China Part One

Let me begin this post by saying thank you. We have received so much love and encouragement from my last post. It's really hard to be open and honest about our struggles. We never expected it to be as difficult as it has been but we are learning and growing each day. Life is slowly finding a peaceful rhythm and it's hard to remember life before Lila. She is teaching us to be better. 

As I get older the phrase "hindsight is 20/20" becomes more and more true. Our China trip may be the greatest example of this I have in my adult life. Jon and I were given the option to condense a typical fourteen day trip into just ten days. This seemed like such a great idea. It would save travel costs and time away from our boys. It seemed like a win/win. Hindsight, people. I should have thought a little more about this. This post will explain the first few days of our trip. They were long days with lots of emotional stress. This stress may or may not have been avoided had we stayed the extra couple days in Lila's province. I'm going to offer you a pictorial timeline of the first 3 days. 

September 18th-Leave Memphis EARLY

We had a layover in Detroit and then we were China Bound. 

The flight to China from Detroit was so long. Like 13 hours long. The food was less than ideal but we made it to Beijing and then had to navigate the Beijing airport, go through customs and recheck our bags without speaking English. To say we were a little stressed might be an understatement. I have never been as uncomfortable as I was that moment. We had some McDonalds then boarded a flight to Nanchang. We arrived in Nanchang about 9:30pm some 27 hours after we left Memphis. 

September 20th: Nanchang: Lila's city

We woke up the next morning to one of the coolest views. We would meet Lila at 10:30 am at the Civil Affairs office. The red bags are gifts for the Chinese officials. 

10:30-Civil Affairs office. Most Nanchang gotcha days take place in the lobby of the adoptive parents' hotel. Since we expedited we completed what most people do in the first two days in about an hour at the civil affairs office. We met Lila in a very hot, empty civil affairs office. She did not exactly take to us right away. It was a very emotional and scary day for all of us, especially Lila. 

We then took our van to the notary office and signed more paperwork. The lady in the picture above is Shirley. She was our wonderful guide. Zoey tried to keep Lila happy while we signed paperwork. I have absolutely no regrets bringing Zoey. She was an enormous help. Lila was very scared. Very scared. I can imagine how it was so overwhelming.

After the notary's office we went back to our hotel. We spent some time playing and napping and then we took her to dinner in our hotel. For a brief couple of hours we thought she was starting to realize that we were going to take care of her and love her. 

September 21st-Orphanage visit/Travel to Guangzhou

If we had a typical trip we would have spent at least 3 maybe 4 more days in Nanchang. We would have had more time to bond and connect before we went back to visit our orphanage. We expedited part of our trip because we were running into the Mid-

Autumn Festival and China shuts down their government. We would have had to wait at least 2 more weeks before we could have travelled.  Again all hindsight. This is where our struggles really began. I am going to keep these pictures private. Lila started to become weary of Jon. She did not want him to hold her or really be left alone with her. We packed our bags that morning and met our guide to visit Lila's orphanage and foster family. I had hoped that visiting her foster family would have given her a little closer but I can now see how it was so confusing and scary for her. Hindsight. Lila had literally left these people the previous morning. They had loved and cared for her for most of her life. They were her family. She had spent a very brief and terrifying 24 hours with these strangers and now we took her back home. You can imagine how confusing this all was for her. In addition she was in completely new and scary places with these new and scary people.  She had an absolute meltdown when we left. She shutdown and started getting sick. We put her on an airplane that afternoon and I'm still amazed we all survived that day. Her body was under complete stress. 

I will finish up the rest of the trip in part two-Guangzhou and Hong Kong. Thanks for sticking around and thanks for always loving and supporting our family. 

If you only knew...

I’m sure most of you haven’t noticed the gap between my posts. Maybe you have or maybe I am just now bringing it to your attention. I wish I could offer some logical reason but I have none. Once we received LOA for Lila life seemed to fast forward for the next two months and then she was here and life has been an absolutely insane roller coaster since. I do plan to share more details about our trip to China in the next few weeks but the emotions of that trip have been very fresh and raw up until the last few weeks. I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Over the last year Jon and I have heard phrases such as, “You are such wonderful people.” Or “What a blessed little girl.” It’s pretty hard to hear those things because we do not feel worthy of any of those words. They are painful reminders of how we are struggling. Please allow me to try and explain.

We met Lila on September 20th in a hot, empty Civil affairs office. She was a very sad, very scared little girl who had been taken from the only people she had ever known. She was so very loved and cared for in her foster family and she wanted absolutely nothing to do with us.  Nothing. She ptretty much hated us. The trip was so physically, emotionally and mentally exhausting that I lost 5 pounds. It was so very hard in China but once we returned life began to sort itself out. We still endured lots of fits but poor girl had seen so much change in such a short period.  After a few weeks the fog lifted and I truly believe this is where Satan entered.

You see, Jon and I are most definitely not perfect people or parents. We will never claim to be. We are simply people who have been blessed with a quiver full of arrows. We are trying to love them hard and show that life is more than ourselves. We want them to be different. We want to be the hands and feet of Jesus. Once we settled into life at home I could feel Satan start to work himself into my thoughts and actions. The transition of Lila into our family has been of the hardest things we have ever done.  Not because of her but because of us. Because we allowed Satan to whisper words of doubt into our hearts and minds.  I wanted to try and portray that we were doing so well and that our Facebook profile picture was a great indication that we are so happy all the time. It’s not. It’s not possible.  I realize more and more that a picture is just a prettied up glimpse into people’s lives. It’s not reality. Satan used self comparison to make me feel worse. Lila is teaching to see the beauty that comes from the hard and broken.

Thankfully my God is so big, so strong and so mighty. :) He always see the good and forgives our shortcomings. I’m so grateful for what that little girl is teaching us. I sent Jon a text recently that said “She is showing us God’s love.”  It’s amazing to me that we can be so impatient or frustrated with such small, insignificant things and she can look us in the face and smile. It’s pretty wonderful and I’m so lucky she is mine.