Day One

Our first day as a family of five was truly abundantly more than we could ask or imagine! The Lord totally came through for us today. There were no tears, there was only joy. I feel a little guilty saying that it feels almost like a fairytale. Words can't even begin to describe how surreal this day was. He has tested a few boundaries, and keeping up with 3 boys is a little bit harder than we realized, especially with one that is so curious about everything, so we are tired. But he has responded very well to our redirection and seems to be so happy to be here. He was prepared very well and he has been taken such good care of. We are so thankful. I will keep my words few, because I for once don't have many. Just so much gratefulness and awe at my loving Father who is faithful to His promises. All of the glory and honor are His.

We received this picture from
the orphanage director
while they were on the way.
He is looking at our pictures.

Last family of 4 picture

So nervous!!

A little nervous at first

But then we made our way to the couch and he
realized Daddy had a phone.

And the rest of the time he was all smiles.

                       

This moment, on the way to dinner, was our first meltdown.
Silas was tired and so Justin picked him up and that broke
poor little Sean's heart. It was a hard moment for all of us.
We made sure Sean got to sit beside Daddy at dinner and all was
well from then on. We will make sure we have naptime tomorrow too!
But on the bright side, Silas was showering Daddy with hugs during our walk
and even gave him a big kiss!!

 As we walked, Silas watched everything. He was quiet as a mouse and you could see on his face the look of deeply taking in all the sights and sounds. His world became a lot bigger today.

He likes pizza!

So in love with this!

Ready for bed!

Bedtime was a little tough in the beginning. But we made it through. Sean was so tired and so I rocked him to sleep to give him a little extra loves. A couple of times while I was rocking Sean, Silas sat up and watched us. So when I laid Sean down, I told Justin to bring Silas over to me and he let me rock him too for a good while. He eventually wanted to go lay back down, but it was a sweet time. I pray that he will fully embrace our love and someday know the Father's love that reaches far deeper than mine ever will.

We couldn't be more blessed. Goodnight!!

THANK YOU to all of you who were lifting us up on this day! We couldn't have made it without our cloud of witnesses surrounding us. We literally felt the armies of angels around us several times today. The gift of your prayers is PRICELESS!!

Here is to a restful night of sleep. Tomorrow is a new day with new challenges I'm sure.

We will be returning to the same place we went to today to sign our paperwork. 

Today we are only his guardians. Tomorrow, he becomes our son.

This is the Day!!!

Today is the day!!!!

We are leaving our hotel in about an hour and a half to go to the Civil Affairs office where we will meet QiLong. We won't be the only family there and it most likely will be a pretty long afternoon.

Really, we have no idea what to expect. 

How are we feeling?

I don't know!!! Ha! 

Every feeling imaginable?

Our journey this far has not been seamless, but it has been BLESSED!!! We have been attacked by the enemy, but our God has been the victor! What Satan has used to try and discourage us, God has used it to bring glory to Himself by answering every one of our prayers against them.

 But what keeps playing over and over in my mind is Ephesians 3:20-21.

"Now to HIM who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to HIM be the glory...throughout all generation, for ever and ever! Amen."

This has been our anthem. We are praying to the God who is able to do more than we could ever ask or imagine. All that we hope and dream for, all that we envision happening on this day, all of the fears, all of the anxieties, all of the unknown and the anticipations...

He is able to do more. More than all of that. And we are praying expectantly that He will.

"In the morning, LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait
expectantly." Ps. 5:3
"But as for me, I will watch expectantly for the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation.
My God will hear me." Micah 7:7 

We are praying for

Grace.

Peace.

Strength.

Energy.

Endurance.

Wisdom.

Clarity.

Calm.

And most of all. We are 

Grateful.

Thank you God for using every moment of our life to prepare us for this.very.moment.

Meanwhile...

Justin is putting jelly on top of his sandwich instead of on the inside...

Let's hope we can calm down after this afternoon is over and get our brains back!! :P 

Stay Tuned!!!!!!

Final Itinerary

Our tickets are bought and travel is arranged, bags are packed and all paperwork is in its corresponding folder. We are just a few days away from going to get Silas and I wanted to share our itinerary with you. I saw another adoptive mom do this and I thought it was a great idea. I wanted to provide a snapshot of our next few weeks for those of you that are following our journey and want to know how you can pray for us specifically. There are a few days that are subject to change, but for the most part this is our schedule. Would you be willing to pick out a specific day to pray for us as we go through the events of that day? Or maybe you are the kind of person that will print it out and pray for us every day! However, you want to do it, we are appreciative!! Prayer is the ingredient that holds us all together! 

4 days!!!! 

To Everything There is a Season

We are currently in the process of huge life changes. Not that any one event is really bigger than another, but the fact that we have several life changes happening all at once makes it BIG. We moved out of our house 5 days ago and said bye to our little rural town here in East Asia. We are spending a few more days with our team in the new town and in one week from today, we will be united with our son.

I haven't shared a whole lot of anything other than the adoption on this blog, but the adoption isn't the only thing happening in our family. We have also decided to move back to the States once the adoption is finalized. In 20 days we will arrive back in America for the first time in almost 3 years, to begin the next chapter of our life, which will include visiting lots of doctors and trying to figure out what our new normal is going to look like.

In October I wrote this post about finding out about Silas's medical condition. We had already fallen in love with this little boy and then we received news from our doctors that didn't "fit" into our puzzle. And then I wrote this one about the orphanage's response to what our doctors said. And finally, I wrote this post about how the Lord led us to commit to bringing Silas into our family.

I know we have been pretty vague in all of our conversations about Silas's medical needs. Mainly because we feel like that is his story to share. We don't ever want his needs to define him. He is first and foremost a precious, loved and cherished child of God and he is our son. He is a 6 year old boy who is shy and quiet, but that has a smile that completely LIGHTS up the entire room, especially when he sings head, shoulders, knees and toes. He also happens to have a form of Spina Bifida. This is what the orphanage said that he did not have, but our doctors both agreed that he most likely did. It was only through a small side conversation that I was having with the orphanage director through text messaging in March that we found out he for sure does have Spina Bifida. The extent and severity of his case we do not know yet, but we do know that he is very mobile. He most likely has hydrocephalus as well, although the orphanage says he does not. There are some other medical needs that come along with having SB, but hopefully they can be managed by having the right medical care that he simply isn't getting where he is.

When we found out in March that our medical diagnosis was right, we went through a period of grieving. Even though we assumed it was, we were still hoping for the best, and now knowing it for certain was a different feeling. I was tempted to become angry. Angry at the orphanage, angry at our agency. There is no reason that the miscommunication should have happened. The file should have been translated correctly. Did the agency really ask the orphanage the questions that we sent? Why didn't they push for more information when we pushed, especially with two American doctors backing us. Were they lying, or are they just that misinformed? But at the end of the day, we were certain that God had chosen this child for our family and we know that all of it, every detail, was all part of his divine providence to bring us together. In all honesty, if his file had said Spina Bifida at the top, like many others did, we wouldn't have stepped out to request his file. It's not that we weren't open to more special needs, but at that time, we knew that there were certain special needs that we couldn't handle in our season of life and in our location. But God knew better.

Back in October and November when we were praying and pouring over the decision to pursue his adoption or not, we sought council and we begged our prayer warriors to help us through it. One thing that was said to us was that God called us to where are living. He is the one that led us here and has guided every one of our steps, and He is not going to stop now. They said, if this is truly something that God is asking you to do, He will show you how and He will lead you. We trusted His calling to move overseas and now we had to trust His calling to move us away if that was the case. And one of our very best friends told us that we needed to decide if it was more important to live a certain life and have a certain job, or to follow the Lord where He led us. We prayed with our teammates and cried over the implications of what this could mean for us. Our decision to adopt Silas was not made lightly. Although it should have been an easy one, it was hard. I wish I could tell him someday that we just knew as soon as we saw him and there were no questions and it was a fairytale. But there were lots of questions. And I hope and pray that he will value the fact that we sought the Lord until we knew that we knew that we knew. And because of that, there are no "what ifs" or "if onlys."

As soon as we knew for sure what we were dealing with, we reached out again to our doctors and others who could help us. This time to doctors who have worked with our company overseas for 20 years and doctors that live and work here in our country. We asked questions about what life would look like here and where we could find the specialists we needed and as one email came in after another, we read the same statements. "With what we know, we really think that you would be better off in the States." "The specialties you would need aren't really available here." "In all of my years, I have never met a family with this specific need living overseas." We knew that staying in our current location was not going to be an option, but we were thinking maybe we could transfer to a bigger city possibly. And there were a couple of options, but in the end, with a few other factors about our job considered, we felt the Lord leading us back to America. There are times when that decision is very hard. We love our life here, for the most part, and we really love our job, our team, and our colleagues, and change is never easy. But that doesn't mean it's not good. And it's worth it. Totally worth it.

We have been asked a lot of "whys" and "hows" and "what about..." and "whens" about our decision to adopt, our decision to adopt Silas, and our decision to move home. I wanted to write this post today, not because I feel like I have to defend myself or that I need to clarify anymore than I have. But I write it because I need to know. Because the truth is that I ask myself these questions quite often. And the more I am asked by others, the more I ask myself the same questions and I have to constantly go back to the Father and allow Him to remind me of the answers. And I also know that if one person is asking me a question, most likely there are others that have the same one. So I want to attempt to answer a few of them here.

1. So you are just going to walk away from your job?
How I wish things were that black and white. I have had some serious angst over this for the past 5 months. I have struggled with this. I have felt guilt and shame and failure over this. This is a great post about unpacking the suitcase of shame for those in our field of work going home. Really, up until the last two weeks, I have struggled with this issue. But we just came back from a company wide conference that was 10 days long. We spent time with our colleagues, had fellowship and attended lots of classes and seminars. We walked away with so many exciting things to look forward to. We are not walking away from anything. We are only walking into the next chapter of our story. When we got on a plane to move to East Asia, we left our lives in the States, but that didn't make our family any less our family. In the same way, our heart for our work will not change. If anything, God has burdened us even more for our work and for as long as we can we will be very involved in what goes on here, from wherever we are.

2. Why would you choose to adopt a child with a special need?
My simple answer to this is we didn't. We chose to adopt a child, much in the same way that I chose to get pregnant with my biological children. God chose to match our family with a special needs child and we said yes. If the child in my womb had a special need, I would say yes to them too.

3. Aren't you worried about your biological kids?
I worry about my kids learning things they shouldn't learn at school and church and anywhere else they go. I worry about my kids safety. I worry about my kids as we drive down the road. I worry that my kids don't eat enough. But I don't worry about them having a brother. I don't worry about them thinking of someone else outside of themselves. I don't worry about them opening their hearts up to a child who needs them. I don't worry about the amazing ways God is growing and maturing them in this process. We are fully aware that there are challenges, big challenges, with adopting a child into our family, most of which we don't have a clue about yet. But living a life in pursuit of the Lord is something I desperately want to teach and model to my children. God doesn't call without equipping and I know that he loves my kids, even more than I do.

4. How can you just leave your teammates?
We don't take this one lightly. This has been one of the.single.most.heartwrenching parts of this decision. There have been many tears already and even more to come over this. In some ways that 99% of the people reading this will not understand, leaving our teammates is harder to think about than leaving America.  This is the subject that fills me with the most grief. But with all of that being said, no matter where we are in the world, we will always be a team. Our hearts and our lives have been knitted together in a way that I cannot accurately describe to you in words. Our relationship isn't ending because our residence does. We have been in prayer about this together for almost a year now. We talk frequently about it and our teammates are the most supportive people in our lives about this topic. Father is taking care of them, just as He is taking care of us. He has provided in ways we didn't even know we needed provision for. He has big plans for their future, and we are so excited for them.

5. Why China when there are so many kids in the US foster system?
That is absolutely right. There are so many kids all over the world that need homes. We are all one Body with many parts. I believe that God is calling people right now to adopt in the States. Maybe he is calling you to do just that? For right now, He is calling our family to our child that happens to live in China right now.

I'm sure that this opens up the floor for many more questions. We welcome them. Please don't be afraid to ask us. We are happy to share about our journey.

We have a difficult road ahead of us. One that will be marked with uncertainty, fear, confusion, grief, sadness, and many other difficult emotions and processes. But we also know that there will be joy, restoration, memories, and most importantly love. Even if not immediately, it will come eventually. We trust the Father who has began a good work to finish it to completion and He who has promised is faithful.

Video Chat

Yesterday was a really hard day for us. But today is a good day. The Father is so faithful to bring joy in the midst of sorrow. Today marks one year since we submitted the application to our agency to begin this process. Today we were able to video chat with our sweet boy and tell him that we would be there with him in just 11 short days. As we sat in the airport, still grieving the goodbyes we said the day before, we experienced such a joyful moment as a family.

 We learned that he likes to eat milk, bread, pizza and hamburgers. He doesn't really like rice and dumplings (Ha!! If that's true, then he was truly made for our family!!)

In His Presence

This morning I sat in awe and tears. For the first time in the last 6 years, I finally see the story of my life flowing toward a complete circle. There is a part of our adoption story that I haven't shared in detail here yet. It's so exciting to me to share this part of our story, however, I am struggling to put it into words. But today is the day.

I need to back up a few days, actually. You know how there is this app called Timehop? Well for those of you that may not know, it links to your Facebook and it shows you a daily picture of what you posted on your Facebook on that day for every year before. It's really been fun to see different posts I've made during different seasons of life, or pictures of my kids as they were younger. But then there are also days when I am reminded of hard stuff.

For those of you that don't know us or are newer friends, we lost our second son, Kristopher, through stillbirth 6 years ago on August 1 at 37 1/2 weeks. You can read more about our journey through all of that starting HERE. So, for the past few weeks, I've been seeing status updates that I had written 6 years ago as I was getting ready to give birth to him.  I've been reading as I posted about different moments of my pregnancy that were funny or special and even ordinary. I have smiled as I remembered that one time when he did somersaults in my belly after I ate Red Lobster, or all the nights that he kicked like crazy while I was trying to go to sleep. I'm so thankful I treasured those moments. And I have laughed at the funny comments that little 3 year old Stephen said about my big belly.

 Then on Thursday, I read this post:

And I cried. I cried because I realized that this was most likely the last day that I had spent with my baby while he was still alive. I cried because I wish I had listened to my body. I cried because of how different life could have been. I cried because I was angry, because I was sad, because it's just not fair. 6 years later and it's still not fair. It will never be ok. 

I'm not one of those people that give fluff answers. You will never hear me say something like "Everything happens for a reason." Or "God doesn't give you more than you can handle." (Because He does. That's another post, though.) You won't hear me say, "Just hang in there. It will get better." You won't even hear me say, "I understand how you feel." I have always tried to be very honest about my experience of dealing with grief. The raw truth of emotions and words that sometimes we don't like to admit we felt or said.  I often hear people that have gone through the same kind of grief say something like, "I have to be grateful because if that hadn't have happened, I wouldn't know the kids I have now, or I wouldn't be where I am now if that hadn't have happened," and I'm happy for them that they find peace in those thoughts. But I can't even say that, because it took us 3 years to have another baby.  (It's a good story, you should read it sometime.) But I think to myself,  I could have totally had both of my babies and I believe God could have used some other experience to get me to where I am now. 

I don't know. Not here. Not now. I don't know. One day, though, I will see it all and understand it all clearly. 

BUT for now, on this side of Heaven...I AM grateful. I may not be grateful for what happened.  But I am so grateful to Christ for the hope that He has given me. I AM a different person than I was before. Whether I would have been changed with or without the loss of my son, I don't know. But I am thankful to have been changed. I am thankful that God didn't decide to leave me where I was in my sorrow, but that He taught me how to name it and to find the beauty and to make that beauty grow. And to find JOY. He showed me what it was like to be totally and completely dependent upon Him. Which is turns out is the only place I want to be.

 I will never forget the year following his death. How much I learned about who God is and how much I grew as His child. And if I am completely honest, as hard as it is to say, I would not trade that time of growing closer to Him for anything in this world, even if it meant I could have my baby back. Hear me say...I wish it could have been another way. Every day. For the rest of my life. But that is the event that God chose to use to mold me into who I am today. I don't understand for one second his reasoning, but I don't have to. Because I have learned to TRUST Him. I truly trust the Lord, more than I ever would have had I not been through this tragedy. I wish it had been something else. Anything really. A tornado, losing my house, anything. But I trust Him. And I love Him. Oh how I love Him. Because oh how He loves me.

And that brings me to today. 6 years later. Thursday night when I was crying over the Facebook status that I read, Justin held me and cried with me. And then he looked at me and said, "It's so not fair, but God is making it right again." And he is so right. That was the first time that it really connected. When I made the circle in my mind of where we used to be and where we are now. We are about one month (give or take a week or two) away from finalizing the adoption of our little boy in China. Chen Qi Long. Silas. (I still haven't written a post about his name, but I will.) Have you noticed that Silas is 6 years old? 

I have hesitated to post about this part of our story, because I think that honestly I feel a little guilt over it. When we were praying about adoption, we knew that we wanted a child that was around the same age that Kristopher would have been. Simply because it fit. It seemed right for our family. Stephen would be the oldest, yet Sean would still be the baby and it fit. In no way, shape or form will another child EVER be able to replace Kristopher, nor would we try to do that. But there is a small part of my heart that cries out sometimes, "Please don't forget!" But the fact that Silas is 6 years old is not even the point of this story.

Remember when we first received his file and we said that there were some facts that stood out to us that just really grabbed us? One of those was the day he was abandoned. I will never forget what I felt as I read the date that he was found. August 15, 2010. My heart literally felt like it stopped in my chest. Before I even read his story to find out where he was found, how old he was, how much he weighed and all of the other things that I eventually read through streams of tears,  Two weeks to the day after I had just begun to learn how to say goodbye to my baby,  this sweet baby boy having to say goodbye to his mommy. Two weeks to the day after I had experienced the worst pain of my life, she was experiencing the worst pain of her life. I knew that God had taken my heart and this precious little baby's heart and his sweet mama's heart and began the process of knitting them all together. Two moms without a baby and a baby without a mom. Two souls, two worlds apart, yet with two very broken hearts. And the only answer is Jesus.

Qi Long giving me so much more than a snack.

I know without a shadow of a doubt that Silas was chosen by God to be our son. For many reasons, and God has confirmed that to me. But I can't deny that this piece of information was essential in me finding him. I don't claim to understand God's ways. And the struggles that we will face will not be easy. I would give anything to know who his mama is, who for whatever reason had to make the choice that she did, but still chose to give him life. In a world where she could have easily done otherwise. She chose him. But before she chose him, God had chosen him. And He also chose me.

So to try and wrap up my messy thoughts, back to this morning. Normally our family takes the day off on August 1 and does something special together. This year we are attending the first day of a huge conference. My kids are in VBS this week and we are separated by a few walls. And Justin and I are in meetings. And to be honest, I was a little sad that it would be this way this year. I knew it was coming. But I found out that I was right where God wanted me to be. In His presence. 

We experienced corporate worship for the first time in over 2 years this morning. We have had small group worship, either with a downloaded Youtube video, or Justin and I trying to fumble our way through a song on the guitar. (which please don't get me wrong, there is sweet worship to be found in small groups) But this was worship, with hundreds of other people. All lifting up their voices to the author and perfector of our faiths. Christ alone, Cornerstone. The weak made strong in the Savior's love. Through the storm, He is Lord, Lord of all. All I could do was lift up my hands and cry tears of joy, tears of sadness, tears of relief, tears of feeling His love falling fresh on my weary heart. Tears of gratefulness. And then, on top of all of it, I was able to sit and listen to a sermon by the author that God used to completely change my life during that season of grief. And for the first time in 6 years, I saw the circle. And it's almost completed. I know it's not going to end. It will be a spiral and I will get to watch God do wonder after amazing wonder in my life from now until I go Home to be with Him. But today was priceless. And it was the exact gift that my good good Father knew I needed.

When I got back to my room before I had lunch, I checked Facebook really quick. And within the first 10 posts I read, two different friends of mine had posted about how they were grieving their babies who were gone too soon. Two different women who experienced the same kind of grief, at different times and with different circumstances, but the same broken hearts. Those two posts reminded me that I'm not alone. And that with each story of sorrow, there is a story of joy on the other side that God wants to give. If you are reading this and you have experienced loss, in any form, I am praying for you right now. I pray that you will find your circle. And that it will keep going until you see Jesus face to face.

I love you all. Thank you for sharing this day with me. Thank you for listening to my heart. Thank you for your prayers and for always loving me. Even through the rough times. Thank you for your messages and comments. They mean the world to me. Just the fact that you remember. I don't expect you to. And yet, you do. You know who you are. Thank you.

Happy Birthday Kristopher. I'm so glad Mommy and Daddy were able to worship with you this morning. Give Jesus a big hug for me. I can't wait to meet you one day, sweet boy!