An Exciting Meeting!

We were given the most amazing gift last week! A few months ago, the friend we made at Calli's orphanage, who is an American, emailed me to check on Calli and also to introduce me to his friend. This is a friend who worked in Calli's orphanage while she was there, but who is now living here in the US - in Dallas! AND he told me that while they were working at the orphanage, they fostered Calli Xiao Fei in their home! We had no idea this even happened! The only information we have had up to this point has been that she was found when she was 2 months old, taken to the orphanage, lived there until she was 10 months, and then lived with a Chinese foster family (with whom we are not allowed to have contact) until we adopted her at 19 months. To find out that she was also in this family's home was amazing to us!!

We're not sure how much we can post on the blog, and how much information we can give, so I won't share their names or anything else about them just in case. They have lived in the States since the summer of 2012 and are headed back this summer, so we were super excited to get to meet up with them while we were in Ft. Worth for Thanksgiving!!

Friends, can you imagine what a blessing this was?! To know that she was so well-cared for, loved, and even prayed over! They were praying for us, for Xiao Fei's family, while we were praying our baby would be loved, held, and taken care of! What a blessing!

We met at a Chick fil A for lunch on Tuesday last week. We left Cooper and Kendall at Granny and Papas' so that we would be able to visit as much as possible. We met their three sweet children, and their older two who were in China with them, were so excited to see Xiao Fei, or "Little Fei" as they kept calling her. Oh - I loved hearing them be so affectionate about her and seeing how excited they were to see her. No words!

And more...they gave us a CD full of pictures of her in China!!! We have less than a dozen pictures of Calli before we adopted her, so this was such a gift! We learned that she was in their home from the time she was 6 months until she was 9 months. That one of the "special needs" that she has was a reason she needed to be out of the orphanage and away from some of the children there. What a blessing that "special need" is, if it allowed her to have such special, individualized care!!

We also learned that she had to go to the hospital every day for 2 hours for a whole month for an IV. We had no idea! So much new information to be able to give the specialists she sees. It was also very cool for them to see how well she is doing now, for us to compare notes on her personality, and learn many other details of her time with them. So, so special. Here we are looking at pictures from the CD they gave us, so they could tell us about them. There is even one video on there!!

Such a special day. We prayed together before we left. Randy and I got in the car and couldn't get over how cool it was. I said, "Yeah, what do you say? Thank you? Can I buy your Chick fil A?" They took such wonderful care of our baby before we could, even bringing her into their home with their two biological children. We are so grateful.

Funny face in the car on the way to Pops and Kiki's. We are so thankful for our sweet girl and for how God has had his hand on her since before she was born.

Here are some of the pictures we were given!! Here is Little Fei at 6 months!!

 

 Sucking her thumb, laughing, with her IV playing....all sweet sights for this Mama's and Daddy's heart!