The Gift of Music

I love music.  I grew up in a home with a band director for a father.  We were surrounded by music all the time.  As I've grown older, I've discovered that my mind focuses so much on the lyrics of songs, due in large part to my mom's influence.  She is always talking about the message behind the music she listens to. I guess that over the years, I've adopted the same habit in listening to music.

Every now and then, I listen to the words in a song and feel like I hit face-first into a brick wall.  I get so overcome with the way the Savior speaks to me through certain songs.  That happened to me a few days ago.  We just returned from a two-week trip to see family in Tennessee.  It was so much fun to watch Abby Kate interact with her new grandparents and friends.  She grew a lot over those two weeks and was a much more secure and confident little 16-month-old when we returned home.  The day before we left, we were at my parents' church in Franklin.  This little church is a wonderful modern-day picture of the early church we read about in the Scriptures.  I love it.  Anyway, after the sermon, we started some congregational singing.  One thing I love about this church is that all the children come in from their classes and from the nursery to be with their families during the singing.  It's corporate worship in its truest form.  I held Abby Kate as we started to sing "Amazing Grace."  That's when my brick-wall moment happened.  We got to a verse, and immediately it was like God was saying to me, "This is what I've done for Abby."  Tears streamed down my face as I sang, "Through many dangers, toils, and snares I have already come.  Twas grace that brought me safe thus far.  And grace will bring me home."  That's her story!  The life she had to lead for the first 13 months was more than we can imagine as we lay our biological children in their cribs in their perfectly decorated nurseries just a couple of days after their births.  Abby Kate, on the other hand, was malnourished, abandoned, taken to a hospital, then an orphanage, then a foster home.  It was the grace of God that saved her life and placed her in a family that will love, nurture, and care for her.  It was the grace of God that brought her home.

And isn't that what He does for us?  Without Christ, we are lost.  Completely helpless.  Spiritually orphaned without a Father.  But His grace saves us through faith!  We are adopted into His family and eternally saved to be one of His children!  Grace is what gets us through each day, and grace is what will take us to be with Him for all time.

What a glorious thought!  All brought on through the gift of music.

Our New Reality

I don't think anything could've prepared me for these last few days and for what lies ahead in the next two or three weeks.  I just can't even describe how tired I am.  Jet lag, plus a baby who is consistently waking up before 5 AM, plus a 19-month-old who is wanting equal time with me equals extreme exhaustion.  Abby Kate has regressed since we've gotten home.  She's not the usual happy child we saw towards the end of our time in China.  I'm assuming this is due to jet lag.  She's not really taking naps (today was about 20 minutes total).  The clinging has returned, too.  I have to be touching her in some way almost all day for her to be ok.  After talking to our adoption agent today, though, I found out we should be very thankful.  Tina said most children don't sleep through the night when they return.  Her own daughter didn't sleep through for 2 years!  So even though we're getting up before the roosters, we are getting straight sleep that's better than expected.  Thank you Lord for that!  She also told me that the regression is normal, to be patient, and watch it pass in the next 1-3 weeks.  I hope it's quick, but in the mean time, I'll be praying for that patience.

I think it's funny that my original post today was going to be about my favorite things from today--the little moments that I didn't want to forget.  Why in the world did I think I would remember anything on my very jet-lagged, sleep-deprived brain? :)  I do remember one thing though.  Probably because it's only been an hour and a half since it happened, but nonetheless, I remember.  About 5:00 tonight, I hit my wall--that place where you're so tired you can't even speak.  I sat beside Abby Kate on the floor, leaned up against the wall, and shut my eyes.  Of course, I immediately started to doze off.  Next thing I knew, Hannah Grace was covering me with a blanket.  Then she brought me a pillow to go behind my back and her bunny for me to hold.  I muttered out a thank you to the sounds of old-school R&B that HG put on for "mood music".  Then my sweetest son came to me and kissed me on the cheek.  Unprovoked.  Yes, I cried.  It's easy for me to do that these days, but that was one of the sweetest moments ever.  I feel, at times, like I may not make it through these next weeks.  But the Lord gives me those moments to remind me that I will not just make it through, but I'll make it with the rewards of sweet memories with three of the most precious children on the planet.

The Smiths are coming home!!

We have had an absolutely amazing time here in China!  We are very ready to be back in the States, though.  Tomorrow (Wednesday) we start the 40 hour journey home.  We will take a train to Hong Kong and stay in a hotel for just a few hours before getting up to catch our first flight to Tokyo.  Then it's Salt Lake City, Memphis, Pensacola.  For those of you in Memphis, we'll have a short layover when we land at 5:50pm.  As long as everything is on schedule, we'll plan to come out by security to see any of you who want to meet Abby Kate.  For those in Pensacola, we land around 9pm.  Feel free to come see us if you want! 
 
We would like you all to join us in praying very specifically for some things:
--Most importantly, we are praying for Abby Kate and her ability to handle all the travel.  It's going to be rough.  We've had her on one flight here in China and she was VERY difficult.  She doesn't like to be contained and wants to be very active.  Fortunately, we bought a seat for her, so we will have some extra room.  But I'm still very worried about her ability to stay calm and my ability to stay patient! :)  Please pray that she'll be able to take good naps and sleep on the longest flight which is overnight China-time.
--Pray for safety as we travel on a train and 4 flights to get home!
--Pray that our luggage all makes it back to Pensacola.
--Pray that we'll be able to manage all the traveling in Hong Kong and Tokyo.  We won't have a guide with us at that point, so no translator.
--Finally, pray for us as we transition back to U.S. time.  It's a 13 hour difference for us.  I'm worried mostly for Abby Kate.  She's going to want to be awake at night, which means we won't get much sleep.   And there's a 19-month-old who's going to be ready for our attention bright and early.  So pray that we will get over the jet lag quickly and that AK will adjust quicker than expected.
 
We are so happy to be coming home and can't wait for you all to meet this amazing little girl!
   

Gotcha Day

Because our internet wasn't working well in Nanchang, I never got to blog about Gotcha Day.  We have the morning off today, so I have some time to get caught up on some writing. 
 
We arrived in Nanchang on May 22 around 10 AM.  Our guide told our group on the way to the hotel that we'd meet our children around 3 PM.  After 5 and a half years of waiting, it was hard to believe we were just a few hours away from holding baby girl.  I was surprisingly calm as the hours went by.  We were told that we'd be meeting in a quiet lobby in the back of the hotel.  The phone rang around 4.  Our guide said, "They are finally here with the babies!"  We grabbed our cameras and headed down on the elevator.  We were surprised to see that the women and the two babies were right outside the elevator in the main lobby instead of the quiet area in the back of the hotel.  I grabbed a bell hop and handed him the video camera.  One of the ladies asked Brian, "What is your child's name?"  He told her, "Minying."  She got Abby Kate and handed her to me.  She had a Walmart sticker with her name on it, I guess to make sure they gave us the right child!
 
Tears streamed down my face as I held the one I'd dreamed of for so many years.  She was confused, of course, but she didn't scream.  I'd prayed for that.  Brian tried to hold her, but she seemed to be scared of him.  She held onto me with a death grip.  One thing we'd been praying for was a supernatural attachment.  Abby Kate seemed instantly attached to me.  We were so thankful that God graciously gave us that.  Our coordinator gave us a sheet of paper that had Abby Kate's schedule on it (which didn't pan out to mean anything in reality).  We talked with the orphanage director briefly and asked her to write a note to Abby Kate.  Her note wished AK good luck and fortune and asked AK to come back to China someday.  One of my favorite things was getting to give the director the sack full of about 175 hats knitted by me, my mom, my cousin, and a few others.  She was overcome with the gift.  When we left the lobby, she was still looking at all of them and talking with her coworker about them.  I'm so glad we were able to do that for them.  We won't ever see the babies who wear those hats, but knowing we will have a part in bringing them a little more comfort in the orphanage is a wonderful thought.  
 
All total, I think we were in the lobby for about 10 minutes.  It wasn't at all what we'd expected.  I was hoping to get a chance to ask a lot of questions.  Our coordinator told us we could do that later, but that never happened.  I'm not sure what she meant by later.  It makes me sad for AK because there are questions we'll never have answers for.  The whole process seemed very rushed.  I know that in the end, all that matters is that we had her with us, but I still regret its not being what I had imagined.  As the week went on, we realized that this was just the way it was done.  Almost every day, we saw new families in that same spot receiving their children.  Looking back, it's very typical for China.  In the US, we'd expect to have more of 'a moment', but in China, there's never any pomp and circumstance.  For them, a loud lobby with dozens of people passing as we were given a gift we'd waited for forever was normal. 
 
We went back to the room and spent the next two hours on the bed holding Abby Kate.  She would cry a little, then suck on her two middle fingers and look at me.  Brian had to just sit beside me.  She wasn't ready for him to interact with her yet.  We tried giving her a bottle and feeding her, but she didn't want either.  At about 6 PM, we all fell asleep and didn't get up till the next morning.  AK slept between us the whole night.  She flopped all over the place, but of course we didn't mind.  We were woken up around 5:30 AM  to some sweet babbling by AK.  Then she saw Brian, realized she wasn't at home, and started crying.  As long as I was holding her, she was ok.  It's been over a week now since we've become parents to this amazing little girl.  She's nothing now like she was when we met.  She's full of spunk, smiles, laughter, and opinions.  She definitely lets us know if things aren't going her way!  We are so blessed to have her and so thankful to the Lord for bringing us to this point.  We know our future holds lots of adventure with this little girl!

She has a new name.

WILD WOMAN!  There is no other way to describe this baby girl of ours.  As we look back on the last several days, we now know that she was seriously grieving.  When we first got Abby Kate, she didn't want to leave my arms.  If I let her down for even a second, she'd start screaming.  I had to hold her at dinner while I ate.  Slowly we moved to her letting me put her on the bed beside me as long as my arm was around her.  She started to sit in the high chair at dinner if I would hold her hand or put my arm around her.  We made great progress the day she actually rode in the stroller.  But I still had to be holding her hand.  Brian was 'allowed' (by AK) to hold her some as she began to warm up to him.  Then yesterday it happened.  It was like a light switch.  We put her on the floor while I began to work on organizing our stuff for packing.  I was surprised when she didn't start crying.  She just started crawling around and walking around the room holding onto the bed and other furniture.  Giggles and smiles followed.  She was so active we couldn't keep up.  A totally different child.  This went on for about 2 hours.  No crying, no clinging, just playing and having a great time.  Now we are seeing her true personality.  And she is a wild one!  I thought Caleb was a handful, but he has nothing on her!  She is now all over the place.  And she's tough, too!  She banged into stuff so many times and didn't even flinch.  
 
Another big change has been nap time.  Before, we would just lay her down and she'd quietly drift off to sleep.  We thought, "Man! This is easy!"  Then the light switch went off and reality hit.  Now we put her in the crib and it's a three ring circus in there for the next hour.  She doesn't cry, but she stands up, jumps in the crib, squeals, laughs, rolls around, bangs her head on the side, and jabbers.  Oh my goodness, it's funny to watch.  There is no end to her energy.
 
Now, here's where that is not a good thing.  Flying.  We left Nanchang today for Guangzhou.  The flight was just over an hour.  Let me just say, I have no idea how we're going to make it home.  She did NOT like the fact that she couldn't go all over the plane.  She was screaming and squirming the whole flight.  And of course, she fell asleep about 30 seconds before we landed.  So PLEASE start praying now for our trip home.  Pray that she'll somehow be calm and not so uncontrollable.  The longest flight is overnight China-time, so pray she'll get LOTS of sleep on that flight.  And pray for our patience and endurance as we care for her.
 
Our hotel here, the Garden Hotel, is unbelievable.  It is the nicest hotel I've ever seen.  We have a suite with a living room and a bedroom.  That's SO nice because we can put her down and not feel like we can't make a peep.  The city is beautiful and much more like a metropolitan city.  We can tell it's going to be a lot of fun to be here over the next few days.  Nanchang was nice, but we realize now that it is very "old" China.  There's not much that's modern or progressive there.  We were stared at constantly because everything there was SO traditional, so we really stuck out.  We've already noticed here in Guangzhou that people don't really even look at us.  There's also a huge diversity of people here because of all the foreign consulate offices here.  We really enjoyed learning about Abby Kate's hometown, but this new city will be a nice change and another great way to experience China.

Tomorrow we get her medical exam done.  I'm anxious to get that since she's still struggling with what seems to be an upper respiratory infection.  Hopefully we'll get some answers and/or medicine.  Well, my eyes are crossing I'm so tired.  So I guess that's all for tonight.  :)

Is there a Mr. Microwave in the house?

We went to a fantastic restaurant for lunch today.  I took a to-go box back to the hotel hoping I could heat it up somewhere for dinner.  I went to the front desk around dinnertime and asked them, "Is there a microwave in the hotel that I could use?"  They didn't really understand me, so I asked again if there was a microwave in the hotel.  I tried to explain that it takes cold food and makes it hot.  But at this point, they'd already started to type on their computer.  I told Brian they must have a translation program on their computers.  The attendant called someone and said a bunch of stuff in Chinese.  Then she handed me the phone.  The lady on the other end said in very broken English, "Excuse me, could you please spell microwave?"  I spelled it for her.  She repeated the letters back to me and I confirmed they were correct.  Then she said, "I'm sorry, I can't find a guest with the name microwave."  Brian and I very quickly said thank you and left before they could see us laughing our heads off!  Definitely the funniest 'lost in translation' moment we've had yet!

An Emotional Visit, A Taste of the Culture

Today was the day I've been waiting for.  Ever since we got Abby Kate, I've been wanting to see where she was abandoned.  Our guide took us to the hospital and let me get pictures of the outside and some of the inside.  I didn't realize that my camera was on manual focus, so some of my pics didn't come out well, but they are still priceless to me.  This hospital was incredibly packed with people and was very, very busy.  I wish I could have gotten some video footage, but I'm lucky to have gotten the pictures I did.  I asked our guide how Abby Kate could have been left without anyone noticing.  Once I saw the activity level, though, I realized it wouldn't be very hard.  Mary, our guide, said the mothers will bring the baby, lay them down, and then pretend to be doing something in their purse or whatever.  Then they just walk out.  There's honestly so much activity that it would be very easy to do that unnoticed.  As we got back in the van, the tears started to flow down my face.  I'm not even sure what emotion I was feeling.  It was just so overwhelming.  I was sad for Abby Kate, maybe knowing that someday she might have that feeling of being unwanted, but I was also feeling so grateful to have been given the gift of being her mother.  It was a very brief visit that I will never, ever forget. 

 

We were finally able to experience true culture here in Nanchang today.  For the last several days, it seems like we haven't done much more than a quick trip to a monument and then the rest of the hours in the hotel.  Today we got to go to a gorgeous park in the middle of the city called the People's Park.  I wish we'd known about it earlier.  We would've taken a cab the last couple of days to enjoy the park some more.  As we entered, we heard some wonderful Chinese music.  We went down a little trail to find a very old man playing a two-string fiddle.  There was another man singing with him and two more men clapping.  They finished just as we arrived, but our guide convinced them to play some more for us.  They were very happy to do so.  It was wonderful.  We then made our way to another part of the park where about 50 women were dancing with rhythm sticks.  Equally enjoyable to watch.  Abby Kate really liked the music and the motion.  She was quietly sitting in her stroller which was good progress.  She's finally letting me put her down some.  After walking around some more and watching some people doing Tai Chi, we found yet another group playing music and singing.  The same thing happened here.  We walked up at the end, but they sang another for us anyway.  Abby Kate really enjoyed her time at this one.  She actually stood beside me and walked around me holding onto me and to the stroller.  She can't walk on her own yet.  Her legs are still pretty wobbly. 

 
When we left the park, we headed to a small porcelain shop.  The Jiangxi province is known for their porcelain.  It is gorgeous to see.  We bought a beautiful tea set for AK to have as a momento of her hometown.  I could've bought so much more.  As my mom can attest, I am a sucker for dishes! :)
 
Not wanting to eat in the hotel yet again, we had our guide take us to an Italian restaurant for lunch.  Cafe Roma.  Oh. My. Goodness.  It was divine.  The guide ate somewhere else because she said this place was too expensive, but it really was cheaper than the US.  And SOOOO good!  I didn't even eat dinner last night because I was so tired of hotel food, so this was really a wonderful treat.  If it hadn't been so far from our hotel, I'm sure we would've gone back tonight for dinner.
 
Tomorrow we head to Guangzhou--the last leg of our trip.  This is where we'll get her medical exam and her visa.  The biggest thing to be praying for right now still remains Abby Kate's health.  She is still running a low-grade fever every day.  Last night she developed a cough (I'm assuming from the drainage she's had).  She coughed all night.  She's really not acting puny, but it would be nice for her to be better.  So please be praying for healing for her.  Thank you for coming alongside us with your prayers.  We feel them even halfway around the world!