Greetings Dear Friends!

Julie and I marvel at the thought of God's grace, provision and protection as we consider our family's trip to the other side of the world and back...our own version of "Around the World in 23 Days!" The Stickel family 'journey of faith' far exceeded anything we could ever have imagined!

There were some especially memorable moments. The first weekend we were in Beijing, a number of friends came together for a wonderful reunion with our family. As all of us sat around a huge table in a favorite Beijing restaurant enjoying Peking Duck, Julie and I considered ourselves SO blessed to have such wonderful friends! One dear Chinese friend we met here at UNC, returned to China years ago, traveled by train 8 hours to have dinner and visit with us briefly in Beijing -- only to return another 8 hours by train that night to teach at her university the next day. We were amazed as we started getting phone calls from people with whom we had lost contact over the years as they learned we were in China. We only wish we could have traveled to each city and seen them all.

All of us were sad to leave China. All of the children are anxious to return there. Highlights of the trip were definitely when we were hosted by our Chinese friends as opposed to when we were required to be with the adoption agency in western style hotels. We are SO grateful to our Chinese friends for giving us a real experience of China, moving among and with them instead of just an adoption tour package. We felt like we were more integrated with the Chinese people and culture and as a result gave our children a completely different perspective of China. We visited Beijing first, then flew to HK to join our adoption group, then Nanning - where we met our daughter, and lastly Guangzhou.

Can you imagine the highlight of the trip??? :-) It was, of course, when the orphanage director put our precious Jubilee into our arms. The director's wife cried so hard that she must have been the answer to our prayer that someone would love our daughter until we could go get her. Jubilee was very stoic, never crying like the other babies, until the first morning when she woke up and looked up into a ring of 6 delighted faces waiting for her to wake up! (We agreed we would cry too if we looked up and saw us staring down.)

Jubilee or "Mei Mei" as we also call her is a real joy to all 6 of us. In our adoption group of 10 couples, It seemed unfair that the family with the most experience in parenting should get the easiest baby. We trust that we had a lasting impact during that portion of the trip as well. The other parents often told us what a precious family we have and how helpful our children were with their babies. Now that we're home we can see why the pre-adoption report from the orphanage told us twice she is "really a stubborn little girl"! She had learned several ways to cope with life in the orphanage that we want to help her change.

The jet lag adjustment has been pretty extreme as we jumped back right away into activities. Jubilee is starting to sleep through the night again, so maybe the rest of us can soon! We can't believe the Christmas decorations are up. We missed the gradual progression into the holidays, since there was no sign of that where we were!

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your families! We ourselves have so much to be thankful for and we know each of you do as well!

David for 7 Grateful Stickels!!!