A Red Thread Woven: LiQing Day

Our family declared today as "LiQing Day" in honour of S.S.'s visit to her hometown. Today S.S. will be known as LiQing, her given name when she lived in China. Our day began at 5:00 am when LiQing and I couldn't sleep because we were excited about the day's events. We spent our time talking about memories I had and questions that should be asked. At 8:00 am we were on our way, just our family, Molly the tour guide, and the driver. In two hours we arrived in Yiwu, a small town of 650,000 people (by Chinese standard, that is).

A mother could not be prouder as I watched LiQing enter the orphanage and meet the Director, Mr. Lu. She carried herself with confidence and there was a glow of contentment about her. We had tea and asked our many questions. Gifts were presented to LiQing and she gave Mr. Lu a camera.

Then it was time to tour the orphanage. This was not the original building that LiQing lived in and in fact this building is about to be torn down and will be replaced. This is not an uncommon occurrence in China as the country is changing at an incredible rate.
As we neared the main building we could hear little voices and some crying. There are 52 children currently residing at the home and only a few were young babies. As we enter a common room we were greeted by someone I think is the orphanage ambassador. This young person is 17 and has lived at the orphanage all of her life. I'm afraid she stole my heart.

LiQing presented gifts to some of the older children and then we went to visit the babies. Pictures were not allowed in this room so LiQing knew this would be the perfect time to take mental pictures as her teacher suggested.

There were about 30 babies in cribs and 4 nannies were busy feeding many of them lunch. The babies who were eating were clearly older as they stood in their beds to wait for their lunch. It was clear to me that every one of the precious children had a special need of some sort. There were about 5 younger babies who were asleep and one young one who was just laying there and crying. It turns out that this little soul, who I think would be about 6 months old, had joined her orphanage family just this morning. I had the honour of holding this little one and cuddling her for about 10 minutes. Mental picture taken and will be preserved for many years to come.
After our visit we were escorted to a beautiful lunch with several orphanage staff. It was here that LiQing was able to share some of her accomplishments. I sensed that everyone was happy to know that she was doing so well in Canada.

Our goodbyes were said and again we were off but this time it was to go visit LiQing's finding spot. LiQing was found in Houzhai Town, a smaller district of Yiwu and like everywhere else the buildings are all new.