When are we leaving?

All our necessary paperwork has been submitted and we are leaving…..wait for it….soon. That is all we know…”soon”. It could be in 2 weeks it could be in 4 weeks. We just don’t know. We are getting so close and yet still so far away. Yesterday another family received there travel date to meet their child. They got all of a 1 week notice, thats it, one week! It sent me into mini panic attacks all day. My spiritual self says ‘don’t panic’ God’s got this. My worldly self says, ‘AHHHHHHHH’ I am about to go to another country, where I don’t speak the language, and try to navigate their laws, their customs and I really don’t have a clue and…

I DON’T HAVE ANY EXPERIENCE WITH DOWN SYNDROME!  

Expect for a few brief encounters:

Encounter #1 

The day after we committed to ‘John Mark’ and I walked into a restaurant, a chinese buffet. There were a TON of seats in the front of the restaurant. The hostess lead us to the back of the restaurant. I remember walking by all the dozens of empty tables thinking, ‘what is she doing’ Why are we…WOAH. Then I saw him. As she laid our menu’s on the table I was frozen. Like literally. I stood frozen looking at a little boy, about 3 with his family. He had down syndrome. I immediately started bawling. Seriously, I was out of control. My husband and daughter stared at me not knowing what in the world was happening. I felt like a huge idiot. I pray that family didn’t notice my reaction or think I was offended by them. I didn’t want to respond that way I just did. We had just made this huge decision, guided by The Spirit. I can’t explain it and maybe some would say I ridiculous but I don’t care. Something in my spirit is touched by people with down syndrome. I went to the bathroom and calmed myself down. My oldest daughter told my husband what was happening, she knew. She knows me. See, we have a crying gene that comes straight from my Granny and she’s got it too.

Encounter #2

I was at church after a youth night. I knew there were kids in our stake (stake: a mormon word meaning many different congregations who meet in the surrounding area) who have down syndrome. I had wanted to meet them but had not had the opportunity. Well I was on one side of the gym eating cookies with my daughter and talking with another woman. I saw Laura walk in. A spunky girl with bright red hair. We were clear across the gym from her. I saw her weave in an out of people, dodging here and there and making her way to ME! She walked up, put her hand on my shoulder and said, HI. Thats it. How sweet. I swear she was in tune with the will of the Lord. She had never met me and bypassed bunches of people she knew. I talked with her for a moment and then she walked away. About ten minutes later I saw her again, across the gym. She was dragging, literally dragging her mother across the room. She again came to me and put her Mom’s hand in mine. She wanted us to meet!

Encounter #2.1 

Just this last weekend I saw Laura again at a church youth dance. I danced with her and she serenaded me. The song was, Reflection. You know the one in the Disney movie Mulan. She sang every word perfectly. I wanted to cry, but I didn’t. (Yes, progress)

So, as you can see I have like no experience. I want people to know I have almost ZERO idea what I am doing and that is OK.  I want people to know that this whole journey is following The Spirit and His plan for us, it’s totally AWESOME. I really think that children with down syndrome require all the same things our other children require, LOVE and lots of patience and willingness to learn and do whatever is required to help them reach their full potential.

I am starting to really dislike the word, ‘soon’. Like a 5 year old who is waiting for their birthday party.

The Seven Percenters

The story of the Jesus and the leper has been on my mind. You know this story. The man with leperocy comes to Jesus, he asks to be healed of his disease. Jesus tells him to go wash in the river Jordan but this man refuses.  Christ’s solution was too simple, the man’s problem  too complicated to be fixed by such a seemingly simplistic solution. He thought, it is impossible.

The problems in our world are also complex ones. We know there are orphans and that they need help. But we think, what can *I* do? It seems there are no simple, quick fixes. But maybe, just maybe they are?

I recently learned that given the amount of orphans in this world that if just 7% of Christians adopted we could banish the word orphan. 7%, thats it! That is a tiny miniscule number! I testify that God has been through, in and leading our adoption. I have never felt closer to God than I have now, at this moment as we push forward and work to bring home our sons. I have come to believe that the work of providing for orphans and caring for the least of these might just be one of the most purest expressions of our faith and closest to our Fathers heart. We have been changed by this journey and I hope we never look back because it feels great! Without Jesus Christ  *I* could never do this. It is only through Christ, who strengthens me that we can have courage and Faith to move mountains. I am happy to be a 7%’er.

This video is a powerful testimony.

Sappy Post

Spoiler Warning: This is a really sappy post. After another two weeks of the whole family having flu followed by strep I was feeling a bit down. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed. Oh my gosh it is so hard to feel God and His Spirit when you are in physical pain! I know he was still there, still supporting me but I couldn’t feel Him. Not cool. So, during that brief moment I was like, What am I doing? I can’t do this. I can’t even take a shower, or feed my children how can I add two more? Doubt started to creep in.

Now that the fog has lifted after one day of antibiotics…How thankful I am that is not true! I can totally do this!  I’ve got the best support in the world, God.  I am so excited for our adventure! This is the most exciting thing I think I’ve ever done. I am fulfilling a life-time dream. I could never have done it without the CONSTANT encouragment of my Savior. We will be travelling really soon. Now, not surprisingly, I’m looking back at the last six months saying, Where has the time gone?  Now i’m running through lists and lists in my mind of things still left to be done, (like their room!) I’m sure I wont finish everything, for sure. I think I have turned a new leaf over, casue i’m ok if I don’t finish everything and this is why….

“Everything will be alright in the end and if its not alright then its not the end” haha makes me laugh. Its from the movie ‘The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’ which was pretty good if you like old wrinkly British people, which I do.

It is one of the best feelings to be on a path, being led by God and engaged in a Holy and worthy purpose!

Meet ‘Pratt’

Meet ‘Pratt’ (not his real name) He is a sweet baby boy! (thats right, ignore the pink please. I think only American’s care about that kind of stuff) He is aprox 10 months old right now.

We have always felt called to adopt. So when we started this process we wanted to do ALL we could, give of ourselves completely. We wanted to adopt two children, cause thats what we feel our ‘all’ is, for now ;0) We never felt drawn to a particular child, except ‘John Mark’. Even though we wanted to adopt two children, it seemed pretty overwhelming. How can *I* do it?? How?? Is it *too* much? One is enough, we are ‘doing our part’ with one. These thoughts rolled over and over in our discussions and our mind. So we put it on the back burner and thought maybe its just not time.

Every so often I would say to Erik, So how about 2? He would say, I want two, but no, i’m just feeing one. Well one day I asked him this question for like the 100th time and I completely expected him to say, Nope Im just feeling one. BUT, he didn’t. He said Yes, we should, lets do it!  Well, you would think I would be jumping for joy but instead I was like, Huh? Whaaa? Um, hold on just a minute, I need to think about this some more. So I took a couple days to ponder and pray. There was no doubt, two it was! But, I was afraid. I’m gonna be real honest here, as in I don’t want to tell you this but maybe it will help someone out there. I kept saying, But TWO with down syndrome, I said this over and over. And finally my husband surprised me again, He said, ‘You can’t say that, take that label off, we are adopting two KIDS, two BOYS. Forget the labels. I knew he was right.

It is just such an amazing testimony how our kids come to us. Just like with ‘John Mark’ I have spoken with and met people who have prayed on adopting ‘Pratt’ and got the answer of ‘NO, not the right kid for you’ Its just amazing! When ‘Pratt’ was listed in Nov (I think) I received a call and many emails about him. But I just didn’t think I could do it. It just didn’t feel right at that moment. During the Christmas holiday he had many warrior moms who raised money for him. He has a large grant that will allow us to bring him home for almost no extra fees. That is amazing! This is what we know about him, he needs heart surgery. He needs it asap or he will not survive much longer. We pray for him every night, along with many others that he can hold on until we can bring him home. I have seen adorable videos of him, thanks to a missionary over there. He really looks good in the videos. Just maybe they are wrong about his heart. Just maybe.

Everything that Erik and I have experienced we feel has lead us to this moment. We feel prepared. Not because we have all this technical knowledge about hearts or down syndrome. Not because we have sooo much money. We are prepared in Him. Christ is prepared. He is all we need.

I cannot even imagine what twists and turns will lie ahead. I can’t wait for the ride!

And the winner is…

MY FAMILY!!! We feel like the ‘winners’ here. Thanks to everyone who donated to bring home our BOYS!! All together there were 67, $5 donations made! For a total of $335. Thank you so much, oh how I want you all to win this quilt!!! But sadly, thats not how it works. So, the winner donated under the name of…

Edward Owens, Congratulations! Please leave a message for me in the comments section of this post.  Include in your message your email address so I can contact you and get your address. I will not post your email onto the blog, so no worries. 

Here is the list of donors and your assigned numbers. For example 1-10 would include 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 and 10, and so on. I entered the information into the random number generator just once!

• 1-10     C Hsu
• 11-13    S Alvarado-Fuentes
• 14-18   AN. Taylor
• 19-26   E Owens
• 27-32   C Reynolds
• 33-42   E Blankenship
• 43-44   S Krasokhina
• 45-46   J Riddick
• 47-51   AN Taylor
• 52-56   B Anderson
• 57-61   S Hollister
• 62-64   D Howard
• 65-67   AM. Taylor

Update: Quilt Giveaway

Will announce the winner ASAP! I am waiting on the final tallies from Reece’s Rainbow on donations. I will list your last name and how many times you were entered to win! Thanks everyone who donated! Every time our fund went up it gave me such hope and momentum!

Last Day for Quilt Giveaway!

Today is the last day to donate and be entered to win the Quilt Giveaway.

How do you donate? Click the button to the right of this post. You know the one with ‘John Mark’s’ face on it.

Donate at least $5.

It will take until Monday to be sure we have all of the donations/names gathered. We will announce the winner on Monday the 18th! Yah!

If you want more details on the quilt itself just scroll down to the previous post.

It’s Alright, It’s OK

While I AM concerned and worried what this new hiccup will do to our time line I am grateful for the presence of The Spirit in my life since our hiccuping began. I know this is due to prayers on our behalf and our own fervent, frequent prayers. God does answer prayers.

Some people believe that we are not all called to adopt. While I think that is true I also think a great number of us are called to adopt and chose to ignore that call. Im guessing out of fear. Fear of the unknown. I know, I’ve been there, even during this process we’ve been there.  The adoption process is quite the test! We have very little control over any of it. But, you know what?

This IS true of all our lives as well, we are just able to easily fool ourselves into believing otherwise. Its a tricky mix, Yes, we make decisions everyday that guide our future and that is important and should not be underestimated. However, it is by God’s grace that we are able to make those decisions, that we are able to even breathe.

I cannot adequately explain what music does for me and how the holy spirit communicates through it. I love the band Third Day, hands down my favorite band. My sweet husband purchased concert tickets for Valentine’s Day. I’m not into chocolate (I know I’m a weird woman) or jewelry (I don’t wear a wedding band and everything I own is fake I’m not into getting ‘stuff’. But I do love spending time with my husband. We attended another one of their concerts back in November. I was convinced that would be one of the last big dates we would have in a while because we would be bringing our son (now sons!) home in February. I told myself that to keep sane. And now we will be going to another concert here in a few days, bittersweet. As I pulled up to my home today their song came on the radio.

Their message, confirmed by The Spirit,

‘Its alright, it’s ok. I won’t worry ’bout tomorrow. For it brings me one more day, closer than I was to you’

I WILL rejoice in every day, because God has a plan, He knows when we will see our boys face-to-face, cuddle, hold and love them in person. And everyday that passes, no matter how long, will bring me closer to them.

 

Waiting

Things *were* moving along quite nicely. We were making great progress and our dossier was sent overseas. We were so very close to being ‘submitted’ and traveling in a month or so. We got some really bad news today. One of our documents was rejected by the adoption authority there. It has an electronic signature from our state and federal government. They require a live signature. This is crushing. Because of this one document we may have to redo our entire package of documents and it will set us back by two months, we would not be able to travel for three months. I  feel devastated because I don’t know if our boys will make it. I don’t know if they will still be alive another three months without proper medical care. I did not see this coming and literally feel sick. There is one small sliver of hope. We will attempt to get our fingerprinting redone tomorrow in a different way that *may* generate a ‘live’ signature in 5-10 days. This is our hope. Now, I have to move forward with my life, preparing for our boys and not curling up on the couch frozen with fear. That is so hard to do, I have faith but I am human.  I have felt the power of God in this as I have called people and inquired about other options. I have felt His spirit. I know He has a plan and my prayer is that His will is done and that I can know what His will is and feel peace in it. We ask for prayers for our children, and for all orphans that people’s hearts might be moved towards adoption.

Any if you are reading this and wondering why I am saying children: http://reecesrainbow.org/41801/sponsorhutson-2

 

 

How to become a King or Queen

Today as I drove F home I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, she was jerking back and forth. I looked back and she would stop only to start again as soon as I was not looking. So I signed, what are you doing? She was happy to tell me that she could hear the music and she was dancing. She had her cochlear implant tweaked today. Faith loves music even though she doesn’t hear it well or at all or auditorily understand the words being sung. I don’t understand why she likes music. It just doesn’t make sense to me. Now I have met many deaf people who love music and many who can’t stand to suffer through it! LOL, everyone is different.  I absolutely cannot live without music. Its like my daily, or hourly, anti-depresent. It allows me to worship, every day. I will take a risk that you guys haven’t seen this I just had to share. I’ve probably listened to this 100 times this week. Its just so amazing! I also watched the you tube video ‘the making of the music video’, I highly recommend it. In the ‘making of’ video they share that the little boy who is in the beginning of the video was recently nearly drowned in the ocean. A little girl, the same age as him, went out to save him when she saw he was struggling, he was saved and she was dragged out to sea and was never seen again. I cannot fathom the faith and love, the pure love of Christ that is automatic in children. I also love the use of purple. I was just talking to my girls the other day about how red and purple are used symbolically. So here it is…enjoy…its touching AND uplifting!