Dear All:
The news couldn't have come to me in a more dramatic fashion: Tuesday, on the day of the most adverse weather conditions for this time of the year--a torrential downpour of rain for over 3 days, causing mud & rock slides, flooding, washouts, and closing down railway operations on both sides of the Fraser Canyon. It was after a 20-hour away-from-home layover, and having been ordered to operate my train over unfamiliar territory (CP Rail), due to track closure on our side (CN Rail) of the river. It was exactly high noon when my cell phone rang amidst the thundering roar of the locomotive engine, as I was at full throttle pulling through the last of the ascending grades out of the Canyon, heading onto the gentler, kinder grades of the Fraser River. It was Eva informing me that our adoption agency had just called, and she has to go and pick up our adoption-proposal from China. Neither one of us bother to ask for any further details, on both of our receiving phone calls.
It was almost an hour later when she'd called again, after she was taken totally by surprise, that we're virtually the winners of the-luck-of-the-draw, in a 2 percentile probability, that the Lord has blessed us with a BOY from China!
By the time I arrived at home, all I had time for was to change quickly and head for our church, for the weekly Alpha Course. The good news certainly brought joy, laughter, hugs & kisses from all around, asking for his name-to-be. I was up to the challenge from Brother Roger who'd said that since our family name starts with the letter "H", his (or her) initials will have to be "HRH"; therefore, his name shall be Harrison Robin H., with a matching (to the sounds of “Har-ri-son” 許禮信 - 中國的 “禮義廉恥”,和基督的 “信望愛”) Chinese name.
Harrison was born on 21 Feb.2005, in the City of Ma'An Shan 馬鞍山, along the Yangtze River. Ma'An Shan is a prosperous city in the middle of the industrial heartland of China, which is known for its iron & steel production. The city is located in close proximity to Nanjing, Shanghai, and Hefei 合淝市 (the provincial capital of Anhui Province安徽省). May I salute her diligence, for Eva was quick to locate the phone number of the orphanage, working with only the name of the institution on the proposal. Contact has already been made with the director, and local support upon our eventual arrival has also been secured.
Hallelujah! Praise the Lord.
akwx