God is in the WAITING.....

Genesis 29:20 20 So Jacob served seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her. May 18, 2018 was your original adoption date but it got pushed back and so we wait some more for that final day. Throughout the waiting it has been so much fun getting to know you and see you grow a whole inch taller, shoe size bigger! Your giggling has gotten louder and you adore the outdoors a whole bunch. You ride your tricycle around and around the house. You love trains, planes and baseball! Just recently you insist on running around with a baseball bat in your school bag and you often run around from base to base trying to make it to home plate. Soon my son, we will get there-together as a family. Blessings-we love you L. so much it hurts. xox

Meet our little Mystery Boy

Here you are in China at two years old. How handsome you are and well cared for by all those who loved you and believed in you. They knew God had great plans for you and saw to it that you'd be adopted someday. Mommy and Daddy got a phone call for you because you are from the same town as your sister Faith and actually look a whole lot like her at this age. It is amazing how the Father puts families together-what a mystery really. Thank you for this child Lord, this child I waited for and prayed for silently, in my groaning you heard my prayer and answered. You set aside this one, Ysmael in Chinese to be our son. Still you appointed a time and special day for this union and we had to wait for such an occasion, such a boy as this.

The many many faithful servants along the way....

The Lord says, “My eyes shall be on the faithful of the land, That they may dwell with me; He who walks in a perfect way, He shall serve me.” A faithful man will abound with blessings Psalm 101:6 Daddy and Mommy cannot thank God enough for you; you are a true miracle of God. We could never fathom that God would give us another child from China, one as wonderful and mysterious as you! You have the most beautiful eyes and smile. You are super silly, rambunctious and loud...how you love, love to sing! It must have been because of all the faithful servants and missionaries who visited you while you were in the orphanage recovering. They must have sang to you. God sent them to care for you as he knew mommy and daddy needed the time to learn about patience and faith. We do not know the names of these faces, a few of many faces that we have seen in pictures who have cared for you, held you and made you smile. It was God Himself holding you through these kind and willing servants, strangers who loved you because you are so loveable. Thank you Lord for caring for L. through these amazing people. Bless them and continue blessing them because of their faithful hands and feet.

God made you Perfect!

For since the beginning of the world Men have not heard nor perceived by the ear, Nor has the eye seen any God besides You, Who acts for the one who waits for Him. Source: Holy Bible (Isaiah 64:4 NKJV) You were created by God-Perfectly in His image you were created L. God planned a life and journey for you like none other. It started with heartache when you were first born because you had a slight medical issue with your tummy and and backside. By God's grace, you were seen immediately by medical personnel right after you were born with careful medical attention. Your bio mommy surrendered you because she feared it would be too much for her to bare emotionally, physically and financially-she felt unfit for you. We know your bio mommy was not unfit, she was chosen to have you and give you all of your beautiful qualities and class. Your bio mommy loved you so much that she surrendered your to God. You arrived to a people who equally loved you and cared for you, they called you Ysmael (God listens) and saw that you continued your medical treatments, surgeries (multiple) at a Christian Orphanage and Medical Center (Show Hope Center) in Zhengzhou, Henan China.

A New Year and A New Thing...

Happy New Year! Yes I am blogging again-a whole year later! Probably because I could not blog about all the bad news and the change of events that had followed our foster care experience. To make a long story short C was reunited with his grandmother! It was very painful...but God blessed us with a puppy and a kitten that year to comfort us through the time of loss. A lot of time went by, a few updates, and prayers concerning C...mostly the why God questions. God stayed silent most of the time but He called me out of the house and out of homeschooling our five kids. I got a job teaching first grade, specifically special needs children and enjoyed our new season very much! Our kids are all attending a Christian private school now, and blooming in every which way. And I have received a lot of great peace and awesome joy. I learned a lot about the Lord gives and takes away moments. I learned about serving more and serving harder, especially serving the children and families in the community. Its blessed me more than I have blessed them. I even began to take down C's room, the canopy, the clothing and toys we'd bought him last Christmas-I felt a great freedom to be honest. And as much as I wanted to give away his 'Thomas the Train' I couldn't. I don't know why...everything else I could part with, just not the trains. I'd have our nephew over and he wasn't that interested in them and so I couldn't keep them for him. I'd just tuck them away and sigh at when I'd be able to send them away to somewhere else. Until one day; we got a phone call for a child who needed a home. We had surrendered our foster care license and so this was unusual and different. This was for a private adoption of a little Chinese boy, from Faith's Province! How could this be? A child, with special needs that we had once checked, 'no'. And so what do you think we said this time? Well, we prayed and prayed first, and then we moved forward with a certain yes!!!! Right now, we're still in the process, and it is all too unreal! His face, his eyes, his heart-our kids' heart for him...its like the perfect fit. All put together by God...all of it, just too incredible for words. Of course I have shortened it quite a bit, but I needed to catch the blog up to speed as to where we are today-one year later. God used all of it...the court battle, the trials of fostering and losing...He used it all for our good...for this child's good. Hallelujah. That's the only word that really sums it up-Hallelujah. He took our shame, pain and healed it and then He sent a baby on the Nile to replace the one He took away for someone else's good. Our baby boy is just under five years old, and he is our miracle for sure. I hope to update you some more...but obviously, there is much to work out as we are not done with the adoption process yet. I pray blessings over all of you. Keep the prayer chain going as He is faithful to hear every one of them. P.S. Guess who likes Thomas the Train? Yep, we have a trains and planes kind of boy! Hallelujah! Scripture: Revelation 21:1–8 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.

With all my heart...

Jeremiah 29:11-13(HCSB) For I know the plans I have for you”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“plans for your welfare, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. You will call to Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.

We changed churches, one that was in line with where God had us-right under His heavy hand. It was the church I had been teaching in for the last 3 years; but I had ended the year not planning to return to tutor the following year. My husbands job was still twisting and turning in every which direction, it still angered me. My teen and I started to patch things up between us when he witnessed his best friend, lose his faith and rebel against his parents. There are a million of other details I could get into about this, but it wouldn't add up to much seeing how it all pointed to one thing-God and His mercy and love our family. We were all growing up and learning hard lessons that year but it would not thrall God's plans for us and even though we had failed, it did not mean God was not able to use us tomorrow and the next day and then the next days after that. We would be more obedient, more watchful, better listeners and more intentional, towards the things and cares of God. I guess it was deliverance, actually I believe that truly. Some of us don't realize the things we still wrestle with are really a need for deliverance from those things or habits or mindsets, whether that is negativity, sarcasm, business, for me it was anger. For my husband it was lack of knowledge: Hosea 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children. At times, I was just lazy, tired, hopeless...no longer praying or envisioning what the Lord would do with my family. I just saw everything that was wrong with me and my family-especially my husband. I thought he was a completely lost and awful cause. I had so much resentment built up, that I probably upset the Lord more than my husband did. And that was why He was going to deal with me the way that He did, the way that He is while I write this. It is for Him that I write this, write about all that He has done and is doing for us. I was in such a heaviness that I really could no longer express myself with words, I journaled, I'd sing, and soon enough God had me join the choir! All I could do was worship Him in song, all I could do was lament and breathe in church...plus I was at a new church, I didn't know a lot of people, didn't really want to get to know anyone, I just desired healing and peace. Also, for so long I held my breath waiting, hoping my husband's faith would grow by the mile...instead it seemed to get weaker and his ego and pride got bigger. I couldn't put my finger on it really, except I would say, God: "this man has put up with me since I wasa 18 years old and I haven't been a peach, help me put up with him." Soon God led me to a group of prayer warriors and immediately we got down to business. It hurt mostly before it felt better. I felt like I was the only one going through hell on earth. But I remembered to be humble and to not give up in meeting with one another. I learned to strengthen my prayers and petitions, I got out of bad habits, like complaining to God instead of being active and standing in the gap for my husband in prayer. I started to see the fruit of my prayers...and I started to hear God's will for my husband, there was hope, my husband began to enjoy our new church, I was no longer dragging him around. I was content because I was ok on days he didn't want to come or join me. The singing was so freeing, I was in a robe, my robe...finally I began to understand my identity in Christ and just who God was calling me to be...His. I didn't have to look back anymore, I was no longer in charge of who was following or not...as long as I was. I was still able to help others while I remain behind Him and following not stalling or stopping like I had in the past. I started to get phone calls for C. and it was to know if we could babysit a weekend or so and I'd always say yes with anticipation. I'd have to much fun with him as did the kids, often we'd get upset when he'd go...but he seemed happy and he seemed to have received a lot of healing, he was also maturing and speaking and expressing himself better, no longer hitting. He'd even gotten a hair cut and he even reminded me of someone...T! He was becoming a picture of T. His hair, his maturing face and vocabulary, his sweet heart, only C. was even sweeter and more sensitive to me and the rest of the kids, he often looked for our approval and judgment and seemed content when he could make us laugh or smile. It was awesome how God was working in him and all of us! We kept up with his case and prayed for all of his court dates and relatives, we were upset when things or relatives would fall through, so much that it started to irritate me again. His new foster family were becoming very attached to C. that they had brought up adoption, they loved him deeply and had even fallen in love with C.'s siblings and were keeping up with visits, taking his siblings on outings, showing up at court to advocate for C. I often fasted, and prayed for C., wondering what would be this child's fate Lord. Many trials continued to rock us, so much so that God led us to a Christian counselor. Sometimes we could not put our fingers on it, sometimes we knew the problems we were facing, sometimes it just pointed back to the day C. left our house. Either way we surrendered out foster license. I worried about not being able to care for C. but I remained prayerful and C. continued to visit frequently, thanks to his awesome foster family. Late November, we had received terrible news. It was so awful I remember not being able to breath or feeling my body. I was so dead inside that I looked up and said what is this God? Why with all of the attacks? I pray, I have forgiven, I have lost so so much this year, what else do you expect from me? Jesus return would have been great. I was so done with this life...nothing could surprise me. I had friends who had fallen sick with Cancer, I had a husband who seemed deaf and blind...I had family who were distant or 'busy mostly' and I had teenagers who has begun attending Private school. I still intended to homeschool the remaining children as it seemed to be less stress with the older ones now in middle and high school. I stopped taking the girls to ballet, I stopped many, many social activities when I heard God ask me if He was enough or not. I was stunned, because of course He is enough for me. So much so, that I stopped everything and stopped seeing most of our friends, I really had no desire to anyway because we were so in shambles, all I had was God and my faith. I knew where we were headed, we had nothing and no one to help or protect us but God, He was our only witness and advocate. I remember our pastor calling and asking us if we wanted to be one of the families to light the second Advent candle, the candle of Peace...I don't know why but I knew we had to be that family as that is all I wanted to do at this point. Peace Lord, you give us, your are the Prince of Peace, the light giver, the Holy one who was and is and yet to come, come quickly my Lord, as the days are evil and my time on earth is like a vapor. The day came when we ended up being that family, the one who had Peace with our maker. Earlier that week, we had learned that C.'s parental rights would be terminated (TPR), and we again cared for C. while his awesome foster parent stood in the courtroom on his behalf, I fasted that day, hoping he'd be released from all of this. Later I prayed and I spoke with his foster family who felt that perhaps, C. was not to be adopted by them but instead by us, if we agreed and felt so too. Suddenly, it all made perfect sense. The torment, the drum beats, the rattling, the aching, the frustrations....C. was meant for us to see...oh God you delivered us, and there was still work to do, my husband had to hear the call too. I believed he first did when we lit the Advent candle, that Sunday morning, December 4, 2015. The reading was from Matthew: 1:23 "Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel" Again, from that day foreward many things have happened, glorious things, we have remained his babysitters, we've shared wonderful moments and memories. He was with us the new year and we may have to get licensed again or motion to be his adoptive parents as 'Non-relatives' like T.'s mothers' friend. We do not know yet. C. has many relatives, but I have received Word from the Lord that we are right where we need to be, doing what we need to be doing...if anything changes He will let me know and set the stage for the way things need to be, even if it is parting the Red Sea, He's done it before and can do it again. I find it no coincidence that we are caught up with those in similar situations, I presume God wants us to pray and to teach others how to pray too for the cause of these Orphans, social or not...sometimes its husbands and friends, neighbors and judges. The Bible says to pray without ceasing and always in His name to glorify Him and the works of the Father. The Lord had parted the red sea repeatedly for me, including returning baby Moses back from the Nile-he isn't completely out of the water yet...but he will be.

Third time's a Charm!

Exodus 15:16 "Terror and dread fall upon them; By the greatness of Your arm they are motionless as stone; Until Your people pass over, O LORD, Until the people pass over whom You have purchased.

I remember reading through C.'s file, and being in disbelief about the details of his life and that of his relatives. I remember reading about his father and crying hard about his last statements. He wanted his son to believe in a God. And he had no one to blame but himself for his problems. C.'s mom had been stabbed, beaten, arrested and so on. C. was a picture of his parents shame, sins, lifestyle and choices...he was also rejected by his own. C. was a picture of Jesus. You see he is the one who finally broke us. As we began to foster him, and I immediately knew there was something different about C. On top of the fact that he was severely pigeon toed, bowled legged and awkward which caused him to fall a lot. I knew that he had never truly been cared for, which made it harder for us to foster him, as he needed a lot of one on one. He was like a dry desert, he'd been through plagues, and famines, he didn't know when his last meal would be, he had been betrayed more than once. He'd sing and dance but if anyone dared touch, he'd move away or take back his hand. He didn't trust anyone. And so he'd hit instead. The more he needed, the harder he'd hit, the closer we'd get the more he'd need from us to understand him. A boy with little words. A boy who would run away so fast and never turn around or look back, he had no allegiance, he was almost feral. It was getting harder on me, and I was reaching out to my husband and asking him for help, mercy and compassion on C. That he would look past the physical and flaws but instead look at the fact he needed a dad. I began taking him to doctor visits, urologist being one of them as it seemed that he was going to need a circumcision! Then as he attended other doctor visits for his legs and feet and then, for the repeated ear infections he'd frequently have, I as a new foster parent, was beginning to feel overwhelmed. As he and Faith would constantly battle for the same position, I began to fight inside and in my marriage. I was in fact not even sure of what I was fighting for anyway. So much turmoil had risen, it was hard to breathe, it felt like the fire we had in the kitchen. So much damage, how do we ever get put together again. Then there was talk about C. being moved to another state with an aunt and I began to hold my breath and count down the days. AS I counted, other things started to fall apart, I felt hollow, in pain, neglected, abandoned inside, I felt empty, like everyone wanted something from me and I had to survive. We did not think we'd ever desire for our foster kids to be taken to daycare as that was an option, but with C. I began to realize, that daycare would be a key to survival with fostering C. As we looked for a daycare, I remembered my neighbors from Taiwan, who had their children at one, near by and so I looked into it and was thrilled, and felt hopeful that I could bring C. there and that he'd be loved and accepted. Back at home where I was homeschooling my own kids, and tutoring multiple other kids, caring for teenaged boy from the neighborhood, baseball games and ballet lessons, relative appointments, teaching and volunteering at church events and my husband, who now took on a secondary project at work that felt as though he was rarely home and was being consumed by all his ideas and goals and plans for his company. I figured out then that there were bigger problems than fostering C. A lot of the way our lives were set up or where it was going, was excluding foster care. One day I walked out of our church and thought I am never coming back here again, I am done. I am empty, I have nothing left to give anyone, they've stolen it all, I am a dead person, no longer alive but dead. And I actually hated who is was that I became because I could not make sense of it. We'd only fostered C. a little over 3 months and it seemed like an eternity in Hell. We had sought out therapy for C., therapy for our marriage and son, we began to see that our teen was not content. And it was all very mysterious to be in this dry dry land. There was no oasis in sight, no fresh water, no real help or hope. I didn't even like who I was married to anymore. Who were we. What happened, the locusts have come and eaten us to bits. The therapist never brought C. up as the problem, he said we were. All his tools and techniques he'd given us seemed too hard, we were frozen solid, hardened to the point we couldn't see nor hear. I began to become defensive and sad inside, I craved no one nor anything. I wanted isolation, and I wanted to sit in my failure. I failed everyone, even myself and yes, I failed you God so badly. It was the first time I didn't know what to do. As a mother, as a wife, I had become frozen in time. I felt like Hagar and Ishmael, the rejected an embarrassment. Where are you, Angel of the Lord, where is the "its all going to be ok?" All I heard was, "let go." I refused to let go, I held on, but the writing was on the wall and I was wrestling with God for C. Inside me as a mother, I did not want to let go opf a baby, give him up like all the other mothers had done. That would be a sin to this child, Lord. But God broke me through this child, I was smashed to bits, and he Himself opened my hand and told me to let go. I was powerless and terrified. What would happened next? Who would I be then without C.? What would happened to him? I heard again, that God was with him already, had been with him and would continue to be with him. I had heard this before I decided to foster, I once got a phone call for the adoption of a sibling set, and I thought God was calling us to adopt then, after Faith and the name 'Emmanuel' God with us, came to mind when I thought about siblings. I now realize, that it was C., who the Lord was talking about when He said Emmanuel because God was with him and for that, I shouldn't be worried. Although I could not help but cry and be tortured through the phone calls to our agency, telling them we would put in our 30 days and disrupt fostering C. There was just nothing right about it on the outside, but I knew who I had heard on the inside. And that is all I had, the inside, my broken hearted faith. I knew I had to obey my husband who was sure we had to stop fostering in order to salvage our marriage and life. God is not the author of confusion, instead He is a God of order, and He prefers obedience over sacrifice and so He didn't want our sacrifice at the time, He wanted our obedience instead, as a couple and as Christ followers. There were choices we had to make and they had to be quick. God sent good friends, brother and sisters in Christ to help us. He sent faithful foster parents to come relieve us of C. I trembled inside but I was humbled too and it is always good to be humbled, Amen. I remember that our Friends came just before C.'s birthday, we celebrated it with them. Inside, I was still crushed to celebrate his birthday and send him off, away...surrendering him because I was not well enough to care for him. There was too much against me, my whole life was at risk, fragile and futile....barely hanging on. I kissed C. goodbye only days later still in shock that I was putting my baby in a Moses basket and shutting it and sending him off along the narrow Nile of life...I knew our friends were amazing people, we had met gotten to know them in Haiti and now it felt like they were all we had and they took C. out of obedience and love...I can tell you that they began to raise him as their own too. For this I was glad and I had peace too.