Home from China

Laura Joan and I sleeping on that really long flight home.

Laura Joan officially entering the United States and becoming a US citizen. Hooray!


Welcomed home by my loving family. Carson looked so big when they picked us up at the airport. I thought he had grown a foot taller in just two weeks. Laura Joan sure seems happy to be home too. Thank you Jesus!

Guangzhou Sites

This is the William's little girl and oldest son ready to explore the dinner boat we took one evening.

This is me laughing about something as we watch the sites go by on top of the dinner boat. We had a nice time.


Laura Joan and I on the dinner boat.





Theses are the hotels all lit up around the island we saw on the dinner boat. The last picture with the flower and "Welcome" is our hotel the White Swan.


The daytime pictures are views of Guangzhou.

The White Swan Lobby

The Bethany October Children of Promise Travel Group




Pictures in the White Swan Lobby. Can you believe the beautiful waterfall.
We learned today that the White Swan is a very famous hotel. President Bush, the Queen and many other famous people have stayed here.

The Famous Red Couch Pictures

This is the famous Red Couch at the White Swan Hotel. All the adopted children have their group picture taken. Noah are little boy in the group would have none of this picture taking stuff with the girls. It was hysterical! Laura Joan decided she needed to take little Brea"s toy (the baby at the far right).

The children in the photo are all from the Shaanxi Province. From left to right they are Gracie (2), Chloe (2), Noah (22 months), Laura (16 months), Samantha (19 months) and Brea (16 months). These were all Children of Promise (special needs) children assigned to our agency by the Chinese government. Our agency then published the list of children to their offices and collected names of families interested in adopting them. After two weeks of collecting names the agency picked a family for each child from multiple request for each child. We are honored that we were chosen and thank God for the blessing of thise little miracle each and every day.

They don't have dryers too many dryers in China, most people hang their clothes out to dry like this. Even Laura Joan's foster home with 17 kids just got a dryer after we left. Can you imagine what doing laudry is like for 17 kids with no dryer. I never want to find out!






These stautes are all over Shamien Island in Guangzhou. They are so funny. It was such a treat to walk around the island and shop and take pictures. This is the vacation portion of our trip.

The White Swan in Guangzhou

The kids are playing ring around the rosey. As you can see Laura Joan is the smallest walking child in the group. She loves the other children, they are all delightful.


As we waited for our guide to check everyone into the hotel we were treated to a violin concert by one of the children in our travel group. Harmony is 8 years old and is traveling with her mom, dad and sister to adopt her baby brother Noah. Harmony played "Amazing Grace" beautifully and it was a real treat for all of us.

Travel Group to Guangzhou

Laura Joan and the other babies in our travel group received their Chinese passports today. We were scheduled to go on a tour of the ancient city wall this morning but instead we had to hang out at the police station and wait for the passports to be finished. We left there and went straight to the Xian City airport to catch our flight to Guangzhou. Laura Joan did really well on the flight. She slept most of the time-hugh relief.

Xian City Sites

This is what some of Zian City looks like. Notice the smog, the polloution is really, really bad. There are no clear bright pretty days like in Atlanta, they burn coal and have alot more people.

The Wild Goose Pagoda

As we wait for the babies passports from the Chinese government we continue to tour Shaanxi province. Today we visited the Wild Goose Pagoda. 50 monks still live here and practice the Buddhist religion. It was a strange feeling to watch visitors lighting candles and burning incense before going before the Buddha statue to pray. The gardens were beautiful but it is hard to enjoy the beauty of nature in a place where a statue receives the glory for God's amazing work.

Afterwards we visited a government owned Jade factory. We got a lesson in the colors and qualities of Jade and watched as workers cut, sculpted and polished jade pieces. It was amazing to see the detailed pieces that had been made.

The Jade Factory

Afterwards we visited a government owned Jade factory. We got a lesson in the colors and qualities of Jade and watched as workers cut, sculpted and polished jade pieces. It was amazing to see the detailed pieces that had been made. Chris bought Laura Joan a little jade turtle because "turtle" is the first word she has been saying to us - we saw alot of little jade turtles at the Muslim Market and Chris was teaching her the name of them so now everything is "turtle, turtle" and she says it so cutely too. We just adore our little girl-she was made to be a "Mahler"

Silk Factory

We then visited a silk factory. We watched workers pulling silk threads from cacoons and placing them on reels where the silk is spun off the cacoon. We also watched workers manually removing the boiled cacoons off the silk worms and then stretch the silk over a wooden stand. The stretched silk is then dried and later stretched by four workers to use inside silk quilts. These quilts are then covered with a duvet cover for use.

Afterwards we had lunch at a local Chinese restaurant. We didn't order our food but instead was served a variety of dishes on a lazy Susan that all the families shared. Each dish was a mystery except for one. We all recognized the fish with the head still attached (see photo. Evelyn was very brave and tasted it. Suprizingly the fish was very good and I enjoyed most of the food served.

On our way back to the hotel we saw alot of farmers selling pomegranate fruit which is the local crop here. It was strange to see the farmers selling their fruit along the side of the interstate from baskets but even stranger to see how some of them balance heavy baskets of the fruit from the sides of their bikes to take it to the market. They line up selling all the same fruit-talk about competition!

Local life here in China is hard for many people. We take so much for granted but here in China we are reminded of how good we really have it in the USA. We've seen folks riding their bikes to work in the cold rain, severely handicapped people begging for money because there is no social security disability to support them and living conditions for most are well below what would be considered poverty in America.

I'm also including some photos of the families we are traveling with and the children they are adopting. I hope you enjoy them.