Makenna turned four in September and has been living in the same Social Welfare Institute since her birth. From what we have been told some of her favorite toys are balls and books - those of you who know Megan and Matthew should find this ironic. Matt spent his entire toddler years carrying a ball around with him and sleeping with a small ball in his hand. Megan LOVES her books and has been anticipating the day she could sit and read to her little sister. What a perfect fit for our family!
We were recently told that Makenna's Chinese Name translates to mean "a tiny piece of a precious cloud" - tiny she is! She weighed 28 lbs in December and was 36" tall at just over 4 years old. She will surely gain weight once she gets home and gets some good home cooking! Jason can't wait to introduce to all sorts of good food. In the mean time, it will be nice to have a little peanut to carry around and cuddle.
One exciting bit of information is that she has HAIR - pigtails in almost all the pictures we have received. It is unusual for children in orphanages to have hair so we were quite suprised to see her pictures with two nice long pigtails. She is accumulating quite a collection of head bands and hair bows already!
And the first thing you will notice when are able to reveal her picture is her smile - her whole face lights up and her eyes sparkle. You can see pure joy in her expression - it melts our hearts and is an answer to prayer that she has experienced and knows joy and happiness in the first four years of her life.
Geographically speaking... Makenna lives in the Jiangsu province of China. China lies on the same latitude lines as the United States - so the area that she lives would be on the same latitude as North Carolina. Winters aren't nearly as cold as in Bejing or the northern regions. The capital of Jiangsu where we will be traveling to for "Gotcha" (when we receive Makenna and finalize her adoption) is Nanjing. Nanjing looks to be a modern city with nice hotels and amentities (another answer to prayer!).
Here is map of China - Jiangsu is just north of Shanghai and Nanjing is northwest of Shanghai:
So, while were looking at the map - I'll quick tell you about the itinerary of our time in China. We will fly from the US into Bejing, we will spend 2-3 days in Bejing. Then we will either fly or take a train to Nanjing for Gotcha and about 5-7 days of getting all the paperwork finalized and getting Makenna's passport. Fron Nanjing we will fly to the city of Guangzhou in the province of Guangdong - this is where the US Consulate in located. We will spend another 5-7 days here getting all the US Immigrations paperwork ready to bring Makenna home. From Guangzhou we will make our way to Hong Kong and fly back home. In case you're wondering it's about 14-15 hours of flying to get from the US to China!
We are anxious to receive our LOA - praying it arrives any day and we can officially introduce to our sweet, sweet daughter.
Thank you for continuing to pray for our family and Makenna. She likely doesn't know that she has a family waiting for her yet, but we pray that God would be preparing her heart and mind to leave everything that she has known, to learn to trust us as her parents, and to travel to the other side of the world to become a daughter, sister, granddaughter, cousin, niece - so many people already love this little girl and we pray she would be prepared to receive all of us into her little heart.
Stay tuned for more updates - I think the journey is going to be much more exciting very soon!
Jessica
Please forgive me if we have already had this discussion....we just got home from China and I don't remember much about what happened in the weeks leading up to our trip :). We were also in Nanjing. Our son was in a SWI close to Shanghai. Do you know which hotel you will be at in Nanjing?
ReplyDelete