Having a Ball this Fall....

This fall...

 

has been such a season of contrasts.

 

Deep grief,

 

juxtaposed with incredible joy...

 

it still baffles me that those two things can coincide together,

 

but they do.

 

I keep finding myself laughing until my sides hurt,

 

beaming with pride,

 

all while my heart aches with weariness.

 

We have had some great opportunities to tuck away as a family and just be together...

 

let me tell you this family of mine is some mighty powerful medicine!

 

Our kids just seem to be blooming.

 

They have become such crazy characters and yet they have such a deep heart for each other and for the Lord...

 

we are starting to get glimpses of the character they hold in their hearts,

 

and I just stand amazed that I get to be their Mama.

 

So, indulge this proud Mama as I share far more pictures than anyone may care to see from our little camping trips lately :)

 

The pictures may not be that spectacular but let me tell you, the memories sure are!

 

 

I know this picture is a bit blurry but for some reason I just love it! We recently bought Doug's parent's 1973 trailer from them and are having a blast playing house at campgrounds!

 

 

This is Miss Georgia's 'nest' (otherwise known as the bathtub!) where she loves to sleep...or play Mama bird-baby bird :)

I just love Ravenna's expression here! All of a sudden she is just filled with confidence and maturity, has a hilarious sense of humor and incredible compassion. I find her helping Doug and I out without us even asking all the time.

This would be 'Parker the Giant'. He on the other hand has become a total card, also full of this incredible confidence as he crack jokes, does his 'sweet moves' or stops and cares for his little sister if she is hurt. He will come up and place his hand on her shoulder and gently say" Oh Georgia, are you ok?"

 

He also hopped in the car after school yesterday and with a giant grin announced,

 

"Mama I have a girlfriend! Sophia is my girlfriend! I have a crush on her and when I realized she has a crush on me I asked her out on a date....I am in LOVE!"

 

and let me just tell you Miss Sophia has been his buddy for 3 years and is a little firecracker. She has been asking him to marry her for 2 years now!

 Apparently she asked him again yesterday and he told her,

 

" If I can still find you when we are grown up I'll marry you."

 

When I asked what he liked about her he said,

 

"She's my friend and her dad has lots of electronics!"

 

...at least he has his priorities straight????

Lots of snuggly reading time which I love...they are devouring books!

 

...and making up new fashion statements???

 

Miss Georgia seems to finally be turning a corner...she had us pretty worried for the first 2 weeks after surgery. She definitely was far WORSE after surgery than before. She was gray with dark purple circles under her eyes and would play for about 20 minutes and then just wilt into tears because she was so tired.

We are still concerned that she may have another underlying medical condition and will meet with her Cardiologist later this week to see if we need to be engaging more specialist.

 

But man, she is just sweet and sassy as can be.

 

She is super into rhyming right now.

 

We introduced the kids to "The Princess Bride" while camping and now she asks us to say,

 

"Stop it I mean it!"

 

a million times a day so she can say,

 

"Anybody want a peanut?"

Parker is doing great with his vision aids in the classroom and thinks he is quite the rockstar because he gets to use them.

 

We also go back this week to the low vision clinic to see how he is doing.

 

We went and played at a park in Bend, OR and the leaves were just beautiful!

We would scoop them and throw them up into the air and the wind would swirl them all around.

 

The girls threw 'confetti' for Parker to scooter through for over an hour!

 

It was fun to have time to take a series of photos to try to capture the personality of each kid...

 

For some reason Ravenna's did not transfer onto the computer so I'm working on it...

 

...but this guy had a ball with the process!

He currently wants to be an actor or newscaster...heaven help us!

 

"for the joy of the LORD is your strength.”

Nehemiah 8:10



A Portrait of Healing

Sometimes God just astounds me...

 

We had a really rough spell with Ravenna this weekend,

 

some attachment stuff and raw pain coming up.

 

Watching her hiding and crying,

 

arms reaching out for me then legs kicking if I got too close...

 

oh how I ache sometimes to be able to step into her heart and take that pain for her.

 

The episode came full circle with hugs about 90 minutes later...

 

but it always leaves my heart wondering, hurting and wishing there was something else we could be doing, another way for her to get how deeply we love her.

 

And it leaves my raw heart begging God,

 

because He can go where my arms cannot reach, He can see and heal those deep hurting places...

 

His promises can whisper in even where I cannot be heard.

 

Last night,

 

I was making dinner and Ravenna was standing at the counter chattering away,

 

when all of a sudden she said,

 

"I love my family. Our family is the best family in the whole world."

 

When I asked her why she said,

 

"Because we love each other so much."

 

Oh my heart....

 

I walked around the counter and just held her wiping back the tears.

 

God can do what seems impossible...

 

In fact He does it all the time.

Big Day...

When the appointments for Parker's eyes were scheduled it seemed like July 9th was so far away.

Well, here we are.

This afternoon we meet with the Retinal Specialist to talk about what he thinks we are dealing with in Parker's eyes.

In some ways I want to hurry up and be there and in others I am dreading sitting down to hear the news.

We could really use prayer.

Parker on the other hand just continues to amaze us.

The other day I found his journal from school tucked into his bed.

In reading through it I found this:

It says, "I will be joyful in hope as I wait for God to heal my sisters."

Yesterday, as we pulled up to church we saw a new little pagoda with some benches.

As soon as he saw it Parker shouted out, "Oh cool! A place to sit and talk about Jesus!"

He just amazes me.

I am learning to slowly surrender.

The Lord keeps whispering "I will never leave you or forsake you."

This may not be a road we have chosen,

or one we are strong enough to walk,

but God is strong enough.

He will be our strength.

Never will I leave you;
never will I forsake you.

Hebrews 13:5



It's the first one ever Mama...

  A moment came today that absolutely took my breath away. I want to write it down and never forget it. Our Ravenna is a deep kid with a deep and co,mpassionate heart. She deeply processes her adoption often. At age four she wept in my arms at the thought of not knowing her birthmom's name, she asks often about the babys still waiting, about the "why" of her adoption...
   So, when an assignement came home asking for baby pictures my stomach did a flip-flop. Oh I wanted to protect her from what might be coming. I asked her what picture she wanted and she said, "The youngest Mama!"...but we don't have baby-baby pictures, only her referral pictures. She has those framed by her bed and when I reminded her that those were the youngest she went and grabbed them. She then lined them up on the table and asked, "Why do I look so scared Mama?"
   Oh my heart, how I wished I had more or better answers! Oh how I began to pray and pray as I said, "well, it might be the first time you had seen a camera" all the while thinking of the hundreds of pictures we took of even Parker's very first day. Then she said, "Why am I sitting in that wierd chair in the street?" "Who took that pictures anyways?" "Why are there a bunch of grapes in my lap?" "Where were you Mama?" it all just bubbled out until the final question, "Where was my birthmom?"

    I took a deep breathe and began to explain that we had not met yet, that she was in foster care, that some chairs look different in China, that she had on split pants so they put plastic grapes in her lap...and that her birthmom was not with her while she was in foster care.
   Then she was distracted as neighbors came in to play and I turned my back to let my tears fall unseen. Oh how I would give anything to have answers, to take away the pain, to have a book full of pictures starting from the very day she was born. Oh how I wish I could change the path that she must walk and that finding a baby picture for a school project could just be a simple and fun thing for her....but that is not our story, it is not her story. Hers is a story that is painful and beautiful all in it's own right and it is a story that she needs to reach deep into sometimes and I get the honor of walking alongside her.
   So one of the things that we have let Ravenna lead in is kissing. I know that may sounds very strange but for some reason she has never been comfortable with kissing us on the lips. It has never happened actually. She has never initiated giving Doug or I a kiss on the lips and usually will turn her head so that we get her cheek. She goes as far as covering up my mouth and then kissing my cheek. So, we have let that roll and I have just sat back and prayed. Yes, I have prayed that the Lord would break down whatever walls are there that prevent her from feeling safe enough, that the Lord would re-train the pathways of her brain where the 'fight or flight' response has taken up camp where her needs were not met as an infant....and now I have to tell you the rest of the story!
    I asked if I could be in the classroom today for the baby picture unveiling, just as moral support for Ravenna. I was hoping it would just be a fun activity but also wanted to be there in case it brought up anything funky for Ravenna. So there we were, baby pictures on the wall, kids guessing, kids drawing pictures of their families, all having so much fun...Ravenna included. As I stood there watching her color, kids whirling all around, she looked up at me very intentionally. She then came close and in front of her class put a hand on each of my cheeks and pulled me close to give me a tender little kiss right on my lips. She then pulled back, eyes sparkling and whispered, "It's the first one ever Mama..." and all I could do was pull her into my arms and whisper through my tears, "That was the best gift ever!"
   God heals, He redeems...he can revive and change even the tiniest things in our lives...oh how He cares for us!

“I will redeem the years the locusts have eaten"

Joel 2:25

7 years ago today....

Our lives changed radically for the better....

Out of a journey that was long and winding,

God brought joy deeper than we had ever imagined.

Our hearts were forever transformed by the gift of one little girl

I am in awe that we get to be Ravenna's parents

Because it is she who in every way has taught us...

That love has no limits

She has filled our life with joy

and giggles

and just a wee bit of sauciness...

She has again and again pulled our comfortable hearts closer to God with her compassion for the hurting

and that true joy comes in giving your heart away.

Miss Ravenna Lin Ping I love you more than words can ever say with all of my heart.

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

Hebrews 11:1

You were worth the step of faith eight million times over!

Whew...that was one heck of a long day!

     I am choosing today to be thankful that it is not yesterday :) It was a doozy of a day. 2 girls and 4 medical appointments has taught me to next time bring one kid at a time even if it means more driving!

Miss Georgia went first. The results were pretty much what I expected, poor baby has scar tissue covering her pulmonary valve. She will have surgery on Good Friday to 'more aggressively' open up her pulmonary valve. Then we wait and see how she does. Hopefully this will buy us more time before we need to have the valve replaced!

Miss Ravenna actually has a condition in her mouth that causes her to be 4 times as likely to get cavities than the typical child! Add ontop of that that her blood disorder makes even a normal cavitiy have to be fixed under general anesthesia...we have a twice a day 7 step process we are now doing to protect her teeth!

Then it was time for her blood draw...honestly, it was the roughest one yet. They had me hold her on my lap facing away. She bucked so hard and for so long that it messed up my back! At one point she even cracked her head on the wall :( Then poor thing raged and kicked and screamed for 45 minutes afterwards. I am praying hard and trying to find some way to help her. She is not a candidate for anti-anxiety meds so I am looking into some type of therapy. I just hate that she has to go through this and am praying for an answer...

In between we celebrated all we could....ran up and down hallways spinning like fairies, ate yummy treats, got surprises, sparkly nail polish and ended the day with smiles and ice cream!

Anyhow...I am one tired and sore Mama but oh so beyond thankful for my very brave kiddos!

I read this recently and love it....

" Every experience God gives us, every person He puts in our lives, is the perfect preparation for the future that only He can see." Corrie Ten Boom

Ravenna's new 'Do' for Locks of Love....

About a year ago Miss Ravenna decided to grow out her hair for Locks of Love....

It was not always easy...

To deal with the tangles...

and Mama putting it into braids and ponytails (to avoid those tangles)....

But she did it!

and I am so proud!

So last week she and I took a trip up to my friend Angie's Salon...

Before...

Yes, blankie had a front row view!

Getting ready!

All clean!

Doing the ponytail...

Marking it off...

Cutting... Cutting...

Gone!

Oh how I love this girl!

Through the whole thing she just radiated JOY!

I am so darned proud of her beautiful giving heart....

My little girlie with her pixie cut came home yesterday to say,

"Mama, I am making jewelry during recess so I can sell it to raise money for orphans...will you help me?"

Absolutely my dear...

 Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity.

1 Timothy 4:12

And then Came The Uncomfortable Part...Where I Kissed The Nurse.

 Thank you all so much for your prayers, we are hanging in there. I had a good long cry last night and today feels a little better. The Lord keeps reminding me that we need to look at the step in front of us not the whole long haul. There are so many sweet, sweet things going on in the midst of all of this, and I don't want to miss them....and there are then the things that only happen under great duress...

       So, you may be wondering about the title of this post. You know by now that things were beyond intense with Ravenna post surgery. Like 6 hours of thrashing, screaming, my friend helping Doug and I restrain her so she would not harm herself intense. Medically it is called emergent delirium...I call it total chaos! Well, in the midst of all of that, the medical staff was trying to figure out how to best help Ravenna. They needed to get some meds into her IV that might calm her down. This was a 5 person job...not kidding. It was all arms and legs and screaming, I was up by her head and helping to hold her hand (to keep her arms still) while they tried to get connected to the IV. All I was focused on was trying to comfort my little girl. So I was stroking and kissing her over and over saying, "I love you, it's ok, it's ok...." for a LONG time....yes stroking, and kissing. Until I looked up...and realized it was not Ravenna's arm, but the nurses elbow. Yep. Stroking and kissing the nurses elbow. At that moment she finished getting the meds in and looked right over at me as I looked up from kissing her elbow. Yep, eye contact and all and all I could say was, "Oh...oh I'm so sorry!" Nothing like making out with the elbow of some unknown person to brighten your day!

Doing Great!!!!

I keep trying to type this today but the computer is being funky. Ravenna is doing great! She is exhausted and pretty sore but we have our sweet as can be girl back and...she had zero bleeding issues! We are waiting to hear back from the Hematologist with results from the bloodwork they drew during surgery but we are all back home and thrilled to be cuddling up together as a family!
   I cannot thank you all enough for your prayers. Prayer is so powerful and changes things so drastically. When things were at the very worst and I only had a second to write to people to ask for prayer, within minutes it would start to get better....so thank you all so much!

Home

We are home! It feels so good. I am so beyond weary right now but the girls are snuggled into their beds and Ravenna is getting to be more and more our sweet little girl again. She has had some oozing of blood in her mouth and I am praying hard that those clots hold. Since they do not know what her blood disorder is, they cannot tell us exactly when we are 'in the clear' but it is looking pretty good. Thank you all so very much for praying for us. I have no doubt we could not have done it without those prayers. I feel so emotionally crushed by it all right now but know that God is strong even when I feel like I have no strength left.
Here's a night of sleep in our own beds and no major bleeds!!!!

Please keep praying- new plan

So...she is beginning to calm down again! It feels like such a roller coaster. Right now we are cuddling, 20 minutes ago she was screaming about how horrible I was, how much she hated me and trying to kick me in the face :(
So there is a new plan. Discharge orders have been scrapped. We are stopping the anti clotting meds that she has been reacting to and staying at least through the afternoon for monitoring. This is risky because the meds might be what is holding her clots together and they could dissolve which would mean bleeding and starting the meds again :( we needed to stop the meds because she was beginning to kick so hard that their concern was she would literally break her bones and need more surgery.
I'm praying hard that those clots hold!

Well...we wouldn't want life to be boring!

So... It has been quite a day! First and most importantly, Ravenna's blood co-operated perfectly. Perfectly! Which is HUGE. The meds worked!
The tough part has been that our sweet girl had a massive negative reaction to the meds and had us dodging kicks and punches for over 5 hours. Poor baby was terrified, disoriented and flailing. Even the nursing staff was at a loss to know what to do. Technically they called it medically induced delirium...all I know is that we are exhausted. She is now slowly getting back to our normal sweet Ravenna. No smiles yet but hopefully tomorrow!

Would you mind continuing to pray for:

Peace for the night, that Ravenna will sleep deeply and not fixate on her pain or he I've

That her bleeding would continue to do great. She has pulled out all of the packing that that put in as a precaution so the only thing keeping her clotting right now is that special medicine. She has to take it again soon and it was far from easy earlier (thanks again Joyce!)

Thank you all so much!

Still in surgery....

Thanks so much for praying! Ravenna is still in surgery, it has been a good long while so we are praying hard that everything is ok and that they are just being thourough. She was SO peaceful this mornign and we had such a sweet time of hanging out this morning. Handing her off was heart breaking, even though she had anti-anxiety meds she was clinging to me, digging her nails in and screaming "Mama, Mama". I had a good cry and know in my head that the meds make it so she will not remember it...but my heart will :(
Please keep praying that her blood is cooperating and that surgery goes well...

Surgery Today...please pray

I'm about to load Ravenna up into the car. She is already up and in her cozy jammies cuddling in bed with her Daddy. Today is a pretty big day and honestly, I feel pretty shaky about it. So....once again, here we are asking for prayers.

* Could you pray for peace and not fear? The doctors have express some fears about not getting her bleeding to stop easily (said it might be big, messy, ugly etc) I just don't want them operating with fear but with confidence and peace.

* Peace for Ravenna. Last night she shared that she was having some "yucky scary thoughts and even though she knew those things wouldn't happen she wanted me to pray"

* That her blood would behave PERFECTLY. The surgery itself is not a huge deal, it would typically be a day surgery but with the unknown of her blood disorder it changes things...a ton.

* This seems silly but we have to be at the hospital at 6am for a 10am surgery. This is because she needs to take a certain medicine to hopefully help her blood to clot. No pharmacy in the Gorge or Portland area had this medicine in Pediatric form. So...that means we get to be there extra early just so she can get this dose of medicine and then hang out for 4 hours with no food etc. My friend Joyce brought us their I pad last night and I think it will be a godsend!

* Then lastly, for peace in recovery. Ravenna knows a lot of what is going on but still, she is just a little girlie and has been so traumatized by all of the poking and testing from the last year. Even a small blood draw typically takes at least 4 people to restrain her...so will you pray for supernatural peace?

Thank you all SO much. It is times like this that I really see, feel and know the power of prayer and how much God cares for even the little things.

Beauty for Ashes (or how some orphans in Baja got crazy adorable with hairbows)

*****I know we have surgery coming up soon...but I just felt like today was the day to share what God did with my little girl's dream ****

to bestow on them a crown of beauty

instead of ashes,

the oil of joy

instead of mourning,

and a garment of praise

instead of a spirit of despair.

Isaiah 61

 

 

 

So...

It all started with one little girl.

Wanting her friends down in Baja, who happen to be orphans

to know that they are beautiful...

That they are loved by God...

and breathtakingly beautiful to Him.

So she worked her little fingers off....

Making hairbows.

Because some of her friends were almost bald last year.

Because when they were found begging,

they had lice.

And Ravenna wanted them to know that it did not matter.

That they were still so beautiful.

and as a family we worked and prayed and tried to get the word out.

About these amazing kids, who happened to be orphans

that we love so much down in Baja.

Word spread and others jumped in to help!!!!

little girls from across the country and in our classrooms began giving up their own hairbows!

Friends sent ribbons and the pile grew!

More friends sent beautiful quilted fabric!

and we continued to pray and get so excited!!!

These kids didn't know what was heading their way!!!!

We made headbands...

stunning headbands with those quilted flowers and donated things!

and Parker jumped into the mix and said, "what about the boys? They need to know God loves them too!"

So he thought and he prayed,

and he decided they needed to know that God made them strong...

and started collecting jumpropes!

Boy did the jumpropes come in....

until we had 80 of them!

and friends sent school supplies,

little toys,

and all sorts of fun for the children in the villages!

and then came the shopping spree....

a woman we did not know let Ravenna shop for those girlies down in Mexico.

Tiaras and wings and more sparkly hair things!!!

it was like early Christmas as the packages came!

and they made sure things would really 'work' :)

and then...we packed it all up, boxes and boxes of donations miraculously fit in our little mini van.

and we drove

and drove,

and drove,

to the place that we dearly love.

It honestly felt like coming home.

It still makes me cry thinking about it.

Then the day came,

the day we had been dreaming of filled with all kinds of fun....

the kids started coming...

and we spread out the goodies between all of the kids on our trip to hand out...

they came shyly at first...

then Ravenna decided to set out the hair things for the girls to pick up. I wish you could have seen it. She was liked the pied piper of hairbows with a huge line of girls following her!

and she loved every minute...

and so did the girls!

The bigger girls helped 'do' the hair of the little ones...

and these children,

some who had hardly smiled all week...

blossomed.

The courtyard filled with giggles.

Boys swung galantly from the trees by their new jumpropes.

I still am amazed.

How did they know?

How could Ravenna know?

and Parker too?

Just what was needed to speak to their friend's hearts.

Maybe it was God speaking to theirs that did it...

Either way I once again stand amazed.

At how the littlest thing....

can speak so deeply...

of God's love...

Not only to them...

but to my heart too.

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!

1 John 3:1