What a Beautiful Blessing!

Today we received such a beautiful blessing that words can scarcely convey how we feel. Mayana Lin Meixiang Amlung is now with her forever family, and we feel privileged beyond belief to have been chosen.

After a rocky start, involving much tears and even a bit of kicking and thrashing, we set off to our hotel. On the way Mayana asked the guide to make a phone call, and she spoke to one of her teachers. That seemed to make all the difference in the world. Tears stopped. Laughter soon followed. Within the hour we were happily skipping down the sidewalk together.

Mayana's smile could melt any heart. It's simply bigger than life. Communication is very challenging, but we are both greeting the problem with a sense of humor. When I speak Chinese to her, she beams and sometimes giggles. I can really only manage a bit of Mandarin and a very few lines in Cantonese. But she loves my efforts and the few songs that I know (sort of.) At the restaurant tonight she turned away the fried rice and gave the waiter her own order. He was quite tickled by the whole thing. Mayana was quite pleased as she poured her jasmine tea over her bowl of rice with ? -- a very plain dish, which sounded to me like she ordered "flan."

Mayana fits right into the family - loves to be tossed and teased, and she teases back, like Tom; very inquisitve like Lia; outgoing like Kayla; a dancer, like Kayla and Grace; and an artist, like AnneMarie and Lia.

There's so much to tell, and photos to post, but I want to at least get this done. Everyone else is already asleep!

What an a -Mei -zing day!