Yangzhou Officials Visit Colorado

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I am so sorry that I have not had a chance to post till now. This week as been a bit crazy with activities filling our schedule every night. The short video clip above contains pictures from our evening at CCAI's headquarters in Centennial,Colorado. Many Yangzhou officials traveled from China to Canada, California, and Colorado to invite families that previously adopted from Yangzhou back to the orphanage for a Heritage Tour. The Kraft family(Kelly, Mike, and Claire) had an opportunity to attend the Yangzhou Reunion this past March along with many other families that previously adopted from Jael and Ting li's orphanage. On this tour families have a chance to vist the orphanage, spend time with the children in the orphanage, and explore Yangzhou City. This is definitely something we would love to do in the future with Jael and Ting li, since we have not had the chance to see Yangzhou. When we traveled to China to adopt Jael we did not stay in Yangzhou. The closest major city with an airport was Nanjing. This was the city that we did all of our sight-seeing in. The only thing we experienced in Yangzhou was the orphanage and a local resturant with amazing food.

The visit with the Yangzhou officials on Wednesday night was a bit overwhelming. As soon as we walked in the building we were immediately greeted by staff from CCAI adoption agency. In the middle of our introductions Lu Ai Ping, the director of Jael's orphanage, ran up to Jael and gave her a big hug. She remembered Jael and immediately wisked her off to meet the other Yangzhou officials. I am not sure who everyone was. I just know that the Mayor of Yangzhou City, a Deputy, and a Chinese news crew was there. The news crew was do an Adoption Special on what happens to the children adopted from Yangzhou. They visited local families houses to see where the children live, what they eat, and interview the families and children. They did not visit our house but Jael, Brian, and I were all interviewed. They asked us about our adoption experience, what Jael's biggest accomplishment was, Jael had to describe us, we had to describe her, and they asked us our favorite question-Why an older child and not a baby?etc. Jael was treated like she was famous. Bian and I felt very overwhelmed since Jael was getting all the attention and we were sure other families wanted a chance to speak to everyone. While all the other kids were sitting with their families, Jael was called over to sit in the front with the Chinese Officials. They had water and some finger foods to snack on during the event which was very nice. The Mayor gave a brief speach thanking everyone and inviting us to Yangzhou. Then they showed the video from the Reunion Tour in March and gave all the children a book all about Yangzhou City. Then the highlight of the night happened. I wish we had our video camera. Anyone who knows Jael will not be shocked by what happened next. She went up to Lu Ai Ping and asked to sing the Yangzhou song for everyone in Chinese. They gave her a microphone and in front of everyone she sang...Yangzhou...yo...may...o...hmmm.....Yangzhou. That's all I got of course. The Yangzhou officials began singing with her halfway through. Then the funniest thing happened Jael walked up to the Mayor of Yangzhou and stuck the microphone in his face and started passing the microphone around so everyone could sing. Only Jael...No Fear