why it matters

the other week ryan had to leave town for a work trip, so it was just me and the kiddos for several days.

the first night ryan was gone i was awoken by the screams and cries of one of the Ls (leaving out the identify of which one, because of their privacy).  i ran down the hall and found my child standing in their doorway with their full body shaking, and their face red and saturated in tears. after several minutes of comforting and reassurance, they revealed what had struck this kind of fear in them:
they had awoken from a scary dream and saw a dark presence in their room, it then shot up to their ceiling where it perched and watched them. 
(fast forward, we did later pray over the room (again) and anoint the threshold with oil (again)).

a few nights later, i was awoken by their screams again, and ran down the hall to find them wrapped up in their comforter, body convulsing in fear and still asleep. i climbed into their bed and pulled them up to me and held them against me speaking over them: "this is a safe room, this is a safe house, you are safe, i am a safe mommy" i repeated this at least 15 times until they woke up. i continued to repeat that mantra as they shook off the nightmare and became coherent. they revealed they had dreamed stranger danger came into our house and daddy tried to stop them, but stranger danger shot and killed daddy.

a few nights later even still, i was awoken by the same terrified and desperate screams. i ran down the hall and lept into their room and again scooped them into my arms and repeated our mantra, "this is a safe room, this is a safe house, you are safe, i am a safe mommy". the nightmare this time, they were shot and killed by stranger danger.

and, a few nights ago: screams, frantic pleadings; ryan and i lept into their room again. the nightmare this time: i was shot and killed by a friend.

after anointing the room (again), and praying over it (again), we made a few "Jesus music" CDs for them to play continuously in the room and fall asleep to. they wants to hear songs that worship God as they sleeps, so that it will hopefully overpower the dark memories that creep from their subconscious, and conscious self, and infiltrate their dreams.
their favorite song is "beautiful things" by gungor

after our beloved chid settled from their nightmares, they apologized over and over: they apologized to US for THEM having a nightmare. :(
they apologized that we "had to wake up and come in there". the next morning they looked at us wearily and asked "are you tired?"
apologizing to the parent for having a nightmare should be the LAST thing a child does. the last thing a child should do the morning after horrendous nightmares is ask the parent if they are okay.

but this is what happens when a child is "made sure to know" their entire lives they are not valued or truly loved. this is what happens when bonding and attachment hasn't happened until they are adolescents. this is what happens when children are treated as if they have to "earn" breakfast, lunch, dinner, as if snacks are treats, as if they have to earn a hug, as if they have to earn a parent's love, and as if they have to earn a parent's caring nature.

our family saw it's one year anniversary recently, and each precious child continues to encounter the healing they deserve, each child continues to find their voice, each child continues to find their freedom, and each child continues to find that they are-a child.

14. it's awfully young to...

forever lose the chance to have a loving family.

14. that's the age when a CHILD goes from waiting and hoping to be "chosen" to waiting to be told they have to leave their orphanage/foster home and find their own way.

it's an incredibly young and fragile age still to come to that destiny.
i don't want to be doom and gloom, but the prospects for these children is not good if they age out. they often "survive" by stealing, dealing drugs, and you can take a sordid and educated guess how the girls survive :(  it's something nobody wants to talk about or read, but it's the truth.

there is a young boy who will turn 14 in 5 short months, and the family that desperately wants him as their son is RACING to him.  in the beginning the officials did not even prepare his file to make him eligible for adoption, they believed nobody would chose a son like him-but they were wrong.  his file has been readied and a family is raising funds to cover the cost of all things involved in adoption: a home study, agency fees, travel fees, etc. i've run down the expenses in our adoption while we were fundraising, so you can peruse back through them if you are interested in why adoptions are so expensive.



there will be an auction beginning in the next few days to help the family raise these funds, they've set up a Facebook page to share about the plight of the aging out orphan in China and their journey to their son.

life in china is not as here for the unfortunate and those without families: there is no government health coverage like MediCare or state sponsored insurance, no free-community clinics, there are no Pell Grants for higher education, there are no food subsidy programs, there are not homeless missions in cities. life after aging out of the orphanage is dismal, scary, and uncertain. but you can be part of hope, and part of a chance at new life for this one sweet soul.

follow along with their journey and when the auction begins, grab yourself something and help bring him home!

here is the YouCaring page set up if you'd like to contribute to bringing this sweet boy home: 

https://www.youcaring.com/orphan-544394#goto-updates

and here's the Facebook page to follow for updates and check up their upcoming auction: 

https://www.facebook.com/orphan2son/

the silent months

there have been fairly signifcant gaps in these past updates--you'll notice posts have been few and far between since coming home.
at first it was because life was crazy, busy, hectic, and a whirlwind: between becoming a family of 4 with an adolescent and preteen, packing up a house and moving within days of arriving home, setting up in a new house in a new city, in a new state, and bonding as a new family all within 2 weeks!

and then the updates became more scarce because life got HARD.

when you adopt, especially the older child, you aren't just becoming a parent and you aren't just adding a daughter/son (or both!) into your family, no. you are picking up the cross of trauma, pain, loss, hurt, anger and sadness children far too young have been appointed to carry, and carrying it WITH them, and sometimes FOR them until they can develop the necessary tools to work through their grief, which could be years, or even decades.

 you are saying:
"i will give up my 'norman rockwell' visions of family dinners, picturesque christmas mornings and evenings, board games at the kitchen table", and saying: "i will accept that the rest of our lives may very well be lived in the trenches"  "i will continue to pour into a vessel that has holes poked all in the bottom" and instead switch your thinking to: even though this seems like a special event, a happy occasion, or a fun family idea, it will most likely trigger feelings of grief and loss in our children and cause pain and result in a melt-down.
you sacrifice happy-family traditions you've been planning and dreaming of, and instead plan ahead to do battle with your child as memories and trauma are purged to the surface.

going into adoption, you prepare yourself for "worst case scenario" and you do far more than "due diligence" when researching everything your new child's referral speaks of.  you feel like you are a long-lost best friend of Karyn Purvis, and in the heat of melt-downs you think "what would Mark V.  do" (can i get "a'men" from my fellow 'Parenting with Connection' folks!), Amazon recommendations start to look that of a fully-stocked child therapists office, and you are convinced in 3 years time you would have damn well earned an honorary Ph.D in child psychology degree from some prestigious university.

we thought we were prepared, we thought our children had been in a great place. we prayed and thanked God for his providence of where they were all these years before we came for them. after all it was a "christian" based, american foundation backed, foster village.

we were wrong.

while we were thanking God, we should have been pleading for him to exercise come sort of vengeance, turn these adults into pillars of salt, have rabid dogs consume them. i can't even describe the amount of pure anger and wrath i feel toward the individuals entrusted to care for our children, and instead inflicted trauma beyond imagination upon them. i feel sick at the thought that i left as a gift for these people a locket with the L's picture in it.

we fight battles WITH our children several days a week.

no, i'm not as honorable as this sounds. i'm not a mother teresa or mother goose even for that matter. it's hard. it's hard on me (and them of course). hence the silence. i've been silently mourning. mourning their past. mourning their grief. mourning the death of the patient, slow-to-frustrate, and happy-go-lucky momma i THOUGHT i'd be.

a good read, as to why you should NOT say "all kids to that" to adoptive parents of children with trauma backgrounds. 

being on the verge of tears has become a nightly occurrence after we finally close our door to go to bed. one of my mantras HAD been "it's not about me", until i was presented with a lifestyle that FORCED me to walk it out 24/7, and i realized just how much i do think it's about me. i realized my sacrificial love isn't as full of complete Agape as i thought it was. i'm reminded of my flesh and still broken human nature.

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ --Philippians 1:6

people smile and compliment families like ours; and we smile and pretend they are right. we pretend it's glorious, we pretend we are patient and knowledgable, and we pretend our lives our full of laughter and joy. because we have to protect our children, and we have to protect their story, and we have to protect their lives now and their lives in the past for their lives in the future. so we smile and we nod and we say the response everyone expects "oh, it's been all so wonderful, we couldn't ask for any better of a beginning!" you become an expert at fooling people. so much so that profilers with the FBI couldn't pick the pain out of your soul.
we do this because we have to be wise. we have to be wise about who we share the most intimate knowledge of our children and our own family with. it's not appropriate to openly share the darkest and most painful memories of your children's past with strangers, well-wishers, and anyone that can read a fb status update, or even blog post.
the details remain the children's and the family's, which also means the pain remains the family's.


despite all the pain, this truth remains:
God sees the pain in our souls though.
God sees the pain in our son and daughter's soul, and He is faithful.

we read post like this and weep. utterly weep into a sobbing mess on the floor because the only people who "get it" are people who we will mostly likely never meet, never hug, never share coffee with as we spill our hearts. 

And we all, with unveiled faces, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transferred into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. --2 Corinthians 3:18

a long overdue update

Wow! I can't can believe it's been 3 months since I've updated.  Life is busy. You parents who update daily or even weekly amaze me. I can't even get my brain to function before noon, and by then it's time to pick the kids back up (almost).  I'll try to be coherent and make sense. :)

this is a laugh--a laugh during prayer. it's okay, we allow it, it's biblical even "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom" (2 corinthians 3:17) 

 This photo progressed like this, with a surprise from behind attack-turned-peace sign with brother:

We now live outside Atlanta, and the kiddos loved being a part of the move. They were able to set up their new bedrooms, pick out their bed sets and show us how they wanted their furniture arranged.

School started super early down here: August 3rd!  These awesome kiddos had been in the states barely a month when they began attending school. The teachers at their school are amazing, and it happens that Lucy is in a "super class" (it's like a class and a half with 2 teachers), and in her "super class" there are two sisters who speak Mandarin! This has been so helpful for her adjustment of course, but also for her teachers, who when in a bind, have these other sweet girls who are so happy to help and translate.

Their English language acquisition has absolutely boomed! We are home a little over 3 months, and for the most part, communication is good. We only use the translation app if there is a new concept/words we are using, or if we are trying to explain something that requires more than piecing together basic words they have.

Their personalities continue to shine, and they become more confident in who they are and their identity strengthens each week.

They continue to trust us more and more, and they continue to attach and bond as sons and daughters more and more. We had a huge break through last night when they both shared some really heavy things. It was one of those occurrences where their vulnerability, trust, and sharing led us well past their bedtime without notice--when your children are pouring their hearts out and baring themselves and that level of vulnerability, you let it flow as long as it needs to.

The dude is enrolled in Taekwondo classes and the lovely does an extra-curricular art class after school each week.

They each love to take the dogs for walks with me, and the dude loves putting them up in their crates each night (which is quiet the comical site since each dog is bigger than he is!).

It seems as if we have settled into our little family routine, and it couldn't be sweeter.

We eagerly await the coming holidays of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and finishing out birthdays (we just celebrated the dude's at Chuck E Cheese).


And two pictures that pretty perfectly capture our family.  :)

the dude

i'm going to be super honest: he hated me the first 4-5 days in china, as in:
*he would pull away from me and choose to walk in front of a moving car rather than walk next to me
*he would be thirsty and parched instead of just taking the bottle of water or soda from my hand
*he would rather be bored than take his kindle fire from me when i was offering it
it happens. pick up trips aren't always filled with unicorns sliding down rainbows into gumdrop seas. but it gets better!

one day in guangzhou (the final leg of the journey) i was walking through one of the rooms in our hotel suite (and he had hidden himself on the other side of the door) and he jumped into my arms. just like that. and ever since then, he's been my cuddle bug, my right-hand man. my dude.

most of the pictures we had of him he seemed somber and quiet. ha!
even our main guide in guangzhou said "wow, he was so quiet when we met him a few months ago". ahhhhh, we still laugh about that....

he is the most energetic, wild, and personable dude.
gosh, this kid, y'all, he really does have so much personality.  i just wish all you you could meet and enjoy it with us!

he loves electronica music--the kids has some mad dancing skills. i set the t.v. to my pandora "moby" station, and he will dance his little heart out.

and his high and roundhouse kicks--chuck norris would be jealous of them.

here is a photo documentary of his personality:

the dude loves technology too. 

he's a blessing to us. he really is. 

i know others are well intentioned when they tell us we are a blessing to the kids, but honestly, we are the blessed ones. 

my heart and soul are full--and house loud now :) 

the sweet girl

the moment we met was quiet honestly, awkward, as meeting your ("older") child for the first time throughout the process of adoption is for most i would assume. she smiled sweetly in the doorway--eyes hidden behind her novelty sunglasses. she wore a fancy dress with a ribbon tie and sheer overlay, a floral pattern underneath. her hair pulled into a the familiar ponytail we have seen in all her pictures. 

she greeted us with a smile and gently came into our embrace. she is 85% gentle and silly spirit and 15% put brother in his place serious.  

we feel she's picked up an impressive amount of receptive english language--that or she infers what we are trying to tell her and brother and she then, with great "confidence and conviction" tells him in mandarin. 

the hotel we stayed at while in hefei had a nice heated indoor pool and hot tub.  the little dude was weary of the pool but LOVED the hot tub. xinhua was quiet the opposite--she didn't care for the hot tub at all, but loved the pool. she even held onto her daddy's back and let him walk her around the pool. this seemed like the most frightening thing in the world to the dude, so he hung on the sidelines. 

the second night together, we split the kiddos and xinhua and i stayed in one room and the dude and daddy stayed in the other (momma HAD to sleep). (the first night was full of excited, noisy, and active chaos as described in the previous post).

a storm came through--lightening and thunder, bangs and crashes, downpours and waterfall like rain washing over our hotel room window. sweet girl became afraid and got up to turn on the light. after she got back in bed she whimpered "momma" and held my hand and feel back asleep. 

the next day was uneventful aside from walking around the small shopping area near our hotel. xinhua was more quiet this day and we allowed her to be and to have her space--we were just happy to be in the same room as her while she played on her kindle. that night as we laid in bed my sweet girl started to cry. she sat straight up and began wailing. i thought at first she had an earache from swimming in the pool for 3 days, as she had grabbed her ear and cried and screamed. we walked next door and got baba (daddy) and the dude to come back over and called our in-province guide to ask her to talk to xinhua and find out what was upsetting her. sweet girl told her that she missed her foster mother; so we helped her call her. the foster mother reassured her she was loved madly by both herself and me, and we relayed through our guide that xinhua could call and write her foster mother whenever she needed. 

to me, it's not a competition for love. i cannot deny the incredible role her foster mother played in her life for 8 years. i cannot and will not demand she forget the bond and trust she had with this woman and exchange it for instant and unwavering allegiance to me. that will come with time. trust, love, and belonging comes with time and cannot be forced, or faked. 

since that night she's had her quiet moments (i'd be more worried if she didn't) and her moments of frustration with little brother (but honestly, he's a feisty dude), but honestly, she's been more than resilient. i believe she is strong because she has to be:
when we had returned to the states, we were to move a week later, so life was still not going to "settle". two days before the moving company was to arrive, the hubs had to drive down to atlanta to close on our new house--the kiddos and i stayed "home".  we went to the pool, had junk food, and lots of fun. the next day, i had to drive down to atlanta due to a snafu with the schedule for our power, water, cable, internet, everything! to be turned on. (this put me driving down to atlanta and back up on the same day, the day before we moved!). the hubs stayed "home" with the kiddos.  i ended up not having a quick turn around trip, and on my way back the hubs called and said luke had been upset for a while and wanted to know when i was going to be home. oh, trust me, i had wanted to be home HOURS ago! i asked about sweet lucy, and he said she was doing great and even trying to calm him down. 

when i finally arrived back, they were in bed, so i went up stairs to kiss them goodnight and show them i was indeed back home. luke was good and gave me a big hug and kiss. lucy, who had been great all day, and even helping "baba" (daddy) with luke, immediately said "mama", and the tears came. she cupped her hands in front of her face and sobbed as she hugged me. i don't have to state the obvious, but i will: my heart sank. my sweet girl, strong for everyone, until she didn't have to be.

she was known as the "helper" in her orphanage. her nanny/foster mother's right hand girlie. she is here too. she folds laundry with me, better than i do, she helps wash dishes, she helps serve food, she-helps. she has such a servant heart. 

we are homeschooling as much as we can for now--lots of ground to cover. she has made incredible strides, and continues to impress us with her desire to learn. on her own, one day last week, she brought us a piece of paper where she had written out the englsih alphabet in upper AND lower case letters. she's become very fond of math lately, and every little milestone is a great celebration. no progress is too slight to escape notice and jubilee. 

we received the greatest treasure ANY adoptive parent could when we met them in china---HUNDREDS of photos of her (and also of her brother, but his post is next...) from her time with her orphanage/foster group.  y'all, Half the Sky really is all about the children. i cannot describe the overwhelming feeling of joy that i have hundreds of pictures of her from her young toddler years to current. most families have only pictures that came with updates--we have developmental milestone, memories, activities, etc. recorded--in photos! 

until i can scan some of those and share them, here's a few of our sweet lucy-girl: 

feeding koi :)

meeting birdie for the first time! :)

she loves gnarls barkley too (the dog, hasn't heard the rapper yet!)

childhood complete: merry-go-round! 

call her dr. doo-lucy! 

everyone loves stello!

first time on a trampoline!

COMING UP: ALL ABOUT THE DUDE (Luke)