Day 2 - An incredible day in four parts

Part One

For the first 18 months of Claire's life, she lived in a shelter called the Harmony Home. Today it was our privilege to spend most of the day with the children of Harmony Home and also with two amazing women who were Claire's primary caregivers while she lived there.

Hana is a missionary from the Philipines who is working here in Taipei at the home. She has been an amazing help to us as we've waited these past few months. She sent us an extremely detailed email a few months ago telling us everything she knew about Claire's birth mother…. these are details we never would have known if not for Hana. She also was quite obviously extremely fond of Claire.

Hana and Jessica talking at Harmony Home

Today she gave us a CD with close to 200 pictures of Claire we had never seen before. Some of the pictures look like they were taken when Claire was only about a month old. When I think of families who adopt from China and are lucky to receive 3 or 4 tiny little printed out pictures, having this many high quality digital pictures of our daughter's first year and a half of life are an incredible blessing. We are so thankful for Hana!

One of our new pictures - Claire sleeping at Harmony Home

In addition to Hana we also were able to spend a lot of time today with an incredible woman named Nicole. I heard two different people today refer to her as "The Mother Theresa of Taiwan" and I would have to say that I would agree with them. Let me explain why.

Part Two

In the 1980s Nicole had a friend who was infected with HIV. He was unable to find anyone who would provide him with help because at that time, people were still mostly ignorant of how HIV spread and everyone was afraid to be around him. Everyone except Nicole. She took him in and cared for him and pretty soon the word got out among those who were sick that there was a woman in town who would help them. People kept coming and Nicole kept helping and now, twenty-five years later, there are six Harmony Home shelters in Taiwan and over twenty in mainland China.

Nicole with Claire at Harmony Home

Part of our day today was spent with the children of Harmony Home at a street festival they were having in Taipei to celebrate Chinese New Year. Harmony Home sponsored a booth at this festival to help spread awareness about HIV and how it can be prevented. It was amazing to us to hear stories of how in most Asian countries, HIV is still something that is completely misunderstood and most people are terrified to be around those who are infected. Young people are uneducated on how to avoid contracting it… needles are shared between multiple drug users and from what we were told today, condoms are rarely used by anyone. It is very different from how things are today in the United States.

Let me answer for you now the question you're probably wondering. Yes, Claire's birth mother is HIV positive which is why Claire spent her first 18 months at the Harmony Home. It takes 18 months to confirm if a child born to an infected mother will be positive or negative. Claire was tested regularly over that time and at the end of 18 months was declared to be negative and completely healthy. Let me repeat that: Claire is completely healthy. We praise God every day for saving this precious child's life.

Because of the stigma attached to HIV in Taiwan, if it weren't for the Harmony home, these children would have nowhere else to go. We are grateful beyond words to Nicole for the incredible courage, compassion, and love she has shown over all these years. As a gift for us today, she made us an amazing collage of pictures of Claire with all of her friends from the shelter. It is so comforting to know that even though Claire hasn't been with us for these 2 and a half years, she has been loved and when she leaves Taiwan, there will be people who will remember her and miss her.

At the street festival with the children and volunteers of Harmony Home

Part Three

As wonderful as Hana and Nicole have been and as impressed as I was with both of them, I still haven't told you who made the biggest impression on me today. Let me tell you about one of the most interesting and inspiring people I have ever met. His name is Joseph.

Joseph was born in Japan to a Japanese mother and an Italian father. He went to college at Stanford and then trained to be a plastic surgeon in Charleston, SC. He worked as a plastic surgeon in San Diego and eventually had a successful practice operating on celebrities who wanted to get away from the craziness of L.A. for their procedures. He didn't drop a lot of names but he did mention that he had done a procedure on Janet Jackson's butt. Seriously. I'm not making that up.

Eventually he became the primary plastic surgeon for Playboy magazine. Seriously. I'm not making that up either.

And then one day, Joseph realized that he was made for something better. He quit his job and moved to Taiwan. Even though Joseph couldn't be a day over 45, he is now officially retired.

Today I ate lunch with Joseph. We sat in tiny little chairs trying to squeeze our grown-up sized knees underneath a table made for toddlers. We ate simple food… rice, fried eggs, fish, and vegetables. We sat surrounded by children and all of them absolutely loved this man. He knew them all by name and knew the best parts of all of their personalities. He knew just what to do to make them laugh. He also knew their stories… where they had come from and where they were going. If it weren't for all of the paperwork involved he probably would have convinced us to adopt another 3 or 4 kids right there on the spot. Lord knows he tried.

Joseph is now a full-time volunteer for the Harmony home. He took the pile of money he made doing plastic surgery and now he travels all over Taiwan and China helping to spread awareness about HIV and raising funds for the work that they are doing. "In China, helping people with HIV is illegal" he told me. I asked him if the work he did there was dangerous. "Sure it is" he said. "They could beat me badly or even throw me in prison for the work I do but man, I don't even care. I'm not afraid." I was looking him in the eyes when he said it and he didn't blink and when he says he's not afraid, I believe him.

Oh yeah, and he's also an ordained minister.

It's not everyday that you come eye to eye with someone who is just completely filled with passion for what they are doing. I mean, don't get me wrong, I know a lot of people who love what they do, but this guy was just off the charts. He looked me in the eye and said "I would love to come to your church to talk to your parishioners and get them involved with the work we are doing." He wasn't joking either. He didn't care that we were from a place 28 hours away by plane clear on the other side of the world… all he cared about was finding an ear willing to listen to him talk about his passion. If I could guarantee him that, he said he was willing to come. Amazing.

Oh yeah, and he also does magic tricks. You can ask Connor.

Joseph and a little boy named Xi-Xi at the street festival

Part Three and a half

Something really funny that happened today: We were at the booth setup by Harmony Home at the street festival looking at the t-shirts they were selling when all of a sudden I hear Connor asking if he can have something. I look down to see him holding five individually wrapped rainbow colored condoms. "They're free dad" he said. "No son, I don't think so. Do you know what those are?" He looked at them. "No, but they're free!" Turns out Nicole had given them to Connor and told him they were free and then snuck away to watch us squirm from a distance. Jessica saw her across the crowd watching us and laughing her head off.

She may be the Mother Theresa of Taiwan but the woman has a great sense of humor. I'm all for sex education but not quite yet!

Part Four

So that was how we spent our day and what an amazing day it was. We will forever be grateful that we had the opportunity to get to know the people who loved Claire the most when she was little.

And now, it is time. Tomorrow morning we will get up early, eat a quick breakfast, and take a two hour train ride to the southern Taiwan city of Kaohsiung. We will take a taxi to our hotel and then, at 11:20 in the morning, Claire will finally be with us. We're full of more emotions than we could even begin to describe right now... certainly joy but also a little bit of fear if we're being honest. Tomorrow all four of our lives change forever.

I guess tomorrow we'll need to find a new name for the blog because in just over 14 hours, Our Journey to Claire will finally be over. What else is there to say?

We'll leave you for today with a few more pictures.

One side of the beautiful collage Nicole gave us today as a gift.

Do you think they would let us adopt more than one?

We had a great time playing ball with this handsome little guy.

Connor and Xi-Xi at Harmony Home

Connor had his caricature drawn at the street festival by an artist who had clearly never drawn a red headed American boy before. He didn't speak much English and he apparently thought Connor asked to be drawn as an extremely effeminate cowboy. What kind of a cowboy does jazz hands???