Birthday, Updates and Reflections

Happy 18th Birthday, Sam!   It was 18 years ago we received this bundle of joy from our gracious God.   At 14 weeks of my pregnancy with Sam, I had a heavy bleeding, and we thought we were going to lose another baby.  (I had a miscarriage before Sam)   That weekend, we prayed fervently to God to spare his life.    God did.   The pregnancy went smoothly after that. We decided to name him Samuel, because like in the story of Hannah, God heard our prayers.  

Sam and my parents.   Sam was under my parents' care full time during the first few years of his life.       Sam said he still remember his daily walk around neighborhood with Grandpa and walking to the near by railroad tracks to watch trains go by.    But when I asked if he remember our wonderful trip to San Francisco,California when he was 5 years old - he remembers nothing.    Bummer.....   It always surprise us what little kids remember - often the everyday things that are too ordinary to us adults.

  I will miss the nightly sound of violin practice very very much.    His graduation is coming up on June 2.       He will attend UMBC on the 4-year Presidential Scholar Award Scholarship this fall.    We are so happy and proud.

I looked back from the front seat and snapped this picture with my cell phone.   The quality was not great, but I love how it captures Sam's role as big brother - His 5 little siblings all know they have a shoulder to lean on when they need one.  

Bethany is picking up English quickly at school, and is doing well learning to walk with her cane.    Recently, she often tell us she wants to walk with her cane.     However, her teacher still prefers her to walk without the cane now,  so to encourage her to use her hands more to explore instead of relying on the cane too much.     She can now navigate around the house comfortably and independently.   She loves to cuddle and to be read to, and enjoys listening to nursery rhythms and songs, and stories.    

Here are some interesting things we've learned from Bethany so far:

- Without eye contact, Bethany is often confused by who is talking to who!   Imagine the 8 of us around the dinner table!    She would sometimes answer questions that were not addressed to her, or ignore questions that were directed to her.   It is very funny.  So we are learning to get use to calling names before we start talking.

-The concept of sandwich is so hard for her to grasp.   She still prefers to peel off each layer of the sandwich and eat each layer separately.   By the way, who invented sandwiches!  

-It is estimated 80% of learning comes from vision.   Many things that we, sighted people, learned naturally are so hard for Bethany to grasp.    We were teaching Bethany to open doors and locks;   Do you realize how many different types of door knobs and locks there are out there!     Not only that, door knob could sometimes be either on the right or left side of the door, and doors could either swing in or out and to the right or left!    It is so confusing.   While I watched Bethany struggling to open just one door, I saw our 3-year-old Pearl, opening and closing doors,  roaming from room to room in the house with such ease, I can't help to think,  life is ... unfair....      Well, jars, bottles, boxes, all kinds of containers with different opening and closing mechanism will be our next lesson!

- Eggs....  It is such a weird thing - fried eggs, steamed eggs, scramble eggs, hard boiled eggs, raw eggs, eggs in cakes, eggs in fried rice, eggs in soup, etc.....  How do you explain to a 5-year-old what egg is?

- I think Bethany is finally getting the concept of making choices.....  Before, when I asked her if she wants this or that, she would always either repeat the last item on the list or answer "yes".  Now, she would tell me loud and clear what she wants for breakfast in the morning!   It is such a joy to see that.    Have we ever consider for moment how bless we are to have choices?

Faith will turn 9 in about a week.   Although she is only 9, she is so mature for her age.   She has taught me so much  about life, and in fact, parenting.   Her most recent one is just a few days ago, when I was busy getting the kids ready for school and began to raise my voice, she reminded me ,"Mommy, you need to use a softer tone.   I can see your face so I know you are not mad;   but Bethany can't see your face.   You need to use a softer tone so she won't be too scared."   

Ruth is hugging more, smiling more, having less temper tantrum and is doing better at taking turns and sharing.    Her defensiveness is slowly melting away.   She seems to understand and become more relax when we tell her "It's okay."   She is still not talking yet.     We started her with some sign language,  and she is picking up the signs very quickly.     Instead of screaming or moaning, she would now use her signs to let us know she wants "more", or she is "all done".   She is such a cutie.

We were hoping to put Pearl in a nearby preschool this fall.   After all the paper works going back and forth, she was rejected for admission because of her special needs.   While I totally understand their perspective, I feel terrible - will there be more rejections from school, jobs and relationship in her future?     It is a harsh reality.    It makes us want to hug her and love her more.

If you have been parents long enough, you will probably agree that our kids taught us so much more about life than everything we can ever teach them.    It is so true in our family.    God often used our kids to help us realize how much we fall short of His standard.    Over the past few months, Bethany has taught us the true meaning of love - the amazing boundless love of our God whose eyes are even on the sparrows VS the limited, conditional and selfish kind of love we once felt good about.

The Lord has mercifully and patiently been using different people, scriptures and words to teach us the true meaning of love and trusting Him.   In the book "When God Interrupts" by Craig Barnes (Yes, I am still reading it, my third times around), there is, to my surprise, an adoption story that really spoke to and convict me.  (didn't think an adoption story would fit into the suffering theme of this book!  Isn't that how God always work?  in unexpected setting, time and places....)  The story ended with this statement [page 52]

"... making a difference is not the point.   Giving love away is the point, and we can only do that if we have fallen in love with the grace of our own Savior."

This statement brought a lot of conviction - may be all along, we were focusing too much on or expected to "make a difference" in our adopted children's lives and believe wrongly that we have the ability to do that.   If you have adopted, or have read enough adoption stories, you are definitely familiar with the term "make a difference".   Even strangers would come up to tell us how "lucky" our adopted children are to be adopted, and how much difference "we" have made in their lives.    But, by the mercy of God, I now realized this is exactly what threw us into our darkest despair; when Bethany is not exactly what we had anticipated and there are so much unknown in our future.     But when we put our focus solely on loving, I realized a freedom and peace which surpasses all understanding of this world.   It really doesn't matter then when our labor produces no fruit, or our children are not up to the bar, or our effort receives no appreciation or sometimes even being thought of as foolishness in the eyes of this world.

My friend Nina has told me this.   I didn't understand; but now I do.   

It might take many more months or even years for Bethany to learn to count to 5,  but it doesn't matter.   She is such a happy girl now, and she is where she belongs.    It is probably all that's matter in God's eyes.



"Give me one pure and holy passion
Give me one magnificent obsession
Give me one glorious ambition for my life
To know and follow hard after You
To grow as your dicsiple in your truth
This world is empty, pale, and poor
Compared to knowing you, my Lord
Lead me on and I will run after you"

From the song "One Pure and Holy Passion"