Orphanage reunion… part 1
It’s Thursday morning in Yangzhou… we only have time for a short posting, so we’ll give you the quick details and write more later.

Yesterday was a big day for Claire… we had the reunion at her orphanage, she was able to see her close friends who are still at the orphanage, and we also (unexpectedly) met her foster mother.

The orphanage reunion was a major event for the city. Once again, the deputy mayor and several other government officials where there, along with the news media. When we got off the busses, there was a band and a performance team of Chinese drummers there to greet us, along with a big crowd of locals. They had an outdoor stage set up, and we all listened to speeches from the officials. Then the “Yangzhou” adoptees exchanged gifts with the orphanage kids, and each group sang songs to the other that they had prepared. After that was a group photo, and then the kids made Chinese dumplings together (which we had for lunch). After lunch was an orphanage tour, a video, and a chance for each family to review the adoption records of their child.

Claire was able to spend time with her close friend Ling Ling, who is a 19 year old orphan who has been a “big sister” figure to Claire. She also was able to see her friends Ting Lee, Xiao Ming, and Liu Hu. Towards the end of the day we were preparing to leave, and Claire’s foster mother came up and introduced herself. They didn’t recognize each other at first, but it was a very emotional event once they both recognized each other (as you can imagine!). We exchanged gifts and information on each other.

We posted lots of pics of the day… and we’ll add more info later, but for now we gotta run!