Meet Isaiah Tong Gajewski

This is our future family member, Isaiah. His Chinese name is Xiao Wu Tong and he will be 4 years old in September. Please pray for us as we travel to China to bring him home on July 30th, returning on August 13th! We will try to update this blog while in China, however be advised that the Chinese gov't has recently blocked several websites, including blogs.

Sign up for Skype !

Joanna and I will be using Skype while in China. It is a free service and you DO NOT need a camera to use the phone service. Go to this website to download it for FREE. You can find us in the directory under Mike and Jo Gajewski.
http://www.skype.com/

We have arrived.....

We made it.....it's about 1:30am right now and we're wide awake (time change killing us). We woke up in Jax @ 3:45am on Thursday and basically spent the next 24 hours traveling to China. During the flight to China we met Jeff who was on his way back to China permanently after living in the US for 9 years. Very nice guy who gave us some helpful tips for the trip. Arrived at our hotel around 4:00pm (4:00am in US) and slept until now. Found out our blog is blocked in China but think we found a way around it (XB Brower)...with that said, it is VERY slow so bear with us.
-Mike and Jo

Day 2....

Today was sightseeing day. We went to Tian'an Men Square, the Forbidden City and Summer Gardens. The amount of people at these places was overwhelming...there are millions of people walking around every inch of Beijing. Chinese people are very nice and receptive to us. It was overcast so the pix are a little fuzzy. The weather is hot, but it feels like Jax and it even rained this afternoon (also like Jax). It was good time getting to know the other families adopting and their stories (there are 14 families total). Still adapting to the time change and sleep. Will try to post again tomorrow (blog is hard to connect here).

Day 3

We went to Beijing International Christian Fellowship church this morning. It is only open to foreigners and not open to the citizens of China. It was so awesome to be worshiping Christ in China! We then went to the Great Wall which is a lot steeper than we thought. That place is amazing. We also got to visit the Birds Nest (big building where the Olympic games opening ceremony was held). Beijing is beautiful and very clean.
Tomorrow afternoon we fly to Jiangsu Province and meet Isaiah! We are so excited and will try to post as many pictures / videos as possible. Please pray that he is not frightened of us and adapts quickly. Til' tomorrow.

The BIG day...........

Introducing Isaiah Tong Gajewski, born Sept. 12 2005 in China and adopted into our family Aug. 3rd 2009. He has not cried once and immediately took to both of us with loud laughter. We thank the Lord for each one of you and your prayers...it was obvious that Christ went before us and was in complete control.
We are in a new province and hotel where the internet connection is giving us trouble. We have loads of videos to put on the blog when the connection is better.

Meeting Isaiah at Civil Affairs Office on Monday

**The connection is too slow to load any videos so we will try again in a few days when we do a hotel change**
Isaiah was definitely a little nervous at first meeting on Monday, but warmed up quickly as you will see in future videos. Very curious and laughs a lot. Cried hard one time today when we took him up an escalator for the first time.
He woke up last night 2x crying, which was expected. When we turned on the lights in the room, he looked at us, smiled and said "Mama" (mother) and "Baba" (father). He has a huge appetite and drinks whatever you put in front of him. Today we went to the civil affairs bureau again for more paperwork (we have many full days of paperwork ahead).
These are pictures from the civil affairs bureau with his nanny and the orphanage director. The Chinese woman are all extremely helpful with Tong everywhere we go. They feed him, talk to him and help us understand what the heck he is saying. We will post more later today.