A Father's Perspective

Jane does such a fantastic job with this blog; I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I do!  She has summed up so well our experiences here there's nothing to really add except my own personal perspectives - so here you go...

Though my greatest concerns were with Mercy and her unknown conditions and bonding/attachment issues, you've already heard how well most of that has been going (for which God gets all the glory!)  My secondary concerns were basically all logistics.  Making sure your family's needs are met - that's a daddy's job: making sure we got to our planes and appointments with our guides, making sure we had all the cash we needed for fees and donations and keeping it safe along the way, making sure we had all of the paperwork we needed and the forms were filled out properly, and always trying to pick our way technologically in, around, or through the "Great Firewall of Ch*na" to allow Jane to keep making all of these great Blogger and Facebook posts!  Doing all this while keeping stocked with food & water and trying to keep Jane (and hopefully myself too) sane have been weighing heavily on my mind.

As many of you know I've travelled to Asia several times (though never to Ch*na) and had several conversations with friends who had been here before, so I had many expectations in my head.  Let me tell you that our Lord is good!  All of my expectations have been so far exceeded...  The hotel rooms (especially the one here in Guangzhou) were nicer that I thought.  The train travel and walking around the cities where we have been staying: much less crowded that I anticipated.  And the trains themselves: new and smooth and beautiful.  Very attentive guides and lots of English language signage have made getting around much simpler than I would have hoped.  So again, praise God!

And I'm glad to say that we've successfully unloaded the crazy amount of cash we were required to bring here (which I've been way too paranoid about).  I can now personally attest to what others have told me about their experience with this: "I've never been so glad to get rid of money!"  All the donations and fees have been paid to everyone under the sun here, and I can rest easy now that this burden too has been lifted.

The paperwork too is almost finished now, and though we've had some scares and bumps along the way with several parties in the mix (including us) who have never done this before, we look to be on track for our consulate appointment on Wednesday.  The technological part has been a challenge, and I've been forced to use about every trick up my sleeve to stay online - but He's been meeting us there too.  Though it's been anything but smooth, we've been able to stay in touch with family & friends and the blog keeps building too.  Thanks for your patience, and it's been so good & encouraging to be able to see and hear from you all.

As for sanity - well the jury's still out on that one.  Some might say just coming here is proof that it was absent to begin with...  But we're doing the best we can and trying to just enjoy the ride as much as possible and let the other stuff fall away.  I love watching the connection between my wife & newest daughter grow day by day.  I am so blessed to have both of them in my life!

Mercy by the way is fantastic!  I can't believe how much she feels like ours already.  From the first moment they handed her to Jane at the orphanage, she was OURS - no matter what the actual technicalities might have been at the time.  With so much build up to that particular moment - it just seemed so natural to me...  Now make no mistake, she was emotionally shut down and had no clue what was going on, but there she was - the one we had been praying for and praying about for so long. And when we had those brief moments of questions about paperwork, when the thought of someone trying to take her away from us came to mind - it's hard to even think about now...  I don't know what I would have done if it came to that, but praise God again - it never did.

Though it can still be awkward here and there, those times are getting fewer and fewer by the moment. I can't believe how strong the attachment has grown already.  My heart is just as attached to her as it was to our other kids at this point in time, and I can't help but feel she is already starting to see us as "special" even after so short a time.  As Jane mentioned before she chose us over her former caretakers,
and as we travel from place to place and she meets many new faces - she looks to us as her source of comfort and security and that definitely warms your heart.  She says ma-ma and ba-ba (sometimes da-da) and is definitely associating those names with us.  I know she doesn't really understand what those words mean yet, but by God's grace she will as we act out those roles in her life (however imperfectly) over the coming months and years.  My prayer is that in the future she will see herself as much a natural part of our family as we do, and that she will see with the eyes of her heart the hand of Jesus placing her into our family just as clearly as He placed our other children.

I can't wait for the day (which is coming soon) when our whole family is indeed "whole" and all together in our own home, and we can start the next chapter in our story.  Which by the way includes you too - so stay tuned, there's lots more to come.  And knowing the One who has planned it all out before us, I'm sure it's bound to be great.

See you all soon!