Whew, It's Saturday!

We were only a few hours away from getting on the road to Maryland when our daughter called to tell us our one year old grandson had the chicken pox! So we postponed the trip for later. He got his vaccination for chicken pox and ends up contracting it. We're praying that it will be a very light case of it; I can't begin to imagine how the poor baby is dealing with that right now. Since we didn't go to MD, I thought I'd do some writing.

I had to go into work this morning for a few hours to help out a department what was short handed. Pam has spent the day working on her dolls. When I watch her I'm amazed at how much intricate work goes into making those small little tunics and pants. Then she spends a couple of hours on each doll putting in the yarn hair. As you can see from the pictures, she is very talented. I can barely tie a bow without making a mess of it.

AJ is the crafty one of the kids. She's tried her hand at crocheting, knitting, basket weaving, painting, and loves puzzles. She is an interesting character. AJ is our most competitive and athletic. We laugh when we tell people that you shouldn't challenge her to anything you aren't willing to lose at, because if she can figure it out, she will beat you at it. She'll do whatever it takes to learn the skill (even academics) if she feels that there is someone to compete against. AJ arrived in the US the month school started, knowing around 20 words in English. By the end of the school year, she completed her 5th grade End of Course exams and passed them! Just barely, mind you, but passed them none-the-less! And this was done with no help. All because she felt that she was competing against all the other kids in her class. But then she loves to paint her nails, style her hair, and try new clothing fashions & color combinations. She can't wait to wear make-up and loves to talk on the phone with her friends. A tom-boy in pink!

LJ is the little princess. She's soft spoken, shy and reserved. She always wants her hair just right. She's still learning about American fashions, but she loves to clothes shop and LOVES shoes! This summer she got her first job working outside the home and she loves the money part the best(of course). She's a typical teenager, with money burning a hole in her pocket that we have to keep throwing cold water on. She's a bit apprehensive about starting high school, as all freshman are. I call her Baby, and everyone at home knows who I'm calling when I just call up the stairs "BABY!" It reminds me of Dirty Dancing, and what's so funny is I thought that was the stupidest thing about the whole show.

DJ and JJ are both all boy. They love swimming, riding bikes, catching crabs and jellyfish in the sound and shopping at the dollar stores. They're noisy, boisterous, clumsy and love the laugh. They're Mamma's boys right now. They're good with each other and are good friends. DJ is the more academic of the two and loves to write. I hope that will come to some fruition in his future. JJ is still coming into his own, a little at a time.

Yada, yada, yada! a doting father and a writing medium, dangerous combo!

Extended Family

My younger sister, Tammy, her husband, Al and three of their five children came to visit us for a couple of days. It was so nice to see them. Tammy & Al live in Maryland outside of DC, so this place was obviously a break in pace for them. Unfortunately because Pam and I both work in the vacation rental managment business (we work for competing companies) we couldn't take off from work. But they had the whole day to themselves and were kind enough to take 3 of mine along with them as they did the beach life things. The first night after dinner we all rode down to a go-cart place and had a blast! Last night I brought home 4 flavors of ice-cream and we sat around talking and watching So You Think You Can Dance? (I still think Will should have been in the top 4 - but that's me). Yes I watch reality TV some, but admit America is getting WAY too many reality shows on.

It's unfortunate but we live quite a distance from all our extended family. Tammy is actually the closest to us...5 hours. My parents are in GA, and Pam's parents have both passed on. I have another sister (with family) and our daughter (with family) in Maryland. Pam's sister lives in Florida and her brother is in southern SC. So my kids will grow up knowing their church family much more than they will their family, family. Of course, some would say, well you need to move closer to family. Are you kidding me? We live on the beach, I ain't movin! LOL Our house is always open for visitors. :o)

Tammy and Al left for home this morning. We're going up to Maryland this weekend to go to our grandson, Riley's first birthday party. Next weekend we have old friends from Charlotte visiting (not that they're old, but our friendship is). We also have our social worker coming in to visit for the adoption. Busy, Busy, Busy!!

Have a great and blessed day.

Parenting older Adoptive Children

I, by no means, am an expert in parenting of any kind. But it is interesting to be a parent in my later years (again). Everything has its trade offs. Parenting for the second time is almost like being a grandparent and a parent to the same children. I have the wisdom I gained from parenting my first set of children, and some of the same fears and hope of a new parent. I'm also no where near as energetic as I was the first time around. So I try to do my job at work, do the husbandry things around the house, take care of some of the projects the kids have for me and- then they get...Dad talking as he drifts off in front of the tube. Exhausted. I do more talking than playing, but I'm here. Of course Mom's job is twice as difficult as mine because she's a "working mom", so I try not to complain. That's a stupid title; you ever see a non-working mom?



From my first time through, I've gained patience. Children will be children and no matter how much I want it to be, I've learned, they're not little adults. Older adoptive children have issues of being traumatized from whatever is in their background. We are learning that taking on older children is not easy because believe it or not, you have to earn their trust. (Go figure, LOL) You also have to earn their respect, which is just as difficult. It doesn't come automatically with the adoption certificate. All this before you can adequately nurture and discipline them.

They may appear to be mature, but I realize they are still children and are trying to adapt and cope the best they know how. When we adopted LJ at 13ish, she was the oldest child adopted out of Ethiopia at the time. She had taken on the mother role for a couple of years, and shared the parenting tasks with her older two brothers (who we've learned were not a lot of help - Men! Typical) and her little sister. She and AJ are still trying to adjust to the fact that they are not independent little kids fending for themselves. They want to make decisions on their own, and are angry when Mom intercepts them. But then when we try to guide them toward some appropriately mature decisions/actions, they sometimes flounder. Their emotional growth was stunted because of the trauma of losing both of their parents within a couple of years of each other.

It can be very confusing at times. We have teenagers with teenage issues, then we have to add in personal character issues, orphan issues, cross culture issues, and language issues! Which monster are we trying to conquer at the time? Which two or three? We try to approach scenarios academically...what did I read or learn about this? We try that. If I can't figure it out, I go to autopilot and sort out the mess afterward. For me (I'm a big push over for my baby girls) that means giving in. Typical dad, right? Hey, I'm human!

BUT, very often around here I get to sit back and watch my children as they are doing children things like playing together, or talking, whatever. The joy comes in watching them mature and adapt and show love toward each other. Next best thing to heaven. The the biggest joy is when one of them says to me "I love you" first. That IS heaven for a dad, let me tell ya!

Thinking back to Ethiopia

As I was sitting here on our deck watching all 4 kids playing in the water of the Albemarle Sound, I think back to the day we brought the LJ, AJ and JJ home. They were so shy and quiet (then). They had no idea what was ahead for them in America. All they had was the fantastic tales told to them by others who themselves had never been to America. They had imagined downtown New York City with skyscrapers and millions of people. We lived in Ft. Mill SC, a suburb of Charlotte NC. They had imagined money just falling from the sky or the trees; Americans so rich that we all only wore our clothes once and threw them away (no need for washers and dryers). We aren't paycheck-to-paycheck, but we do live on a budget and watch for deals. They also imagined a country so self absorbed that they hated outsiders and "threw them off the tall buildings because they were from other countries". That is not too, far afield from the truth.

They didn't understand much of any English as I'd said before. They only knew that they should be polite and cooperative, so they nodded yes to everything. We gave them "American" Names and tried to explain it to them. They smiled and nodded approval. It wasn't until recently that they admitted to us that they didn't have a clue what we were talking about. We could have been explaining the theory of thermonuclear dynamics and had gotten across just as much. Now, they are not so quiet and shy.

We know that their love for and their comfort level around us is growing, because now they tell us what's on their mind (with respect), and tell us what they like and don't like. (mmm, maybe we should have kept them in the fearful, shy stage a little longer - like say 10 years). They were so afraid of everything and really everyone. Now they venture out on their own and talk and play with kids they don't know. They continually enlighten us with tales of life in Ethiopia. At times, it brings us to tears and at others to sheer laughter. They are comfortable enough to ask us for cell phones, which after two years we've done. (What have I done?)

God asks, demands us to love and care for these 4 children. He has also called us to open our hearts and our home to another 3 more that need a mom and a dad to love, nurture, care for and protect them. We are following Christ. And it is such an exhilarating joy to watch how God is "growing" our babies!

When we were in China

Our experience in China was very memorable. Actually being in China defies all of our preconceived notions and stereo types. In general we tended to think of China as this huge country full of drones without any concepts of what's going on in the "real world". We think only of abject poverty and fear of the "outside" world. What we found was a country (crowded yes, very crowded) of beautiful people, who were open, friendly, and curious. When you walk around NY, you're told not to try to engage people because you get into trouble like that. People don't make eye contact, and everyone is in their own little worlds as they drift through the masses. Not so in China

In Guanjo, a city of about 4 million people, there were countless people who stopped to talk to us because they realize we're adopting babies from their country. It was neat to see how they wanted to try out their English, even if it was only a few words or sentences. What was amusing was they don't have the same cultural inhibition of not staring. You know when you mom said, "Don't stare it's not polite"? Not in China; whole families stopped and stared trying to figure out why a white family had a Chinese baby with them. In our case it was a Black man and a White woman with a Chinese toddler. This is so the norm with adoption groups that our agency provided us a laminated card that explained in Chinese why we were there and how we loved China and will be taking care of this new baby in the US. When families stopped and stared long enough and we had sufficient time, we gave them the card, they'd read it and they got the broadest smiles on their faces. This actually brought joy to them. So much so that several took pictures of us and with us and the babies.

Fujian (Now DJ) actually took to us fairly quickly. He was so tiny at the time, that Juan had to carry him if we didn't have the stroller. At over 3 years old, DJ weighed just over 25lbs. He had spent his entire existence in a crib, so he couldn't walk very quickly or very far. Not that 3 years want walk that far anyway, but he couldn't walk as far as the average child his age. When we had an opportunity to let him run in the halls, it was painfully apparent that he had never run before. His tiny legs were extremely uncoordinated and lacked average musculature.

His eating...now that was not a problem (at the time). We were told that at the orphanage his diet consisted mainly of rice, egg and noodles with some vegetables. At the hotels everyday he ate like it was his last meal. Which in retrospect, he probably felt that way subconsciously. We started to worry that he'd eat us out of house and home and become obese. He was eating as much as any of us adults at the table and was pointing at the plates of others for more when he was done. BUT, when we got home with him, showed him the pantry...that apparently fixed his internal alarm system. After that, we couldn't get him to eat anything. It took over a year to get his diet anywhere near the norm of kids in the States. And he still loves rice!

Our First Trip to Ethiopia

Two years ago this month we were blessed with LJ, AJ, and JJ.

Due to a small administrative "snag", we were given a 10 day notice that we were going to Ethiopia. 10 days! Needless to say, we were scrambling around like lost children trying to figure out what was most important to do and what could be left undone until we got back. Our dog, Cookie (Princess, if you ask her), was being cared for by our close friends down the street.

The trip to Addis Ababa was uneventful, to the point of boring. Once there we met the foster home director/manager, who helped us get settled into our Suite at the Hilton. The accommodations are very westernized and the hotel is inside of a walled-in complex of buildings. It's designed to make you forget about the poor wretchedness just outside of the walls. The next day we got to meet our children for the first time.

Netsanet, Tseganesh, and Efrem came from a "well-to-do family" whose father was a teacher and mother a homemaker. Well-to-do, it seems, means a steady job. Both parents were good Christian people who had passed away several years ago and the children, with their older brothers (who were too old to be adopted) took care of themselves for about 2 years.

The girls and Efrem were very well behaved and well mannered. Both girls were typically quiet, and both answered "yes" to whatever we asked. Between the kids, they probably only knew about 30 words in English. They mostly smiled and nodded or laughed when we laughed. Poor babies. These are beautiful children (of course I say this in complete objectivity). We only got to spend about 3 hours with them that day, and they had to go back to the foster home.

The next day we went to the American Embassy where everything was finalized. An arduous adventure as always, but it was done. They are ours! To love, care for, protect, teach, nurture, and watch grow into the loving people God has made them to be.

It just reminds me of DJ...

As we go through the beginning motions of this new adoption, I love to reflect on our adoptions of LJ, AJ, DJ and JJ. With DJ, I remember how we saw his picture the first time and how sweet and content he seemed. Then I remember our first meeting and he was this scared little 3 year old not knowing what the heck was going on.

In retrospect, I still can't imagine what it was like for a toddler who had never experienced having a mom or dad (mamma & babba) taking care of him to be presented to people and being told that's who they were going to be. He had been in an orphanage since birth. Neither of us is Chinese, neither of us speaks Chinese, other than the phrase "I love you". We learned this in Manderine. Of course Fujian Lo (DJ's birth name) didn't speak Manderine, he spoke Lodi, a local dialect. He was given over to us in a hotel in the middle of the night. He had a bag of candy and snacks with him (we find out later that he didn't like anything in that bag; his caregivers were probably just trying to give him something to keep him quiet). He took one look at us as he was being handed to us and starts screaming!

Of course we understand and we do our best to hold onto him and not let him run back to his caregivers, who are doing their best to soothe him with soft words. Then they start crying, I'm sure no matter how many times they have to do this, it breaks their heart to hand over another angelic little baby they realize may never step foot in China again. So I talk to them through our interpreter to tell them that we will care for, love and nurture him.

We take him up to our room and run a much needed bath. DJ gets to experience a flush toilet for the first time and we never had to worry about him turning back from then on. :o) Our only worry was how to pay the forth coming water bill increase! Flush! Giggle, giggle. Flush!

The Adoption Process Begins

Pam and I are now considered PAPs (Prospective Adoptive Parents).

When Pam & I chose this group of 2 brothers and 1 sister, (3-2-B ours) we rely on God speaking to our hearts. I'm not sure how to describe it other than when we looked at the long, long list of pictures our hearts tugged at certain children and didn't at others. It may seem shallow at first blush, but I'm not sure how else to say it. We essentially did the same for all 4 of our others. We truly believe that God blesses us in any way He chooses so we leave it up to Him to choose the children for us. Since all we have to start with are pictures, we pray over the pictures and let our hearts be our guides. Since He lives there, we trust His judgement to be true.

The 3-2-B ages are (approximately) 8 (Boy), 9 (Girl), 12 (B0y). So we will have with us at home: 7, 8, 9, 9, 12, 13, & 15! I've tried out saying all the names in succession by age; it's hilarious. We intend to change their names to give them American first names and retain their Ethiopian first & last names as middle names. We're still working out what names we want. Pam and I haven't gotten totally on the same page yet on them.

We've started the paperwork with Christian World Adoption (CWA). When we started this with DJ, they called it the "Paper Dragon". It is aptly named, let me tell you. Now it's called "The Paper Chase". We have to get our birth certificates, background checks (Pam and I have lived in 3 states in the past 10 years), State fingerprints, financial status, personal references, medical exams, mental/emotional evaluations, etc., etc., etc. It all of it has to be notified, verified, certified, vilified, heck-if-I'd... :o) We have to take adoptive parenting classes, as well. After that, it's all approved by a social worker, then CWA. Then it's all sent to Ethiopia, translated into Amharic and sent on through the government system there. We are expecting about a 9 month process (how apropos). All along the way, we are paying for this stamp, that signature, this process, that class/book, this fee that fee, etc., etc.

We need/want/have to have/treasure your prayers for us through this process. We need wisdom, peace, strength, and resources. Our 3-2-B need prayers for peace, strength, health an safety.

God Bless each of you for reading this and praying along with us.

Fast Forward for one moment

OK, this will give you a little whiplash, but hang-on...!

We started this blog to show our journey on how we got to where we are today. Today we have DJ from China, and LJ, AJ & JJ from Ethiopia. Our intention was to share our story in order to encourage others who were or are considering adoption. It was to be basically a historical trip up to present and then a journal for the future. It was...

In the mean time Pam and I had been praying about enlarging our family (As if 4 at home and 5 away was not large enough!). We believe the Lord God has provided our family a mission and our mission is to adopt, love and care for orphans. We can't save the world, but our little drop of water in the ocean of need is better than doing nothing at all. We have been lead to another sibling group of three children (one girl and two boys) in Ethiopia! So we want to start chronicling our path to bring these children home.

This ought to be quite the adventure. We'll add pictures, and bios on them for you to see. What we want to ask right now is for your prayers. LOTS & LOTS & LOTS of prayers! International adoptions are lengthy, stressful, and expensive. Our children (those at home and those to-be) will need your prayers as well.

I'll attempt to continue a veritable parrallel blog of bringing up the past while covering the present at the same time. If it gets to cumbersome, I'll drop the past until later.

Juan

The story coninues...

I know it's been quite awhile. We've been through a bit of rough waters lately. I'll talk about it some other time.



But to continue...



While we were living in KY, we began looking into adopting a child. We were fairly certain that we didn't want an infant, though we wouldn't have turned one down. We first looked into the state run foster/adoption services. There are so, so many children in this system. What tore our hearts more than anything was to see so many older teens looking for forever families. There were kids as old as 17 who have probably been languishing in the system for years.



After going through the processes, and actually applying to adopt children, it never seemed to work out. Several times we had gotten to the stage of being considered among several parents, and another set of parents were chosen. Our age was a factor that we had to get used to. A couple of times, we were even given the opportunity to adopt through a private agency and the birth mothers either chose to keep their children (We pray that this was even a greater blessing for the child) or chose a younger couple. After a few of these heart wrenching episodes, we decided to persue international adoption.



There are trade-offs for everything. The paperwork is about the same volume or more than foster/adoption, though each country has its on criteria. The cost can be significantly higher and each country has their own costs. After much prayer and looking at the criteria, costs, and length of processes for each country, we settled on China. One other country's system turned us down because we were a bi-racial couple. (Can you believe that?).



We found A Helping Hand, an international adoption agency in Lexington KY. We then began the "Paper Dragon". Wow it absolutely boggles the mind the amount of paperwork and the amount of hassle it takes. You have to provide a thorough background, which for us was a little involved because we'd moved around so much in our adult lives. You do a homestudy which combines, the background, character references, job references, financial status, health history and status, and self evaluation. Then a social worker visits with us at our home and at their office a couple of times. They then put together a report and give their opinion on our viability as parents. All this paper work must be signed, counter signed, notarized, and then sealed by the Secretary of State. (I'm sure Condolessa Rice is sitting down signing all these documents - NOT. Rubber stamped).



Because we were adopting from China, we were assured that we would be adopting a girl and we asked for child as young as available. Everyone takes it for granted that a Chinese adoption will be a girl because it seems about 95% of the orphans are girls. As a lesson in culture, it is not that the Chinese value girls less, it's because they have no retirement system like we do here in the States. It is the responsibility of the child to care for their parents. If you are only allowed one child - as is the law currently throughout most of China - and that child is a daughter, she will grow, marry and live with her husband. He will care for his parents, but will be ill prepared to care for hers as well. So the parents want a son - to care for them in their old age. That's the general sense of it.



One week we visited family in the DC area. It just so happens that it was on 9/11 when we returned. Yes, that 9/11. Because Pam and I happened to be listening to CD's the whole way we knew nothing about it until later. There were a bunch of phone messages on our machine when we got home that afternoon. We had apparently gone around DC not too long before the one plane crashed into the Pentagon. There were frantic voices asking about our safety and well being. We were clueless; probably a good thing at the time. We had thought it was odd that the flag at the KFC headquarters was at half staff. When we got home our water was off and I saw some men working in the street so I went out to ask how long it would be. Outside one of the trucks I overhead a radio announcer say something to the effect of "...no one has claimed responsibility for the attack". I went home and turned on the TV. When I saw the image of the plane going into one of the Trade Towers, I thought it was just a commercial for some stupid movie. That was until I figured out the video was on every channel and they kept showing it over and over. We figured out that at time that this happened, we were probably somewhere new Quantico. So ten years from now when people ask "where were you when..?", we can shiver in the thought that we just missed being eye witnesses.



When we picked up our mail at the post office that day, we received a letter from A Helping Hand that included a photo list of Waiting Children. These children were those that the agency was trying to strum the heartstrings of adopting parents. They are generally older and/or had medical problems of some sort. In the adoption world, healthy babies are first choice. As Pam and I were looking over the pictures of these little ones, we saw this little cherub with the cutest tiny pout and we both instantly pointed at him -him! FujianLo, a little boy about 2 years old. He was born with a cleft palet. We found out that he'd had the first surgery to close the lip by a Surgeon from Operation Smile. (More about that later) We thought that he was so cute, and the letter had been sitting in the post office for so long, he was probably already "taken". We called A Helping Hand the next day anyway. God is great!! He had not been chosen yet and we told them that he was ours now.

To be continued.....................