One Joy Will Scatter 100 Griefs, last post before we leave

There is a Chinese proverb that says, "One joy will scatter 100 griefs". For those who have followed our journey to Ammon (rhymes with Jammin', Salmon, etc) you know that it seems like we have filled our 100 griefs trying to get him home. We had to fight UT Immigration for our visa for him, we sent our dossier the week the China Center of Adoption Affairs (CCAA) moved so that delayed our Travel Approval which was then further delayed when our dossier missed a signature in the CCAA Review Dept and has to be sent back and the rest of our travel group got theirs and left for China without us.

During this wait, we contacted a foundation to see if there was anything we could do to help while we were delayed, as we knew they were new to international adoption and from a poor, rural area. They found that our 3 year old son and his little friends needed a whole lot of help. They had no running water and were having to feed the children water from a ditch, basically. They had no fridge, no air conditioning, no cribs, no washer, no dryer, hardly anything but the dedication of the small staff to try to keep them alive. We were able to turn to the adoption community and raise funds within a matter of days to supply their needs, get 9 very sick babies to the hospital, dig an 80 meter well, start a nutrition program and begin a foster care program. So while this delay was painful for us as a family, it ended up opening the world to at least 36 children, their caregivers and now their foster families and in due time to their adoptive families. It was absolutely worth this waiting for so many children to be touched and assisted and feel it was part of a plan bigger than us. We continue to thank you for your incredible gift to the SWI in XiaoXian.

But now we are at the JOY part and all those struggles and frustrations are fading as we know that on Sunday evening US time zones, we will be meeting our son in person for the very first time. We have held him in our hearts since 2/28/06 but will now actually get to fold him in our arms. He may not like us one bit but we'll get used to us, we are pretty fun here at the Ellison household. His Daddy, Mama and 5 year old sister Lan will be making the trip to China and we leave tomorrow afternoon.

We invite all of you to follow along as we become his family. We will be posting updates and pictures at http://ammonsadventures.blogspot. com/ (remove the space before com)

We thank you for all your well wishes and we are hoping for a tolerable flight to and from China. We are NOT looking forward to that part AT ALL. But we just can't wait to meet our dear friends at Beijing Oriental International Travel (BOIT) and the CCAA in Beijing, Amy Eldridge from Love Without Boundaries in Hefei (can you believe we are actually going to be able to meet for the first time in person in Hefei on Sunday night? How fitting is that?!), our dear guides Connie and Jack in Guangzhou and our new friends that we will make in Hefei.

Please keep us in your thoughts for the next two weeks as we take the hand of our newest son and lead him into his new life with a family, his OWN family, OUR family.

--
Stefani Ellison
China Program Coordinator
Children's House International
http://www.childrenshouseinternational.com