"Goodbye", but not for long...

Sunday morning, Max had Joy and Pan, the translator, come to the hotel for a buffet breakfast. Then they went up to Max's room where we all got to talk on Skype together. The boys had fun playing show and tell with Joy: showing pictures they'd drawn, their swords, the lizard (we assured her it lives in a cage and she doesn't have to touch it), how to play with a yo-yo. The girls kept repeating, "Wo ai ni, jie jie" (I love you big sister), and she would say "Me too". When it was time to sign off, I don't know why but I was sad and didn't want to say "good bye". Duh, I know it's obvious; but I was surprised at how close you can feel by just looking at each other in real time like that.

Max, had to say "goodbye" this morning. We stopped talking on the computer by 10:30am his time. Then, he needed to buy some extra minutes on the cell phone he's using. Pan said, "No problem, it's just a short walk from here". It turned out that "a short walk" was one mile each way. They got back just in time for Joy to take her shuttle bus back to Beijing for school. Max said the goodbye was un-emotional. They had a "half-hug" and he felt Joy was controlling her emotions. He knows they both have a strong sense that it will be just some months until we are back to pick her up.

We found out that these girls did not learn they were being adopted until Thursday morning, the day before Max came to visit. Although we had sent a long letter with pictures, she was not given that letter until that day. They said they wanted it all to be a surprise for her. I am sure they also have to manage the information that gets around to all of the children, so that other ones are not disappointed. Joy said that Thursday she dealt with the excitement of how her world was going to change, how she would be living somewhere else, that she would have a different room. It wasn't until Friday she started to think about everybody in her family. We figured this whole thing out when I looked at the pictures from Friday and thought it looked like she has bags under her eyes. Max asked her about it. Evidently she didn't sleep very well Thursday night.

Max told her that when she comes to our family, she will be a full member of the family - as if she was born into our family. (He told me that seeing her, the conditions she is in and how wonderful she is, gives him even more sense of urgency to come home and try to make more money to provide for her and the whole family). She says she is so excited to come and be a part of her family. The only thing that will be hard will be saying goodbye to her friends.

Oh wow, this is going to be a long, hard few months of waiting....