5/28 Rainbow land

Jen has been painting this week and we thought this one was especially nice. She painted our house complete with a clothesline and hangers (no, we can't use a clothesline in these parts...they would cringe). M, J and D are for Momma, Jen and Daddy and of course, a rainbow.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then I think it is safe to say that Jen seems to be pretty happy with things as they are. She is not an introspective child at this point and seems to accept things as they are. I am sure the day will come soon enough when she questions what has happened to her and why. But for now, she is happy enough with the fact that she is here and we are her family. Jen is a survivor and did what it took to make it for 10 years in the orphanage. She left Zhuhai and China with only one tear and pretty much has never looked back. And when she got on that plane in China, she put on her seatbelt and basically said, "Let's go". And in a few hours, she was translated into this new life of hers.

I try not to ask her the "big" questions that we might not like the answer to but sometimes I do ask. And when I do, I prepare myself for whatever she might say in case it is not exactly what we hoped to hear. So last night I asked Jen, Do you like America? Do you like your room? your house? Momma and Daddy? To each question Jen replied yes. And then she added "America, Hai Zhen tired...China Hai Zhen no tired." So there it was -- on an ordinary night in her new life, the biggest thing on her mind was that she gets tired here. She has been sick this week so maybe that is what she meant. Or maybe she does get more tired here. Who knows but I am thankful that for the moment and hopefully for a while that is the most pressing issue in her little mind.

She learned a new word and a new phrase tonight while we were painting and then reading. She added "small" and "not yet" to her arsenal. She was looking out the window and I said, "Is Momma home?" and she said, "Not yet". I asked her if she understood "not yet" and she said yes and then used it again in a different context. We had fun with it later at bed time when we put her in the bed and asked if she was ready for bed and she said "not yet!!"

We think a lot about our friends who adopted older children that grew up with Jen. We gain encouragement from their ups and downs and celebrate the smiles on their children's faces. In some ways, we are asking the impossible of these children and somehow by the grace of God, they make it. Of course, there a bumps, sometimes a lot. We saw a picture this week of a girl from another Cantonese orphanage who had a rough start with the whole experience. The latest picture shows her with a big smile as she is reaching down to pick a squash from her parents' garden. God is faithful...although some roads are rockier, much rockier for some. We are thankful that God has given us peaks and valleys. The valleys were expected...the peaks have been a blessing...and these days Jen is content to walk up the foothills toward the mountain tops. Sometimes we slide backwards but we are moving upward.

5/25 Reading and writing and arithmetic

It is amazing to watch a child learn so much in such a short amount of time. As children, we first learn English by hearing our parents and then we begin to speak. As we approach school age, we begin to write and read and the process has a natural progression. With Jen, that whole process has been compressed into just a matter of months. She did know how to write some of the English alphabet but did not know all the letters or the sounds. She basically knew 1-10 in English, a few English phrases like "I am fine" and that was about it.

My wife began homeschooling Jen about 2 weeks after we came back home and it has been hard at times but Jen has learned a lot. For the first 3 months, there was no interest in reading or being read to. She could only read certain Chinese characters and so she wasn't able to read even Chinese comic books at her grade level. Then gradually, she began to show an interest in reading and the phonics that Kristy was teaching her began to payoff big dividends. She is sounding out words now -- of course, it is all at the beginner stage, but she is able to sound out short words and comes very close to the correct pronunciation. Her handwriting skills are very good we think -- especially considering she is moving from a character system to a letter system that uses upper and lower case.

We ate seafood today and she enjoyed the crab. She said she liked to eat the whole crab (including the legs) in Zhuhai. She practiced her English skills for us on the back of the restaurant bill and we saved it for a momento. I wanted to share it with you. I spelled the word "crab" for her and then she drew a picture and wrote the sentences.


Jen is learning more and more math and is beginning to read the math problems. We think she is making good progress in the math area and hope to have her at or near grade level in time for the fall.

She is just beginning to play independently although she would rather have us play or do an activity with her. About the only thing she will consistently do by herself is homework or watch a video. We hope in time she will be more independent but understand that this is very common with children who have been in an orphanage for so long. It is difficult for them to initiate activities by themselves. As another blogger with an older Chinese daughter so aptly put it..."she is my shadow". Kristy is so patient and willing to give her the attention and the affection that she missed for so many long years. Jen rarely misses a chance to be held and being snuggled is high up on her priority list.

It will be interesting over time to see how she adjusts to being an only child after growing up with so many other children. If God opens the door for us to adopt again, she may have siblings but that of course takes time -- especially in the slow moving world of adoption. Sadly, across the world there is an ever flowing stream of children who wait for someone to love them.


Jen (Hai Zhen) in the arms of the Momma that she never lets far from her sight

Adoption...it changes the world...one life and one heart at a time

5/19 Earthquake damage

For a map of the orphanages affected by the earthquake in China, click on the map below.


For more information about the extent of the damage to China's orphanages, please visit the website of Half The Sky. Half The Sky works tirelessly for the orphans of China and they are providing daily updates on the earthquake under the HTS Journal section of their website.

5/16 A little smile goes a long way

5/14 English breakthrough

Jen reached a milestone recently regarding the use of English.

She now talks to her stuffed animals in English. It is cute to watch.

She is also beginning to read use the "Clifford the Big Red Dog" phonics book series. It took about 4 months for her to be exposed to enough English before the desire to read kicked in. She is trying very hard and doing very well. She is progressing with her spoken English as well. She is learning personal pronouns now and that is a challenge. She understands quite a bit and we can use mostly English for everything except for complicated issues.

Finally, she spoke to her little friend Audrey Hai Ping using a webcam and that was a great experience. I knew these things existed but never knew how easy and how fun they are to use. And there are free services you can use once you buy the webcam. We are looking forward to using it again in the days ahead.

Her personality is very sunny these days and she is making progress with some emotional issues that she struggle with. That has been very encouraging.

We rejoice that her friend Hai Ping has met her family. She is a sweet child and is blessed to have a wonderful family.

We keep the other boys and girls from Zhuhai in our thoughts and prayers.

5/11 Mother's Day

As I sat in a restaurant this evening, tears rolled down my cheek as I thought about the heart of God and adoption. Beside me a little shoeless girl squatted Chinese style on our seat eating pickles. When she saw that Daddy was crying, she dried my tears with a napkin and said, "Daddy is sad". I told her that I was crying because her little friend would soon meet her mother and father for the first time.

Just minutes before, Jen had prayed for our dinner and asked God to remember her friend as she said "Hello Momma...Hello Daddy" for the first time. What a touching thought to know that half a world away another little girl was being given the priceless gift of adoption.

It is Mother's Day and we dedicated Jen before the church today. A church member from Taiwan helped by translating the pastor's words to Jen. Later she and her husband treated us to lunch and posed for this photo. We appreciate their kindness and her particular ministry to Jen -- reaching out to impact the life of a child for Jesus' sake. She even gave Jen a vase of flowers to give to her mother on her first Mother's day.



No matter what Jen's future holds or where life may lead her, she will always know that she has a mother who loves her dearly.

5/11 Flying away

When we first began to learn about our daughter's orphanage in mid 2007, we thought we were the only family adopting an older child from Zhuhai. If you have followed our story, you may remember that in time we learned that 10 other girls around Jen's age were also in the process of being adopted. It took a long time to meet the parents over the Internet and find out who was going where and when. The first girl from the group left in late 2007 and then Jen was next to fly away at Christmas.

When we visited her orphanage, we were so anxious to see the other children who were waiting with Jen. However, that was not to be and we only saw their pictures on a bulletin board. So it has been very exciting to follow the news as each family traveled to meet their child and visited Zhuhai and sent back pictures and news of the children they met who were still waiting.

It has taken many months but today the last child in that group of 11 will meet her mother and father for the first time. We learned about this little girl almost a year ago and she has been on our heart ever since. We are celebrating that she will be joined together with her family in just a few hours. Months ago, we prayed that God would put us in touch with her family and He did. We look forward to the days ahead when Jen can reconnect with a sweet child who she thinks of so fondly.

It seems fitting to us that all of this has happened as Jen had her first experience with a catepillar and a butterfly. Just a little while ago, the tiny monarch catepillar in our backyard became Jen's first science experiment. She watched as he grew and she helped feed it with leaves from the butterfly bush.

Jen's first biology experiment







Through the "miracle" of metamorphosis, that catepillar has become a butterfly. It flapped its wings and was off to find its way in this world -- having fallen asleep as a catepillar and awoken as a butterfly.

On the playground at Zhuhai, 11 girls sat together in 2007 waiting for their adoption day. By the mercy and providence of God, each child eventually met their Momma and Daddy



And now, for a brief moment, that same playground sits empty -- that moment in time when 11 girls gathered is now past. That playground will be full once again and we pray that in God's time, many others will find their forever families.


Adoption...as many have said...is at the heart of God.

We celebrate with the 11 who have flown away and for all who will one day fly to a new life.

May God's tender care be with all those who are still in Zhuhai

5/4 The ups and downs of making it through

Sometimes our lives are upside down these days, but by the grace of God we are making it.

We are close to five months since that day in Guangzhou back in December. In some ways, the adoption has been everything we expected and at other times it has been quite different than we imagined. Here is a progress report on Jen and where we are on the journey.

Right now, in the background, I hear the soft notes of the piano as Jen is practicing for her first piano performance. We hoped she might be interested in piano and she has been. Kristy has been teaching children piano for many years so this is going very well. Jen watches her mother play at church each week so it seems natural that she would enjoy learning. The experience has helped to build self-esteem and discipline -- she is working to improve and that is exciting to see.

School has been a confusing thing so far and we often question if we are making the right choices for her education. Kristy has been homeschooling Jen and there have been a number of difficult days. Learning a new language is difficult and that slows the process of other subjects like math as well. Currently, we are hoping to have her at grade level in math by the end of the summer of 2008. That seems like a realistic goal as math does not require a command of English. There are still issues with math however because even simple addition/subtraction often gets presented in word problems like "Joe has 5 eggs more than Sally and she has 3 eggs, how many does Joe have?" Math presented in that manner on a test would be impossible at this point. But we hope to at least get the math concepts down that she should know by now.

Jen is learning English and understands maybe 60% of what we say when we are speaking to her. Of course, we use words she understands. She can translate back and forth for the words she knows. And we learn some new Chinese words along the way. We still revert to using Chinese words when we have to although those times are becoming less and less. Emotions and abstract things are harder and we have to depend on the pocket translator for those things. As you can imagine, a lot gets lost in translation. You have to accept that reality if you adopt an older child. Everyone has to be on board with the fact that communication will be hard at times.

We have our difficult days and those times wear out our heart and soul. You expend so much effort trying to build bonds and they are fragile. When things go south, the bonds begin to strain and break. Then you have to start building those bonds again. We try not to focus on the present state of events too much. If we did, it would be too overwhelming to handle it all. Our goal is to get Jen to adulthood as a well adjusted person who has come to grips with her past and is able to go out into the world and live meaningfully. Life here in a family is not the same as life in an orphanage. She is having to learn a different ethic in addition to all the language and cultural issues. She is having to learn what a parent is and what they do and what they are for. She doesn't know those things yet. She is learning about how one family works and how it all fits together. And finally, we are trying to teach her about God and her place in His world.


Swimming lessons have a been a great experience for Jen. As you can see, she is just estatic when she gets to the pool. She got to swim sometimes in Zhuhai and she is so excited about her lessons. It allows her a chance to be an ordinary kid for a while.


We are making it through these days. We gave Jen the middle name Hope and claimed Jeremiah 29:11 as her life verse. We believe that God's plan for Jen is great and He can help her overcome the tragedy of being an orphan for so many years. On the bad days, we have to cling to that verse and know that God is at work when things are not exactly smooth sailing. Part of all of this is having to trust that God sees all the way down the road and not just the little way that we can see.

Sometimes when you think of us, please pray for our little American girl -- and for her brothers and sisters from Zhuhai who left the only home they knew to come here. It can be difficult on every one at times. They are in our prayers, too.