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12/25/10 - This is a just massive dump of the emails we sent while traveling. If you recieved and read those emails, there is little new information here. We hope to add more cemmentary on the trip and how things are going since. Thanks for checking and check back!

Monday Update From China (June 21)

Hello from China (Monday),

We are happy to tell you that we arrived safely in China as scheduled early Sunday afternoon (Changsha time). It didn’t look that good right away at our hometown airport. Our first flight was delayed for almost two hours which meant we would miss our connection in LA. Delta fixed our problem and got us on a flight direct to Las Vegas, so the solution was better than the original flight plan. I meant we had a long layover in Las Vegas, then a very long flight over the ocean. But it went well and all of our luggage arrived too. A guide from the travel agency met us at the airport to take us to the hotel. The boys have been great travelers so far. Everyone was pretty tired by the time we went to bed Sunday night.

We hadn’t been told exactly when everything would happen, but on Monday morning we were taken to the Civil Affairs Bureau and there we met Shauna, and got to take her with us. The boys were very concerned because at first she was a very sad little girl. She was sobbing and did not want us to take her. I took that as a good sign because it means she has experienced some bonding and attachment. We just found out that morning that Shauna has been in a foster home for about a year and “Granny” spoiled her. She fell asleep on my lap on the way back to the hotel. We did some paper work and then were on our own again. Soon Shauna was laughing at her brothers. We went for a walk to find someplace to eat and before long she was talking to me - in Chinese of course. She has a bubbly personality and is especially taken with her middle brother. I think she is going to keep us on our toes too. She still takes afternoon naps so she was asleep shortly after I laid her in bed. All of us think she’s pretty cute. The boys even sat there watching her sleep. We are so thrilled to finally have our daughter.

I guess we have some interviews and paper work to do tomorrow. Wed. will be free day and that’s all I know now. We fly to Guangzhou on Friday. We are all doing well now, but please continue to pray for our health and safely. Thanks!

Nancy (for all the Bensons)

Tuesday Update From China (June 22)

Hi Everyone,

I think we are all managing to get our bodies adjusted to the time change (pretty much at least). I know I slept much better the second night. Shauna slept through the night last night. And she’s taking another good afternoon nap.

Tuesday was the day for official paperwork in order to finalize Shauna’s adoption. We went back to the same place as yesterday and filled out and signed more paperwork. Now we stay here until we get her Chinese passport on Friday. We’ve all enjoyed our first day with Shauna. It is apparent that she has been spoiled and needs lots of attention. Fortunately, there are plenty of us to give her that attention. We do have some discipline issues to work on, but that will come as she gets to know us and our language. Ron heard her speak a sentence in English (or so it seemed). I missed that, but it is fun to hear her say “Momma”. I sure wish I knew what she is saying when she scolds Tim. I’m enjoying the excuse of Shauna’s afternoon nap to have some down time.

There is much we could tell you about China and the culture, but I don’t think I will go into that here. Our hotel is nice and all the people try to help even if they are not fluent in English. It is hot and humid as we knew it would be. It has been overcast all the time so far. I don’t miss the sun too much since it would make it that much hotter. Our guide told us that it is the rainy season and there was flooding in the western part of the province. We have not had any rain here since we arrived, but the chance goes up over the next three days. We have not been very adventurous in our eating (not so much the food, as not being able to read the menu or communicate with the waitstaff). That’s an area we need to work on. We get breakfast at our hotel and we did eat one other meal here. It was interesting - a Brazilian barbeque and western buffet. I would say it was a little light on the western part, but there was some good meat as part of the Brazilian barbeque. (Second meal out this evening - interesting language experience, but good food, nice treatment and reasonable prices). (That count doesn’t include McDonalds - even though that was a language challenge also.) Shauna is a very good eater. She eats almost everything we give her (she’s amazing with the [full, adult size] chopsticks). Ben wishes we would take advantage of more of the hotel facilities - bowling , table tennis and a work out room.

Wednesday afternoon we go to a big city park and an amusement park. The boys are looking forward to that; I hope it’s not raining yet for that.

Nancy and family (additional commentary by Ron)

Addditional Note by Ron[originally a personal message] (June 22)

We are enjoying China very much, but I will say that the language issue is the biggest problem we have. It seems as though at the larger stores, restaurants, the hotel, etc, there is usually one person that is best at English, and everyone defers to them. Those people even are hesitant, and apologetic about not speaking better, but we appreciate their efforts. Our guides, who come when we need to be some scheduled place, speak well and understand us.

In public Changsha, the only "westerner" we have seen is a Canadian who is staying at our hotel. At the government adoption administration building we have seen other "westerner" looking people, but did not have opportunity to talk with any of them. One of our sons picked up that one family was from Britain. So I take it we are more of a novelty to the people we encounter than their minimal glances would suggest. And being the big group of six we wherever we go probably makes us stand out as well.   

Anyway, we are having a good time, staying well and enjoying Shauna. She is quite fun to be with and we enjoy seeing all the things she does, which indicated to us she has been taken care of real well.

Ron

Hello [originally a personal message] from China; June 21 1:34am (home time)

 The hotel we stayed in is a four star hotel called the Gold Source Hotel. The whole entire lobby was swathed in marble, granite, and brass. On our ride from the airport to the hotel the driver literally almost hit at least three people! It’s the most hectic city I’ve ever seen. The drivers NEVER turn on their blinkers and I witnessed a near car crash because of that. One taxi tried to go in the same lane as a bus was trying to go into. Which will win? If you think the taxi call 651-488-888 Pizza Hut delivery is on its way!!!! Or if you’re betting on the bus call 899-764674867-47857839478-87347987 call now!!!

 We’ve got Shauna!! She isvery smart and cute. At first she just clung to Mom and Dad and cried ( which she did awhile once we left the orphanage). Ben got her to crack by prancing around like a leprechaun ( Bryce, you should know that phrase) and going “Blblbblblblblblblblblblblbl!!!!!!!” So we all started to do it and that had her smiling for a while. Later we went to McDonalds and she ate 3 chicken McNuggets and a few fries (dipped in sweet n’ sour sauce). An old man must of thought I was a pro soccer player or something cause I was wearing my blaine soccer jersey I got at a garage sale because he was staring at me and and asked for my autograph (just kidding about the autograph part). When we went to McD’s a couple girls were there we went inside, then we left three seconds later because there was no room. When we came back the girls were still there, I told Mom that and she said that they probably didn’t have AC so they just hung out there.

 sincerely, (sort of)( just kidding, no joke I am!): Tim

Hello [originally a personal message] from China; June 22 2:48am (MN time)

 Today we saw a Chinese pagoda, they are these buildings with 5-6 stories and the swooping roofs. Shauna said her first few english words like mama, papa, Tim , Ben , , and hello (still not Zac). She is always talking in Chinese, at breakfast I took part of her egg and she started to talk rapidly at me and hit at me with her spoon. People say Hunan province (that is the Chinese province we’re staying in) girls are spicy, she’s that and feisty. Mom also remarked that shee wished she knew what Shauna was saying. For the entire time we’ve been here we have been drinking out of water bottles, Mom says that the tap water has germs that we are not used to ( you don’t want to know what she said it would do to you) so we can’t drink out of the tap or the shower, but who does? Ben. We also finalized today, we went to the place where we got Shauna and did about five minutes worth of paperwork had a picture of the family and discussed a few things, then we were outa there. See ya!!!

 Right now it is hard to concentrate cause Ben is listening to his mp3 player and wisteling “lets get crazy” by Hannah you-know-who and dancing oround like a maniac so I’ going to quit.

 sincerely (really!!), Tim

P.S II Ben says “EAT PIZZA!!!!”

Hello [originally a personal message] from China; June 23

 Yesterday we went to a museum. There two ladies about 23-30 asked to have their picture taken with Ben. Mom consented but Ben didn’t look too comfortable. After they were done they told Mom he was very handsome.

 Later we went to this embroidery place again a lady told Ben he was very handsome. The embroidery place sells these pictures of...stuff to buyers. A 3’ by 10’ picture takes 2 YEARS for one person to make ( it also costs 240,000 rmb. Or more than 35,000USD) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Also an 1” by 1” flower petal takes 24 hours to make.

 sincerely (I’m begging you to take me seriosly!): Tim

Zac's View on China (June 24)

Greetings from China!

 I t’s amazing how different China is from the US. For example Lays chips have a local flavor, spicy hot pot, a famous Chinese dish. At McDonald’s I wish I knew what was in the pie. The pizza I ate at western restaurant was different- no tomato sauce! Unfortunately, Ben accidentally drank a sip of the water (which you’re not supposed to do in China), and today is not feeling well.

 People are like obsessed with the world cup. A restaurant in the hotel is decked out with world cup posters, flags, and other world cup paphernalia. Maybe the restaurant was made just for that purpose!

 Last night, we ate at Hunan restaurant, a restaurant at the hotel. It was delicious. I had lotus root and sauteed pork. But the most interesting thing was a fruit plate which had a weird shape cut out of a watermelon rind.

 I hear there is 50 year flood in nearby Jianxi province. They get rain almost every day (it’s the rainy season), so I’m not surprised.

 Shauna says a lot of Chinese words that I wish we understood. She sometimes is a brat and cries whenever she doesn’t get her way. She prefers to do things herself rather than take help from others.

 I blend in for obvious reasons. It’s so funny when people try to talk to me as if I can translate when Dad tries to talk to them.

 Lots of people look at Shauna and try to talk to her.

 The breakfast at the hotel is very different then breakfasts in the US. They serve pizza (there’s only one type), dumplings, bamboo shoots, preserved bean curd, a cereal called congee, as well as french toast, pancakes, and eggs. and it’s free with our breakfast pass we get with our room.

 Traffic is crazy in China. People walk amongst moving traffic and cars are all over the place. I have never heard so many car horns. In America if you honk a horn you could get cussed at and you almost never need it unless someones’s going 20 mph in a 70 mph zone.

 I’m looking for tea with ginseng as a souvenir. My bros hate the smell!

 I try to learn Chinese but if I greet someone in Chinese they’ll think I speak their language.

 Man, I miss fruit! Watermelon, banana, canteloupe and citrus are the only ones that can be eaten conveniently. Fresh veggies also must be avoided because they’re washed by the water.

 Today Ben missed breakfast because of being a little sick. Today our tour guide will treat us to supper. I’m looking forward to that. The rest of the family is less adventurous than I am in the area of food.

 This is a unique adventure. I’m thankful that we got our sister after so many years of waiting.

To all my fans (just kidding), Zachary

Wednesday/Thursday Update (June 24)

First of all, I want to make it clear that Zac should not have called his new little sister a "brat sometimes" in his earlier message. Then, here's an update from the last couple days ...

On Wednesday, we were scheduled to go to a big city park and to an amusement park. However, it was a rainy day, the first all-day rain since we were here (although it has been cloudy the whole time)(actually as I was finishing the paragraph, the sun has broken through, and we see shadows for the first time). So for Plan B, our guide took us to the Hunan Provincial Museum. This is quite an expansive facility which was recently opened after moving from a much smaller one next to it. It has some very interesting displays of archaeological excavations in Hunan. There is a lot more history here where there have been civilizations occupying the area for so many thousands of years. We were there a couple hours, and had an overview tour by our guide, in English. Actually, each of the displays had a writeup in English as well as Chinese, the first place we have seen that.

After the museum, we went to an embroidery place. Changsha is renown for its embroidery products. At this place, they had a lot of amazing work that had been crafted. Tim recalls that a 3’ by 10’ picture they had there had taken one person 2 years to make (it also costs 240,000 rmb; more than 35,000USD), and that a 1” by 1” flower petal could take as long as 24 hours to make.

Ben turned out to be the attraction on Wednesday. At both places there were young women who commented on how handsome he was, and a couple of them wanted their picture taken with him. So Shauna took the back seat at those places.

Wednesday evening we went to the Hunan Restaurant in the hotel. That was an interesting experience, not as much for the language issue as in other cases, but for the selection offered. There were a lot of options, with English titles but no further descriptions and some pictures. I’d say that in the end, it wasn’t all that great an eating experience but the service was again very good and the presentation was nice. Zac, however, thought it was great.

Shauna has had some moments when she isn’t happy, and is probably explaining why but we can’t understand her. But she usually comes around in a few minutes. Today (Thursday) it seems as though the novelty of having a sister is starting to wear off, and a brother or two is becoming annoyed with Shauna. She continues to sleep well and eat almost everything. She is very quick to pick up on things that her brothers do (good or bad), and still jabbers on and on.

Today we’ve been on our own. When out seeking bottled drinking water last evening, I had discovered a underground shopping mall across the street from us. It included a “Carrefour” store, which is the much like a SuperWalmart. No one had mentioned it’s existence to us, so we had been taking a kilometer walk to another older, tightly squeezed store to buy things. So since it was raining, we went over there to explore and buy some necessities. The hotel has a bowling alley so this afternoon a couple of the boys went bowling again with Nancy and I watched Shauna take a nap. She’s cute.

This evening, our guide took us out for dinner at a local Chinese food place. He picked out the food items (he had the handy advantage that he could read the menu, and knows what types of items there are), and we all agreed that everything was very good, and the best Chinese food we had had, and better than the hotel food. It is nice having a translator to guide our food choices, and that would have made other times much easier.

Zac and I went out on a shopping walk after dinner, and ended up coming back after dark. It becomes a very interesting place, with lots and lots of people out, some shopping, some eating, and some just hanging out with friends. I’ll have to tell you sometime about the event that seems to go on across the street from the hotel each night.

Tomorrow, we travel to Guangzhou. We will be packing up and getting ready to vacate our hotel rooms, so we will probably not be writing that day. We leave here in the evening and get to Guangzhou in only an hour or so, but it will be late by the time we get to our beds. We’re not sure what to expect between then and Tuesday, when our appointment at the consulate is scheduled. Tomorrow will be a long day though.

I intend each day to post some pictures, but time seems to get away. I and each of the three boys have cameras so we have snapped a lot of shots and video clips (Tim just reported that he had taken 448 already) and hopefully we will be able to share some soon.

All for now. Shauna’s crying inconsolably.

Ron (and Ben-he wanted to write a couple words), for the rest of the crew.

Sunday Update (June 27)

Here’s a wordy update on what’s happened since we last wrote:

 On Friday, we needed to check out of the hotel in Changsha by 2:00PM. We stashed our luggage with the bell boys near the front desk and went out exploring some more in our area. Across the street from our hotel is the largest Ferris wheel in Asia (we may have mentioned that previously), then next to that is a very large stadium, we suppose primarily for soccer. In front of the stadium, between it and the street, are a couple very large, open plazas. At first we wondered why all that space, but after we discovered the shopping mall where the Carrefour store was, it turned out the large plaza was the roof of that shopping mall. I’ve been going to mention how we would hear music coming from that area each evening from around dark (~8:00) until about 10:00PM. When Zac and I were out after dark that one evening we went by there, and the plaza was covered with hundreds of people, dancing to the music. They stood about 10 feet apart, all facing the same direction and did these foot routines then all turn 90 degrees together and continue, and then turn again, and so on. Each song had distinct steps they would use. Some people would do simple steps, others added extra stuff and corresponding arm movements. There is probably a term for this type of dance activity, but I am not aware of it. Some people seemed to be with others, although they stood at a distance from the others. Others seemed to be there alone. There would be small groups of people standing among the dancers, talking amongst themselves. There were everyone from old to young children. A pretty neat sight and seemed to be a nice thing for people to do.

Anyway, as were exploring Friday, there were these doors under the upper plaza labeled Maccalean or something like that. Next to them were little storefront places, like one that rented motor scooters. So we hadn’t expected there was much else there. Turns out, under the entire upper plaza was another massive mall area, this time with probably 50 - 75 home furnishing stores, selling all kinds of stuff, very nice stuff, from what was probably companies from all over the world. A pretty amazing thing with such a low profile outer appearance, but the ‘Maccalean’ (or whatever) name probably meant something to the people living in the area. So we spent time walking around in there, which was semi-air conditioned. There were essentially no customers, so many of the workers in the stores would come out and look at Shauna and talk to her and try to talk to us. After that the boys wanted to go to the back side of the stadium where we had been the previous day. There were outdoor exercise equipment there, and although I wasn’t interested in exercising outside in those hot, humid conditions, the boys thought it was fun.

While they went there, I went to check out another thing that we had seen the previous day that was under the side of the stadium. It had signage labeled “Kubbeland International Airport” (I don’t have the spelling right), but we had little other indication of what it was, except that is probably was not a real international airport. Turns out it was an underground theme park, for children probably elementary age (Shauna would have been too young, the boys too old). It seemed quite extensive, and no one there; one couple with a child came as I was leaving. Again, very unassuming from the outside, but a very highly developed place within. Incidentally, schools seem to be in session even now; when we have been out around noon, there is this flood of kids coming from what we were told is a “middle” school, comparable to our high schools. That would explain why there were no children at the “international airport” in early afternoon, but not why it was still open in spite of that.

So after they had enough exercise, we headed to McDonald’s. We braved crossing the streets on the surface (occasionally, there are tunnels under the main streets, which we prefer over the street crossing) and arrived safely. After eating, we headed back to the hotel, where we met our guide/assistant (“Samuel”), who had just obtained Shauna’s Chinese passport and other documents (everything is run right down to the wire). Then “Shirley” (they each seem to have chosen names that westerners would be familiar with) showed up with a mini-bus and driver to take us to the airport. She seemed quite tense about being stuck in rush-hour traffic, which in turn made us tense. We got to the airport and she rushes around, stands at counters for a while, asks people questions, rushes us down stairs (the elevator alerts of overload with all of us on it), looks around, asks other people questions, then rushes us outside and down a couple terminal buildings to where our gate actually was. There we check our baggage and she says goodbye to us as we go through security. We find ourselves at the gate indicated on our boarding pass with very little English to confirm that it is the place we should be at, but with an hour until departure. There was another adopting family there, from Missouri, who had asked about it and had been told that the plane was late. So we had plenty of time to relax before the flight.

\

The part of the Changsha airport we departed from was completely different in appearance and impression from the place we had arrived. That had looked like something from maybe the 50s or 60s in the US. Our departure area was much more modern, more like MSP in the early 1990s. They are building a huge new terminal next to it, to be open in a couple years, probably much like Incheon, which is very modern.

The flight was only about 1 hour, on this small 50 passenger jet, three seats across. They took us on a bus/tram from the airport out to the plane, and the 5 steps into the plane were the door of the plane flipped down. It was an interesting experience. But again, everyone was very nice, and there was [just] enough English so that we knew what we had to do (that, and just follow the crowd). Shauna made the trip very well, for which we were thankful.

I had wondered why we took a plane for this short trip, since they have a new high speed train between Changsha and Guangzhou. Several people we spoke with from China also felt that would have been a more appropriate choice, just as quick overall and much cheaper. I would have loved to have experienced that, but the small jet was a nice experience for the boys and it gave Shauna a taste of what she would be experiencing for 24 hours next time, on our trip home.

“Tracy” met us at coming out of the baggage claim area and called her driver with a minivan. It was a 40 minute ride to the hotel, so it was quite late when we got to the hotel and our rooms. There was a message from our Guangzhou guide/assistant, and Nancy called him and got our instructions for Saturday, including meeting him at 8:45AM.

We get breakfast at the hotel each day here also. This was larger, and more “western” than at the Changsha hotel. Lots of English being spoken by the many non-Asian hotel guests with little Asian children. The American Consulate had been real close to this hotel, so it has long been the place where almost all adopting families stay during their consulate work, and continues to host many of those families.

Our schedule for Saturday was for Shauna’s medical exam and immunizations. There are no appointments at the clinic; everyone just shows up and waits and goes through these various stations for different exams. A person would be totally lost if they did not have a guide telling them where they needed to go. Ours, “Peter”, would walk up to the front of the line, stick our papers in front of the people and get whatever needed to be done done, then tell us where we had to bring Shauna. There were about four places we had to go, for things like hearing, ears and throat check, and a doctor reviewing her records. Then the immunization people determined Shauna needed four immunizations, in addition to her TB test. She had been very good and patient through everything else, but did not think getting five needle pokes was very fun and cried for quite a while. We walked back to the hotel and met with Peter for about an hour going over paperwork and all the events of the rest of our time here.

After Peter left, we went to “Lucy’s”, a little cafe that serves “western” food like hamburgers and pizza, located near the hotel. Several had commented to us that they had welcomed the chance to go there after so much Chinese food during their first week in China, usually in another province, where their child was born. We also appreciated the diverse food selection. As we left, I headed off with Zac to survey the surrounding area, and the others went back to the hotel for Shauna’s nap. Quite soon, it began to rain and it rained until we got back after about 1 1/2 hours. We walked around the whole island that the hotel was located on (called Shamian island), and stopped at a small, “big” gift shop (i.e., crowded) called Susan’s Place. We were quite soggy when we arrived back at the hotel, in spite of an umbrella.

We then toured the hotel, checking out the pools, waterfront, gym, and plethora of gift shops containing all sorts of things. We surveyed all the restaurants in the hotel (the eight of ten that are open while we are here) and ate at the Cantonese restaurant. Nancy is getting the hang of ordering this stuff and picked some very good food, although nothing necessarily exotic (to Zac’s disappointment, although he still ate plenty).

I went with Ben to the gym and he ran 5K and tried out all the Cybex machines, then we all got to bed. Shauna cried for a long time before going to sleep. Too bad we can’t tell what is bothering her, but with all her shots earlier in the day, we figured it could be a lot of things.

This morning, after breakfast, we went to the Mandarin/English service at Shamian Christ Church, which is just across the street from the hotel. The place was full and I thought it was very special being on the other side of the world and worshiping with fellow believers and hearing teaching from God’s word. There were some songs in Chinese and some in English. I’d say the Chinese singers sang far more enthusiastically than the English singers. The sign by the church said it was built in 1865 and “has been used as Christ Church till now”, an amazing history for any church.

After the church service, we eat outside with food from the hotel “Delishop”. It was quite pleasant outside at the time, and during time of Shauna’s nap. Then, after she got up, we walked around the streets near the hotel, and it started raining lightly and continued until we got back. (If you haven’t been keeping track, the only time we have seen sunlight since we left Las Vegas was a couple hours before sunset the night before we left Changsha, and we won’t expect to see any here.) There are a lot of little “gift” shops around here where the workers draw you in and quickly determine what exactly it is that you must buy today, and suddenly drop the price as you walk away. There is a lot of construction work going on with the buildings around the island and the streets. It seems as though many or most of the buildings date back to the British colonial times. It seems that many are being refurbished extensively. There are many old buildings that are very nicely kept up.

Speaking of Changsha, I read in the paper today that the river going through Changsha hit a record high level on the day we left there, and that they were quite concerned about the ability to hold off any higher levels. We are next to another river here in Guangzhou (the Pearl), and it is quite muddy, probably from run off, and there is a lot of tree branches floating in it, which I’d assume are from trees that succumbed to the flooding upstream. We of course don’t know what the normal levels are.

So again we are doing well. Tomorrow, we go to get Shauna’s TB test ‘read’, then someone will take us to a shopping area someplace in town. Guangzhou, incidentally, is a very large town, third largest in China. We are seeing a very tiny, and not very representative, part.

That’s it for now. Thanks for all the prayers.

Ron, for the family

Hello [originally a personal message] from China; June 28 6:12 am home time

 Sorry about not emailing for awhile but I can’t remember I was so tired ( that was an excuse). We went to this store that supported an orphanage. They had these necklaces that were squares or circles of bone that had carvings on them so minute that you had to use a magnifiying glass to see them. That’s all for now; buh-bye

 sincerely; Tim

Pictures (June 28)

Finally, here are some pictures. I packaged them in a .pdf file (almost 6MB); I hope that works for all of you. If you need to install a .pdf reader, I would strongly advise against installing Adobe reader; try Foxit Reader instead, or even SumatraPDF should work.

We saw today something we haven't seen for a while - the sun!

[Will be linked soon; check back - 12/25/10]
Ron

Monday-Wednesday Update (June 30)

As I think about what we have written in the past, a couple things come to mind that might need clarification.

One is that we had been telling you all that Shauna had been cared for in an orphanage (Child Welfare Institute) since she was four months old. All the information that we received at the time of the match (last September) fully indicated that (although we do not know exactly when that had been prepared) and we had not had any updated information following that. When we met Shauna, we were told she had been in a foster home for the past year. We do not know what brought about that change, but since we had been praying daily for those taking care of her, and that God would be preparing her for joining our family, we believe is was part of God’s way of working that out. She is undoubtedly a different person today than if that change had not taken place, whatever the differences might be. Nancy over-heard some others talking, mentioning the girls in the orphanages had their hair cut short, so as to simplify the care thereof, so being in foster care allowed Shauna to grow her head of long hair; her passport picture has her with short hair like many of the other young girls we have seen here at the hotel.

Secondly, many of you may have wondered how hard it could be to post or send some pictures sooner, or more of them, or more often. Well, traveling with these boys does not give us much free time. They always want to be doing something, going to the gym or somewhere else. I am usually writing when Shauna is napping, with the brothers watching TV right next to me and fighting amongst themselves. Basically, there is not much downtime for these parents. Don’t get me wrong, it has been the very right things that they are all along with us, as it has been a very special family time, adjusting to Shauna in a neutral environment, but it does change things greatly over what it is like for those parents here just getting their first child.

So, on to an update of our recent activities:

Monday was a rainy day right from the start. Another guide (I don’t know her name) picked us up at the hotel and we went to the other side of the island where the medical clinic is. It’s an easy enough walk, but as heavy as the rain was, it was nice that she took us over there by taxi. We needed to go there to have Shauna’s TB test read. It turned out to be negative; 98%+ do, but they have to do it. Then we came back and we took a hotel shuttle bus to a “street shopping” area in Guangzhou. It turned out to not be far from the hotel, but the roads to get there wind around quite a bit. Since it was raining so much, I thought it would be just as well if we would just skip it. But we got dropped off in the rain and our guide took us up and down various streets lined with all kind of stores. Some areas were nice, upscale shops, other areas not so much. Turned out that a lot of these areas were covered at the edge of the streets, so we were out of the rain. Along most of the nicest streets, the buildings must have been being refurbished; for block after block they were covered with scaffolding, so one cannot really get the view of everything at once to really grasp the scale, and it wasn’t conducive to taking pictures. Our guide took us to a couple temples of a couple different kinds that were in that area as well. Later we walked down some streets that were lined with pet and pet supply shops, one block lined with stores for just fish and related supplies - Ben notes that it smelled really, horribly bad. We passed the Holiday Inn and around another corner or two we were back at our island. The guide dropped us off there and disappeared. We stumbled across a Subway and ate there. We were wet but it was an interesting morning and no one really complained about the conditions. A trip to the gym while Shauna napped and they cleaned our room, and it was mealtime again.

We had told you that we would be going to the consulate for our appointment on Tuesday. Turns out that we don’t go (another thing that changed recently and didn’t match our documents about what to expect); our assistant goes on our behalf - he said there used to be too many people there with the families all going. So he said “stay in your room during that time and I’ll call if there are any issues”. Sure enough, he called and there was another form that we needed to submit. So we met him at the hotel in the afternoon and we filled out and signed that, and he brought it back to the consulate. We spent much of the day in between and after visiting the various gift shops (there are a lot) on the island and buying stuff. As I noted previously, the sun had come out in the morning. During the afternoon, some thunderstorms came through, but it was only partly cloudy in the evening and was quite nice.

Today, we were free in the morning so we started making our preparations for leaving for home. We had a bunch of leftover yuan (China money) so I had to go to the bank and change it back - a lot easier here than in Changsha because everyone here I dealt with could speak English pretty well (plus I mostly knew what I was doing now). As often the case, we had different ideas of what we should eat (Zac always wants eating to be an adventure into new territory), so for the only time we split up today. Ben and I ventured back over to the street shopping area where we had been Monday and ate at one of two McDonalds there, across the corner from each other. We walked around some of the other streets; what we had seen Monday in the rain was only a small part of what is there; there are block after block of these nicer shops, then, on the side streets from there, there are less fancy places. Then, we went in the building with the Pizza Hut sign and it was a 4 or 5 floor indoor mall, full of stores. I cannot imagine how all these places can stay in business, and how they differentiate themselves from all the other shoe stores, for example. And how does one pick among all the Chinese food places?

The big event of the day was the immigration oath ceremony at the American Consulate. We brought the whole family to that. It wasn’t a lot for us to do - everything is done by this point. There were 35 adopting families there. We report to the window when called, and they check our passports and tell us Shauna’s visa will be ready in the morning, per our special exemption. Then when everyone is done we are suppose to do the oath as a group. The microphone was not working, so the lady went without; we were sitting close so we heard okay, but many probably did not. So, it wasn’t really as special an event as we thought it would be. At least I was the best dressed guy there in my dress pants and shoes and neck tie; only a couple others had long pants, some in jeans, and the rest were all in the climate-appropriate shorts and casual shirts.

The trip to the consulate was amazing; we must have covered a lot of the core of Guangzhou. I have never seen anything like it; this city is BIG. Nothing even like New York City where I was last summer. This is big; it goes on and on, huge high-rise buildings all over. Lots of construction going on. I can’t believe there isn’t a shortage of tower cranes in the world - between Changsha and here, I would think they are using about all of them. We were told to not bring any electronic devices to the consulate, so we weren’t taking pictures but they wouldn’t have conveyed the real sense of what it’s like anyway. Just amazing. A lot of it is very nice buildings, but many were from a time when the appearance obviously wasn’t valued as highly as the function. As we saw so much in Changsha, there is often the contrast of new and modern next to the old and often poorly kept-up.

This evening we ate at another Chinese restaurant in the hotel, and then have been packing up to leave in the morning.

Tomorrow is the big day. I will get up early and eat and get ready to go over to the consulate with our assistant to get the visa. Nancy will have to get the last things together and luggage down and check us out. I need to be back by 10:00AM when our ride to the airport arrives. Please be praying that this all works out. We’re 13 hours ahead, so that is 9:00PM Wednesday.

I’ll send an update when we get home.

Ron, for the whole family

On the Trip Home (July 1)

We are at the Seattle/Tacoma airport - free Wifi - yeah. We were scheduled for a layover of almost six hours here, between our trans-pacific flight and our flight to our home city. But by the time we got through customs and immigration, there was only about four hours left. As we waited during that process, not knowing how long it would take, we were glad that we didn’t have a tight schedule here. When we got to our gate, there was a Delta flight to our home city boarding at the next gate. I inquired as to whether there was a possibility of getting on that one, but it was already full. Now, as I write this, another airline’s flight to our home city is boarding two gates down. But we still have a couple more hours to wait.

Things turned out well this morning; thanks for your prayers. I went with our assistant over to the American Consulate again to get Shauna’s visa and other immigration documents. Traffic was really busy at that time of day - it was over 45 minutes each way. When we get there, there are long lines, but the workers waved our assistant and me to a special, shorter line and had the people there step aside and they admitted us right away. He went to the appropriate counter and called on the “adoption hotline” phone and someone came with the documents, and we were out of there in about five minutes. As I have commented before, good guides/assistants (not sure the terminology they would choose for what they do) is essential to get you through all that needs to be done, especially with the language difference but also in being a regular at these things. This particular guy told me he had been doing this for eighteen years.

We got back to the hotel about 5 minutes after our appointed pick-up-for-the-airport time. Nancy had gathered up our last stuff and gotten the children (I’d always said ‘the boys’ before, but now it’s ‘the boys and the girl’, more likely ‘the boys and Shauna’), and had us checked out, so they were waiting, ready to go. It is a long drive to the airport, which is quite new and a long ways out of town. The first part was clogged with traffic, but later it cleared up. Our guide helped us through check-in and sent us on through security. That went pretty smoothly and we were at our gate with plenty of time.

The flight to Incheon went fine - just long enough to get a snack and a meal. We had a short period of time in Incheon to make our connection, but it was the same process we had done on the way to China, so we were pretty confident in what to do, and we again had plenty of time without too much time (like we are having here). The flight over the ocean was long, though not as long as the one going the other way. Shauna slept some, but cried a lot when she woke up, which as a result was probably the time all the people around us woke up. We felt bad about that but we can’t understand what might be bothering her when she cries like that, so we can’t do much beside trying to get her mind on something else. The individual entertainment units at each seat kept the boys from getting much sleep. The flight was long enough for both supper and breakfast meals.

We are suppose to get to our home city about midnight, then we need to get our baggage and take a taxi home so it will be late. Tim has been sleeping ever since we got here so he might not sleep tonight.

Thanks for the prayers. We’ll probably have some more comments once we get home.

Ron, for the family

Adjusting at Home (July 8)

A delayed update on arriving home, plus comments on the adjustments ...

We got home after midnight last Friday morning. We were glad as we
were expecting to get into our airport early, but they had problems getting
the jetway connected to the plane, so we got off the plane about the
scheduled time anyway. One of Nancy's friend had insisted on knowing
the flight info so she was there at the baggage claim and offered us
to drive us home - that was greatly appreciated and nicer than having
to get a taxi as we had planned.

We expected to arrive home to a dark house, but the lights were on and
there were decorations, welcome signs and fresh food and even flowers
awaiting us (thankfully no crowd of people). That was a very nice
welcome for us - thanks to those neighbors that did that.

We showed Shauna around the house and her room. She seemed excited and
especially liked seeing the pictures of herself that we had sitting
around; I think it helped her to connect. We unpacked only what we
needed and tried to get to bed as quickly as possible, but still it
was about 2:30AM by the time I got to sleep.

Shauna has adjusted pretty well I think. Sleeping has been an issue
and we never know what to expect from her at those times. She often
had a spell of crying before going to sleep, or worse, in the middle
of the night, but this has gotten better in recent days.

She enjoys playing outside and around the house. She gets into things
(as a three year old would); that's something we haven't had to deal
with for a while. The boys don't appreciate that aspect about her, but
other than that they all love her alot and spend quite a bit of time
with her. She really likes her brothers, and is especially attached to
Mommy; Daddy comes in a distant fifth. She is usually happy and very
active, and chatters all the time; we would love to know what she is
saying. She is quite inquisitive and picks up things very quickly,
even things from her brothers that we'd rather she not. She seems to
understand a lot of what we say, more that I'd expect at this point.
In short, she is a lot of fun and we consider her a tremendous
blessing in our lives. Four and a half years was a long time, but she
is worth the wait!

Ben came home with a sinus infection. He had been suffering greatly
from that but we got him on antibiotics last Saturday and he’s feeling
better now. Nancy was not feeling good after we got home and she got
in at the clinic yesterday; she has an ear infection and sinus
infection. She has been feeling better today, but needs more rest.
Shauna has been an early riser so there isn’t a lot of extra time to
sleep.

There have been people bringing us meals every couple days or so. That
has been very nice as there are so many new things for us to deal with
and adjust to, and especially with Nancy not feeling well.

I feel like I have been in a fog since we got back, arriving home
exhausted and and not sleeping well since; I have been so tired all
day yet not sleeping in the night. The others seem to have adjusted
better to the time change. It gets better each day but that is why I
had not written this before now (it’s probably more coherent that it
would have been earlier). I am so thankful I don't have to be going
back to work right away.

We have an appointment for Shauna with our pediatrician tomorrow
afternoon. We have not said much about the special need that Shauna
had/has, as we did not know a lot about it. This will be assessed
tomorrow, and we suspect that we will get referred to some sort of
specialist, so please pray for that appointment and referral.

This might be it for broadcast updates; I’d ideally like to write up
some impressions of China and our trip and the process, but as we are
home and life goes on and things are busy, I’m sure if that will
happen. I plan to eventually post the content from all these emails on
our neglected family website, theBensons.info. When I get around to
that, I might add those additional comments, and more pictures. So
thanks for reading, thanks for your thoughts, prayers, and concerns,
and for the tangible expressions of care that so many of you have
extended to us.

Ron, for the family