Gladney Blog

Deprive our darling child of his nap and stick him on a plane for 2.5 hours and he’s not so darling. He howled like a banshee nearly all the way to Guangzhou. He wet himself and peed on me. He threw a toy, a cup of water, a pickle covered in mayonnaise, and my phone. The toy beaned the nice man across the aisle. He screamed because he couldn’t go into business class. He screamed because he wanted a Coke. He screamed because he was being held. He screamed because he wasn’t being held. He screamed because the window shades were open. He screamed because he had a seat belt on. He screamed because a nice blanket was placed upon him. He stopped screaming long enough for deplaning and baggage claim. Then in the van to the hotel he lunged forward to grab the stick shift, so I had to hold him again, so he started screaming again. After about thirty minutes, he finally, finally fell asleep. It was 6pm.

Ronan is a darling 20 month old baby boy. He is currently in the Butterfly Home and is well loved and cared for by his caregivers there. His best friend is Hailey and they spend a lot of time playing together.

We get used to children tugging on our heartstrings. It is to be expected in the work that we do. But I am going to say, these little girls embedded themselves in my heart in the time I spent with them! They are beautiful and sweet. They have known heartache in their little lives. In Taiwan we get a lot of birth family history and these precious girls have definitely been through hard things. But their love and affection for each other was immediately obvious.

We ended our trip to Taiwan on a high note. We did not see very many children our second day at Cathwel, but we had productive conversations with staff and feel excited about our continuing partner ship there! As we were leaving we saw one of our sweet little matched kiddos out for a walk in the stroller. When we asked where she was going they said to get her passport photo taken, which just seems so full of hope and promise!

Today we were at Cathwel, our third day seeing children and our first day at Cathwel for this trip. The children came into the room in a steady stream all day long. 

A Superkids morning in 22 seconds! No wonder we are tired by the end of the day!

Our first day of seeing children at ChungYi is in the books. It is always hard, at the end of the day, to decide what to write about in a blog post.

I am the first of our team to arrive in Taiwan. Tired and feeling a bit bedraggled I landed around 5:30 AM. By the time I got to our Airbnb apartment it was close to 7. We all love staying in the apartment, but I quickly realized I was going to need to go out pretty quickly to get some water. So after a shower, some fresh clothes, and a call home I headed out!

We do this. We fly to the other side of the world. And we are doing it again.

So... our next trip to Taiwan is planned. The tickets are booked. Now it is time to ask you again for your generous donations!