family.  Not too far from home.  Within driving distance.  Renting a condo from a friend. 

Our family NEEDED this break!  Needed to make time to be together, to relax, to refresh, and to make memories.

So just a week after Miranda and I returned from the ACT Mission Trip to China, we packed our bags again…

Branson, Missouri or Bust!

Dolly Parton’s Dixie Stampede!

Silver Dollar City!

Swimming!

Titanic Museum!

Go Karts!

Riding a Duck on Table Rock Lake!

fun!  Fun!!  FUN!!!

I don’t know when I thought we’d rest and relax because we stayed pretty busy having fun? 

We did sleep in late several days.  Late enough that most days we just ate a late breakfast and then dinner.  Oh!  But we did eat some good food!  I did my research well.  I found some of the best diners, dives, and hole-in-the-wall restaurants.  Most days, my hubby was ready to walk out the door before we pulled into the parking lot.  Once the family tasted the food…I earned Mom of the Year praises repeatedly!

On our last full day in Branson, we planned NOT to do a full day at Silver Dollar City.  Instead our plan was to keep the day fairly low key so that packing up would not be too difficult the next morning.  I did, however, order tickets for an afternoon show that I thought the family would all enjoy…

The Amazing Acrobats of Shanghai!!!

Amazing 

Astounding

Enchanting

Amusing

Skilled

Twisted

Electrifying

Fabulous

Incredible

Epic

Elegant

Humorous

Unbelievable

Awesome

Beautiful

The little girls each got to have the cast of performers sign a Chinese parasol after the show.

How do you follow up a show like this?

Chinese buffet for dinner!

So, why am I writing about this family trip on my China trip blog?   Especially when I haven’t even had time to write and post all I want and need to about our trip?

Walking into the theater, it felt so good and familiar to see all the Chinese trinkets in the gift shop.  Miranda and I giggled at key chains of bowls filled meatball soup or bamboo steamers loaded with steamed buns.  Seeing Chinese faces serving popcorn and cotton candy from the concession stand and hearing them speak to each other with the melodious sounds of Mandarin filled me with a contented feeling of peace.

Before the show began, a pre-show tourism video of Shanghai filled screens in the theater.  I scanned the images looking for any footage that might have included other cities I’m familiar.  I laughed and whispered to Miranda during traffic footage that reminded me of video Jason may have captured with his camera on the top of our driver’s van.  But when the images showed homes, and schools, and shops, and foods, and families…

…I silently began to weep

…tears rolling down my cheeks.

Though I have traveled to China three times before this trip, this journey planted my heart deeper into the soil, the history, and the people of China. 

Eating meals at the orphanage with some of the staff, our conversations shifted from awkwardness of strangers to the intimacy of close friends and family.  Swapping recipes and sharing family stories from childhood memories. 

The children of the Welfare House are no longer nameless, faceless statistics.  They are no longer defined by a disease or diagnosis.  Boys and girls, babies and toddlers, school-aged, tweens and teens…their laughter and smiles fill my memories.  Piercing deep eyes filled with stories untold, longing to be loved by a family of their own.  The aroma of these children still fills my senses.  My arms ache to hold them again. 

I wiped my eyes, enjoyed the show, and tried to dull the ache in my heart. 

Dinner, however, proved to have been too much too soon. 

My son Elijah immediately noticed that his sister Miranda used her chopsticks differently when she ate.  After days of amusing the staff and our guide with our rudimentary use of chopsticks, we had both attempted to improve our dining skills.  Miranda was far more successful than I, but still I found this whole trip difficult.  NO CHOPSTICKS!  Until that final dinner.  Eating a whole dinner at the Dixie Stampede without any utensils?!?  Seemed so barbaric!  Touching food with my hands has become rather repulsive.

Though the restaurant I had selected was well reviewed, nothing tasted right to me.  Americanized Chinese food left my stomach reeling.  Though I returned home craving fresh fruits and salads, ice and the freedom to drink tap water, my taste buds now hunger for fare I can not find here at home. 

Never before have I traveled anywhere in the world without longing to return home and feeling at peace once I returned.

Home Sweet Home

There’s no place like home!

Mantras I live by as a diehard homebody!  I hate traveling!  I hate packing and living out of a suitcase!  I can’t stand flying and especially despise the 11-14 hour flight to China!  (During the flight home from our first adoption trip, I made a pact with God that I would NEVER EVER fly to China again…unless it was His will.)

But now…

I don’t know if I have ever been this homesick before in my life!

Before my feet landed on US soil, I began making plans to return next summer.  My whole family desires to go back with Miranda and I to meet our China family and serve the kids at the orphanage.  Even my boys are already planning what they can take and pack to share with the boys on the playground.  Wade World is planning what they can do during the children’s performance time…little girls Chinese dancing, magic tricks, more choreographed songs with Miranda?

Hardest of all for me…

…the children we left behind.

Leaving ripped my heart out!  My precious boys waited at the windows of their room, watching for our departure.  Their hands waved to us through the window as they called out their good-byes…continuing until we could no longer see them.

Knowing that some of the children will be home soon with families anxiously awaiting any news we brought back to share with them about their princes or princesses eases the pain of leaving that small handful. 

The burden and agony of all the other overwhelms me.  I daily check the AWAA waiting child list, looking to see if a child’s file is “Under Review” while waiting for the magical moment to happen when they appear as “Matched.” 

Home less than two weeks, I am bewildered at the number of children who have not yet even had anyone look at their file!  I want to shout from rooftops about each and every one of the precious treasures!  I can’t imagine why no families are rushing forward to snatch them up and take them home! 

I have more to write…more pictures…more stories to share…

...most of all…

BRING THEM HOME!