Praise God...we're back home! After 16 days, 15,000 miles, 7 flights, 4 hotel rooms, countless buses, taxis, subways, ferries and restaurants, the Homs have completed their Amazing Race for Sarah. No million dollar prize, but the reward of bringing home a priceless blessing - our baby Boo-Boo, Sarah-Barah, Chik-Fil-A, baby cakes, Princess Beautiful Sparkle, Lai Jing! God's been incredibly generous to us through this process. Formally, it started for us in mid-July of 2004, shortly after Sarah was born, and 13 1/2 months later, the process is complete. She's here! Whoo-hoo! As we mentioned after our flight to Beijing, we just [View Full Entry]

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Our final full day in Asia…it’s been a long journey, and we enjoyed every minute of it (well, maybe not EVERY minute, but most of the minutes). At the same time, we are SOOO looking forward to going home. When the trip started on August 18, we tried to imagine what life would be like on our return flight to the U.S., and, well…it’s pretty much come true…and then some. Some things we didn’t bargain for were the illnesses and soreness. Mama and baba are still struggling with a cough (keeping us up at night) and baba’s got some various aches [View Full Entry]

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We’re here…our last stop before returning to the states. Our journey from Guangzhou to HK, a total distance of about 100 miles, took 7 hours from door to door. If my math is correct, that’s about 14 miles an hour. We could have almost biked it faster. The flight itself was only 40 minutes. The rest was traveling to, from and waiting at the airport. One of the nice things was having limousine service from HK to our YMCA hotel. Well, it wasn’t exactly a limo, but it was a nice Toyota minivan that I’ve never seen before in the states. [View Full Entry]

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With Sarah’s travel visa approved and our swearing an oath at the U.S. consulate, we are now ready to say good-bye to China…well, at least the China that doesn’t include Hong Kong. It’s a strange situation: HK, which was once a British colony, is now a part of China politically, but it still uses a different currency, and travelers out of China need to pass through customs to go to HK. Even our guide, when trying to explain why returnees to the U.S. through HK need to pass through customs twice, just shook his head and said, “Don’t ask me. I [View Full Entry]

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Baby Sarah is such a flexible little tyke…she’s willing to eat whatever food (for the most part) we have whenever we can feed her (within a reasonable window); she’s willing to go on 3-hour outdoor excursions in the heat and humidity; she’s willing to sleep long nights when that’s exactly what mama and baba need to get over their colds; she’s willing to hang out with baba when mama’s not around. She may not be the “perfect” child, but she sure is all that we could have ever pryed for. We used to talk about how the schedule we keep (especially [View Full Entry]

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It’s amazing how quickly we fall asleep these days. I (Godfrey) used to lie in bed awake for up to an hour before I would slip into unconsciousness, but ever since the arrival of Baby Boo-Boo, we’ve both been conking out in a matter of seconds! Stacey and baby just fell asleep on the bed, and it took about as long as for me to write this paragraph! Sarah is tiring us out, even though the only other responsibilities we have here in China are (1) to exchange dollars into yuan (which we’ve had to do four times already because we [View Full Entry]

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Is it Saturday already?! Just a week ago the two of us were in Beijing, thoroughly enjoying our tours of the capital, and now, in a blink of an eye, the three of us are here in Guangzhou - - and Godfrey and I can’t imagine life without our precious gift of baby Sarah. We are having a wonderful trip…it’s impossible to fully describe it all. There have been some quiet moments when I’m holding Sarah as she’s drifting off to sleep, and I can reflect on the journey that the Lrd has led us on. It’s infinitely beyond what I [View Full Entry]

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Hello from Guangzhou! Stace and I LOVE reading your comments! It’s a lot of fun, and a great way to end the day! :) We’re sorry we can’t answer them individually, but keep sending them our way! It’s like camp mail call all over again for us! This is our second to last stop on the Adoption from China Tour. We took an early flight this morning and had to miss our hotel breakfast buffet, so there was the potential for crankiness (and not just on Sarah’s part). But thankfully, Sarah did really well on the flight (her first airplane ride!) [View Full Entry]

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On just the third day, Sarah has already earned a nickname. As if she isn’t already confused enough with the new language and new names (Sarah Michelle, Lai Jing - her new Chinese name), now we’ve gotten to calling her “Ah-boo-boo”!  She’s got this incredibly cute manner of bubbling with her lips when she’s pouting. I suppose it’s our way of finding faces in the clouds during a thunderstorm, and this girl sure does rain tears a lot. Sarah’s still very needy and clingy, and will rarely sit or walk on her own. So, when mama or baba are tired [View Full Entry]

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As I (Stacey) write this, it’s around 10pm Wednesday here in Changsha. I have egg from this morning’s breakfast smeared on my shirt, dried pumpkin remnants on my pants, and I smell like baby sweat. But it’s been a wonderful day, and we’re thankful beyond words for our daughter and for your pr—ers on our behalf, your words of encouragement and experience, and your willingness to read our journal. We know you’re standing with us, and we know that many of you have literally stood up in the middle of the night, walking a fussy baby and pr--ing for mercy too! [View Full Entry]

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