We have been pre-approved to get Lucee (spelling we will probably change her name to in keeping with her momma and sister's spelling), which is a big deal!! This means we are the only family that has her file in the world and no one can get her unless our paperwork doesn't get approved in China before Jan 23rd. (It should be approved by October!!) Once it's approved, we will be given a time to travel over to bring her home!! This could be as early as December, but could be later like Feb or March. Financially, we are preparing for Dec, but emotionally, we are trying to prepare for the latter.
While we are waiting, we are focusing our efforts on fundraising. We are planning several fundraisers...
- Bake Sales at APEX Community Church (Sept. 12-13 & Oct 24-25)
- Beer Tasting at The Trolley Stop in Dayton (Nov 4 @ 6:45pm)
- The Orphan Love Run/Walk 5K (Nov 14 @ 9am) The Start line is at APEX Community Church
-To Give Tax-Deductible Donations you can give at Adopt Together .
Also, some exciting news that's happening right now is that the Superkids (a team that our agency sends to China 2 times a year to physically see the kids in the orphanages, take pictures and be advocates for) just left yesterday (Sept 12) for their second trip this year to China. They will visit about 10 orphanages while there, and they are bringing a little package of items for Lucee! If she is not ill on the day that they visit her, they will get to take updated photos, videos, and ask her nannies the questions that we have given them. We are so thankful for this team and all of the work that the volunteers do to help these waiting children.
That's all for now! If you have any questions about the process or anything, please feel free to let us know! All Glory be to God!!!
Sunday, September 13, 2015
A word from Ben
While running a 6-mile punishment for the Biggest Loser Challenge at work, I was finishing up my last mile and God began to minister to my heart about little Lucy. I have been struggling with wanting a little girl who was going to fit right into our family's active life style. Little Lucy has muscle issues and moderate retardation. So that didn't fit into what I (emphasized!) wanted. I wanted it to be easy or maybe not easy, but definitely not as hard as Lucy was presenting with. I had lost focus that this was the Lord's inspiration for us to adopt and not us. What was it that he wanted in this adoption and not I. This needed to be Your will be done, not Mine.
As a dad, I have always wanted the best for my kids and having a kid with moderate disabilities, especially mentally, was a challenge for me. I selfishly was limiting in my mind maybe what God wanted to do through this adoption. This selfish perspective was possibly limiting God's will for our family. With this narrow-minded perspective we could be missing out on an amazing blessing the Lord has for our family as a whole and each individual member of our family. Right before the run, Brandee and I talked about Lucy's personality and how she liked singing, playing with others and how she liked to eat... all signs of life! We talked about how getting a toddler or infant, you don't know their personality yet and how a child that seems more "normal" could turn out to have many social issues. So with this foundation of the story I'm on my run... I'm finishing the last mile and put on one of my most favorite songs to help me dig in. It's "Tear Down the Walls" by Hillsong United.
Tear Down the walls
Tear down the walls,
see the world, is there something we have missed
turn from ourselves, look beyond
there is so much more than this
And I don't need to see it to believe it
cause I can't shake this fire deep inside my heart
Look to the skies hope arise
see His majesty revealed
more than this life there is love
there is hope and this is real
This life is yours and hope is rising as your glory floods our hearts
let love tear down these walls that
all creation would come back to you
it's all for you
Your name is glorious glorious
your love is changing us, calling us to worship in spirit and in trust
as all creation returns to you
For all your sons and daughters who are walking in the darkness
you are calling us to lead them back to you
we will see your spirit rising as the lost come out of hiding
every heart will see this hope we have in you
So here I am running along and the Holy Spirit just starts ministering to my heart with the lyrics of this song. I begin to see my selfishness and begin to see what I'm missing overall:
1) One day when the Lord returns (if not sooner) she will be able to walk and run "normal" and have corrected eyes and "normal" mental capacity. Jesus will usher those of us in Him into a new life with a new body, heart, and mind. How short minded I have been to forget this. We ALL have imperfections and the only cure is Jesus. It (this life) has been and will always be about coming back to Jesus who all things were created by and for. My main idea as a parent, husband, friend, coworker, and believer in Christ should be first and foremost to "lead them back to you". The lyrics "let love tear down these walls (of ignorance and selfishness) that all creation would come back to you, it's all for you" and "turn from ourselves, look beyond there is so much more to this" really brought this adoption into a right and true perspective.
2) No matter the mental delays our love can carry us through and Brandee's background of early childhood education could help this precious little girl to grow leaps and bounds. She's worked with kids who have developmental delays so who better to help Lucy grow than her mama.
3) Why are we adopting? For ourselves and what WE want or answering the calling that God has laid on our hearts? Is this for our overall plan in life or His? Loves doesn't see ailments. Just as God loved us "while we were still yet sinners" and gunked up with our junk and imperfections, should I be looking at my kids and ones He's entrusted to me with the same eyes. This life will never have perfection. How soon we forget that the "perfect" family life and circumstances does not and will not exist in this life. Our only hope is in Jesus. "look to the skies, hope arise, see His majesty revealed. More than this life there is love, there is hope, and this is real"
Our love for Lucy will fill us with joy and compassion as with any of our kids, to see beyond whatever physical, mental, or emotional ailment they may have. Did we get to choose Noah not to get Lymphomatoid Papulosis? No, and it didn't make us love him any less. If Lucy was "perfect" now or have very mild disabilities and then develop into moderate disabilities later, would it change our love or care for her? By NO means.
Thank you God for helping me to see the error of my ways and your prompting to pursue this precious little girl. If we hadn't had an A/C appointment, where I had to turn down overtime, I wouldn't have been at home to go on this long run and have my eyes opened. The appointment ended up being unnecessary as the installer found out that the air distributor was internally insulated. No charge to us for the appointment, but that whole event ensured I was at home and therefore able to go on this run.
Now where do we go? Well with a new perspective, we are pressing forward for Lucy and whether we get her or not is in God's hands, but like Paul in the bible, we have a new way to see.
As a dad, I have always wanted the best for my kids and having a kid with moderate disabilities, especially mentally, was a challenge for me. I selfishly was limiting in my mind maybe what God wanted to do through this adoption. This selfish perspective was possibly limiting God's will for our family. With this narrow-minded perspective we could be missing out on an amazing blessing the Lord has for our family as a whole and each individual member of our family. Right before the run, Brandee and I talked about Lucy's personality and how she liked singing, playing with others and how she liked to eat... all signs of life! We talked about how getting a toddler or infant, you don't know their personality yet and how a child that seems more "normal" could turn out to have many social issues. So with this foundation of the story I'm on my run... I'm finishing the last mile and put on one of my most favorite songs to help me dig in. It's "Tear Down the Walls" by Hillsong United.
Tear Down the walls
Tear down the walls,
see the world, is there something we have missed
turn from ourselves, look beyond
there is so much more than this
And I don't need to see it to believe it
cause I can't shake this fire deep inside my heart
Look to the skies hope arise
see His majesty revealed
more than this life there is love
there is hope and this is real
This life is yours and hope is rising as your glory floods our hearts
let love tear down these walls that
all creation would come back to you
it's all for you
Your name is glorious glorious
your love is changing us, calling us to worship in spirit and in trust
as all creation returns to you
For all your sons and daughters who are walking in the darkness
you are calling us to lead them back to you
we will see your spirit rising as the lost come out of hiding
every heart will see this hope we have in you
So here I am running along and the Holy Spirit just starts ministering to my heart with the lyrics of this song. I begin to see my selfishness and begin to see what I'm missing overall:
1) One day when the Lord returns (if not sooner) she will be able to walk and run "normal" and have corrected eyes and "normal" mental capacity. Jesus will usher those of us in Him into a new life with a new body, heart, and mind. How short minded I have been to forget this. We ALL have imperfections and the only cure is Jesus. It (this life) has been and will always be about coming back to Jesus who all things were created by and for. My main idea as a parent, husband, friend, coworker, and believer in Christ should be first and foremost to "lead them back to you". The lyrics "let love tear down these walls (of ignorance and selfishness) that all creation would come back to you, it's all for you" and "turn from ourselves, look beyond there is so much more to this" really brought this adoption into a right and true perspective.
2) No matter the mental delays our love can carry us through and Brandee's background of early childhood education could help this precious little girl to grow leaps and bounds. She's worked with kids who have developmental delays so who better to help Lucy grow than her mama.
3) Why are we adopting? For ourselves and what WE want or answering the calling that God has laid on our hearts? Is this for our overall plan in life or His? Loves doesn't see ailments. Just as God loved us "while we were still yet sinners" and gunked up with our junk and imperfections, should I be looking at my kids and ones He's entrusted to me with the same eyes. This life will never have perfection. How soon we forget that the "perfect" family life and circumstances does not and will not exist in this life. Our only hope is in Jesus. "look to the skies, hope arise, see His majesty revealed. More than this life there is love, there is hope, and this is real"
Our love for Lucy will fill us with joy and compassion as with any of our kids, to see beyond whatever physical, mental, or emotional ailment they may have. Did we get to choose Noah not to get Lymphomatoid Papulosis? No, and it didn't make us love him any less. If Lucy was "perfect" now or have very mild disabilities and then develop into moderate disabilities later, would it change our love or care for her? By NO means.
Thank you God for helping me to see the error of my ways and your prompting to pursue this precious little girl. If we hadn't had an A/C appointment, where I had to turn down overtime, I wouldn't have been at home to go on this long run and have my eyes opened. The appointment ended up being unnecessary as the installer found out that the air distributor was internally insulated. No charge to us for the appointment, but that whole event ensured I was at home and therefore able to go on this run.
Now where do we go? Well with a new perspective, we are pressing forward for Lucy and whether we get her or not is in God's hands, but like Paul in the bible, we have a new way to see.
A closer look at the 2 weeks...
We'll try our best to put what happened during these 2 weeks into words... Before we do, you need to know that when you adopt internationally from China, you have to go through a checklist (our agency's was almost 9 pages long!) stating what special needs you were willing to consider, might consider or would not consider. This was a difficult and strange task that we did after sitting down with our pediatrician way back in February. It felt weird going through and marking a box, since we don't get to do that with a biological child. However, it had to be done and we completed it as truthfully as we could. We were definitely leaning towards the mild side of the special needs spectrum.
So when we looked at Lucy's file, we saw 2 things that weren't mentioned in the blog... 1) it said, "Hepatitis B positive" and 2) "Moderate retardation". However, after we talked with the agency, we were able to get past those two things, since they said Hepatitis B positive just meant that she had her Hep B vaccine, she doesn't have Heb B. The physical therapist who had travelled over and spent time with Lucy just a couple months prior to our getting her file said that although Lucy scored low for the IQ testing, she thought Lucy was able to do more cognitively than what the file suggested due to external circumstances (she can't see well out of her crossed eye, she's been in an orphanage her whole life, she had to travel for 2 hours to the testing site, to take a test with strangers, etc.) She also went on about her personality and how she likes books and singing.
After the phone call with the physical therapist, we felt better, but we didn't feel the confirmation to say Yes or No yet. The main thing standing in the way for both Ben and I was that she had more moderate special needs than what we were anticipating. However, I kept being reminded that we are all broken. That if one of our biological children were crippled or injured in a life altering way, we would still love and care for them. Although I felt Ben leaning towards us passing on her, I didn't have that peace yet, but didn't feel confident in pursuing her either, so my prayer to God was, "Lord please speak to Ben and change his heart if we are to pursue her."
A few days after this, Ben went for a run, I was upstairs going through the boys' clothes when he comes up after running 6 miles, all sweaty, and he said, "I think we need to pray and really think more about Lucy." I start crying(happy tears), thinking "wow could she really be our daughter?" He's looking at me like I'm a little crazy and I tell him that I needed God to speak to him and this felt a little bit like a confirmation.
So, we decided that we'd take the next step which is to send her file to Cincinnati Children's International Specialist to have a Dr. who is used to seeing files of kids from China and other countries and who could give us more medical insight.
A few days later, we heard back from the Dr. in Cincy. Ben was at work, so we had a phone conference together. He got called out towards the end, but we both were able to hear the main part of the call... The Dr. had a much less exciting prognosis based off the file, pictures, and videos we sent her. She said Lucy has Cerebral Palsy and is cognitively delayed to the point that her IQ suggests she'll never be able to live independently. She'll probably not be able to get a HS diploma and will need assistance making financial and personal decisions. However, she did say that she was surprised by the video of her singing and that with an IQ as low as she tested, she shouldn't be able to remember and sing along as well as she did. The Strabismus (cross eye) wasn't even mentioned because the other 2 disabilities were more severe to talk about. When he got home from work, we both had a sense of, "Well, that was more than we were expecting." As we began talking about our fears and thoughts, we tried to do a lot of resting in God and trusting in Him to provide the answer.
So when we looked at Lucy's file, we saw 2 things that weren't mentioned in the blog... 1) it said, "Hepatitis B positive" and 2) "Moderate retardation". However, after we talked with the agency, we were able to get past those two things, since they said Hepatitis B positive just meant that she had her Hep B vaccine, she doesn't have Heb B. The physical therapist who had travelled over and spent time with Lucy just a couple months prior to our getting her file said that although Lucy scored low for the IQ testing, she thought Lucy was able to do more cognitively than what the file suggested due to external circumstances (she can't see well out of her crossed eye, she's been in an orphanage her whole life, she had to travel for 2 hours to the testing site, to take a test with strangers, etc.) She also went on about her personality and how she likes books and singing.
After the phone call with the physical therapist, we felt better, but we didn't feel the confirmation to say Yes or No yet. The main thing standing in the way for both Ben and I was that she had more moderate special needs than what we were anticipating. However, I kept being reminded that we are all broken. That if one of our biological children were crippled or injured in a life altering way, we would still love and care for them. Although I felt Ben leaning towards us passing on her, I didn't have that peace yet, but didn't feel confident in pursuing her either, so my prayer to God was, "Lord please speak to Ben and change his heart if we are to pursue her."
A few days after this, Ben went for a run, I was upstairs going through the boys' clothes when he comes up after running 6 miles, all sweaty, and he said, "I think we need to pray and really think more about Lucy." I start crying(happy tears), thinking "wow could she really be our daughter?" He's looking at me like I'm a little crazy and I tell him that I needed God to speak to him and this felt a little bit like a confirmation.
So, we decided that we'd take the next step which is to send her file to Cincinnati Children's International Specialist to have a Dr. who is used to seeing files of kids from China and other countries and who could give us more medical insight.
A few days later, we heard back from the Dr. in Cincy. Ben was at work, so we had a phone conference together. He got called out towards the end, but we both were able to hear the main part of the call... The Dr. had a much less exciting prognosis based off the file, pictures, and videos we sent her. She said Lucy has Cerebral Palsy and is cognitively delayed to the point that her IQ suggests she'll never be able to live independently. She'll probably not be able to get a HS diploma and will need assistance making financial and personal decisions. However, she did say that she was surprised by the video of her singing and that with an IQ as low as she tested, she shouldn't be able to remember and sing along as well as she did. The Strabismus (cross eye) wasn't even mentioned because the other 2 disabilities were more severe to talk about. When he got home from work, we both had a sense of, "Well, that was more than we were expecting." As we began talking about our fears and thoughts, we tried to do a lot of resting in God and trusting in Him to provide the answer.
Saturday, September 12, 2015
So much to say...
I apologize for not writing sooner on here, but really every time I'd start, I never knew what to say. There's just too much to put into writing and I don't even know where to begin. However, something has to be written, the story is still going on, so here goes nothing....
A small amount of backstory has to be shared first before we can get caught up. About a year ago, when we both knew that we were going to adopt or foster, we started just beginning to think about possible names for our next child. There was one week where it seemed that almost every character in the books I read to the kids, or the movies we watched as a family was named Lucy. I casually asked Ben what he thought of the name, Lucy. His initial response was, that he didn't care for it. Somehow though we began "jokingly" saying things like, "When Lucy is here, it'll be fun to..."etc. Then the kids began picking up on it and they started referring to their sister as Lucy. It was evident that the name had stuck when we went to a family's house who had adopted their daughter from China and when their daughter woke up from her nap and came downstairs, Lilee pointed to her and looked at me saying, "Lucy?"
We knew it was highly unlikely that our girl would come with the name Lucy, and we weren't sure if we'd change her name to this once we got her, but for sure it would always be a nickname for her in our family. From that moment on, we referred to our little girl in China as Lucy.
Well on May 19th, I saw a post from our agency with a super cute picture of a little girl and the blog title for her was, "We Love Lucy!" After picking my jaw up off the floor, I clicked on her story and read about her... "She's a sweet girl, with a sweet little laugh...she loves hairbows... loves to sing...she's 3 years old, has strabismus (cross eye) and has increased muscle tone in her legs and walks on her tiptoes with a halting gait." I saw a video of her walking and playing with hairbows. Ben was working, so I sent him the link to look at the blog. After talking with him, we decided to send an email to the contact person to find out what we could even do to possibly get more information about her. I received an email saying a family had her file, but if it fell through we'd be next on the list. We prayed about her and the situation, trusting that if she was meant to be with us, God would make a way. A week later, I got an email saying her file was available if we wanted to look at it. We knew that looking at it wasn't committing, so we had nothing to lose.
During the next two weeks, God did some amazing work in our hearts to bring us to the conclusion that we would pursue this little girl, trusting that if it wasn't right for her or us, then God would close the doors... so far every door has been wide open, we are just waiting on the final approval from China, which should be here in the next month.
A small amount of backstory has to be shared first before we can get caught up. About a year ago, when we both knew that we were going to adopt or foster, we started just beginning to think about possible names for our next child. There was one week where it seemed that almost every character in the books I read to the kids, or the movies we watched as a family was named Lucy. I casually asked Ben what he thought of the name, Lucy. His initial response was, that he didn't care for it. Somehow though we began "jokingly" saying things like, "When Lucy is here, it'll be fun to..."etc. Then the kids began picking up on it and they started referring to their sister as Lucy. It was evident that the name had stuck when we went to a family's house who had adopted their daughter from China and when their daughter woke up from her nap and came downstairs, Lilee pointed to her and looked at me saying, "Lucy?"
We knew it was highly unlikely that our girl would come with the name Lucy, and we weren't sure if we'd change her name to this once we got her, but for sure it would always be a nickname for her in our family. From that moment on, we referred to our little girl in China as Lucy.
Well on May 19th, I saw a post from our agency with a super cute picture of a little girl and the blog title for her was, "We Love Lucy!" After picking my jaw up off the floor, I clicked on her story and read about her... "She's a sweet girl, with a sweet little laugh...she loves hairbows... loves to sing...she's 3 years old, has strabismus (cross eye) and has increased muscle tone in her legs and walks on her tiptoes with a halting gait." I saw a video of her walking and playing with hairbows. Ben was working, so I sent him the link to look at the blog. After talking with him, we decided to send an email to the contact person to find out what we could even do to possibly get more information about her. I received an email saying a family had her file, but if it fell through we'd be next on the list. We prayed about her and the situation, trusting that if she was meant to be with us, God would make a way. A week later, I got an email saying her file was available if we wanted to look at it. We knew that looking at it wasn't committing, so we had nothing to lose.
During the next two weeks, God did some amazing work in our hearts to bring us to the conclusion that we would pursue this little girl, trusting that if it wasn't right for her or us, then God would close the doors... so far every door has been wide open, we are just waiting on the final approval from China, which should be here in the next month.
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