One Child

Many are the plans in a person’s heart,

    but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.  

Proverbs 19:21

Soon after my husband and I were married we started our family.  Our oldest son was born in the spring of 1998. After a hard pregnancy, bed rest for five weeks, and an emergency C-section. We were blessed with a precious healthy baby boy.  Well until he was 6 months old, that was when he had first gotten very ill with pneumonia.  This was the beginning of his battle with asthma.  Until he was three years old he was in and out of the hospital regularly until we were able to get the right treatment plan since then he has only been hospitalized a handful of times.  Due to his health we chose to wait before adding to our family.  So 4 years and one day later our second son, Owen was born. Then 2 years later we were surprised with a precious little girl, Mae.  We had a complete, perfect family!  Or so we thought....... However God has a way of changing our plans and our idea of the "perfect family".  Our hearts changed and we knew our family wasn't complete. Even though it didn't happen right away, we knew when the time is right God will work it all out and he did with Jean in May 2015.  We know "Adopting one child won't change the world, but for that one child the world will change" and for all of us!  After our trip to China, visiting, Jean's orphanage, and looking into the eyes of all the children who desperately wanted us to take them home our hearts will never be the same.   It didn't take long and we knew we were going back.  There was a little boy who would soon age out that had grabbed our hearts back when we were in the process for Jean. We prayed and prayed for him and our hearts broke at the idea of him aging out.  My husband and I talked about possibly going back for him.  However, sadly no matter how much we wanted to go after him we knew our home, vehicle, etc was not set up for a wheelchair. We even considered moving bedrooms around, but no matter what we came up with we knew in our (broken) hearts it just couldn't work.  I couldn't give up on him! We continued to pray and I advocated for him on a China adoption facebook page.  This was when we saw a precious little girl who's eyes reached out and grabbed us! We could see her beautiful soul behind her sad eyes.  We contacted the agency that had her file and knew she was the one, she was our daughter.  Even though it didn't go as we thought, God placed the sweet little boy in our hearts so we would consider going back and led us to our daughter. I am sure you are wondering what is going to happen you the young man? Well through all the advocating he has a wonderful family that saw him,fell in love, and is in the process of bringing him home!

"It Hurts"

When we were in China after we first met Jean one of the things we had to do to bring her home is take her for a medical exam.  We sat there waiting for her turn to have bloodwork done when it was her turn a lady came and took her from our arms(we weren't allowed to go back with her).  My husband and I sat outside the door fighting back tears waiting and preparing ourselves for the scream from the other room.  We were in early stages of bonding and building her trust and here we let them take her and poke her with a needle.  We waited and waited wondering is she scared? Is she looking for us? Should we have insisted on going back.  Then here she came back with the nurse not a single tear just a band-aid to prove they truly did do it.  We hugged her and told her we will take care of her.  Even though she didn't cry she hid her arm behind her back.  We figured since it hurt she wanted to hide it, protect it.  Later after coming home we had several medical appointments and again she never cried.  She got more bandaids!  Finally we realized it wasn't the pokes it was the bandaid that upset her.  Everytime she got one she would hide it behind her back.  We don't know what has caused her to dislike bandaids was it some sort of trauma, or maybe with her special need she doesn't like things sticking to her skin however what ever it was we knew for her they don't make things better.  Kisses work best. Not too long ago she got ill, and got a bad rash from her infection.  Then a couple weeks later she started losing her fingernails. :( Well tried to stay away from bandaids, but after a nail got caught on carpet at school and ripped her old nail and her new nail badly we insisted she leave them on.  We went and got some "Frozen" bandaids which made them special and we played a guessing game every time we put one on "who do you think it is?" she loved guessing.  For about 2 weeks or so we did this to protect her new nails until the others completely fell off.  After all the nails came off would you believe she was asking us for a bandaid for every hangnail :)  This may seem small to most but this was huge for her she was overcoming fears.

Another thing we noticed right away is that most children when they fall down or scrape themselves they belt out a loud cry.  The first time Jean got a little scrape we were so sad for her, not just because she got a scrape, but mostly because she didn't cry.  This is as sad as it is it is not uncommon for children from orphanages.  They stop crying because it serves no purpose, nobody comes to them.  This took love but after time of receiving love and compassion until she realised if she fell down we cared! I remember one day Owen, Mae,and I were at home with her when she came around the corner and fell both the kids and I came running to her rescue!  I will never forget that look in her eyes as she looked around at all of us and realized we were there to love on her.  We all hugged her and kissed her boo boo.  She teared up and cried just a little.  Her cry was forced, horse and not very powerful like she just didn't know how to do it.  Later that day Daddy came home and as soon as he came through the door she ran right up to him to show him her little boo boo, and instantly started sniffing and whimpering.  He looked at me in shock because she had never done this before.  My heart literally melted!  She knew that he loved her and that he to would care she bumped her finger. This is huge and are so glad that she feels loved enough that it is ok to cry.  Every day she grows more and is better at letting us know "It hurts" "I don't feel good".