"This Isn't Hard"

This post actually has nothing to do with our adoption or even adoption in general, but I can’t stop thinking about something that happened last night and thought that I would record and share my thoughts. Last night I had the opportunity to spend a small amount of time with the residents of a local homeless shelter. Because of the cold weather, this shelter is extremely full and many of the residents are children. I learned many lessons from these wonderful people, but one encounter has taught me and given me more insights than any other.

As I was helping some residents towards the back of the shelter, a beautiful and well kept teenage girl asked me about the length of the food line. She was busy writing in a notebook and looking at a large text book. I told her that the line was still fairly long and that if she waited ten more minutes it should be shorter. I then said, “you can still keep working on what you are doing….it looks hard.” She smiled at me and then said, “oh, I’m not doing anything hard… it’s just chemistry.”

I couldn’t believe it. I first have to say that to me, chemistry is HARD! With endless help from my father, I barely made it through high school chemistry and about killed myself, and my poor father, in the process. I think that he probably still bears the mental scars of sitting at that kitchen table with me for hours at a time trying to explain how to balance chemical equations. The interesting thing is that I actually enjoyed balancing these equations…I just never did it correctly. So to me, the chemistry that this is young woman was doing is incredibly hard and I told her that. But what I couldn’t tell her was, “are you kidding me? High school is hard enough when you have a home, educated and supportive parents and family, fashionable clothing and a car! You live in a homeless shelter. Your entire life is “hard.” Yet you are going to school and taking difficult classes. You are working on your chemistry homework surrounded by 150 other people. You are polite, gracious and smiling when you are in an unbelievably difficult situation. YOU ARE DOING SOMETHING HARD!!!”

I have such an admiration for this young woman. She truly is my new hero. Her positive attitude and outlook did not allow her to shrink with her trials. In fact, she didn’t even see them as “hard” and I believe that is why she seemed happy. She taught me that we can do hard things and do so with a positive attitude. I hope that when I feel that my trials are “hard,” I will think of this beautiful young woman and I hope that I will be as strong as she is and smile and say to myself, “this isn’t hard.” My hope and prayer is that her strength will carry her not only through high school but also through college and possibly even on to be a famous chemist one day!

It's Here!

IT’S HERE! IT’S HERE! This morning we got a phone call from our adoption agency to tell us that our LOA had just arrived from China! We had been so anxious all weekend. I had emailed our agency last week to ask if they knew why our LOA was so delayed (it had taken twice as long as Jacob’s did). They told us that hopefully it was already on its way because the CCCWA offices were closing for the long Chinese New Year celebration. If it wasn’t already on its way, we wouldn’t receive it until the end of February. So I was SOOOOO excited when the phone rang this morning!

When we were finally able to get all the children home together this evening, we told them that we had gotten a phone call from the adoption agency and that we “would not be receiving the LOA tomorrow…..BECAUSE WE ALREADY RECEIVED IT TODAY!!!” There was so much screaming and even tears. I guess these brothers and sisters are anxious to get their brother home!

Now we will submit our I-800 to our government and once that approval has been cabled to the Consulate in China, we will be issued our Travel Approval. If you are following our process checklist, we just completed #13 and will have #14 completed by Thursday of this week. Thank you for all of your prayers in our behalf!

A Visit from Young Women

A couple of nights ago, our door bell rang and there on our porch stood a group of beautiful young women and their incredible leaders. In their hands were sweet handwritten letters, cookies, a framed scripture and a big pretzel jar full of change. One of the sweet leaders told me of how she was thinking of our family and Michael on Christmas Eve. She said that she wanted the young women to see that “little” things add up and that they could make a difference in the lives of those around them. She presented the idea of collecting change for our adoption to the young women and they readily agreed and have been doing so for several weeks.

The youth of this generation are incredible. They are strong, compassionate, faithful, and valiant. They serve others and truly make life better for those around them. I am so grateful for these thoughtful and generous young women. I am grateful for their leaders who give so much of their time to teach and inspire these young ladies to reach their full potential.

I hope that this group of young women understands how grateful we are for their help in bringing Michael home. They may not completely understand now, but I hope that in the future, when they become mothers for the first time, they will hold their baby and will remember that they helped another mother be able to finally hold her son. They will understand then.

AMAZING Stocking Stuffers!

I have recently been introduced to the most wonderful stocking stuffer ever! I LOVE this idea and am going to ask Santa Claus to make this a yearly tradition for our family. Reece’s Rainbow is a non-profit ministry that advocates for children in orphanages with Down Syndrome, HIV/AIDS and other serious medical conditions. Their goal is to find forever families for each child. One way that they do this is to collect tax-deductable donations for individual children to make their adoption more affordable. Both Jacob and now Michael have been advocated for on Reece’s Rainbow.

New to Reece’s Rainbow’s annual Angel Tree Fund Raiser this Christmas is “Angel Tree Dollars.” Once donations are made to Reece’s Rainbow, “Angel Tree Dollars” are then printed and given to the recipient who can then go to the Reece’s Rainbow site and decide to which child they would like the funds to be applied.

This Angel Tree program is so helpful in teaching our children how much they truly have and how important it is to help others. It is very humbling to read the profiles of the precious children on Reece’s Rainbow and have the opportunity to bless their lives.

Here is how they work:
1. You purchase your Angel Tree dollars.
2. Your Angel Tree Dollars will be immediately emailed to you and you print them out.
3. The recipient will then select the child on the Reece’s Rainbow site that they wish the Angel Tree Dollar to go to. 

To purchase Angel Tree Dollars go to :
http://reecesrainbow.org/angeltreedollars

To read a WONDERFUL story about a family who did this last year go to:
http://covenantbuilders.blogspot.com/2011/12/perfect-gift-2011.html

Thank you for being the wonderful friends that you are to us and supporting us this past year. You are among our greatest blessings. We wish you and your families a very Merry Christmas!

Not the news that we were expecting

If timelines were to be the same as they were with Jacob’s adoption, we were expecting our Letter of Acceptance this week. I had big plans of putting it on the Christmas tree to surprise the kids. So when I received an email from our agency with an attachment, I got SO excited! However, upon opening the email I discovered that the attachments were not the Letter of Acceptance but instead a photo of Michael’s foot and Chinese and English translations of his medical records. Michael has formed some severe granulation that is requiring surgery. From the photo, it looks very painful. We are just so sad that we can’t be with him during the time of his surgery and recovery.

In addition to this upsetting news, we were told that our documents are still in translation and that we can anticipate travel in three months. Once again, we had been making plans according to Jacob’s adoption timeline and had planned for travel at the end of January or beginning of February, so the idea of waiting clear until March has floored us.

This is the part that is so difficult…the waiting. It will be hard to fully enjoy the holidays knowing that our little boy is in an orphanage and having surgery. We continue to be so grateful for all of the prayers and support of our friends and family. We are amazed at your goodness and are so thankful that you are willing to take this journey with us.

My Heart "Grew Three Sizes That Day"

I was feeling very sad yesterday morning as I worked to put up the last of our Christmas decorations. Despite our best efforts, Michael will not be home for Christmas. I was heartbroken, bitter and depressed. Our son has already missed six Christmas’ with us. Do we really have to spend a seventh Christmas apart from each other? I wanted him to see the decorations and Christmas tree lights (which Jacob continually tries to blow out like birthday candles), taste homemade fudge, read Christmas picture books, and feel the excitement of Christmas morning when the children race down the stairs to see the magic that Santa Claus has carefully placed under the tree and in the stockings.

As reality completely sunk in that he would still be in the orphanage come December 25th, I could no longer see my decorations through my tears. I no longer felt like decorating. I decided that Christmas was a difficult time to be trying to adopt a child and it would be challenging to celebrate the season. I began to feel somewhat like the Grinch. It was at that time that the chorus of Handel’s Messiah began to play through my ipod speaker. “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given.” Those lyrics hit me and they hit hard.

Christ and His infinite atonement was the greatest gift ever given. The Christmas season is the celebration of that gift…the gift of a child…a Son being “given.” As those lyrics from Handel pierced my soul I realized that Christmas is the PERFECT time to be anxiously awaiting the arrival of our son. And although he will not be here for Christmas Day, I know that we will have the rest of eternity with our son because Christ was born and given to all mankind. What better time to work towards bringing our son to our home than the time that we celebrate the birth of God’s perfect Son? So, like it is described in the Grinch who Stole Christmas when he heard “every Who down in Who-ville” singing…when I heard Handel’s Messiah, I had a complete change of heart and, in fact, “my heart grew three sizes that day.”

Merry Christmas, our sweet Michael. This is the last Christmas that you will spend away from us. We love you and are anxiously waiting for the day when you will be “given” to us.

Dossier Log-in Date Received!

We received an email from our adoption agency letting us know that we have an official "log-in date (LID)" with CCCWA (11/18/2011). We were able to use much of our previous dossier from Jacob's adoption, but we needed to send in several updated documents including a new home study. With Jacob's adoption we received our "Letter of Acceptance" within a month of our LID, so we are extremely hopeful that we will have a LOA in the next couple of weeks. That would be an amazing Christmas present!

To help our family and friends better understand the milestones in the process of a Chinese adoption, we have created a new page on our blog that lists the most major milestones. The page name is "The Process". We have now completed milestone #12.

We are so grateful for your continued prayers and support. We are blessed to have you join us in our  journey to bring Michael home.