So Blessed!

This past Sunday, our church held a little adoption shower for us after the service. We were blessed with many gift cards and checks to help us with our adoption expenses and things we might still need for our boys. This was a wonderful gift because, as you can probably imagine, we have been on a tight budget coming up with all the funds for two adoptions at once. Our church also had prayer cards made up for our adoption so people would remember to pray for us. Having the support of our church family means so much to us.

It has been amazing to see God providing for our needs through others generosity and also not so "random" circumstances. We have received a bunk bed built by my Dad, mattresses donated by friends, many bags of clothes from Aaron's coworkers, our neighbor, and my Mom's neighbor, bins full of legos and k'nex from another coworker, frozen gluten free meals from our wonderful friends, an adoption grant from Love Without Boundaries, another adoption grant from Grant me a Chance, and an unexpected adoption tax refund from Susu's adoption. We have had many offers of rides to and from the airport, friends who are cat sitting for Shadow, and offers to make gluten free meals after we get home. I am probably forgetting some things because we have really received so much. We so appreciate the help and support from everyone who has played a part in our adoption!

God Keeps Meeting Our Needs - Part II

Part two of this blog post comes at a perfect time because there is a little girl in China who is weighing heavily on my heart. This little girl has almost the exact same special needs as Susu and she is the same age as well. I will share more about this little girl in my next post but for now I want to share how God has helped us meet Susu’s biggest special need in an unexpected way.

When we adopted Susu at four years old, she came to us with the diagnosis of "intelligence barrier" and maldevelopment of her left eye. She was very delayed when we adopted her. Just to give some examples, at four years old Susu had no idea how to hold or use a crayon or pencil. She was not able to fit puzzle pieces into a wooden puzzle meant for a 2 year old. She didn’t know how to play with toys and she would spend her time sitting in a chair if we let her. I had to teach her how to play with toys. The first couple years home, Susu made a lot of progress but it took so much work on both her and my part. She had great difficulty with short term memory and any kind of analytical learning, especially number concepts. Learning to write her letters was incredibly challenging and I thought she might never learn to write. It took months and months of repetition before she learned her colors. I would love to say that I was patient all the time but I wasn’t and teaching Susu was just plain hard.

About a year ago, a friend of mine recommended an Indian Ayurvedic herb called Bacopa Monnieri (Brahmi) for Susu. There have been a handful of scientific studies on this herb in Europe and how it can help children improve their memory and cognitive functioning. I was very skeptical because I have tried a number of herbs over the years with typically mild or mixed results. Did I really think an herb that hardly anyone has heard of was going to help my daughter’s cognitive issues. The answer was no but it was an inexpensive herb with no known side effects so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try it. Well, within a month of starting to use this herb, we were seeing big changes in Susu. This herb was truly an answer to our prayers. Susu took off in all academic areas, reading, writing, short term memory, and her number skills improved dramatically as well. As a comparison, before taking the herb it might take me teaching Susu something 30-60 times before she really got it. I am not exaggerating here. Now with the herb she is able to grasp most things after a couple repeat lessons and sometimes right away.

I know this sounds like a miracle. It has been for our family. I was having such a hard time homeschooling Susu before this herb because it took extreme patience and a lot of time to teach her anything. I knew public school was not the answer because they would not have the resources to provide Susu with the one-on-one help she needed most of the day. I have worked in special education classrooms in several schools as a one-on-one tutor so I have a good idea of the help available to struggling students. Susu was also highly distractible and had a great deal of trouble concentrating. I had to constantly redirect her to pay attention to what she was doing.

This last year of homeschooling Susu has really been a joy to me on most days. Susu still often needs a bit more help than other children her age but the difference between a couple repetitions to understand most things versus 40 or more is like night and day.

Before God led us to this herb, I thought there were really only two big lessons I needed to learn from this experience. One lesson was how to have more patience with my children and the second was learning to accept my children whether or not they ever met developmental or academic milestones. These were important lessons but I never expected such a transformation in my daughter and it has been an incredible gift to both of us. I have learned that God can provide solutions to our problems that are beyond anything we might imagine.

Susu is now seven years old and getting ready to finish up 1^st grade. She is academically on target in many areas. She is doing really well at reading, writing, and spelling. She is about ½ year behind in Math. She amazes me! I have to add that if Susu was not doing so well, I never would have considered adopting another child let alone two.

I will include some of Susu’s current school work below just to give concrete examples of how far she has come in three and a half years. We would love and value Susu whether or not she ever learned to read, write, or do addition because Susu’s worth is not based on how she performs compared to other kids her age. It is a wonderful gift for Susu that she does not have to work so very hard to learn basic concepts anymore and I thank God for that often. If anyone reading this post would like more information on the herb that has helped Susu and where to buy it, feel free to leave a comment with your email address.

Reading

Copywork and Drawing Lesson

Spelling

Math

God Keeps Meeting Our Needs - Part I

We are getting closer and closer to traveling to China and I was expecting to get more and more anxious as the time drew near for us to meet our boys. I am quite aware that we are taking on a really big challenge adopting two boys with significant medical special needs. I am genetically predisposed to being an anxious person and the details of that could fill another blog. If this was our first adoption, I know I would not be feeling this calm right now. Experience adopting is certainly a big help but an even larger reason for my relative calm is the knowledge that God has been meeting my family's and my children's needs over the last seven plus years. The many ways that God has lead me to the things that would best help my children has been quite amazing and that is what I want to share about in the next couple of posts.

Adopting children with special needs can be frightening and I know I would not have considered adopting Jacob and Levi if I thought Aaron and I were parenting them alone in our own power. The deal is that we are not going to be parenting them alone. God will be walking with us every step of the way if we invite Him to do so. What could be better than having the Creator of the universe and the Creator of my boys helping us with meeting their needs. Any of you who are parents already know just how challenging it is to parent almost any child. There is no child raising book that could possibly cover all the challenges that most kids will throw a parents way, unless you have been blessed with one of those easy going, parent pleasing children that are rare gift. Even those children can have issues pop up every so often that can confound even the best parents. Parenting is hard hard work that requires great wisdom if it is going to be done well and I won't even pretend to have gained the kind of wisdom I need to parent my children in my own knowledge. That is the great thing about parenting with God's help though, I don't need to be a perfect parent with all the answers and a level of patience to rival Mother Theresa. I am not alone and when issues pop up with my kids or myself for that matter, which they always do, and I am ready to throw up my hands and throw in the towel, I can hand those problems over to God and put him in charge of helping my kids or me. This may sound like a crazy idea, turning your kids issues over to God, but I can promise you that it works. You probably won't get an answer from a booming voice out of the clouds and you are also not likely to see the answer handwritten on the walls of your house but you can trust that God will help you in His perfect timing if you ask Him for help and are open to His guidance.

That perfect timing is the hardest thing for me to wait for. I am really not a patient person and I want problems fixed now or sooner. I don't like suffering or waiting or looking like a less than great parent because my kids are still working out an issue. God has blessed me these last seven years and allowed me to see how He has been working on my kids in His time and on me too. I think that is why I am not racked with anxiety right now because I am not in charge of meeting all of Jacob and Levi's needs. God knows exactly what they need and I know He will reveal and provide for those needs in His timing if I can just trust in Him. Over the next few posts, I will share more specifically how God has met some really big needs that my kids have had. These posts are just as much for me as for anyone else to read because I know I will need to be reminded over the next year and beyond that I am not alone when those big challenges arise.

Tentative Travel Dates

Well we don't have our official travel approval yet but I talked to our agency and we should be getting it within the next couple of weeks. Our agency would like us to travel with a small group of two other families who are heading to China on May 5th. That actually sounds perfect since we will be done with homeschooling a week before and that will give me a whole week to get us packed and ready to go with no other major distractions! The weather should be nice and that means less bulky clothes to pack. I am so excited!

My Dad did a great job on the bunk beds and they are sturdy enough to stand up to a whole team of boys crawling all over them. This bunk bed design has been well tested out on my four brothers and my two nephews as well. My Dad knows how to build things that will survive boys!

This last week, Isaiah decided that he needed his own adoption blog. We designed it together and he has had so much fun writing posts and getting comments from friends and family. Thanks to everyone who left such nice comments. Isaiah was thrilled! If you haven't seen Isaiah's blog yet, you can check it out at Lobsters and Dumplings. Some of you may have guessed that I had ulterior motives in letting Isaiah have his own blog. Getting Isaiah to complete his homeschooling writing assignments has been a breeze this week and he even volunteered to do a book report, oops I mean a book review for his blog. Homeschooling Moms sure can be sneaky!!!

Cutie Pie!

Now who might this cutie pie be? Yes, it is my baby boy. I was looking through an old LWB newsletter today which I had printed off in 2007 because it had a picture of Susu with her adoption announcement. I flipped through the rest of the newsletter and whose picture do I see in the same newsletter. My baby boy Jacob. Who would have thought back in 2007 that Susu and Jacob would have their pictures in the same newsletter and that in three and a half years we would be heading back to China to bring Jacob home and his older foster brother too. I can tell you that I never ever would have imagined that. I have to just say that I think my baby boy was one of the cutest baby boys ever. I don't think I am even one little bit biased either.

Please Pray for Kirill and His Family

Last week a sweet little boy named Kirill was denied the right to have a family because he has Down Syndrome. This little boy's adoptive family traveled all the way to Russia to adopt him. They are approved to adopt from Russia but a judge made the ruling that a child with Down Syndrome is better off living in an institution and so they are not allowed to adopt Kirill. This family has experience with children who have special needs and they were told they should pick another child who is "typical". They are appealing the judges ruling and they are in great need of prayer. You can read the whole story at their blog, Our Eyes Opened.

Here is a video of the family meeting Kirill for the first time. I can only imagine how hard this situation is for this family who have met and love their son even though he is not legally theirs yet. I would be absolutely heart broken if we were unable to adopt our boys!

Journey to Levi - Part II

If you missed the first part of our "Journey to Levi", you can read it here.

Over December, I just could not get Nicholas out of my head. I had found out that he would no longer be eligible for adoption when he turned 14 years old on this upcoming July 10^th, five days after my birthday. On Christmas morning, I woke up at 3 a.m. and could not go back to sleep. I ended up downstairs on the couch and was reading my Bible and praying. I had this overwhelming feeling of sadness and pain for Nicholas. It was a very odd and awful feeling that I have never had before. It actually felt like my heart was hurting for him but not really with a physical pain but with this deep spiritual pain. I actually took two Tylenol because it felt so terrible even though I knew it wouldn't help. I begged for God to take this crazy burden off my heart since God knew I would say yes to adopting Nicholas and give that pain to my dear husband if we were really meant to adopt Nicholas. After a couple hours, I was able to fall back asleep. I did have a really wonderful Christmas and I briefly mentioned to Aaron waking up and feeling sad about Nicholas but that was about it. The next morning, I woke up early again and I came downstairs and started reading a book my Mom had given to me at Christmas about Amy Carmichael, a missionary from India. Amy Carmichael described having this great pain in her heart for the people of India and I could totally relate to that feeling with what had happened the night before. As I was reading the book, I got this overwhelming feeling that Aaron really needed to see all the facts of this situation with Nicholas.


After Aaron got up and had his breakfast, I asked if we could discuss Nicholas and Aaron said that was o.k. but he wasn't excited about it. I asked if it would be alright with him if we wrote down all the reasons why we shouldn't adopt Nicholas and all the reasons why we should. We started with all the reasons why it would be a bad idea and then we wrote down all the reasons why we should. After reading all that we had written down together, Aaron said it was obvious what we should do and that it looked like we were suppose to adopt Nicholas. I was very very surprised and I asked Aaron several times if he wanted to think about it more or sleep on it. Aaron said no, he did not need to think about it more or sleep on it so that is how we came to the place of submitting our Letter of Intent (LOI) to adopt Nicholas.

I had been praying that God would show me this was really his plan and not just my crazy idea or that God would close the door if this would be too much for our family. Two days after submitting our LOI to adopt Nicholas, I went over to read new posts on the Love Without Boundaries blog. Well I just about fell out of my chair because there was a blog post about Nicholas and it talked about his younger foster brother and there was a picture of the two of them together. It was crazy because the younger foster brother in the picture was our Jacob. I was shocked because I had no clue that Jacob even had a foster brother living with him. I called Aaron and my Mom crying and they could not believe it either. Now I saw why I had been so burdened for Nicholas and why I could not get him out of my heart or my mother's for that matter. Here is the link to the blog post!

The name Nicholas was simply a screen name that LWB gave our son to protect his privacy and we have decided to give him the first name of Levi and keep his Chinese name for his middle name. Levi means joined or united and we feel this name is perfect considering how long our son has waited to be united or joined to a family of his own. Levi is joining a large family and everyone is so excited about meeting both him and Jacob. Nothing makes me happier than knowing that my two boys will never be without a family again!

My Puzzle

This week I had a writing assignment for my small group Bible study at my church. The assignment was to write my testimony out basically in a nutshell. This was a very challenging assignment for me because I feel like my spiritual journey has been such a long and meandering path with lots of ups and downs. It was suppose to be 100 words or less but typical of my propensity to toss silly rules aside, I did not follow the directions exactly. It took me a long time to get the most important aspects of it boiled down into a couple of paragraphs. So here it is if anyone is curious.

Jesus has been a part of my life since I was a little girl. That has been a huge blessing to me but it does not mean that I have had a smooth or easy life. My biggest obstacle to overcome in my spiritual journey has been learning to really trust in God and his plan for my life in all circumstances, even when life gets really hard. I am a person who likes to be in control and solve my own problems but life has often thrown me big problems that only God could work out. Turning these big things over to God has been a real struggle for me but time and time again I have seen him work things out in ways I never could have orchestrated or imagined.

Sometimes I compare my life to a giant puzzle half finished. Some of the puzzle pieces were nice looking to begin with and fit in easily while other pieces were dirty or ripped or jagged and didn’t seem to fit at all. Over the years, I have seen Jesus’ light shine on some of my dirty and ripped pieces and make them like new to fit perfectly into the beautiful picture that was starting to form. The beautiful picture is God’s purpose for my life. I really believe that without Jesus in my life, those dirty and ripped pieces would stay the way they were or they might even be scattered and lost and my puzzle would never be complete. I would never know God’s purpose for my life. Seeing how God has used the hard things in my life over the years for good has brought me closer to him, strengthened my trust in Him, and made me want to share with others what I have learned so they can experience the same thing. No one should have to walk through the really hard stuff of life alone!

Journey to Levi - Part 1

Some of you blog readers have already heard the story of how we came to the decision to adopt not just one but two boys from China. I decided it was time to post the story for those who have not heard it yet.

The journey to sending in our Letter of Intent asking for permission to adopt Levi has been long and started this past summer. I read about Levi on Facebook when I was searching for pictures or information about Jacob. He was from the same city as Jacob and was sponsored by Love Without Boundaries just like Jacob and Susu. I included this write up about Levi in my post about Patrick waiting for a family but I will include it again.

I have known many of these kids for the last five years, and it was very sad for me to visit the home of Nicholas (Levi) this time. He is ten years old, and has CP in his legs that makes it difficult for him to walk. He is so smart! He has not been chosen by a family yet, but many of his best friends have. He used to be so outgoing and happy, but I was told that he has become so very sad over no one choosing him to be their son. He said to us, “ I am smart, I can draw and sing, I would be so kind to a mama and baba….why does no one want me?” That just about did me in. He sang for us once again (he has a beautiful voice) but with much more sadness and longing in his eyes. Life is so unfair.

That write up touched my heart so much and I sent it to my Mom to read as well and she asked if we could bring Nicholas home for my parents to adopt. It was July, I think, and I told my Mom that China hardly ever let anyone adopt two children at once. Well my Mom and I decided to pray that Nicholas would find a family. The rules about adopting two children at one time changed in September and then the write up on Nicholas was done on the Love Without Boundaries blog. I just could not get Nicholas out of my head. I asked Aaron if he would ever consider adopting Nicholas too and my dear husband said no just as I expected. It really did seem like a crazy idea considering that we were already adopting one child with special needs and there are so many unknowns when you adopt an older child.


My Mom and Dad traveled to AZ to my brother's wedding right before Christmas this year. My Great Aunt Gennie and my Great Uncle Mike came to the wedding and spent a lot of time with my parents. My Great Aunt Gennie is about the same age as my Mom. She was adopted by my great grandparents (my Mom's grandparents) when she was 18 years old and about to age out of her orphanage in Korea. My great grandparents sent money to this Catholic orphanage and a nun had written them about Gennie because she was such a nice girl but would have no future in Korea because she had difficulty walking since she had suffered from polio as a child. She needed braces and crutches to walk. My great grandparents agreed to adopt her and everyone thought they were crazy to take on such a thing in their 60's. My great grandparents already had 11 children, my great grandfather had been completely blind since he was a child, and they did not have much money. A nun from the orphanage ended up bringing Gennie to my great grandparents in the U.S.

my Great Grandparents and some of their children



some of my Great Grandparent's grandchildren standing in front of the little home
where my Great Grandparents raised their twelve children



some of the great grandchildren

My Great Aunt Gennie was able to get surgery after coming to the U.S. and she only walks with a limp now. She married her husband Mike who has cerebral palsy. At my brother's wedding in December, my parents spent a lot of time with Gennie and Mike and Mike shared with them how he could have lived his whole life being supported by disability payments but that was not what he wanted for his life so he became a downhill ski instructor instead. Talk about a role model for Levi in my family. Gennie and Mike lived in Colorado until they retired to AZ and now they spend time with their two daughters and travel around the country. They have promised to come visit us here in Maine. My great grandparents have been such an inspiration to me and Susu is named after my great grandmother.

my Mom, my Great Aunt Gennie, my Great Uncle Mike, and my Dad

So this visit got my Mom thinking more and she and I talked more about Levi (Nicholas) and I said I would see if there was any way for us to bring him home for my parents. I was thinking we might be able to adopt him and then give my parents legal guardianship. I presented my idea to Meg at our adoption agency and she said that it was a nice idea but illegal. I knew Aaron would probably never agree to adopting Nicholas so I was determined to find a family for him. I sent his profile to quite a few of my friends and I also posted stuff about Nicholas on all the adoption yahoo groups I am part of.

to be continued...

Children of God

I love this video, especially the end!