We are coming up on 5 weeks home. With all the holiday celebrations and lack of school until next year, boredom has revealed itself to be a dangerous enemy. We have spent a lot of time working on figuring out new things to do to teach new patterns of activity to fill our day. Many things we do are not interesting to our new daughter and somethings are difficult because of the language barrier. Thankfully we have gotten thru the Christmas celebrations without issue as Joy had never celebrated the holiday in China. She was happy with her gifts and thankful for the generosity from family.
Grief is a deep, fluxuating constant that is always there and never lets one know when it will surface. Most times the worst time is at night when all is quiet, or during the day when there is "nothing to do". Grief cannot and should not be burried or ignored. We know the waves will arrive, just not when. We do the best we can to comfort, show grace and talk through the waves of grief, anger, questioning and rough patches. God is so good and even through the rough days He gives us strength, teamwork and grace to make it thru.
Joy, jessica and Jared are adjusting as well as can be at this very early period. Sibling relationships and the dynamic of 3 instead of 2 is working itself out and forming new patterns of life in our home. I am so thankful for their hard work and grace as Joy adjusts to the family. Jessica was born to be a middle sister and is taking to the new role with grace, energy and a teasing big sister expertise. :)
We thank you all for continued prayers for our family. For all the stress and change and grief and growing pains we have had over the past 7 weeks, we know it will be many more months and even years before our family heals and adjusts. Pray for wisdom as we seek guidance to parent well. Prayers for dr appointments and treatments. Prayers for Joy to realize just how much we love her and realize she can love us and accept us without feeling as though she is betraying the love and care she received from her foster family in China.
Please also pray for Joel, as we learned shortly after returning from China that He was laid off from his job. We know God has a plan, yet this timing seems harsh for us! We know we can trust Him and pray that you will lift us up before the Father and that a new job opportunity will show itself!
All in all we know we can praise Him through this storm.
Wednesday, December 24, 2014
Monday, December 8, 2014
Day by day
Day by day, and with each passing moment,
Strength I find to meet my trials here;
Trusting in my Father’s wise bestowment,
I’ve no cause for worry or for fear.
He, whose heart is kind beyond all measure,
Gives unto each day what He deems best,
Lovingly its part of pain and pleasure,
Mingling toil with peace and rest.
Strength I find to meet my trials here;
Trusting in my Father’s wise bestowment,
I’ve no cause for worry or for fear.
He, whose heart is kind beyond all measure,
Gives unto each day what He deems best,
Lovingly its part of pain and pleasure,
Mingling toil with peace and rest.
https://www.hymnal.net/en/hymn/h/713
I love the old hymns. They have so much meaning and encouragement that is relevant to my every day. We have been home for 2.5 weeks. Each day is new and each day is survived. There is so much brokenness in adoption. Culture shock, loss of ALL that is familiar, language issues. Any time one is taken away from what they know and must live a new life, there is trauma. How one handles the trauma is as unique as each person who experiences it.
We are taking each day at a time and figuring out how this new family of 5 is adjusting. We are coming up on christmas break, hopefully this will be a good thing and we have more time to spend as a family. Holidays are never easy for one who has gone thru trauma. We will see how Joy does and adjust accordingly.
Looking back at our last few weeks, i can see how emotional everything has been. Adoption is never easy. We are now on a road that is brand new for all of us. We love this little girl as if she has always been here. The problem is, she doesn't know it! I am praying that sooner rather than later she will see just how much she is loved by so many. I praying soon she will see how she is loved by the most important person in the universe. God! We pray every day for her to see him. That he will open her heart to this new knowledge of Him.
Trust takes time. We know that she may not love us or even see us as family for a long, long time. We are willing to wait. It is hard when she doesnt understand that some things we don't allow are for her safety. But we continue to lead and guide her thru this new life in our family. There are day to day glimses of what things may be like in years to come. We do our best to help her through her grief, and rejoice when she is enjoying our family. We pray the joy will outlast the hard times in weeks and months to come.
If we haven't talked to you or called since we returned, know that each day we are surviving. We continue to ask for prayers as we go day by day. You can always call. If i don't answer it isn't because i don't like you, im just busy with something at the moment. Don't give up on us. This adjustment period can be very lonely. We want to get back to "normal" but the thing is, we are creating a new normal. We are emotionally overwhelmed and most days i feel so drained, i go to bed and weep. God is my strength and i know He has great plans for us. Growth hurts, is tiring, but the outcome is worth it.
Thursday, November 27, 2014
Thanksgiving Day!
I week home exactly. Wow. What a week of ups and downs! Taking things day by day and trusting and leaning hard on our Heavenly Father to guide us through this path of newness! God is so good and I know one day Joy will understand why we pray at meal time (currently she finds it quite funny). She will one day understand how much she is loved by her family she has only known of for the last 3 weeks. I look forward to that day, but I know I need to keep my focus on just one day at a time. One English lesson at a time. Soon we will see Joy blossom and bloom with confidence as she masters this new language! One week home.... many days ahead! Very thankful for God's leading and giving us faith to take one step at a time for HIS glory.
We were able to spend time with Joel's side of the family today. We are grateful that Joy did well meeting so many new people. We had an interpreter along with us for the first couple hours which helped break the ice a bit! Once the interpreter went home, Joy was happy to hang with the cousins and play UNO and learn a new game, Farkle!
We are so thankful for our family and friends who are continuing to lift us up in prayer! There have been some good days and not so good days and we are learning to love and trust as this family adjusts and grows in its new shape. I know God has a plan. We just need to follow one day at a time. Today has enough worries of its own, why add tomorrow to the mix?!
God is Good.
We were able to spend time with Joel's side of the family today. We are grateful that Joy did well meeting so many new people. We had an interpreter along with us for the first couple hours which helped break the ice a bit! Once the interpreter went home, Joy was happy to hang with the cousins and play UNO and learn a new game, Farkle!
We are so thankful for our family and friends who are continuing to lift us up in prayer! There have been some good days and not so good days and we are learning to love and trust as this family adjusts and grows in its new shape. I know God has a plan. We just need to follow one day at a time. Today has enough worries of its own, why add tomorrow to the mix?!
God is Good.
Saturday, November 22, 2014
Finally Home!
The last two weeks have included a great change for the family and a trip to the other side of the world. After our instant messaging (QQ) sessions the week before we left, we were so excited to finally meet the girl we have prayed for all year.
We headed out 4am Friday and before we even left our street, the battery in the van died. We were able to get the truck to jump the battery and were on our way about 20 minutes later than planned. Our friend Angela drove us to the airport and brought the van back to our house. So thankful for good friends who took care of replacing the battery for us!! Thanks Emil!! God is so good!
We had a short flight to Chicago and a long layover (5hours) until our 15 hour flight to Hong Kong. We had a good flight and got in late to Hong Kong. We slept in the Airport Marriott and then took a van to Guangzhou the next morning. We got thru the border crossing into China in under an hour and without any issues. Our flight out of Guangzhou to Nanning was only an hour and we met our guide and were in our hotel by early Sunday afternoon. In a little over 23 hours we would meet our daughter!
Our first meeting was full of smiles and shyness. We met Joy and were so happy for this day! It was unreal seeing her in person after so many months! We spent the evening with her hanging out in the hotel room playing frisbee and getting to know her. We went out for dinner at the nearby mall with our guide along with us. Joy doesn't speak any English so it was nice to have our guide there to help translate.
We all got to bed around 10pm and had an early morning meeting to finalize paperwork. It really wasn't a lot of time to get to know Joy in only a few hours time, but we didn't realize a lot of this until later in the week. We signed all the paperwork and she signed her papers too and the adoption was finalized. As an older child (over 10 yrs old) she had the option to refuse to sign, but I don't think things were necessarily clear when all was said and done.
The next few days she grieved very hard as the realization of the change hit home. She was very sad and thought that she change her mind and go back to live with her foster family forever. It took the help of the orphanage workers, the foster family and our guide to help her to understand that China would not (could not, i believe, according to their laws) allow the foster family to be an option for long term living.
We are so thankful she had such a loving foster family for the past 10 years! We understand how much she was loved and cared for by her foster family and how leaving that for the unknown is understandably very scary! We went to visit her foster family after a rough morning of grief. We are so glad we did! Her foster family is amazing. We visited for about 4 hours and were overwhelmed with such love and welcoming. We are so thankful that Joy has had the opportunity to experience family life and bonding. The separation now is hard, but the benefits of learned skill and life is priceless.
Once we left and had bags of clothes and food in tow, Joy was much better and had a better understanding of the new life she had opportunity to follow. She was still sad to leave her foster family, but in the week to follow she was able to contact them on video chat and it helped her transition a bit.
We flew to Guangzhou and met our guide there. We are so thankful for our guides who were able to give Joy a voice and translate for us! We still had a lot to discuss with her and boy does she like to negotiate! :) We were able to get through the medical visit and other required paper work with no issue. The rest of our time in Guangzhou was waiting for official documents to be processed.
We were able to do some site seeing that week and visited Shamian Island. It was a beautiful week weather wise (sunny and mid 70s). We did a little souvenir shopping and lots of walking.
The next day we visited the Safari. It was another beautiful day and the safari was amazing! There was a train ride through the park to see the larger animals and then a walking path through a maze of trails to see monkeys, birds, and other small animals. It was a fun day and nice to be out!
Our last full day we spent hanging out in the hotel room and later in the evening taking the Pearl River cruise. It was neat to see the city at night with all the lights. I even had one local ask to get a picture with me. haha!
We got all of our documents and official papers and headed to Hong Kong to catch our flight home on Thursday. The drive took about 3 hours and we are so thankful we were able to have a direct flight to the east coast!! A long day of travel and we made it home by midnight Thursday. When we arrived to the USA it was a cold 30 degrees! Thankfully we had our coats in the van and my parents brought extra scarf, gloves and hat for Joy! We bundled her up before heading outside and she was quite overcome with how cold it was. She was glad to get in the van and out of the cold weather. She grew up in southern China where their winter cold was only about 60 degrees. So, 30 degrees is so much colder for her. We hope she will acclimate quickly. While we were in China everyone was bundled in their coats and scarves at 70 degrees and we were in t-shirts and light jackets. :)
The past two weeks were filled with ups and downs and we are just so thankful for the prayers of our family and friends! God is truly working and we pray one day that Joy will know just how much we love her just like her foster family loved her. Each day we are taking step by step and trusting in God's help to show her Christ and His love through us.
Please continue to pray and the language barrier is still huge, but not impossible to over come. We will hopefully "officially" begin English lessons next week as God has provided a tutor who is also a Christian and speaks Mandarin as well! What a blessing!
We hope to continue to update the blog as we go. The holidays hopefully will not be too overwhelming! But we are excited for her to meet our extended family and have opportunity as both sides of the family will be gathering over the holiday season!!
We headed out 4am Friday and before we even left our street, the battery in the van died. We were able to get the truck to jump the battery and were on our way about 20 minutes later than planned. Our friend Angela drove us to the airport and brought the van back to our house. So thankful for good friends who took care of replacing the battery for us!! Thanks Emil!! God is so good!
We had a short flight to Chicago and a long layover (5hours) until our 15 hour flight to Hong Kong. We had a good flight and got in late to Hong Kong. We slept in the Airport Marriott and then took a van to Guangzhou the next morning. We got thru the border crossing into China in under an hour and without any issues. Our flight out of Guangzhou to Nanning was only an hour and we met our guide and were in our hotel by early Sunday afternoon. In a little over 23 hours we would meet our daughter!
Our first meeting was full of smiles and shyness. We met Joy and were so happy for this day! It was unreal seeing her in person after so many months! We spent the evening with her hanging out in the hotel room playing frisbee and getting to know her. We went out for dinner at the nearby mall with our guide along with us. Joy doesn't speak any English so it was nice to have our guide there to help translate.
We all got to bed around 10pm and had an early morning meeting to finalize paperwork. It really wasn't a lot of time to get to know Joy in only a few hours time, but we didn't realize a lot of this until later in the week. We signed all the paperwork and she signed her papers too and the adoption was finalized. As an older child (over 10 yrs old) she had the option to refuse to sign, but I don't think things were necessarily clear when all was said and done.
The next few days she grieved very hard as the realization of the change hit home. She was very sad and thought that she change her mind and go back to live with her foster family forever. It took the help of the orphanage workers, the foster family and our guide to help her to understand that China would not (could not, i believe, according to their laws) allow the foster family to be an option for long term living.
We are so thankful she had such a loving foster family for the past 10 years! We understand how much she was loved and cared for by her foster family and how leaving that for the unknown is understandably very scary! We went to visit her foster family after a rough morning of grief. We are so glad we did! Her foster family is amazing. We visited for about 4 hours and were overwhelmed with such love and welcoming. We are so thankful that Joy has had the opportunity to experience family life and bonding. The separation now is hard, but the benefits of learned skill and life is priceless.
Once we left and had bags of clothes and food in tow, Joy was much better and had a better understanding of the new life she had opportunity to follow. She was still sad to leave her foster family, but in the week to follow she was able to contact them on video chat and it helped her transition a bit.
We flew to Guangzhou and met our guide there. We are so thankful for our guides who were able to give Joy a voice and translate for us! We still had a lot to discuss with her and boy does she like to negotiate! :) We were able to get through the medical visit and other required paper work with no issue. The rest of our time in Guangzhou was waiting for official documents to be processed.
We were able to do some site seeing that week and visited Shamian Island. It was a beautiful week weather wise (sunny and mid 70s). We did a little souvenir shopping and lots of walking.
The next day we visited the Safari. It was another beautiful day and the safari was amazing! There was a train ride through the park to see the larger animals and then a walking path through a maze of trails to see monkeys, birds, and other small animals. It was a fun day and nice to be out!
Our last full day we spent hanging out in the hotel room and later in the evening taking the Pearl River cruise. It was neat to see the city at night with all the lights. I even had one local ask to get a picture with me. haha!
We got all of our documents and official papers and headed to Hong Kong to catch our flight home on Thursday. The drive took about 3 hours and we are so thankful we were able to have a direct flight to the east coast!! A long day of travel and we made it home by midnight Thursday. When we arrived to the USA it was a cold 30 degrees! Thankfully we had our coats in the van and my parents brought extra scarf, gloves and hat for Joy! We bundled her up before heading outside and she was quite overcome with how cold it was. She was glad to get in the van and out of the cold weather. She grew up in southern China where their winter cold was only about 60 degrees. So, 30 degrees is so much colder for her. We hope she will acclimate quickly. While we were in China everyone was bundled in their coats and scarves at 70 degrees and we were in t-shirts and light jackets. :)
The past two weeks were filled with ups and downs and we are just so thankful for the prayers of our family and friends! God is truly working and we pray one day that Joy will know just how much we love her just like her foster family loved her. Each day we are taking step by step and trusting in God's help to show her Christ and His love through us.
Please continue to pray and the language barrier is still huge, but not impossible to over come. We will hopefully "officially" begin English lessons next week as God has provided a tutor who is also a Christian and speaks Mandarin as well! What a blessing!
We hope to continue to update the blog as we go. The holidays hopefully will not be too overwhelming! But we are excited for her to meet our extended family and have opportunity as both sides of the family will be gathering over the holiday season!!
Tuesday, November 4, 2014
The Age of technology!
So EXCITED!!!! We were able to have a skype (QQ) video chat with our daughter last night!! We are so happy and thankful that we were able to see her and chat with her. There was a mic issue so we were not able to hear her, but apparently she could hear us!!! We are so thankful for how God orchestrated for us to have an interpreter with us to help us translate what she typed to us and to translate what we were saying! We spent a lot of the time trying to figure out the mic problem so only got a few minutes to let her know how excited we were to meet her in person soon!
We are just so thankful for the opportunity to see her smile and laughing at us and to let her hear us!! This is such a huge answer to prayer! It seems that whenever I have a "freak out" moment, God totally blows us away with his blessings! Pretty much a "Why do you freak out?" "I got all things covered!" type of a blessing!!! She knows we are coming and she wants to be adopted and have a family! We are so happy! :)
Please pray as we start to finalize travel plans and get things wrapped up in such a way that we won't have too much to catch up on when we return. We are so thankful for all the helping hands we have on this journey! Your prayers and giving and encouragement are truly appreciated and needed!! We are diving in to the deep end of life and apologize in advance if we are off the radar for a while. We are sorry if we do not respond to email or phone calls right away! We hope to get through the holidays and adjust well and not overwhelm Joy. While we are joyful to add her to our family, she is leaving all she has known the last 12 years and we don't know how much she will grieve.
We are nervous, awed, excited, humbled, inadequate, unprepared, joyful, trusting, loving, scared! We trust in God to walk us through as he has been all year long since we started this journey. We hope to update the blog often! Not sure how well our internet connection will be while away.
We are just so thankful for the opportunity to see her smile and laughing at us and to let her hear us!! This is such a huge answer to prayer! It seems that whenever I have a "freak out" moment, God totally blows us away with his blessings! Pretty much a "Why do you freak out?" "I got all things covered!" type of a blessing!!! She knows we are coming and she wants to be adopted and have a family! We are so happy! :)
Please pray as we start to finalize travel plans and get things wrapped up in such a way that we won't have too much to catch up on when we return. We are so thankful for all the helping hands we have on this journey! Your prayers and giving and encouragement are truly appreciated and needed!! We are diving in to the deep end of life and apologize in advance if we are off the radar for a while. We are sorry if we do not respond to email or phone calls right away! We hope to get through the holidays and adjust well and not overwhelm Joy. While we are joyful to add her to our family, she is leaving all she has known the last 12 years and we don't know how much she will grieve.
We are nervous, awed, excited, humbled, inadequate, unprepared, joyful, trusting, loving, scared! We trust in God to walk us through as he has been all year long since we started this journey. We hope to update the blog often! Not sure how well our internet connection will be while away.
Psalm 25:4-7
4 Show me your ways, Lord,
teach me your paths.
5 Guide me in your truth and teach me,
for you are God my Savior,
and my hope is in you all day long.
6 Remember, Lord, your great mercy and love,
for they are from of old.
7 Do not remember the sins of my youth
and my rebellious ways;
according to your love remember me,
for you, Lord, are good.
Friday, October 31, 2014
So close!
Feeling great this morning! Finding some balance and trusting that no matter what happens, God has it in control. It is a strange feeling as I tend to like being the one in control! (and it always works better when God is the one in control!)
Wednesday I spent the morning shopping and then assembling 17 freezer meals! I feel great getting one of my BIG to-do items off my list! We have a few crock pot recipes we enjoy and I tend to make 4 or 5 at a time. This time I expanded to 10 recipes and 17 meals! This will be great when I just don't have the time or energy to cook or shop when we get back!
Now on to packing!We plan to pack light and only have a carry on and hand bag for our travels. If I can do 10 days for a wedding in Italy with just a carry on, I think 2 weeks in China should be just as ok with minimal packing! It helps that we are adopting an older child and we don't need a lot of baby items. And it will be warm weather while we are there! We will get more luggage in country for Joy and any extra items we may be bringing back.
Keep the prayers coming! We feel them! We are so blessed by our friends and family who are keeping us covered in prayer! What a wonderful blessing it has been!
Wednesday I spent the morning shopping and then assembling 17 freezer meals! I feel great getting one of my BIG to-do items off my list! We have a few crock pot recipes we enjoy and I tend to make 4 or 5 at a time. This time I expanded to 10 recipes and 17 meals! This will be great when I just don't have the time or energy to cook or shop when we get back!
Now on to packing!We plan to pack light and only have a carry on and hand bag for our travels. If I can do 10 days for a wedding in Italy with just a carry on, I think 2 weeks in China should be just as ok with minimal packing! It helps that we are adopting an older child and we don't need a lot of baby items. And it will be warm weather while we are there! We will get more luggage in country for Joy and any extra items we may be bringing back.
Keep the prayers coming! We feel them! We are so blessed by our friends and family who are keeping us covered in prayer! What a wonderful blessing it has been!
Philippians 2:1-11
"Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature[a] God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature[b] of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father."
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
10 days and counting down!!
We have been quite busy the last week finishing up volleyball and soccer seasons for the kids and making lists and gathering items for our trip! Thank you to all who have been sending gifts for Joy off the Amazon registry! It has been a huge blessing and I know that all of it will be greatly appreciated!
As we get closer to travel and making preparations I am finding myself feeling a little anxious. What if Joy doesn't want to be adopted? (they do have the option to refuse adoption!) What if the communication barrier is too much? What if her grieving is too much? We have read a lot of stories of how these children are told horrible stories about America. We hear stories of how the child was not told of their pending adoption until the morning they meet their new parents! We hear of stories that the child really wants to stay in China, but their care workers tell the adoptive families that they really want to be adopted and it isn't found out till later that they were forced to agree to the adoption. There is so much unknown, so much possibility that we will come home empty handed.
Although I feel these fears when I think about them, I still have a deep peace about the whole process. I feel deep down that no matter what happens, it will be OK! I have to put my trust in the one who doesn't disappoint. I have to rely on the One who will never let me down. Jesus. Jesus is the one who gives me this peace in my soul. Whatever happens, whatever fears I may have, I can trust Him.
We are going to contact our agency and request to skype with Joy. We really want to make sure she knows she has a family on their way to her! We want her to have the time to say goodbye to her friends and get their contact info and pictures. We know that this is going to be hard for her. Spending 12 years in her country is a lot of history. She will be leaving friends, family, culture and all that goes with that!
We want to make it possible for her to continue her language studies and Cultural learning. Her heritage is part of her and we do not want to forget that. Please pray as we narrow down where to send her to continue these studies. There is a cultural center in our state and hope that it can be good for her to keep in touch with her culture and celebrations.
There is so much on my heart that I still need to work through. We are excited to add to our family and are praying that the transition will be easier than what my fears are orchestrating! Please continue to pray for us as we finalize our travel and finish up the long list of things to complete before we leave!
Holding on to this verse:
As we get closer to travel and making preparations I am finding myself feeling a little anxious. What if Joy doesn't want to be adopted? (they do have the option to refuse adoption!) What if the communication barrier is too much? What if her grieving is too much? We have read a lot of stories of how these children are told horrible stories about America. We hear stories of how the child was not told of their pending adoption until the morning they meet their new parents! We hear of stories that the child really wants to stay in China, but their care workers tell the adoptive families that they really want to be adopted and it isn't found out till later that they were forced to agree to the adoption. There is so much unknown, so much possibility that we will come home empty handed.
Although I feel these fears when I think about them, I still have a deep peace about the whole process. I feel deep down that no matter what happens, it will be OK! I have to put my trust in the one who doesn't disappoint. I have to rely on the One who will never let me down. Jesus. Jesus is the one who gives me this peace in my soul. Whatever happens, whatever fears I may have, I can trust Him.
We are going to contact our agency and request to skype with Joy. We really want to make sure she knows she has a family on their way to her! We want her to have the time to say goodbye to her friends and get their contact info and pictures. We know that this is going to be hard for her. Spending 12 years in her country is a lot of history. She will be leaving friends, family, culture and all that goes with that!
We want to make it possible for her to continue her language studies and Cultural learning. Her heritage is part of her and we do not want to forget that. Please pray as we narrow down where to send her to continue these studies. There is a cultural center in our state and hope that it can be good for her to keep in touch with her culture and celebrations.
There is so much on my heart that I still need to work through. We are excited to add to our family and are praying that the transition will be easier than what my fears are orchestrating! Please continue to pray for us as we finalize our travel and finish up the long list of things to complete before we leave!
Holding on to this verse:
Philippians 4:6
"Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God."
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