Meeting the Neighbors

Last night was interesting enough that I wanted to share. We met up with 3 other families adopting in our group. These three families are all adopting for the first time. One family is having their first child tomorrow. There mother is here with them. The second family has 3 boys and is adopting a little girl. And the third has 3 boys in college and they are starting over with a 2 year old! We all went to Wal-Mart together last night. It was such a surreal experience, watching everyone hunt for things they don't know if they need or not. We are all nerves and excitement.  And tomorrow we all become parents together. Such a bizarre experience to meet someone and to know in less than 24 hours you will share is on of life's most intimate moments.

We will all receive our babes at the same time, in the same room, with a massive gamut of experiences. We will spend the next two weeks together as we sign paperwork, travel around and learn to bond with our little ones. And then we all go our separate ways. There are really hardly words for this experience.

There is also a couple going with us that live in the area. They are considering adoption and wanted to see what tomorrow brings. I will be interested to get their perspective. On a brighter note...they helped us order dinner last night, which was such a gift. Eating really is one of the hardest experiences of this trip. Very few people speak English (I sure don't speak Chinese!) so trying to order looks more like a comedy sketch. So it felt good to sit with locals and not feel like such a foreigner...at least for 5 minutes. 

Chongqing Day 1

Hello all...let me say thanks for praying. We had a wonderful, uneventful flight. We are in Evan's province and thankful to be here. We have been wondering around, taking in the sights and sounds. So much culture that the locals take for granted but we are oohing and awing over. We have walked around a mall, found a grocery store and even had McDonald's for lunch.

There is an odd American representation. American music playing everywhere, American t-shirts, stores with American names. But very few speak English. The few conversations we've had are pretty one-sided...on both sides. But everyone has a smile to share. That has been pleasant.

So tomorrow is a big day! At 1pm our local time, we get our baby...so 9pm PST. We cherish your prayers and will have much to share tomorrow. For now, I'll leave you with a Chinese/American sweater we found in a store. It made me giggle.

Love is Worth the Risk

A couple days ago, we had a really bad wind storm. Kris and I came home to an unfortunate event. A baby sparrow had gotten off track and been blown into our front window and it lay lifeless on our front porch. I told the kids not to touch it. Birds are notorious for carrying germs. I grabbed a stick and began to gently nudge it. Nothing. Kris went in to get paper towels while I jabbed at it. He returned and I picked it up with the towel. As I handled it, emotions surprisingly began to well up. I stood there with its still warm body now gently nestled in my bare hands, stroking its fragile form with my fingers, tears in my eyes, praying for God to spare the life of this baby bird. Still nothing. It’s neck was broken and I was helpless to do anything. Kris eventually coerced me to give it to him so he could put it in the trash.

I came inside, my face flush. I wanted to be ten years old again and to have someone else, like my daddy, come and takes care of it for me. Then I could just look away and pretend nothing had happened. But here I was. An adult. Faced with the reality of death in my hands and helpless to do anything about it. As I processed this event, I felt silly crying over a little bird. I didn’t even know about the bird the day before it lay at my feet. As I thought about it though, I began to think of the orphan, so like this baby bird, blown off track by circumstances beyond their control. And I thought of the inescapable truth that lay before all of us.

It made me think of my son all the way across the world, waiting in China to be rescued. Kris and I have been given the great responsibility and privilege of being able to actually do something about the life of this little one. We are able to get our hands dirty and step into his circumstances and actually make a difference. We don’t have to stand hopelessly by, unable to intervene. We can take action.

Our son’s name is Evan. He is 23 months old and was born with bilateral atresia. It basically means he is missing his little ears. Our family has committed to love him and become his advocate. For the last 6 months we have been working with a private tutor learning sign language and preparing our family to bring him home. While we have a long way to go, we are beginning to understand the unique calling before us and the beautiful, courageous community of the deaf and hard of hearing.

But more than anything, we want Evan to feel the warmth of our loving arms around him and to help him heal the wounds in his heart he doesn’t yet knows he bears. We want to step into his loss and help him carry the load as he grows into the man God will have him become. Our heart’s desire is to stop the lie that he is not worth fighting for. Because he is. Maybe I couldn’t help the bird, but God has given me the gifts and resources to help Evan. Our family knows first hand the lives that can be saved by saying yes to adoption. We have seen what love and time can do to heal wounds and hearts.

Right now, we have one thing standing in our way. Money. We have successfully raised $30,000 to bring Evan home. Our family is so close to closing the gap. We now need about $11,000 to make the long trip to China to bring our son home. This covers everything from orphanage fees to plane tickets there and back. We should travel in about 4 weeks and the only thing standing in our way is the remaining funds to bring him home.

I am asking for your help. Can you partner with us to save the life of a child? Are you able to get your hands a little dirty? Maybe you can’t adopt, but can you join with us and give financially? Can you commit to pray for our family as so many new things will be introduced to each of our lives? 

If you would like to give, here are two simple ways you can contribute:

You can give a tax-deductible gift to the Trinity Mark Smith Adoption Fund here: https://trinitybaptistchurch.ccbchurch.com/w_give_online.php

You can also give to us directly through our Give Forward account here: https://pages.giveforward.com/family/page-23t6462/?utm_source=giveforward&utm_medium=share&utm_campaign=dashboard&shareid=3468612

Words do not adequately express the amount of gratitude we have for your generosity. And thank you for taking the opportunity to help one little babe have a family that will do their best to help this little one fly. 

Gotcha Day

It is hard to believe today has been two years since we met our son. When I reflect on that first day we saw him to where he is today, it is easy to become emotional. His magnanimous  personality captures the heart of all who meet him. I am journaling specifically today to give an update on our little guy. I have vacillated back and forth on what to share if even anything at all and Kris and I both feel we need your help. Seth needs prayer warriors and we want to recruit you as our friends and family to pray for him. 

This January, after Seth woke from a nap, he began to act strangely. It was as though his body was short circuiting. The short version of the story is, after a myriad of tests, we have discovered Seth has 2 rare forms of epilepsy. As we have begun to educate ourselves on the diagnosis, we have learned things are a lot more serious than we first anticipated. We have found only 10% of people with this form of epilepsy are able to get their seizures under control and the other percent have a great risk of being “lost” inside their own bodies. As our doctor explained, we are at the beginning of a very long marathon. There are meds to figure out, EEG’s to be done, therapies and lots of unknowns. But we know the One who knows all things and we are asking for healing for our little guy. And we are asking you to join us in prayer for healing. Please pray for total healing. 

One of the reasons I hesitate to share is I do not want to discourage people from adopting. Of course we did not know this diagnosis when we adopted Seth into our home. But can I just tell you…if we did know, we would adopt this amazing little guy all over again! One week before Seth’s seizures began to present we decided to adopt again. We have been matched with a little guy in China that has a special need known as Microtia. I want to tell you we are so excited to have another child waiting to join our family! If Ruthie and Seth have taught us anything, it is how to love and to be loved in ways we never imagined. Love is always worth the risk. 

We are excited to share our journey with you as we move toward our adoption of our newest son. We ask you to pray for him as he is out of our care. But we also ask you to pray for our Seth. We will keep you updated through our blog. Thank you for being warriors on behalf of our family.

Working the plan

It has been a while since we updated everyone, but we wanted to give you the latest news from our homefront.

The kids are doing pretty well. It is amazing how much progress we've seen in the last few weeks. Ruthie is picking up a lot of English. She understands probably 75% of what we say to her, and she can communicate most of what she needs to, either through gestures or words. She loves to watch Dora the Explorer, so she's even picking up a bit of Spanish. :) She loves to swing and jump on the trampoline, and she really enjoys playing with Elliott's nerf guns and his legos. Her favorite thing by far though, is her baby doll. She feeds it, changes it's diaper, and plays with it on and off throughout the day. This should tell you something, but she named her baby "Seth."

Seth (the real Seth) is also developing rapidly. He feeds himself now, and he has strong opinions about what he wants and doesn't want. Today he officially said his first word: "gentle." He likes to hit us when we are holding him, so we've been trying to get him to learn the difference between gentle touches and less-gentle touches. Today, he repeated the word "gentle." Super cool. He has repeated us before (like when he yelled "Go, Elliott!" at a soccer game, but this was the first time he has spoken a word in proper context and with a clear understanding of what he was saying.

We've had several meetings and evaluations with different therapists for him: physical, occupational, speech and the like. Last week we all got together for a big meeting to discuss a plan to coordinate all these services for Seth. We're hoping to get him "caught up" to where a 20 month old could and should be. We've seen so much progress already that we have a lot of confidence that he'll continue to advance, especially with some focused therapy sessions. It was so encouraging for us to hear all these ladies excited to work with him and with us.

We're working on the same process with Ruthie, but have some other evaluations to go before a formal plan is crafted. We'll update on her later. In the meantime, both the kids are adjusting well to life in our family. Seth hates the car, which is unfortunate, because we've been driving all over town to soccer practices and games and swim practice and meets. Ruthie has enjoyed cheering for her siblings and rolling down the hill adjacent to the soccer fields. She is full of energy and life, and we've had a lot of fun with both of them.

All in all, we are very blessed. Thanks for your continued love and support.

Medical Update

Well, we promised you updates, and now we finally have some things to share with everyone. We've had some good adjustments since we got home. Ruthie is learning English at light speed, and seems to understand a lot, even if she doesn't say a lot. She'll chime in with gibberish English at family meals, just so she can be a part of the conversation. It is pretty fun to hear her. It is also fun to hear yourself echoed back. We try to be very clear when talking to her, giving her clear commands, etc. But, when she talks to us or to the other kids, she gives those same commands ("look at me" or "don't touch") which just makes her sound bossy. We're working on that. 

Seth, too, has been progressing by leaps and bounds. We took him to the doctor, who was surprised that a baby this healthy looking had CP. He checked out as a healthy kid, even though he is behind on some milestones. But, we're hooked up with the early childhood intervention people, and they'll start some speech and motor therapy with him soon, so we're hoping that will help a lot. For now, we're just staying the course. It is incredible, though, because almost every day he learns a new skill or makes an advance. He is getting more mobile each day. He is really gaining personality, too, laughing a lot and crying loudly when we hurt his feelings. He has a fake cry and a real cry. Today, he refused to eat baby food, just wanting to eat what we were eating. He will mimic sounds that we make and actions we do. Having him is like having an infant in fast forward, working through all the new "tricks" so rapidly.

As to Ruthie, we were of course most anxious to get her to a doctor. We set up an appointment at Children's Hospital in Seattle at the beginning of this past week. The doctor saw her and right away wanted an MRI and a biopsy of her eye area. He felt sure there was cancer, it was just a matter of learning what type and how advanced.

So, they ran those tests and told us to plan for aggressive chemo and radiation. The oncologist even said he might consider stem cell transplants. Needless to say, we were discouraged. Of course we had been preparing our hearts for the worst, but hoping for the best. It was hard to hear that we might be facing the worst.

We got the MRI results, and there was indeed a mass behind her eye socket. So, they did a biopsy to investigate it. That meant two procedures in two days for Ruthie, and two bouts of anesthesia. Through it all she was a real trooper. We weren't quite so brave. We had a couple of sleepless nights, anxious to hear the full story. Throughout the adoption process, we really prayed repeatedly for God to just have His way with our family. The whole process defied logic, and we just wanted God to be at the center of it and for Him to use our family however He wanted. Still, praying that is one thing, but living the grim reality of it is something else all together.

Then came today. The oncologist called to cancel the appointment we had next week in order to discuss treatment options. That was a little confusing, but he said that after looking at the biopsy, it seems the mass behind her eye wasn't malignant. In fact, it wasn't even cancer! It turns out that it was something that formed when she was born, and it is not cancerous at all. Of course we were overwhelmed with this news, and are still stunned. Now, the biggest thing we have to deal with is an infection she got as a result of her biopsy. (The infection did land us an overnight stay in the hospital while they pumped her full of antibiotics). He canceled the appointment, because she is cancer free. What an amazing relief.

We'll continue to monitor her, of course, and we're working towards a prosthetic eye for her. For now, we are just so grateful to God for both our kids. We know that he has big plans for them, and for our family. Our prayer is simply that He would be glorified in our lives.

So for now, we're just watching this infection closely and celebrating what God is doing. Please pray for it to heal quickly for Ruthie. She looks pretty miserable. But we are so thankful she is ok.

News from the Homefront

Wanted to create a quick update now that we are home and getting settled in. First of all, thanks for all the encouraging comments we got both on the blog and in person. And, we really appreciate all your prayers for us, then and now.

Now that we are home, we are slowly beginning to settle in. During the daytime, things are going really well. Of course, it helps that almost everyone can sleep in late. 

Our biggest challenge at this point is at night. Both Seth and Ruthie are having trouble sleeping. Certainly they can't be blamed for having trouble, as indeed we are all having some trouble. We know it will just take some time, but being up until 3am with a cranky baby every night is tough. Seth has been very restless each night, and Ruthie has struggled to relax at night. Still, we know things could be a lot worse, so we're trying to keep a good perspective.

A lot of people have asked about their health. We were working to get them fully lined up on our health insurance before we left. While we were in China, we were told that they need to see proof of their immigration status before they could be on the insurance. Of course, we didn't have that until we arrived in the States, so we've now got that taken care of. Hopefully in a couple of weeks the kids will be fully lined up. Really, it is a blessing in disguise, perhaps, so that the kids have some good time to adjust before things get more difficult for them. Obviously, we're anxious to get them seen by specialists.

Not sure how frequently we'll be blogging from here on out, but we'll try to keep everyone updated on the big stuff. And, we'll try to get some more pics posted, too.