Sweet Yana

One thing that I enjoy about our children, is their varying personalities. Tonight, I was thinking about our precious daughter, Yana. It is absolutely amazing to me that a child who had such a rough first seven years of life, can be so sweet and loving. She is truly a servant. Whenever we have company, Yana makes surethat she checks if anyone would like a glass of water (she loves to do this little service for anyone who is visiting). She cheerfully cleans and does whatever tasks that I ask her to do. Oftentimes, I have to ask her not to do other people's jobs, so that they can do the jobs themselves (I know, I know, what a problem to have!).

Yana is also very creative. From the first day that we met Yana, she has been drawing amazing pictures. God has given her an incredible ability to see things in her mind and be able to reproduce them on paper or in some other art medium.

Yana is a thoughtful sister. She and Lily love to play together. They are truly best friends. Yana and Adam also genuinely enjoy one another's company. They also like to be silly together sometimes. Yana has a servant's heart towards both Jadon and Grace. She enjoys reading to them, playing with them and helping them with things that they need.

I am so very grateful for each of my precious children. And tonight, I wanted to share with all of you some of the wonderful things that make my precious daughter, Yana, so special.

13 Years!

I am absolutely blessed to say that David and I have been married for 13 years, today. Happy Anniversary to the love of my life! This is a picture of David and I, on our anniversary last year. We had a wonderful time spending the weekend in the mountains. This year we'll be going out for the evening, and Grace will be joining us. I cannot imagine anything better!

Baba (Daddy) Moments

Do you remember when our sweet girl had difficulty interacting with her new daddy? Well, that is a thing of the past. Grace has definitely discovered that Baba is fun, fun, fun, and very snuggly too! Grace loves the thrill of being swung in the air by Baba. David says that she is going to be our harley riding girl!

Christmas Preparations

Last week all of the cousins (on David's side) came to our house and had a photo shoot for Oma and Opa's Christmas card. Don't they look cute?

We also decorated the house last week. The kids had so much fun putting all of the ornaments on the tree. My bigger kids are getting so tall that David and I only had to help with some of the tallest branches.

I've been wanting an advent wreath for years, and this year I finally went out and purchased one. While I was at the Christian bookstore, I also bought the book Jotham's Journey. It is a story that has a reading each day (along with old testament prophecies) that takes you all the way through Christmas. The kids have absolutely loved it. They always want me to read more! Thankfully, no one has gotten really frightened by the story. It is quite suspenseful. Our kids are pretty sensitive, which in many ways is good. But, I am glad to see that they can enjoy a good story, without getting too scared.

Yesterday, we went to our adoption agency Christmas party (AAC). The kids had a fun time having their faces painted and visiting Santa. We've always told our children that Santa is "just for fun" (i.e. not real), but that his character is based on a real person who loved God and loved people. They really enjoy hearing about Saint Nicholas, and had a fun time visiting with the modern-day Santa as well. Here they are (in the same outfits from Oma!) at the AAC Christmas party.


While we were at the Christmas party we discovered that the family who helped start AAC has 30 kids!!! I knew that they had a lot of kids, but I thought that it was somewhere in the teens. We talked to the dad and he said that there are only 9 at home now (almost an empty nest, according to him!).

We really love our adoption agency. If anyone is thinking of adopting from China or Korea, check out their website: www.aacadoption.com We have definitely been blessed by them many fold!

Today, our pastor was continuing a series of talks on purity of heart (we missed many of the talks while we were in China, but are trying to catch up by listening to them now). This, of course, is the most important preparation for Christmas. Oh, that my heart would be pure before God...that I would love Him with complete abandon, and that I would continually seek His face! What a gift that God would come to earth to live among us. I pray that I would always be grateful for this extraordinary gift and that my heart would be prepared to celebrate Emmanuel, who is God with us!

"We could pray, Mom."

Yesterday, after we were done with school for the day, I got the kids all bundled up (it snowed here!), to go to the library. As we were heading out to the car, I realized that my keys were not in my purse. Since I remembered that Yana had used them to get the mail the night before, I called David (Yana was working with him), to see if she remembered where she put them. She did not remember and while I was talking to David about where to find the hidden key, Rosemary ran out of the house and Grace started crying because she thought that I was leaving without her.

I said goodbye to David, asked Adam to get Rosemary, picked up Grace and hunted for the hidden key. When I couldn't find that either, I began looking for the lost key again. I have to say that it wasn't one of my best moments, as I was frustrated and slightly irritated. So, when my sweet daughter suggested, "We could pray, Mom", I mustered up my best smile and said, "Yes. We definitely could do that, Lily." But, to tell you the truth, I didn't pray. I just fussed (in my mind, it's true, but it was still fussing, never-the-less).

I called David again and he offered to come home to give me his key. We really needed to get to the library, so I said that he should do that. I still felt irritated, though. I hung up the phone and Jadon came in and announced, "I found the key, Mom! I was praying."

Precious Jadon had found the key while shoveling the snow in our driveway. There was a good 10 inches of snow and the pile was at least two feet high. God simply chose to show His sweet mercy and kindness in this very little thing. Humbling, to say the least. First of all, God ignored my bad attitude and blessed me despite my fussing. Secondly, my two little ones were more prepared to pray as their first response, than I was.

A similar thing occured in China when Lily was sick. I wanted to give her advil, but she said, "No medicine, Mom. Just prayers." And guess who was completely well the next day?!

And actually, if the humbling truth be told, when Adam was 7 he broke his arm. It was a really bad break and his arm was completely bent out of shape. My first response was, "We have to get him to the doctor!" But, his first response was, "Jesus, please help me!"

Ah, it looks like I am a very slow learner. Thank you, Jesus, that you keep reminding me of your complete and utter trustworthiness in the examples that I have right here in my own home!

adoption, finances and the faithfulness of God

Wheedling down which books to take to China was a difficult task. I like to read and often reference a variety of books while praying or just while thinking about something in particular. I knew that Matthew Henry's complete commentary of the Bible was out of the running, as were a number of other hardcover books that I had been reading. I finally narrowed things down to just a couple of paperback books, my journal and a Bible.

During a prayer time a few days after arriving home, therefore, I decided to read the entry for November 2nd (Grace's Gotcha Day!) in God Calling (which is a book that did not make the packing cut). This was what it said:

"Give, give, give. Keep ever an empty vessel for Me to fill. In future use all for Me, and give all you cannot use. How poor die those who leave wealth! Wealth is to use, to spend, for Me. Use as you go. Delight to use."

Now, this may not sound like the sort of prophetic message that would give most people goose bumps in regards to their daughter's adoption, but for me it was extremely significant.

Three years ago, on David and my 10th anniversary, we spent the weekend together while his parents watched the kids. When we dropped the children off at his parent's house, David noticed a book that his father had been given by a friend. It was called, "A Brief Account of the Life and Labors of George Muller" and "George Muller on Money and Possessions". David took the book and was highly interested in reading it. I, on the other hand, could think of nothing that interested me less than reading about finances on our anniversary weekend.

But, the next morning, as David was reading and praying, he stopped and read a passage from the section of the book on money and possessions. It was incredible. We ended up spending much of the weekend reading and discussing this book. Any of you who are familiar with George Muller will know that he started many orphanages in England during the 1800's. He cared for homeless children in a way that was extraordinary for the time.

I already knew this, but what I didn't really understand before was that George Muller had a philosophy of money which made him fully dependent on God as his supply. And when I say fully dependent that is exactly what I mean. It wasn't unusual for George Muller to have nothing for the orphans to eat for breakfast, then to pray and have a milk truck break down in front of the orphanage, or a baker deliver 20 loaves of bread for free. George Muller depended on God for every single thing that he needed, and God never let him down.

The amazing thing is that George Muller loved living in this way and also believed that this was normal Christianity. David and I were blown away. We read, studied and prayed, and came to the conclusion that we believed that George Muller was correct in his assessment of normal Christianity. But if this was normal Christianity, we certainly weren't living it! We were living the normal American financial life, except that we didn't have any substantial debt and we already believed in living a simple lifestyle (both of which made us feel as if we were very godly indeed!!).

So, what were we to do? Well, first of all, we had to do an about-face in our understanding of money, savings, stewardship, etc. To be honest, we are still in this process and are just beginning to understand what God wants for us in this area. We are beginners when it comes to trusting God completely for our finances (or any other area). But, we are committed to the path, because we know that God truly is worthy of our complete and utter trust.

Grace's adoption has convinced us even more of the truth of this, because we did not have one single penny to finance her adoption just a year and a half ago. But, down to the very amount that we needed, God has been faithful to supply for her (and our) needs.

A large chunk of the money came through two very significant grants and the rest of it came through the interest on some money that was given to us. Last week, David was figuring out the exact expense and amount that we had used for Grace's adoption and realized that these three things covered exactly what we needed for her adoption. This is no coincidence!! At one point (very early on in our thinking of adopting again) I wrote out a list of ideas of ways to raise money. Now, I do not think that this is a bad way of financing an adoption at all, but I was praying while writing out the ideas and I realized that with the work that it would involve it was impossible for me to do this and still remain faithful to other needs of our family/church. God would simply have to give us the money if we were to adopt again. And guess what?! He did!! We basically did nothing. He did it all.

I'll close this post with a beautiful quote from George Muller:

"Observe here particularly that we, the children of God, should be different from the nations of the earth, from those who have no Father in heaven, and who therefore make it their great business, their first anxious concern, what they shall eat, and what they shall drink, and wherewithal they shall be clothed. We, the children of God, should, as in every other respect, so in this particular also, be different from the world, and prove to the world that we believe that we have a Father in heaven who knoweth that we have need of all these things. The fact that our Almighty Father, who is full of infinite love to us His children, and who proved to us His love in the gift of His only-begotten Son, and His almighty power in raising Him from the dead, knows that we have need of these things, should remove all anxiety from our minds."

God's Gracious Care

Whew! Now that it's over, I can say that last week was really rough. Jadon did finally recover from his illness, but was, well...recovering (i.e. cranky). Also, my throat was really sore and we were still trying to get over our jet lag. On Tuesday, I went to the doctor and she was sure that we had strep, but the test came back negative. So, she gave me some meds that did help quite a bit. Unfortunately, David was now feeling sick and Yana was sick on Tuesday, as well.

I mention all of this, because as I was praying today, I realized how much God has cared for us, even during this rough week. First of all, I am amazed at how well our sweet little girl has slept. From the first night, she has gone to sleep willingly and has slept all night. What a gift this has been! A gracious mercy, straight from the hand of God!

Secondly, my dear friend, Linda, and her family brought dinner to our house shortly after our return, and Laurel sent over some incredible soup for us to eat. We ended up going out to eat for Thanksgiving dinner, because we weren't up for driving to David's parent's house (an hour away), and we have actually eaten out quite a bit these past two weeks. But, that, in itself, is an amazing example of God's care for us. After our other adoptions, our finances were very tight. There is no way that we could have gone out to eat that much. But, God has been providing so kindly for our every need, as we learn to entrust our finances to Him. David's schedule has been very flexible (he actually hasn't worked since we returned from China), and today I was able to spend the afternoon in prayer due to the generous provision of our Father. I am going to write a post about finances, etc. sometime in the next couple of days. I am so amazed at our generous God!

Finally, our God has cared for us in how He has cared for our sweet girl. Grace's orphanage was very dark, but our precious daughter is full of life and light. There is no doubt that God was with her and this has made her transition so very easy. She has a joy and lightness that is incredible. Thank you, our dear Father, for the gracious care that you give to us every day! You are good!