the expression

her expression, in realizing she really has a family, spoke volumes.  i see joy.  i feel relief.  i realize that my worries over whether she dreams to be adopted were unfounded.  and i think i see dimples :)

in my heart, i imagine that she is thinking... ."yes, me.  i was finally picked!"  lu cai qi has been waiting on the waiting child list since 2007.   we were told not one family had inquired about her.  is it because of her eye?  i'm guessing that it was.  my mom once embroidered a picture that read "the eye is the window to the soul."  it always stayed with me.  

our new girl, little hannah lu cai qi, is 9 and lives in jiangxi, china.  from the pictures we've received, it is a very poor area.  she lives with a foster family and has for a long time.  from what we've been told, her foster family tells her often that she will live a happy life if she can be adopted."  i hope she has had some happy there too.  

this photo came with a note that said "she also told the elder people her neighbors that she would have family and parents would pick up her several months later."  brag, sweet girl, brag!

so why call this blog "finally picked"?  when we adopted abigail two plus years ago, there was a vimeo video clip that showed a little chinese orphanage girl hoping to one day be picked.  each time an adoptive family would come to the orphanage, she would hope that she would be picked.  but her time didn't come.  and didn't come.  until one day she was 'finally picked!"

the heartbreak is that these kids think something is wrong with them causing people to not pick them.  nothing could be further from the truth.