China Center of Adoption Affairs

After lunch we visited the CCAA, China Center of Adoption Affairs. 12 years ago when we were waiting for Diana we heard about this "secret place" in China where our files, dossiers, were matched with waiting baby files. This is called "The Matching Room." I honestly did not think such a place existed in reality, so it was quite emotional to visit and view the people at work with dossiers on their desk. Although 12 years ago, they were physically located in a different building, so we were not actually "matched" with Diana in the room we saw, it still was special. We also were able to see the room with all of the "Waiting Family" files. The entire room was completely full of dossiers, some dated 2006! It was easy to see why China adoptions are taking so many years now. There were only a handful of people working in these offices. After we toured the CCAA we went to the BLAS offices (Bridge of Love Adoption Service). BLAS translates dossiers for the CCAA, provides adoption services and jointly planned this Homeland trip with the Yangzhou Children's Welfare Institute. The staff of BLAS taught the girls caligraphy in one class, and then taught them a song in Chinese in a second class. The parents took photos and videos of the festvities. The song they were learning will be "performed" tomorrow at the Civil Affairs office when we attend a special ceremony. I believe our group photo is now on the BLAS blog page.