The Day We Met Our Children

I haven't taken much time to blog this last week because well, I have waited a long time to be with my children and I am soaking up every moment.  I have fallen asleep with them each night and waken up to their faces next to mine and their hands reaching out for me.  I have napped next to them most days too.  Even though I want to share this part of  the journey with all of you, I haven't pulled myself away from the kids enough to do that, and I know you understand. At the same time though, I really want to blog because in the future, I want to be able to look back and see all that God has done and so I will take the time when I can and continue to write.

Our children are simply amazing.  We could not imagine things going any better.  There is definitely a connection with our kids and has been since day one.  At times, it feels like we have known each other for a long time and at other moments, I realize how very much I do not know about them or about being their mom.  We have been surprised at how well the kids transitioned into our care.

We first met them on Sunday, December 14th.  They were brought to the hotel we were staying at and we met them in the lobby.  They walked in with the bears we sent them over a year ago in hand (And let me tell you those bears have been well loved!). They stared at us for a couple of seconds before their social worker got out the picture albums we sent and asked them who they saw in the pictures and did it look like us.  They both nodded.  Marc got out a couple of small cars and we sat down, right in the middle of the lobby and pushed the cars toward them.  They smiled at us and pushed them back. 

Then we got out some bouncy balls, not sure the social workers thought that was the best activity for the lobby so they asked if we wanted to go up to our room.  Which we were very glad to do, kind of crazy to meet your children for the first time in a large hotel lobby with onlookers all around. Not a big deal though, because as soon as we saw our children everything else faded into the background.

Once we got to our room we got out some large balloons we brought with us and Marc started blowing them up.  Thankfully the hotel we were staying at had a very large living room, so there was plenty of room to play. The kids loved the balloons and we spent the better part of the next hour playing with the balloons and chasing the kids around the room.   Marc laid down on the floor at one point and both kids climbed on his back.  He got up and started crawling around the room and we heard the best sound, giggles and laughter. Our kids have never known a dad, not even a foster dad since their foster mom was a widow.  They LOVE Marc and its as if they know they need a dad.  They are so eager for his love and attention.

After this time in our room, we left to walk across the street for lunch.  Our kids both wanted us to carry them and then sat on our laps at the restaurant.  They shared a meal of fried rice and ate just about every last piece of rice. We walked back to our room and spent another hour or so playing before it was time to go. 

We rode with the social workers to the kid's foster home, which is about an hour outside of Bangkok.  We passed through the city of Bangkok and made our way into a much more rural part of the country, a city surrounded by rice fields.  It was surreal to meet the kids' foster mom, just as it was to meet them.  We have been looking at each other's pictures for 17 months and to finally meet was wonderful.  Their foster mom seems like a very sweet and caring woman and we are so grateful for the love and care she has given our children. 

It is a very different feeling on this side of things.  I know her grief and pain, at even the thought of goodbye, well.  We gave her some photo gifts we had made for her and she couldn't stop smiling looking at them.  We told her that our kids will always know that she loves them, that we will send pictures, and bring them back to visit. 

As we said goodbye the kids wanted us to hold them and didn't want us to put them down, truly God had already begun to knit our hearts together. 

A week has passed since this first day we met and tomorrow we will pick up the kids' visas at the U.S. Embassy, head to the airport and board a plane for America.  We have had a wonderful three weeks here in Thailand, but are looking forward to coming home.  Home for Christmas.

I will write more about the last week when I can!

Tasting the Sweeetness

*I wrote this five days ago, but have not had a chance to post it yet.  I have a lot of blogging to catch up on, we will see if or when that happens!

On the flight over to Thailand I started a new book, one I have been waiting to read and bought knowing I wanted to read on this trip.  This book, in the title alone, sums up so much of how I feel about our journey.  Every Bitter Thing is Sweet. My heart is overwhelmed with sweetness this trip, with seeing things once bitter become sweet. 

I am only a couple of chapters in, but if you have experienced anything bitter in your life, I think you would enjoy this book.  If you are hungering for something more, for some kind of meaning in the bitter you have experienced, the words in this book, along with the list of Scripture references at the end of every chapter, will speak to your soul.

I have walked through some bitter days in my life, some I may never write about, others I must. 

Most of you know that I fostered four precious children long term when I was living in Thailand back in 2002-2008.  I cared for two of these children for four years and two of them for two years.  They were my children and I loved them with every part of my being.  I would have given my life for them, I still would.  I loved them as much as I can ever imagine loving a child.  Each of my foster children came to me with some challenges - physical, medical, emotional. We went through a lot together, those kids and I, perhaps the biggest thing we went through though, was saying goodbye.  I would have adopted each one of them if I could have but for lots of reasons I was not able to, the biggest reason perhaps being that I knew that was not God’s plan for them or for me.  I didn’t understand it then, but I understand it a little more now. 

This trip is about meeting our children, but it has also been about reconnecting and visiting two of these precious children that I called my own. 

Bittersweet.  We called that time, the day they met their forever parents and transitioned into their care, bittersweet. I knew it was sweet, but to me, at that time, it felt mostly bitter.  I can remember the difficult moments of goodbye like it was yesterday.  The pain in my heart, the looks in their eyes.  I had to keep telling myself this was God’s plan and it was good, but it didn’t feel good. 

When we landed in Bangkok last week we were met by one of my foster children and her dad.  We had a very brief visit because we are doing some traveling before we head back to Bangkok to spend a couple of days with this sweet little one, my little peanut, I always called her.  She has changed so much.  She has a head full of curly hear, she speaks English with a British accent and she has a dad, to name a few ways.  That is something she never had with me, a dad.  She had a heavenly Father, a very real heavenly Father, but she had no one to teach her what having a father is all about.  Seeing her there with her dad, it was confirmation to my soul that she is right where she needs to be.  As I type this, I am on a plane heading back for my longer visit with her and her family. I am so looking forward to reconnecting with my little peanut.

An aquarium my foster kids loved looking at.

From Bangkok we flew to Chiang Mai.  This was where I lived for six years and it felt like coming home.  We were met at the airport in CM by a dear friend of mine and her sweet daughter.  We lived together for a couple of years there.  We stopped and got a bowl of noodles on the way to their house.  Yes, it felt like coming home. 

We spent three full days up in CM.  It was a wonderful time of reconnecting with dear friends, people that are more like family to me than friends.  It was interesting to be back there no longer single and childless. 

We went to some of the places I had frequented with my children.  Places I always went with a double stroller and a baby carrier.  It’s crazy that another six years have passed.  Now I am married and have only days left of being childless. 

 

God’s plan is good.  At times it is difficult to understand and at times it feels bitter, but in the end, especially in the ultimate end, it is good, always good.

From Chiang Mai we flew down south to Hat Yai.  Hat Yai is home to another of my foster daughters and her family.  Seeing this little one again after six years, well as you can imagine stirred up so many things, but as I reflect, most of all it stirred up joy and contentment.  Joy because she is happy and healthy and very well attached to her family. Contentment because I know she is exactly where she is supposed to be.  God picked out the perfect family for her in oh so many ways.  This sweet girl had the biggest challenges of all my foster kids to overcome.  And do you know what?  She has overcome so many of them and God is not finished with her yet.  I could tell during my short days with her that His hand has continued to rest on her and heal her.  She has the most nurturing mother and a house full of siblings to love on and care for her.  She has flourished in this home. She is not my child anymore, she is theirs…though we do all recognize that ultimately she is His, it was sweet to see that she belongs in this family.

From Hat Yai we flew to Krabi. A short and very sweet little get away before heading back to Bangkok to visit with my other foster daughter and her family and to meet our children.  I will try to write separately about this time because I have lots of amazing pictures to share. We have pictures of all of our trips and of course there are so many details I could share, but so many of these moments are too much to write about and some almost too sacred to share. 

In Krabi we were surrounded by some of His most beautiful creations and throughout our time there I was in awe of Him.  In awe of His creation and His master plan. 

 

What He has shown me most of all through this last week of travel and the quick time in the airport in Bangkok and the times in Chiang Mai and Hat Yai is that He is delights in making the bitter sweet.  Even the most bitter of moments, such as saying goodbye to my foster children, He can make sweet.  He has a plan, always, He has a plan.  A plan for our good and His glory.  I feel His presence so near to me, like He is holding my hand and giving me glimpses into His story and reminding me that He is good.

*And indeed the most bitter thing in my life has become sweet.  I am a mom! Will definitely be writing more about that later.