A grown up orphan girl.

One of the many details in my heart from our visit to Levi's orphanage is this teenage girl:

She is a beautiful 16?,17?,18? year old.  I am sure they don't even know her age.  She has lived in the orphanage her whole life.  She is one of the lucky ones who wasn't kicked out onto the streets after she aged out of the system and gets to stay in the orphanage helping to care for the other orphans.  Orphans caring for orphans.  Can you imagine?  I say "lucky" because I am told that most kids that age out of the Chinese orphanage system and leave the orphanage get caught up in sex trafficking.  ugh.

She has a bed in this room with about 10 other cribs.  She sleeps here with the babies. Her bed is in the bottom right corner of the picture.

 This is the room she is in charge of.  At least 10 babies/young children were just lying in the floor in there.

An orphan caring for these beautiful orphans.  These beautiful children that God created.

Oh, bless her heart.  She had such a sweet disposition.  Such a precious sweet spirit.

If I go back to that city someday, which I probably will, you better believe I will go looking for this girlie.  I am going to find her and see if she wants to move home with me.  I imagine getting a passport or a visa for an aged out orphan, who is still living as an orphan, will be difficult.  But I serve a God who can move mountains, so I am going to try.

I love her and I don't even know her.

I can't stop thinking about her.

Reverence for Life

"How I treat a brother or sister from day to day, how I react to the sin-scarred wino on the street, how I respond to interruptions from people I dislike, how I deal with normal people in their normal confusion on a normal day may be a better indication of my reverence for life than the antiabortion sticker on the bumper of my car.”
― Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

 When I was in China a couple months ago, I was extremely humbled by my feelings for a young boy that I was about to adopt and his special needs.  He came to us with so many surprising and shocking (to me) developmental needs and my purely selfish thoughts were consumed with not only how his needs affected me, but also a lack of reverence for his life.

It wasn't long into my self pitying that my subconscious said to me, "And you thought you had reverence for life?  If you really had reverence for life then why are you treating him this way?  Like his life doesn't matter.  Like his life isn't worth it."  Frankly, I was appalled by the lack of value that I gave to his life.  I was well aware of the cliche that talks about how going through challenges reflects the true character in your heart.  Ouch.  Why did I consider him ANY different than I had considered my other adopted child, or my biological children?  I then thought about how God doesn't make mistakes.  And how God makes ALL humans in His image.  This is a very intriguing concept with any person that is considered "normal", not to mention a person who most would say is "not normal".  And then I pondered the phrase "disabled".  Does God make "disabled" people.  Or does God just make people "differently abled"?  You may think that these words or thoughts are merely semantics....and the titles/labels don't really matter.....

But do they?  

Do these titles or the way that we label people really  infer a deeper feeling of how we view their life?  Do we have the same reverence for their lives as those who are commonly considered "normal"?  Prior to adopting Levi, I know I would have said that I had a reverence for life.  But, as God revealed during the painful experience of getting to know my son, I really didn't.  Yikes.  Isn't God soooooo awesome to LOVE us how we are, and yet love us enough to not let us stay that way?!!!  

Oh, I pray that I have a deeper reverence for life than I did a couple months ago.

"Our Saviour kneels down and gazes upon the darkest acts of our lives. But rather than recoil in horror, he reaches out in kindness and says, 'I can clean that if you want.' And from the basin of his grace, he scoops a palm full of mercy and washes our sin."
~ Max Lucado ~

 

Metamorphosis

met·a·mor·pho·sis 

1. Biology . a profound change in form from one stage to the next in the life history of an organism, as from the caterpillar to the pupa and from the pupa to the adult butterfly.

Last week in Science class we studied the metamorphosis of insects.

We awed over the complete metamorphosis that happens in insects, such as the butterfly.

We learned the Greek word for metamorphosis is transformation.

And then paralleled the metamorphosis that happens in a butterfly to the transformation that God does in our hearts when we become followers of Him.

You know I LOOOOVE when God speaks to my heart through Homeschool.
By the end of the lesson, I was almost in tears realizing that God has done a complete metamorphosis, a complete transformation, on my heart towards Levi.
I can't believe that is has been just two months since I met my son.
I can't believe it because the amount of turmoil (for lack of better word) that my heart has been through, it feels like it has been much longer.
But oh praise the Lord, He alone has transformed my heart and I am now deeply in love with my son.
He is my son.
I want him.
I love him.
I adore him.

And, in God's perfect timing, He completed the transformation on my heart just in time for last week's big assessment of Levi's "early intervention" needs.

To make a long story short, sweet Levi qualifies for every kind of early intervention therapy that our local public school district offers.

And so, in the next couple weeks, we were told to expect calls from:

speech therapy,

occupational therapy,

physical therapy,

a preschool teacher,

and an autism specialist.

In addition, there are possible issues with his vision and hearing so we will be heading to a Pediatric Ophthalmologist and probably an ENT doc sometime very soon.

Not to mention our Pediatric GI specialist that we will see again in a few weeks.

ah.....deep breath......

That assessment was just the beginning.

There are mountains of issues and hurdles still to figure out.  Most importantly, where all of this therapy is going to take place.  He obviously has his developmental issues, but even bigger than those, he has his adoption related issues of grief/loss/attachment/bonding.  Therefore, the place and atmosphere of these therapies is of utmost importance. 

So anyways, that's the scoop.

Homeschool rocks!

God's creation of the process of metamorphosis is freaking incredible!

The transformation that He does, and is continually doing, in our hearts is profound and life-altering.

 I am soooo thankful that in God's perfect timing, He has bonded my heart to Levi.
AND God is continuing to call me into a deeper trust in Him.....one day at a time........

And the Skips Great Adventure continues.

Rock on.  :)

4 weeks home....

It is so hard to write a blog post because it seems completely impossible to sum up our life right now.

And if I were to do a blog post every day, you would think I should be admitted to an asylum because every day is SUCH a different day.  We have some serious highs and some serious lows going on.

Some days are so incredibly fantastic and I feel on top of the world, even ready to adopt another. :)

The next day I feel like all I am doing is yelling and I am wondering if I will ever again feel rested or regain an ounce of patience.  If a friend sees me on a low day, the look of concern in their face is so evident.  And if a friend sees me on a high day, they look at me in disbelief. 

Most don't understand what we are going through.

And most run as fast the other way as they can.

Which I suppose is what makes those who have leaned into us and circled around us with love and support all the more special.  I have had people tell me, "we can't have you over because you have too many kids now."

I don't ever want to forget the Kuenzi family who had us over for a Harvest Party last week.  A harvest party JUST for us.  They weren't afraid of our 5 kids or our emotional instability AND they generously gave our family a night to cherish.  Oh, God used them to encourage me so much.

God is soooooooooo good and teaching me sooooo much. 

Little guy turned 3 this week.  God has been sooooo good to continue to work on knitting our hearts together.  This week Levi has started to allow some snuggling time.  And, evidently, snuggling is a very bonding thing.  I think he MIGHT be starting to grieve a bit....which is a very very very good thing.  He actually every day has been doing (mentally) better and better.  Yeah, he may be autistic.  But God has brought me to a place where it doesn't matter a bit to me if he is or not.  Right now my plan of care with him is this:  wait upon the Lord.  I know this plan probably sounds crazy to most but God has made it clear to me, this is to be the plan.  Tangibly, our next step is his early intervention assessment on Tuesday.  I am mentally prepared to go to the appointment as Mama Bear and be his advocate.

My prayer every night for him is now this:

Baby boy, may your life bring God great glory.

period.

I threw this picture up here because it was such a sweet moment for me to see Mei pulling him alongside her in swinging.  She is extremely tenderhearted towards him and extremely jealous.  It's been very sweet to watch and very challenging at times.   

So that's kinda the scoop.  Never is the whole story on here.  Because, like I said, every hour seems to be FILLED with different emotions and different challenges and different joys.

But PRAISE BE TO JESUS who is our CONSTANT ROCK, who NEVER changes and is ALWAYS emotionally stable :), ALWAYS in control, and there for us through every single second. 

As nuts as this whole last month has been, I would not take any moment of it back for anything.

And the reason for that is because of how AWESOME God has been.   A good friend summed up my thoughts for me this week, "God is so faithful to let us stay there in our hopelessness long enough to treasure our dependence on Him alone. You really do “taste and see that the Lord is good,” when He is the only answer."

 ^{Isaiah 40}

Why do you complain, Jacob?
    Why do you say, Israel,
“My way is hidden from the Lord;
    my cause is disregarded by my God”? Do you not know?
    Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
    the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
    and his understanding no one can fathom.  

He gives strength to the weary
    and increases the power of the weak.  

Even youths grow tired and weary,
    and young men stumble and fall; 

 but those who hope in the Lord
    will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
    they will run and not grow weary,
    they will walk and not be faint.