Sing Over Us

It's been awhile since I've written any sort of update.  There truly just hasn't been a whole lot to tell.  We are nearing the end of the homestudy process! Yay! (Happy dance, here!) After our homestudy is finalized we'll have some immigration paperwork to take care of and then we'll be able to send off our dossier to China Then, we will eagerly await a log-in date with the Chinese government.  After we receive our log-in date we will be able to be matched with a child. (Big smile, here!) We are trying to be patient, but sometimes it is harder than others.  I don't think that I was totally prepared to already feel like we have a child that is half a world away. I know that as we see her picture in a few months that that feeling will just continue to grow and our urgency to get her quickly will intensify.  This feeling of her being half a world away hit me the other day as I was watching Jessa play....

A few days ago Jessa was in my bathroom and she was singing.  I was in my bedroom folding clothes, but I could watch and hear her well.  I noticed she was singing to herself.  She likes to do this, but this time I noticed that she was singing a silly song that the boys and I made up for her.  You see when Jessa was born she was a very bald baby.  Practically no hair at all and we all thought it was adorable.  She still doesn't have much and she's cute as a button.  One day when she was about 6 months old or so, she was very fussy and I was trying to calm her down by singing.  None of the traditional favorites, "Jesus Loves Me", "Rockabye Baby", "The Wheels on the Bus", were working, so I started making something up just to see if it would surprise her into stopping her crying and listening.  The boys were playing in the room too and somehow we came up with these silly lyrics, "Myyyy sweet Jessa bug, She's the one we call our little bald, bald baby!".  Lyrical genius at its best folks! It worked, though!! And for months if she was upset one of us could sing that song and she would quiet right down.  We don't sing it quite as much anymore because thankfully she doesn't fuss quite as much and truthfully the little smartie knows that if I sing it now I'm trying to get her to go to sleep and she goes on high alert. But a few days ago when I noticed her singing, it was this song that she was singing to herself.  Over and over again.  Sometimes she'd use her name and sometimes she'd use other family members' names.  It was especially funny when she sung my brother's name, "My sweet, Jawad (Jarrod), he's the one we call our little bald, bald baby!" I'm sure he wouldn't have appreciated being called  a bald, bald baby! Ha! After I chuckled to myself, though, a thought began to sink in.  We sang that silly song over her in her time of trouble.  We sang it so that she would know that she was safe and that she was loved.  Now she knows it well enough that she can sing the song back to herself and apply it to others.......Isn't this what God does for us?  Zephaniah 3:17 says,

"The Lord your God is with you,
    the Mighty Warrior who saves.
He will take great delight in you;
    in his love he will no longer rebuke you,
    but will rejoice over you with singing." 

The Lord God rejoices over each of us with singing! He sings over us in his great redemptive love.  He sings his song over us so that we can sing the song for ourselves.  He sings so that we know that we know that we know that He loves us. He patiently sings, until we know that we are loved and safe, He sings.  Then we in turn are able to go and sing to others of His great love.  What a great comfort.  

Then wrapped up in this moment I prayed that God would be there in China, where we can't be yet.  That he would sing over our baby.  That she would know even before she knows us, that she is loved and that she is safe.  That she would know that she has a family that is waiting and even better that she has a Savior and that He delights in her.  That he is a warrior who is present and will save.  That he will rejoice over her with singing.  

Jim told me that he heard this song on the radio the other day.  It pretty well sums it up.  Merry Christmas! Click here to listen to Third Day's Merry Christmas. :)

People to See, Places to Go, Names to Sign

So how are things going? Well, we've begun our homestudy process.  This is a time of gathering information that shows that we are prepared to welcome another child. It is also a time of educating ourselves on the adoption process as well as the parenting of an adopted child.  There is a lot to do.  Things to read, fingerprints to be made, doctors exams to be completed and lots and lots of signatures to be made! We've been told that this process generally takes anywhere from 2-4 months.  But, I'm grateful for things to do that seem to be moving the process along.  As a part of this, we have started reading the book The Connected Child by Dr. Karyn Purvis.  So far, I have been very impressed with the book.  It seems to me to be a good read for any parent, but especially adoptive parents.  I also wish that I had read this book when I was teaching school as I think it would have given good insight when dealing with kids that came from tough places. 

In the meantime, it's been really neat to see the things that God already knew we'd be studying with the kids during this season.  We use the Sonlight curriculum for our Bible, history, read-alouds and language arts.  So far, this curriculum has had us to study an overview of Chinese culture, pray for Chinese people and we are now reading a chapter book called Little Pear, which is about a young boy growing up in China.  Later this year, we'll also read a book called The Great Wall.  :) Also, in our homeschool co-op they read The Story about Ping, which is set in China.  While reading this book, they were able to experiment with chopsticks, try Chinese food and locate China and the Yangtze River on a map.  How neat that God already knew the path that we would be on and that our children would benefit from learning these particular things at this particular time! We chose this curriculum about 6 months before we made the decision to adopt from China! God has also placed people in our path who have recently gone through this journey and have already been a big help to us!

The kids' seem to be thinking more about what we're doing.  In fact, the other day the big boy and I were reading on the couch and he was holding a ball cap in his hand when he said excitedly, "Mama! This hat is made in China!"  I smiled and said, "Yeah!"  He then said that he wanted to wear it when we went to China and maybe the person who made it would still be there in China and would see him wearing it. ;) I agreed that maybe, just maybe that would happen.  Lol! 

The Beginning

I was unsure how to start this first post.  I've never written a blog before and I've gone back and forth about where to begin.  I originally started writing a post that began with this picture of me and all my babies, big babies, little babies, cloth babies, vinyl babies, brown babies, blue babies, white babies, babies with yarn hair, babies with ratty synthetic hair :).  My love for babies....but the story was deeper than that. 

That story that I began writing drug on and on and really it only told the story about Jim and me.  That's not the story that we wanted to tell.

We wanted to tell you a simple story - one that God begun long ago.  One that begins like this, "Today, Jim and I submitted our application to adopt a baby from China...". :)

"I find China!"

This is the beginning, the beginning of a process that will probably take anywhere from a year to 18 months, the beginning of a lot of ups and downs, the beginning of a new normal, the beginning of a new season of difficult coupled with wonderful, the beginning of trying to lay our lives down in a whole new way,  the beginning of a new dependence on God, the beginning of new blessings and the beginning of a new reason for us to call on His name. 

Our blessings and our current reasons to call on His name. ;)

We plan to update our progress on this blog.  You can follow along if you'd like. :) We would ask that as we begin this process that you would remember us in your prayers.  We are excited to have a front row seat in watching God do what He does best - redeem.

"Children are a gift from the Lord. They are a reward from Him." Psalm 127:3