Blessings of the Internet

The internet is notorious for being a dangerous place. It is full of lies and deception and downright evil. But in some cases, it is also a place where hope and joy can be found. We had one of those days last week.

We are members of a Facebook group for families that have adopted or are in the process of adopting from Qi Long's specific orphanage. We are newer members to the group so as we were scrolling through the posts and reading threads from the past, we noticed a picture of a boy that was sitting in a classroom that looked just like Qi Long's class. Through more investigating (aka stalking), we found out that it was his classroom and that the little boy is being adopted by a family that lives about 2 hours or so from our hometown. I was so excited and immediately emailed her and started a connection there.

This is probably our favorite. Why?
He is eating a cookie. From Subway.
A chocolate cookie!!

As we kept scrolling down, we just started looking for pictures that might have some clue about our son. We hadn't even thought about searching for pictures of him, but we were in all out bloodhound mode at this point. We ended up finding him in a video of a little girl's birthday party, and we hit the jackpot and found a website that hosted volunteers at this orphanage and he was in several of their pictures. We were able to find pictures all the way back to 2013.

 As we got to the bottom of the page, and refreshed our Facebook feed, there was a new post by a family that was currently in China and had just met her son that day. We found a video on her facebook page from a few months ago and lo and behold, those big brown eyes were looking back at us, sitting right beside his friend in the video. So, we were also able to connect with her. She even took a couple of pictures for us when she went to visit the orphanage with her little boy.

It is so exciting to see two of his friends going to families. And both of them are very close to our hometown and we are hoping to be able to get together in the future. I hope that will be a priceless gift to be able to give to these boys, continued contact with the friends, really the brothers, that they have grown up with.

And that's not all!! Almost a month ago, we had found a guy that has devoted himself to collecting old newspapers from China. This might not seem like a big deal to most, but to adoptive families, it can be the only link they have to their child's past. In China, when a baby is found abandoned, they are required by law to post a finding ad, describing where and when they were found and any other information they can give. This ad must run in the paper for several months before they are officially considered "abandoned." This man was able to find Qi Long's finding ad and he sent us the picture of it on Monday. So now we have a picture of his precious little baby face. It's a huge piece of his puzzle, and something that I will treasure.

Qi Long at about 5 months old

This is such a hard thing to process. As I look at this picture, it's so hard for me to fathom what the situation could have been for a mama to let go of this face. My heart crumbles when I think about it. So many questions, so few answers. All I know is that, whatever the reason, I can only trust that the Father has only good planned for Qi Long and for his Birth Mommy, and for us. I am so thankful to her for giving him the gift of life, and I hope that I can honor her in the way that I raise him.

Today, I am thankful for the internet. And I am not ashamed to be a stalker! :P