Our first night in China was spent doing the traditional “getting to know you” group things. We had pizza for dinner (yes, pizza) and then went around the table sharing our names, hometowns, little things about ourselves, etc. The point of all of this was only partly for forging friendship sake, it was mainly to keep our group of 20 travelers awake so we could avoid jetlag and adjust to the new time-zone as quickly as possible. One of the most telling questions of the evening, for me anyway, was the inevitable “Why did you sign up to come on this trip?” I honestly had no good answer to this question. I listened to person after person talk about being God-led, about wanting to “love on some babies” and various other mission callings, but I really didn’t have any of those answers. My only answer was that I had finally found something I could do with Show Hope. It sounded a bit trivial at the time, and in a way it still does, but that was really all I had.
As a side note, a few weeks ago one of my China-trip friends (a really cool chick from Australia) reminded me of this conversation and pointed out that one of the reasons I went on this trip was so God could introduce me to our son. Obviously that would never have been an answer I’d give that night, but in hind-sight it is most definitely true. Just more proof that God has a much bigger plan than we could ever imagine.
Our first full day in China was spent sightseeing at the Great Wall in the morning, followed by a visit to the Hope Healing Home in Beijing. This was my first introduction to the New Hope Foundation, which runs and operates Maria’s Big House of Hope, and I was hooked. Even though we have adopted from China twice before, both of our adoptions were of “healthy” children and I really had no working knowledge of how special needs adoptions and/or orphan cared worked. We were given a tour of the facility and an informative talk by one of the directors of New Hope, Robin Hill, and it all fascinated me. As I listened intently to the details of the “waiting child” system I could easily imagine my putting this information to good use. I have spent years advocating for adoption, but the only experiences I had to draw from were our own two adoptions. Now I was gathering loads of information about another form of the adoption process and I was seeing huge possibilities for this whole new realm of knowledge as I became more comfortable with advocating both systems.
After our stint at Hope Healing House, we headed back to the airport for our flight to Luoyang, home to Maria’s Big House of Hope. We would arrive at Maria’s late that night and be given a full tour in the morning.
I cannot tell you when I first met Jack (then called Jim) at Maria’s. It may have been that first full day, but I honestly cannot remember. I do remember that my first day or two there were spent pretty much in a blur. I still wasn’t quite sure what I was doing there, and the way that others seemed to jump right in to playing with babies and joking around with nannies and staff was a bit disconcerting to me. I’m not really all that much of an extrovert in the first place and although I didn’t feel uncomfortable in the situation, I wasn’t really sure what to do with myself either. I spent a lot of those first couple days praying – about my trip and Maria’s, but also about my own homelife, my kids, my husband, our new home, God’s purpose for me, and just about everything else you can think of. As I have told many people since I returned from this trip, it turned out I had a lot to work through in my own personal journey before I could truly give myself over to this adventure at Maria’s, but that is an entirely different discussion.
By the third full day of our trip, I think I was coming around. My first true memories of Jack are from the preschool room on the first floor of Maria’s. I may have had contact with him before this, but honestly that is something I can neither confirm nor deny. I remember him from preschool as being extremely quiet, but extremely smart. He sat on the floor working puzzles, one after another, as well as willingly doing craft projects. He was also very attentive to the needs of one of the other more limited-movement children as she played next to him. Thinking back I think he did stand out to me a bit from the beginning, but I actually spent most of my preschool experiences playing with two of the other boys in the room. This, however, is what I remember as my first impressions.
I can’t really tell you when it was that Jack started to pull on my heartstrings either. I remember what thoughts went running through my mind, but couldn’t for the life of me tell you what day of the trip it was. I remember I was sitting on floor just inside the door of the Tinker Bell room with a little girl named Jessica and I was just watching him play. I can’t remember what he was doing, or if he was interacting with another child or not, but I remember thinking that he had the potential for so much more LIFE. He didn’t look unhappy, in fact he was having a great time, but there was just something in his eyes that seemed to be waiting for something more. (For those who have read my “I Miss Jim” blog this might sound familiar.) I remember out of the blue thinking, “He would be so happy with our girls. He would fit right in.” Now, for anyone who has met, or even just heard stories of our girls this may seem nuts. Here was this quiet, reserved little boy and my imagination was placing him in the midst of the complete whirlwind of chaos that follows our crowd of girls like Pig Pen’s dust cloud. But somehow it just seemed the right fit. From all that I had seen of his intellect in the preschool room, and all that I was experiencing one-on-one with him in his home base room, it just seemed like a match made in heaven.
But, there was a HUGE problem with this idea and it weighed on my heart with far more intensity than I was first willing to admit. Remember that whole net worth qualification for adoption thing? Well, as far as I knew no rich uncle had died and left us his fortune in the few short days I had been in China. Our net worth was still exactly as it had been when I left home a few days before. As much as I looked at Jack and wanted to take him home there was absolutely no way we qualified to adopt given our current financial situation. I had filled out that financial statement form twice before and knew how it worked. The only way to do this was to wait a really, really long time until we actually had more money to our names – not something that was going to happen overnight given one source of income, rental housing and a family of six.
Quick note - I just realized as I was proofreading this, that as much as I cannot remember when exactly I met Jack, I cannot remember when God changed my heart about going home with an adoption plan either. Honestly, I don't think I ever even questioned it. Dan and I had agreed to leave the idea of another adoption as an option in our lives but, as I said, I left this country convinced that this trip was absolutely NOT about adopting and I obviously came home with a different heart. But who knows when my heart made that turn around? I guess God does, which is good, because I sure don't.
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