Saint Ives Dad

Post 26 - An Amazing Day in Guang Zhou

2010-03-20T09:55:00.002-06:00

Our entire travel group was very glad to be back in Guang Zhou. We actually staged a revolt and went back early! We were all tired of being hot and smelling the off gassing of adhesives used in the hotel renovation, so we found out a way to shorten our stay in Nan Chang (which we really did love) and change our flights and get an extra night in Guang Zhou. Here are the pictures I took along with comments during our family tour on our first day back in Guang Zhou.

Chairman Mao has been defeated, and I am back on an Asian diet. It is possible that my system reacted to some typical western food I ate the night before. Thanks Sarah for filling in. Guangzhou is huge and SO diverse – WOW! Pictures can give a little feel for things here, but not much. For less than a $1000 US, a person could fly here, lodge in style for a couple of nights, eat out all the time (make sure you don't drink the water – even melted ice – our room has a first class water filter) and walk around all day very safely from what I can tell. We were warned by one local that befriended us and showed us around to be careful of pick pockets and dishonest merchants, but our journey through the city with Gabe and Sarah seemed pretty safe. Gabe seems to be very popular here with his Hong`' To- fa` (red hair). A couple of young girls asked to have their picture with him. Every picture I took for this day has something interesting to say about this city. I have cropped and reduced every picture on this website, but as I look through the pictures for this day, I cannot imagine cropping much, so I have reduced them to a reasonable website size.

This is a very nice public playground on the Shaiman Island of Guangzhou near the

Victory Hotel that we stayed at.

The architecture near the hotel was very nice and very similar to French and/or English architecture.

At least the influence seems evident.

An example of some of the public life. These people are playing batmitten without nets.

Note the use of individual AC units rather than central air for buildings. This seemed rather common.

One of the many interesting monuments on the Shaiman Island. This one devoted to international adoption. A western man with a video camera followed by a Chinese “Auntie” with a Chinese girl in a stroller.

This statue illustrates the rapid cultural transition of the Chinese people. The right most statue of the young woman in short shorts seemed somewhat extreme compared to what we commonly saw. That is why I was happy to have the little girl in this picture. She is more indicative of what we saw among the local Chinese.

In this statue, a Chinese businessman with an abacus, and an English gentleman negotiate on some business.

We grew more and more fond of the red-headed Asian boy that we picked up.

He was very popular with the Asian girls.

Hmmm ... I think this is a farmer offering some sugar cane after some refinement work to two Chinese youngsters. Go figure.

Prerevolution Chinese children.

Much like what I came to see the commune system of teaching to be,

young ambitious violinists want-to-be's following their master violin teacher.

The Shaiman Island is noted for three major things: International Trade, American adoptions, and weddings.

On our first day out, there were several new couples getting their wedding photos taken.

If you want to see a Chinese person without black hair,

it is likely to be some type of artisan (or so it seemed to me).

Several of the photographers had dyed hair.

Shaiman Da Jia (or Shaiman Avenue – Da Jia literally means big road).

This is a very beautiful and long walk way with many different types of public areas along its length.

It was easy to steal pictures. Wait for the pro's to set them up and jump in at an non-obtrusive angle.

Another example of the beautiful walking avenues between the buildings, shops and hotels on the Shaiman Island.

This statue was interesting, and I felt it must be evident of the prerevolutionary European occupation. Here, a Chinese woman (possibly servant) is doing neddlework for a European couple.

Comparative dance between a young European girl and a prerevolutionary Chinese girl-friend.

One of the canals that divided the Shaiman Island from the rest of Guangzhou.

Sarah was enthralled with her tour of Guangzhou ... most of the time.

Being the Ives family and the brave adventurers that we are, we left the relative safety of the island, held our wallets tight and walked into the city.

I couldn't resist this picture of some men working on renovating a shop. The guy to the left used his ladder like walking stilts when he needed to move it down the walk. No one held it for him. Eat your heart out OSHA! Or course, there's a good chance he's gotten hurt by now too.

A bravely risked my life to step out into the middle of the road to get this picture looking down a somewhat typical street in the herb and medicinal district of Guangzhou.

A lot of the time, we walk along, look above the shops, and you see dwellings, and a lot of the time you see clothes hanging out to dry.

RATED PG-13 Here, are some common animals used for food in China. I ask you, who seems more reasonable. The country that puts excess pet animals to death and send them to the landfills, or the country that eats the excess pet animals – your call. Yes, there are rabbits and cats in this picture.

If you look closely at the larger version of this picture, your eyes will not deceive you. I asked the lady selling these, “Hen`' hao`' chi- ma`?” She affirmed, “Hen`' hao`' chi-!” Very delicious. YES, they are scorpions.

One of the many herb shops.

A look down another herb shop road / community.

Yes, these are real pearls. I kept telling this guy in Mandarin that I would return later, and he kept lowering the price on the calculator. To make a long and often hilarious story short, we ended with more than 10 strings of pearls for about $8.00 U.S. Wow. Wasn't trying to cheat the guy, but he wouldn't let me go.

Here are our pearl merchants working at a small table. They were really a kick and very nice to deal with.

Gabe liked this picture, because it was yet another view of the shops with the dwellings above.

A Guangzhou man, that spoke good English, took us deeper into the city. We were initially unsure of his intensions, but he was truly benevolent, and took us to some nice places. There was so much to see, and we regretted not being able to explore longer. We could sure turn some heads with our looks and by having Sarah with us.

Sequence Picture 1 of 4: This was a beautiful open square connected by four large walking avenues. The next three pictures are part of a sequence of pictures of this area. Note the McDonalds. We heard various reports of it tasting exactly the same and not the same. We never found out for ourselves :-)

Sequence Picture 2 of 4.

Sequence Picture 3 of 4.

Sequence Picture 4 of 4.

Some of the nicer store fronts deeper into the city.

Post 25 - Leaving Nan Chang for Guang Zhou

2010-03-19T21:35:00.005-06:00

I have not posted in a while. I got busy doing some other things for a while, and I really missed working on this blog. It was quite surprising to look back at what I wrote on April 8th, 2005 to start writing this post. I got behind at this same point then, but for different reasons :-)

Dear friends of my Mom and Dad,

You might have noticed that my Dad has not been keeping this site up as well lately. Well, he kinda drank a drink with some melted ice by accident, and he kinda got Chairman Mao's revenge if you know what I mean. He also doesn't have quite the highspeed connection that he did in my home province, so he is kinda behind. But, he has diligently been playing with that flashy thing that makes these pictures of me and my birth country, so I am sure he will catch up. For now, I will tell you about the first part of my really big trip to my new home as I leave my birth province. Below is a picture of me in a hip hugger with my Ma Ma. Hey, put me in anything as long as I am with my family, I do not mind, but I do like Ma Ma the best. Please don't tell Ba Ba and Ge Ge though. They try, but they just are not Ma Ma.

Me in my Hip Hugger with Ma Ma

This next picture is a picture of me on a Gong- Gong` Chi` Chea- (a bus in Mandarin). I have been on a bus before, but I thought you might want to see my first tooth. Look really close right below my tongue.

Me Showing Off my First Tooth (right below my tongue)

Dad got a picture of Aunt Mary on our way to the airport. She took great care of my parents and the parents of my orphanage sisters while we were in my home province of Jiang Xi. She is a special lady and she lives in Nanchang, and you will have to ask my Ba Ba or Ma Ma why in person.

Our Last Trip with Aunt Mary

Here I am with Ba Ba after we checked our bags. I am getting ready for my first flight! I will fly about 1 hour from Nanchang to Guangzhou. Wow, I thought Nanchang was big. I am going from 4 million to 15 million. They are both a lot larger than Shang Gao where my orphanage was.

Getting Ready for my First Plane Ride with Ba Ba

(You too could look this GQ if YOU had a beautiful Asian Daughter)

I like this real food stuff my fumu (No, not my Daddy's friend from the Congo - that is the word for parents in Mandarin) give me. If you look carefully in the picture below, you can see me eating one of my favorite new foods, Honey Nut Cheerios, just to the left of my finger. Flying was really pretty underwhelming. At least I got to be on Ma Ma and Ba Ba's laps the whole way and play with Ge Ge.

Me Eating a Honey Nut Cheerio on the Flight from Guangzhou to Nanchang

I guess I found flying to be pretty underwhelming

Post 24 - Another Day of Exploration in Nan Chang

2010-02-07T17:47:00.001-07:00

It is hard to not fall in love when you wake up to this ...

Our Little Angel

This is the report that I wrote on 4/7/2005 in Nan Chang, Jiang Xi, China

It is hard to explain the belief system here in China. The population is going through rapid changes economically and culturally. I have seen what I believe to be Buddhist priests walking around the city, but I am not sure. I would love to visit a home church, but it would be to hard to find one and too risky to the home church too even if I could find one. Below is a large Buddhist temple that Gabe and I went to look at while Sue and Sarah rested in the room together.

A Massive Buddhist Temple in Nanchang Near our Hotel

Even though Gabe was quite disappointed with the commercialism inside the temple, and that the temple was not restored inside to original, we had a nice time. It has an elevator and nice marble stairways now, and about 3 to 4 shops on each level. Regardless, the Chinese art and much of the original structure and wall paintings inside the temple are really great. Gabe and I liked many pieces, but this one struck us the most.

One of the Many Art Pieces within the Buddhist Temple

We also visited a Chinese commune for the performing arts. There was not as much rehearsal to watch as we might have hoped for, but we were able to see some dancers, and we did meet a violinist who graciously performed some pieces for us on Uncle Henry's violin. Essentially, this is a gated community where talented people live and practice their arts under the tutelage of great masters.

A Violin Master that Lives within a Performing Arts Community

This picture is the entrance to the community of artists. The sign at left basically has the name of the province, Jiang Xi, and a list of the arts practiced here.

The Performing Arts Community that We Visited

There were many great pieces of art in the Buddhist temple, and we also did a bit of exploring where we found a broad walking avenue and many shops not too far from our hotel. In order to save space and still able to share this very interesting day in detail, I put almost all of the pictures for the day into the video below. The Buddhist temple was quite impressive ... and tall.

Post 23 - The Chinese Orphanage

2010-02-01T18:02:00.005-07:00

On April 6th, the fourth day of our trip in 2005, we traveled with our travel group 2 hours bus ride South West into the interior of Jiang Xi province to Shang Gao county where our daughter's last orphanage was located. We drove passed many places that looked like the poorest parts of Mexico, and we drove passed areas that rivaled the newest parts of a beautiful U.S. city. We also drove passed some enticingly beautiful mountains with roads going up into them ... so much to explore in life, so little time.

Our Travel Group on the Bus with Henry, Our Guide, Up Front

There are still some images that are vivid in my mind to this day that I was not able to capture with the camera. The most vivid image during the road trip was of a man in a muddy field with what looked like a water buffalo plowing a field with a wooden plow. It was as though I had been transported back in time 300 years as I watched him for that brief moment speeding by in the bus. We also had to go through a checkpoint, and I cannot remember why now.

Lyle, Our Marine Buddy Stationed in Japan, Telling a Story to Pass the Time

Our group had a wide variety of people in it. Most communicated a devotion to Christ for which our family was very grateful. The big guy in the white shirt with the microphone is a Marine named Lyle. He is safe as long as you do not set off fire crackers. I loved Lyle. He is stationed with his family in Japan, and they traveled to China from Japan to pick up their daughter (an older daughter).

The video below details more of our trip.

Note Lyle at the left side of the gate with his Camera. When babies are left at the orphanage gate, they would typically be left at the side of the gate where Lyle is standing. However, we knew from pictures that our daughter had originally come from a different orphanage. We believe government officials move the girls around as necessary to give them a chance at the best home possible.

The Orphanage Gate. Babies are Usually Left at the Left Side where Lyle is Standing.

Playground on the Grounds out Front of the Orphanage Building

(Note the Red Headed Asian Kid - Very Rare)

A rare red-headed Asian child was on the playground as I took the picture above. This child was extremely rare, because he also had fair skin, freckles, and annoying habits and behaviors similar to mine, so we brought him back with us too.

When we arrived at the orphanage, we went to a large meeting room at the top floor of the orphanage and met with the director, the aunties and the foster parents. Each parent got ask questions about their child and to tour the orphanage. We were treated to a lunch there as family members of the orphanage. They thanked us for devoting ourselves to the care of these daughters of China.

The Orphanage Director (right) and Sue, Sarah, and Gabe Listening to the Director Speak (left)

(Eldest was Enthralled with the Speech)

Our Daughter with her Auntie (Nanny)

We met with our daughter's auntie (nanny). It was clear that she loved our daughter, but it was also clear that she had not been with her as long as some of the other babies, which was further affirmation that she had come from a different orphanage originally. This had not occurred to us until we got back home and compared pictures that we had received of her while she was still at another orphanage. The nanny still held her quite a while. She told us that she liked her, and that she never fused much. This may sound good, but with a room full of babies, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. And she did have a pretty strong diaper rash when we got her. Ooops! Did any of you want to hear that?

Ives Family Version 5.0 with Our New Daughter's Last Auntie

Our daughter cried when her old Nanny first took her, and then she settled down when I stayed near and tried to talk in Mandarin with the Nanny. (We know now that she was afraid that she might lose us. She would cry at other times after coming home if she saw a Chinese person or someone that looked Chinese. We're pretty sure that she may have thought that someone had come to take her back! She is way past that now at nearly 6 years old).

One of the Many Care Rooms at the Orphanage

The orphanage is a nice building with very nice grounds and adequate facilities and staff for caring for the children. However, as we have learned after 5 adoptions now, nothing but a family is adequate for a child, and every child on this planet should have one.

Our Wonderful Travel Group

We've stayed close to one of the friends we made from our travel group. She is a single mom that was here for her 3rd Chinese daughter. We still trade pictures with her to this day. In the picture above, we are only missing two families from our travel group.

Elderly being Cared for at the Facility

Clearly this was more than an orphanage. It is what we might call a social care facility. Here, these elderly people are staying together at what would be equivalent to an assisted living home.

A Worn Out Girl on Sleeping on Her New Momma

Once found at the orphanage gate, it is a procedure for the staff to run an add in the paper for 2 months, stating that a child was found, and where it was found, in hopes that the parents will come forward. They take every precaution to make sure that the child was not stolen / abducted against the parents wishes. Seeing Sarah, it's hard to comprehend how anyone could leave her at an orphanage gate. This country has gone through some very strong changes over the last 60 years. They are still very much recovering from much of that rapid change and turmoil. I could just begin to explain the changes in economic philosophy in the middle of this trip. I couldn't tell you if they are still the same now in February of 2010. The width of the economic spectrum was, and probably still is, very broad in China, especially Jiang Xi, due to the latest economic reforms, which most people are very happy with. Sarah's province has the most agriculture, and it is likely that Sarah's parents are farmers who are “Wanting a Daughter and Needing a Son,” which is the name of a book about adandoned daughters in China. The pressures felt by this culture are best explained in those books. It is a tough book to get through. We also recommend “The Lost Daughters of China” and “Wild Swans.”

The Classic Ives Shot of Baby Sleeping on Mom's Chest
(Normally, we try to get this at about 1 week old.
1 year old was the best we could do with our new daughter.)

In our bedroom, Sue and I have 4 pictures of our biological children sleeping against Mom's chest when they were one week old. Our new daughter was a year old in the picture above – the best we could do. Appropriately, we took this picture while driving home from the orphanage as if to say, “We will take you into our hearts and home little Yi Pu (her orphanage name). We love you and want you very much. We are sorry to take you from your home country, but it is the best we can do for you right now.”

Post 22 - Exploring Nanchang, Jiang Xi, China

2010-01-10T16:41:00.026-07:00

Sarah was a delight these first few days and frankly every day until the present. Much more on present day later on. She bonded to us extremely well and quickly, and we couldn't have been more pleased with her.

Sarah slept great every night with us and woke up content and happy. We fed her formula and a mushy mixture of rice and chicken (I can't remember the name of it, but it was pretty good) in the hotel lobby. Eldest and I stuffed ourselves as usual with Tabasco laden scrambled eggs, bacon, and more things than I can remember. Once full, Ives family version 5.0 was ready to go exploring Nanchang.

Our good friend who was there for her third daughter took this picture of us above in front of a very large Buddhist temple. I assure you that Sarah was happy. She was simply caught with this cute little snicker doodle look on her face. I thought she looked tough! It kinda looks like she's saying, "Whach-you lookin at?" We would let nice ladies at the restaurants hold her, and then she would start crying for them to give her back to us. As we passed Chinese people in the streets, we would get a lot of smiles. I am sure that it was quite a site to them to see a host of Americans carrying Chinese baby girl through their streets.

It was fascinating walking around Nanchang. We love being immersed in a different culture, and this was certainly that. We wish we could have done it more and in cooler weather. We're not very good warm weather people. The Chinese are awesome at loading a ton of stuff on three wheeled bikes for transporting anything. In the picture below, they are transporting cardboard. The picture to the right of that is of a typical street side shop.

There was a lot of construction going on everywhere, including our hotel. They still use organic scaffolding most of the time. Eldest and I stopped for a while to watch them building this scaffolding. I felt that the picture below was a great representation of a typical intersection with typical activities in Jiang Xi. Note the mixture of walking and driving right down the middle of the street and through the intersection. Other places were pretty dangerous for pedestrians. Danger on and around streets was just a way of life for them.

This child in the picture below caught our hearts, and we had to get a picture of her.

These streets have some really great artisans in them. I wish I had taken a picture of the lady we bought a framed threadwork from – very beautiful work that we have displayed in our home. One of the artisans was an outstanding wood carver, and I felt that the only way I could do her justice was to make a video of her working and some of her pieces. Someday, we would like to buy a big piece of art from her.

Here are a couple of pictures from the video that I wanted to enlarge for you.

The Chinese have proven themselves a clever lot for thousands of years. The thing that impresses me most is that they train cormorants to fish for them. Or do they? I originally took the picture below in an attempt to dispel any possible doubts about whether or not Chinese people actually train commerants to fish for them. We didn't actually see any dive into the water and retrieve a fish, so this still might just be a clever display to fool us into thinking so. Regardless, these guys are taking a break from fishing (maybe ...?).

It was interesting to discover how the adult Chinese people would stare at us. They would wait for us to walk by as though we were nothing unusual, and then turn and stare in fascination once we had passed by. I discovered this by letting Eldest walk ahead a few times when they didn't yet see us. They are pretty shrewd about it. One exception is the older Chinese ladies. They are typically very sweet and friendly.

The youth and young adults were different. They would make direct eye contact and smile and often come over to dote on Sarah whom they loved of course. They seemed to be genuinely excited that she would grow up in the States. Once they learned that I could speak a little Mandarin, we would talk more. I know that Eldest and I were a sight for them. Sue didn't look as shocking to them, because she looks somewhat like a gorgeous Asian woman.

I wrote this 5 years ago while we were there ...

This is an interesting land, and that it is changing rapidly is obvious. I have a theory, based on my cultural learnings, that this culture is moving rapidly from a high context to a low context culture (apologies if the lingo is unfamiliar), and our visit here seems to confirm it so far. I fear for this culture too. The spectrum between rich and poor is very large. The economic system is very unique: semi-socialistic, semi-capitalistic. In a nutshell, you can live a basic life where the government takes care of your most basic needs, and then on top of that you can work very hard and get rich and have more for yourself. This is a little over simplified, but it gives you a glimpse of what it is like here for the people.

Nanchang is (I hate to say it) somewhat dirty. There is a lot of change going on in this province, and we sense that it is one of the poorer ones. However, due to its heavy agricultural emphasis and many universities, we suspect that it will not be long before they catch up. GuangZhou was much cleaner. We are in a “supposedly” five start hotel, but our air conditioner is not turned on for this time of year. The air has a strange smell that is driving some of our party batty. Dad has been unaffected, but it is affecting Sue. We suspect that it is all the dust in the air from the large amount of construction.

Post 21 - Happy Birthday to our Fifth Child

2010-01-06T08:38:00.004-07:00

How many people get to have a birthday like 04/04/04? Our Chinese princess does. In retrospect, after adopted 4 other kids that were older, I know it was a huge blessing to be with our new daughter any number of days before her 1^stbirthday, even if it was only one day. All the waiting was over. It was 04/04/05, and we were with our precious new daughter on her 1^st birthday, and we were all in love with her. My adoption calling in the shower had become a reality, and the blessings of it were beyond my wildest expectations. I can honestly say that the revelation of Christ that I was looking for through good works (Ephesians 2:10, John 14:21-23) has been happening in ways I could have never anticipated over the last 4¹/₂ years ... thank you Lord.

We were able to call the other kids back with the grandparents and tell them how beautiful our new daughter was and how well she was doing with us. They were very happy to hear from us. We got to stay in China for a comfortable while longer to take care of various steps in the adoption process.

Eldest and I were in food heaven on this trip. We went to a first class breakfast bar, with service, in the hotel lobby every morning while in Nanchang, Jiang Xi, and we went out to eat real Chinese food every lunch and dinner with our new friends that had also adopted daughters from the Jiang Xi province with Harrah. We had a lot of time to sightsee and shop too. To this day, I feel sort of homesick for China. I pray that we can go back often.

Our new daughter slept with Mom, which helped us all get more sleep and get over our jet lag even though the mattresses in our room were almost as hard as wood (you get used to them). For naps during the day, our new daughter slept in her crib. What an angel.

Post 20 - Adoption Birth - Gotchya Day!!!

2010-01-02T23:23:00.003-07:00

Some days remain vivid in our memories regardless of how long ago they happened. This was one of those days. I wish technology had been a little bit further along. I would have taken several multi-gigabyte memory cards with me to take video and stills of more of the images that are still etched in my mind on our trip through Nanchang from our hotel to the small social affairs office where we received Sarah with several other US parents receiving their Chinese born baby daughters.

We received Sarah on the afternoon of April 3rd, 2005. This was the same day as the last post. It was warm in Nanchang, Jiangxi, but not too warm. It was a hectic moment with new friends helping new friends catch the moments on film so that their daughters would have some type of link to their past with their birth country. We were the last among the families to receive our baby. We had a hard time recognizing her initially, because she had so much more hair than she had in her referral pictures, and because she held her face close to her caretaker until he handed her to us. I can very objectively say that she was a GORGEOUS one year old.

Sarah started crying like most of the other babies, and it seems that she was crying, because most of the other babies were crying. It was a new setting with new people, and she was a bit confused a scared for a while. The Saintess got her to settle down quite successfully by taking her out into a quiet hallway, and we took turns holding her and cherishing her along with Eldest. She did very well on the bus trip back to the hotel, settling down very quickly.

When we got in the room and took her extra clothes off, she seemd quite calm. Then, we started playing with her, and she started smiling and giggling. She fell in love with all three of us that day. She really loves her Ge Ge (guh guh – big brother - Eldest). He fell in love with her instantly, and they are in love with each other to this day.

We took her to dinner with us that same day, and she did great sitting in her high chair. She just seemed content to be with us. She slept great with only two wake-up and cry sessions that Mom was able to calm quickly. Adopted Chinese girls bond with their new families between 1 hour (in our case) to 7 days. From talking to single Moms and Moms that came alone, we all agreed that having both parents there sped the process and having an awesome sibling like Eldest present accelerated it 3 fold!

Post 19 - Adoption Hospital - White Swan Hotel, Shamian Island, Guangzhou

2010-01-01T15:46:00.003-07:00

We arrived without mishap to Guangzhou, Guangdong, China, met some of our travel group along the way, and crashed at the famous White Swan Hotel in Guangzhou on the Shamian Island. In the morning after very little sleep, Eldest and I awoke to watching the boats passing by on the Pearl River, and we loved it. In short, I had two jobs in China: 1) make sure Sue had everything that she needed to take care of our new daughter, and 2) make this a memorable trip for the Eldest. We did not have much time before leaving for Nanchang, Jiangxi, but Eldest and I went out before breakfast to see as much as we could.

Even though we liked the Victory better, the White Swan is an amazing place! If you travel to Guangzhou, and you're nearby, you should go in to the White Swan Lobby and basement. They have really nice art there, an incredible restaurant with a first class breakfast bar, and some very nice shops in the basement. I've titled this post "Adoption Hospital," because this hotel is heavily frequented by families traveling to China to adopt a child.

The piece of art above is made completely of jade. A temple of patience and skill in my opinion.

Eldest and I love fountains and have been known to play in them if we can, OR if we can get away with it. While taking a picture of this fountain under some stairs in the White Swan Lobby, we caught this rare red headed Asian boy wanting to ham up in front of the camera (for the facetiously challenged, it is actually the Eldest).

It was really hard to not jump in the water here, but Sue would have roasted us! This waterfall pond area is right next to the restaurant, and you can walk around down by the water. It is very ... Asian, and I mean that in a very complimentary and respectful way. I often feel homesick for Asia, because I love going there so much.

Yet another incredible piece of art. A dragon ship made completely of jade in the White Swan hotel lobby.

After breakfast, we headed back to the airport for a short flight to the capital of the Jiangxi Province, Nanchang - the birthplace of Chinese communism.

Post 18 - Travel Arrangments

2010-01-01T13:18:00.012-07:00

There was only one reason we had to wait extra time for our travel dates - Chinese New Year. Chinese New Year is a major deal to the Chinese. Ironic that the commitment we had made to the Chinese government to teach appreciation for Chinese culture to our new daughter was being pressed upon us even now by having to wait for the governmental slowdown caused by this important cultural event. In retrospect, it doesn't matter now, but Sue was fuming a bit at the time. So we got our pictures at the end of January, confirmed our acceptance, and received our travel dates near early/middle March with plans to receive our daughter on April 3rd, 2005 - one day before her 1 year old birthday. The day you get your child is known as Gotchya day.

We began preparing by buying the best type of luggage, travel clothing, and gifts for officials and helpers in China all based on the wisdom of those that had gone before and those that had helped those that had gone before. We also needed a certain amount of cash, and a passport for Sue and the Eldest. I had been very strong about taking one bio child per adoption trip, so eldest got to go first.

If you've heard the saying that the only two things that you ever really have to do are die and pay taxes, then just as certainly, know that you MUST have paperwork when you are adopting. If you do not have paperwork, then you are NOT really adopting. Sue gathered and managed all of the necessary paperwork, and this is one of the main reasons she has EARNED the title Saintess in my vernacular.

When you adopt from China, part of your stay will be in Guangzhou (city), Guangdong (province), because that is where the U.S. Consulate's office is located. Most people traveling for adoption stay at the White Swan. Due to a big business shindig going on in Guangzhou, we were not able to stay there the whole time. We only stayed there the first day before we traveled to the province where our daughter was, so we stayed at the older Victory hotel after coming back from our adopted daughter's home province. After staying at both hotels, we much preferred the Victory. It is in an older building with beautiful stone masonry architecture and is nearer to parts of the City and Shamian Island that we truly loved. It is very beautiful with an old world feel after having being renovated not long ago.

The mother-in-law volunteered to watch our other three bio's, which won her big brownie points in my book, and two separate sets of friends volunteered to watch our two dogs. We debated whether to fly business class or coach, because trans-pacific flights are no minor thing, and we wanted to feel rested and fresh when we got there for Gotchya day. This question was solved for us though, because that same big business shindig was affecting airline reservations too, so we had to fly coach. However, the airliner we were on with Northwest Airlines was so huge that we were quite comfortable with in flight movies, and a little extra space too. We really did like Northwest Airlines the best, and I used them on another adoption trip to Asia later.

The Saintess gave me one last assignment. Take a good picture of the bio's to have hand etched on stone by the Chinese etching artists in Gaungzhou on Shamian Island. I had not heard of this before, but while dropping the kids off at their grandparents' place at their beautiful place in the country, U.S. Northwest, I took these pictures. Eldest had a hard time giving me a natural smile that day, so I cropped his picture from the one shown in post 13.

Get pictures for Stone Etchings in Guangzhou - check. We were finally on our way!

Post 17 - Adoption Ultrasound

2009-12-19T23:18:00.003-07:00

At this time in the adoption process, we had waited from April 2004, when we began building our dossier, until the end of January 2005. We were finally rewarded for our patience with the pictures below. These pictures were so much better than an ultrasound in only one way. They are much better quality. But they were so much worse in every other way. We got these pictures of our beautiful new daughter that were 5 months old at the time, and we had to wait two more months (usually only one when we adopted) due to the Chinese New Year. We had this beautiful new daughter now and pictures to reassure us, but she was 12,000+ miles away, and we had to wait still longer to get her in our arms. It was exciting and painful at the same time. There is a comfort in having your child always near by in your wife's abdomen. This 12,000+ mile away thing was painful. There was some comfort in beginning to plan our travel and to communicate with people that we would be traveling with through our online yahoo adoption group.

At this time, the Chinese government probably hosted the best adoption process in the world. International adoptions from China take much longer for some reason now, but it took somewhere between 10 months to a year when we adopted in 2004/5. One thing the Chinese did (and probably still do) was to do their best possible job of picking a child that they think will look somewhat like the new parents. Regardless, we fell in love right away and were honored with the choice the Chinese made for us. From what I could learn and see in person, everyone else in our travel group felt the same.

Wow. From inspiration in the shower to getting these awesome pictures ... what a wonderful emotional ride. OK. One more picture ...

We were in love, and we were very eager to get on the plane and go get her.

Post 16 - Adoption Encouragement

2009-12-15T21:39:00.003-07:00

As we shared our plans to adopt with others, many said that we had big hearts. I was always a little unsure how to react to that. I wanted to explain that it was a love for God that was driving us to do this. It was a desire to be God's workmanship - to do good works. Isn't it awkward when you receive a compliment, and you think it is inaccurate? You want to be grateful for the encouragement and the praise, and if you correct them are you turning down encouragement and praise?

I suppose that is one advantage of a blog on the history of something. You have a chance to set the record straight. For those of you that would say such a thing, I would say thank you, but deciding to adopt for us did not mean that we had big hearts. However, adopting a child and raising them does make your heart bigger as much, or maybe more, as having a child of your own makes your heart grow.

If you've ever heard the adage of Be, Do, Have as opposed to Have, Do, Be you may think that I am contradicting this. OK, I suppose that you do have to have a big heart to adopt, BUT adopting does make your heart grow bigger than it was before. I would continue to maintain from the previous post that any good work makes your heart grow bigger, and perhaps you had to BE heartfelt toward that good work before you would DO the good work and HAVE the blessing from the good work. In summary, deciding to adopt means that you are being heartfelt toward God, doing adoption leads to having a bigger heart.

OK. I've kept you waiting long enough, but you did not have to wait as long as Sue and I did to get our first adopted child. The next post will be Adoption Ultra Sound.

Post 15 - Reactions to Adoption

2009-12-14T23:34:00.005-07:00

It is kind of amazing the various reactions you get from people once you go beyond three kids. Sue remembers people giving her a sly look for having three kids with her in the grocery store and being pregnant. You expect a little bit of that in a country that comfortably legalizes fetuside. What is strange is when you also get reactions such as these from so called followers of Christ.

When people learned we were about to adopt from China, we also got various reactions. Most people were very encouraging. Occasionally, someone would say something that just seemed strange to us. We've also learned over time that some people did not agree with us, but they said it to others behind our backs rather than to our faces. Oh well. Why anyone could find fault with such a thing is beyond me, but this was part of the experience, and I do not want to leave anything out. This blog has much to do with adoption and raising biological and adopted kids together. I want my readers to know, at least from our experiences, everything that we've come across. I've learned one sure way to avoid any criticism in my walk with Christ ... do nothing!

The strangest thing that happened to my face was a brother in Christ asking, "Why would you adopt when you already have 4 kids?" This question did not come from an uncaring ignorant person, but it was clear that it was a question that came from ignorance, and it seemed clear that the question was posed incredulously rhetorical. Which type of ignorance, I cannot say for sure, but it had to be one or more of the following types:

Biblical ignorance that the scriptures always speak of children as a blessing and having a lot of them is a good thing (Psalm 127 is one reference);
Ignorance about the needs of orphans in the world;
Ignorance that there are perspectives on things in this world other than your own that are possibly quite a bit more valid than your own, especially Biblically based ones.

There were men that told me of wives that were not interested in adopting when they were. I am sure that the converse also happens. One comment given by a wife to a friend when he asked her if she would be willing to adopt was "A child would pretty much need to be left on our doorstep for me to consider it."

I am not God, and I do not know all the details of that conversation, but such a comment seems to demand a little bit more than throwing out the fleece. If you know that kids around the world need good homes to grow up in, are they not on our door steps? If you would consider adopting a child that showed up on your doorstep, how is that different from the many that are known to be in need of someone to parent them around the world? Like I said at the beginning of this blog, this is not about talking everyone that reads this blog into adopting, but damn the reasoning that would say such an asinine thing when something, anything, could be done to help.

We are friends with a couple in Texas (someone has to live there - seriously, I love Texas, born and raised there, but I hate the heat, miss the rain, and miss the Tex-Mex, but I get snow and Tex-Mex in Idaho), and they encouraged us greatly. Their belief? They wanted to adopt, because they could see the need, but they were afraid to adopt, because of their uncertain health. In conclusion, their belief was that not everyone can adopt, but every follower of Christ should do something to improve the situation of orphans. My belief is somewhat similar. Every follower of Christ should have a real ministry of some kind as they are able. Why? We were created for good works in Christ Jesus. People always seem to quote Ephesians 2:8-9, but they fail to memorize or quote verse 10.

"For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." Paul, Ephesian 2:10

People, if you are a follower of Christ, do you think the way that you serve in your fellowship location on Sundays is really serving the kingdom? Get out, get involved with people in need and get messy. Find a prison ministry. Become a big brother or sister. Give money to adoption needs, but ALSO, get down in the trenches and do something, anything, to serve humanity in the name of Christ. Do some good works. What's the benefit? Having Christ revealed to you (John 14:21, Matthew 7).

I'd like to share with you an example of what I am talking about. Consider the video below of a group of people banding together to serve orphans in Mexico. Wouldn't it be great if all followers of Christ had a ministry where they reached out to humanity like this. Be blessed.

Post 14 - Trimester 2 of Adoption Pregnancy 1

2009-12-13T15:34:00.054-07:00

I haven't posted since last Sunday frankly because this part of the adoption process is the most agonizing and boring. I've been trying to gather my thoughts as to what I would write. You know that there is a child that needs your love, care and training, but you HAVE TO WAIT for the process. Considering the length of time that people are waiting for a child from China now, Sue and I were lucky. We started the process of putting our Dossier together in April of 2004. We finally traveled to China in April of 2005.

What did we do during this time? We read books about adopting from China of course. A normal person would have read these before starting the process, but, alas, I am not normal. With Sue's background, she at least had some professional knowledge. My only experience was growing up as half adopted.

My favorite book was The Lost Daughters of China. After reading that, I had compassion for everyone involved in a child being abandoned and subsequently put up for adoption with the exception of one person - Confucius! What an ass! Pompous Arrogant Chauvinist Pig. Maybe I'm over it now though ... probably not. I'll just let you read the book yourself and see if you feel the same way.

Lost Daughters of China:
Adopted Girls, Their Journey to America,
and the Search for a Missing Past

Sue read, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China. This is not lite reading, but if you are serious about getting a daughter from China, and you really want to understand the transitional history of what has happened to the last few generations of women in China, this is a great book.

Wild Swans:
Three Daughers of China

What else did I do during the wait? I started to learn Mandarin, the most common language in China. I had learned some of it years ago but did not keep it up. However, that initial study did help me get a faster start when I picked it back up. People ask me even today what I recommend for learning Mandarin. I pretty much say the same thing still - everything. BUT, I do recommend Pimsleur as a foundation, because in my opinion it helps you learn to speak the language the fastest.

Chinese Mandarin 1
Pimsleur

However, for true mastery of vocabulary and breadth of understanding the language like you would if you were a child growing up in that culture, I would also add Rosetta Stone once you know that you will stick with your studies.

Rosetta Mandarin 1

... or ...

Rosetta Mandarin 1, 2, and 3

And then add other programs that people recommend or give you from their store of language materials they have given up on. I found some really great materials for cheap online that were very helpful, but they would not have been helpful if I had not started with Pimsleur. Learning a language on your own from these materials does take a lot of discipline, and it does help to have some friends that speak that grew up with that language that you can speak with. I was very fortunate to have encouraging Chinese friends that loved to help me and speak with me, and to have a very nice Graduate Student from China working under me at HP.

Post 13 – Family Resume’ – The Fabulous First Four and Parents

2009-12-06T22:20:00.007-07:00

The next step in selling our family to China was to show our kids doing things together. This one was fun, because there was plenty to show.

However, the picture above, which I have always thought to be an awesome picture, is not natural. Getting four kids between 4 and 10 to pose this well in their front yard with a cul-de-sac and scooters and bikes calling their names on a glorious Idaho Spring day is NOT natural. How did I do it? I simply took a picture every 3 seconds while barking out orders to quit this and quit that and do this and do that until I had taken ~100 pictures. Then, I went inside and looked through them all and Vwalla! There was one picture out of all those pictures that actually turned out good. The video below is a reinactment of the actual photo shoot.

I only needed one shot to get pictures like the ones below, because I just caught them being pretty natural. The first one below is a picture of them playing in a small canal at a park near our house. Poor Four couldn’t get in without having her feet swept out from under her.

The next picture below is posed, but without much effort. I just asked them to climb this tree where the younger kids suspected that Peter Rabbit lived just under the trunk and above the roots.

Then there is the necessary picture of them doing their daily sandbox construction activities with Four barking out orders.

They love for me to read stories to them even today. Here, I am reading the Catherine Vos Story Bible to them. Catherine’s story Bible is really pretty good!

The Chinese government also required a picture of the front of our house …

And a picture of Sue and me.

I couldn’t find the digital picture teeth whitener, or I would have used it!

Post 12 – Family Resume’ – Four of Nine

2009-12-03T07:00:00.008-07:00

The best way to describe Four of Nine is GIFT. Everyone loved her and she thrived on the attention. We were so glad that we did not stop at three kids. Coincidentally, this post was posted on her birthday.

Psalm 127: 3 Behold, children are a gift of the LORD, The fruit of the womb is a reward. 4 Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth. 5 How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them; they will not be ashamed when they speak with their enemies in the gate.

If I were going into battle, I would want more than 4 arrows, but 4 arrows are better than 3. Four didn’t really play piano or violin yet when I was taking these pictures for our application to adopt from China, but there was no way we could leave her out and live to tell about it.

We had so much fun doting on Four that we even wrote a song about her. It’s a little tough to not put it out as an audio on this blog, but it doesn’t sound as good with the name Four in it. We would sing it to her often, and she would glow as we sung it. It even got to where family friends would sing it to her when they would come over to visit, because it was a fun song, and even more fun to watch her glow as we sung it.

Four does take piano lessons now, and she is doing very well. She loves Tae Kwon Do and is very good at it. It was a blast to watch her play soccer. We enjoyed watching her score a goal one time … for the other team J.

Four is fearless. The picture of her in the swing was an example of this. She was never content with the height I pushed her until the swing was level with the top bar at full height. It scared me, but she would squeal with delight. Sue didn’t like it! Just to give you an idea of how tough she is, she recently broke a junior black belt’s arm … with her nose, and her nose did not break. Now we call her Iron Nose!

Four’s biggest frustration at this age was not being able to do what the big three could do – her first lesson in life not being fair. She was ecstatic about getting a sister from China, and I think it was for more reasons than to not just be the youngest anymore.

Post 11 – Family Resume’ – Three of Nine

2009-12-02T21:07:00.004-07:00

The first year of Three of Nine’s life was tough for me. He just was not a happy baby. He was sick a lot, and he looked kind of rough. Then, probably the day that he turned 1, he turned into this happy beautiful boy. He has been a joy to me. As he grew, it was clear that he rounded One and me out very well.

In a word, Three of Nine is drop-dead-gorgeous, and he has talent to go along with it. In fact, my only fear is that because most things come so easy for him that he may not work hard at something when he really needs to, so I teach him a lot how important it is to work even when you are good at something.

At the time we applied for adoption from China, Three was 6 years old. He was the only one that showed some reluctance about getting a sister from China, and it was confusing to us as to why, but it was only a quiet calm objection. We tried to get him to explain why, but he seemed unable or unwilling to do so. We knew that he would be fine once we got our baby home, so we pressed on. I promise this part of the story has a cute conclusion later on. In short, we did not worry about Three’s objections, because we knew that he did not like changes, and we noticed that he warmed up to other changes in our home after we had had them for a while.

Three is still playing piano, and he likes it. He is getting very good at it. We are looking forward to hearing his skills in music grow. He also does AWANA and is good at it. I asked him when he could finish his latest book, and I was hoping that he would say by February, but then he said before Christmas break. I smiled inside and said that’s a good goal. He finished before Thanksgiving instead!

Three was glad the day that I said that he did not need to take violin anymore. Actually, he was very relieved.

Three is a good athlete. He sometimes likes moving and running, especially track, and sometimes likes to just play DS or Wii or Computer games for as long as we will let him.

Soccer was fine, but NOT if it was cold, and for part of the season in Idaho, cold and soccer unfortunately intersect. Now we do Tae Kwon Do, and everyone loves it accept Three. In spite of that, he has been a good little man about it. I’ll explain why we switched sports later, but he is trusting me (because I have a good track record about things that he WILL like) that he will at least be glad someday that he did it, and maybe even like it.

Post 10 – Family Resume’ - Two of Nine

2009-12-01T19:40:00.005-07:00

Two of Nine was 7, almost 8, when we began to apply for adoption to China. She is 13 now. I am looking forward to getting this blog caught up to present day, but the back story is a must.

Two was the sweetest child you would ever want to meet at this age. Now she is 13 … OK, she is the sweetest 13 year old girl you could ever meet too, but hey, she’s a new teenage girl - my first teenage daughter. That takes a lot of getting used to. Actually, I am enjoying her being older, but she’s gone from being my little girl as she is pictured here, to becoming a young woman, and it seems to happen overnight! Wow. Guys, when you see her present day pictures, I just want you to know that I have guns and lots of them, and I have a concealed weapons permit too. It is OK to be her friend, but you better become my friend first! Also, Two is a Martial Artist now. Trust me – you don’t want cross her. She even scares my master instructor and me when we are touch sparing her.

Two is a very good musician. Her teachers have habitually fallen in love with her. I look forward to hearing her music grow. Each year, I think I am listening to One practice (3 years her senior); then I walk out of my room and see Two at the piano. She progresses well. Her violin teachers would be mesmerized by her technique at this age.

Two loved to play soccer, and she was good, but it was more about being social and making friends for her. In fact, her best friend today is at the far right of the picture below. Two would be moving the ball, come up to another girl and would seem to say with her complete body language, “Oh, you can have it now.” She was just too nice to drive it through a bunch of girls. She was so sweet to watch. Now however, as I hinted above, her and her best friend do Tae Kwon Do, and she has no problem kicking an opponent, much less a ball.

One and I would have to constantly coach her from the sideline to get her out of the mindset of "you can have it now," and then she would score and make great assists, but it was taxing, so we just went back to watching her be nice and would smile at each other.

Two loves her bike now, but she thought Dad was horrible to her for making her ride on the grass and fall until she could stay up. Sue and I got a laugh out of that one. I think she is OK with it now.

Somehow, all my children have acquired the movie veg-out skill. Is it genetic or cultural? I think both. Two is often the first by my side to curl up and watch something together. Now we watch Naruto together. She is watching them over just so she can watch them with me. We’re on episode 190 I think.

She loves to read too, and recently we all got to go see New Moon.

Post 9 - Family Resume' - One of Nine - Eldest

2009-11-28T21:11:00.009-07:00

I apologize in advance. The Saintess (a.k.a. Mrs. Sue Ives) won't let me post the names of our kids. I am sure that that is wise. However, I have gotten approval to use Borg designation. However, since "of Nine" will sound redundant, I will eventually just call them by number, and "One" might be called "Eldest."

Eldest is very cool. There were three years between him and the next child, Two of Nine. I am eager to share stories about how the Chinese reacted to his looks (his ethnicity) when we went to get Eight of Nine, because we did in fact take him with us, but I'll wait to tell that later.

Being an only son and then having a single son as my first child was a great warm-up for me as a dad. There were three early miscarriages between One and Two. Sad, and yet it gave me time to prepare mentally and emotionally for "more than One." One and I were buddies. He would break my heart with joy often. We did as much together as we could, and would hang out when Mom went out on errands or went out to take a break.

He was easy to show off for the Family Resume', because he is an impressive guy. These pictures are now 4 years old, but they are even more precious to look at now that he is 16 years old. There will be many more stories about him as I continue this blog. He is now a major portion of the strength of this family. Of course, being a 16 year old boy also makes him a pain at times, but overall, he is even more amazing now. I loved writing about him as we showed off our family to the Chinese authorities. When we asked One of Nine if he would like a Chinese sister, he was all for it. He was full of questions about the process and was super excited when he learned that he would travel with us to China.

One has been playing piano for a long time now, and when he pushes himself, he can learn some amazing pieces. He could be great at it someday, but right now it appears that he would rather just play for the enjoyment of it than to go real far with it. Maybe he will hit Zen with his music and maybe not, but he is a joy to listen to.

One also was playing violin at the time. He was getting very good, and we hated to quit, but we just got too busy later on (can't imagine why :-) ).

For years he played soccer, and he ended up playing on a major club team. He played left back, because no one could outrun him, so he was able to chase any right, or center, forward down and keep them from scoring ... most of the time. More to that story later, but soccer gave him a great foundation for his athletic future.

A cul-de-sac is one of the best toys you could give a kid and one of the best ways to keep your saint of a wife from worrying about safety ... from cars that is. A kid like Eldest can still be a danger to himself. One time, he ran in after crashing his big wheel, and his head, into the mail box post (demolished the big wheel) and ran in screaming. I calmed him down and started to wash his face. After a minute of this, he started freaking out like he had just woke from being knocked out and started excitedly asking what had happened. I had to explain that he was just coming out of being knocked out. The saintess asked, "How do you know that?" "Because I did the same thing twice as a kid myself." Yes, the acorn does not fall far from the tree. Eldest and I kind of go into a sleep walk when we get knocked out. You wouldn't know that we were knocked out until we come out of it. I suppose some would call it being dazed, but it is a high functioning daze with us. I think it is more like an ethnically based Berserker mode with us.

This last picture demonstrates his greatest skill. Watching a movie from the couch. This is also a trait acquired from Dad. Actually, when you put a good movie on in front of an Ives-boy, it is kind of like being in that berserker knocked out sleep walking mode ... and it can be really unpleasant when you try to get them to come out of that stage before the credits start flying.

Next post ... Two of Nine.

Post 8 - Family Resume

2009-11-28T15:15:00.009-07:00

I’ve been looking forward to writing this post. From this post on, there will be a lot of pictures.

Have you ever considered that the U.S. is not really a nation? Even before all the white people started coming over here, it was a collection of Indian nations. Then, we tried to believe that we were a melting pot of cultures. I think that in some really good ways we are, and in many more ways we are not. I suppose China is also a collection of nations, but in the sense of one group of people, it is probably the largest one on the planet.

For those of you that may be wondering what the hec I’m talking about, I’m talking about people groups; people related to one another. When you can look at your neighbor and know that you are all related somehow, you are a nation. If you were an Israelite living in the land of Israel during the reigns of David and Solomon for example, you could look at your neighbor and know that you were family. Of course we are ALL related through Noah, but we tend to be more divisive in our thinking than that today even among those that believe we all descended from Noah and his family after the flood, and we have had that divisive feeling for many many centuries. Even for those that believe in a literal Adam and Eve and Noah, we don’t seem to act like we are family. China is a nation that tends to think like a nation more than most other countries in this world. I’m sure that those who know would say that Japan is also that way. I’m not saying that European nations don’t have this same intense “nation” pride too. I am just saying that as U.S. citizens, we tend to be isolated from nationalistic thinking. I’m also NOT saying that there is not extreme patriotism and country pride in the U.S. I know that there is, but this sense of being a nation – an ethnicity – is essentially non-existent here in the U.S. in my opinion.

When we started to sell our family to China, that we were a good family for one of their children to be raised in, I got the distinct message from the whole process that we better consider it an honor to adopt one of their children, and that we better commit to impressing upon that child that it was a great honor to have a Chinese ethnicity! No problem. I get it. And here was the answer from my heart and my actions – the child that ends up in our family is going to be one blessed child – and I set out to prove that in the portion of the dossier that showcases our family.

The Ives Kids Spring 2004

At a Park Near our House

Posing for their new Chinese Sister

The Ives Kids Spring 2004

Being Mobile in our Cul-de-sac

Showing their new Chinese Sister that they are Active!

Post 7 - What the Heck is a Dossier?

2009-11-25T23:10:00.009-07:00

Sue, with her background and knowledge, was able to figure out what to do very rapidly. By the way, you don’t have to have a social worker wife with background studies in adoption to get all this done smoothly. You simply need to research different agencies and go with the one that you like the most. Sue was able to do a good amount of research on the internet. Then she called the ones that she liked the looks of the most, and then went with the one she liked the best from her phone conversations.

Sue’s input on how to choose? It simply is best to go with the one you are the most comfortable with. Essentially, you are choosing the people that are going to help you bring this new child into your family’s life. They will be reviewing a lot of personal information about you and your family. It is wisest to go with the agency that gives you the best warm fuzzies. Don’t be afraid to talk to several agencies and ask for references. It is worth the time spent.

Do you have to use an agency? That depends on your child’s country. With China, yes. With Liberia, no.

For our first adoption, we went with Harrah out of Texas. We liked their history, and we liked those running it. Sorry, they are no longer in operation. Many people go with Holt. They are expensive, but I don’t think that we have NEVER heard a complaint about them, and we’ve heard many praises. Many close friends have used them and loved the whole experience of adopting with them.

The main activity in the pseudo-first-trimester of the adoption process is building a thing called a dossier. At the time, I did not care one iota what that word meant, but now that I am writing this blog, I thought that I ought to look it up. Go here http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/dossier. I love dictionary.com. A dossier is basically a file of several documents all collected for a common purpose. I suppose giving this collection of documents a french type name gives it the right aura, but it's a little lost on this part-cajun.

We worked with a local social worker from a local youth organization to do our home study. I found the interviews very interesting. We interviewed with her together and individually. At one point during my individual interview, our social worker asked me what the most significant thing that I had done was. That question made my life flash before my eyes in a way that I had not experienced before, and while I expected at first it would take me a while to answer, the answer literally rolled out of my mouth within 2 seconds of it being asked, and I simply answered, “Being a dad.” It was amazing to me how such a simple question and how such a simple answer could become a grand realization to me and cause a huge rush of emotions. It was hard to hold back the tears after I had given the answer. We did a set of finger prints to go along with our home study. The whole home study process takes a while, but it is not too painful, or it was not too painful for us at least. We really like our social worker, which made it easy, and we ended up using the same person for all our home studies and follow ups.

The next stop was the Immigration and Naturalization division of the U.S. Government (INS at the time for us). This stop of our journey made us want to scream at times, but it went OK in the end. You can’t call your local INS office. You can only show up, go through the strip search, take a number and wait to be called. Not your most customer oriented division of the U.S. Government. If you get something wrong, or forgot to bring something, no problem. Go home, get it, come back, get strip searched again, and take another number. Knowing what you need to take so that you minimize your time there is important, so make sure you get advice from your agency as to what you will need. I would tell you, but the regulations might have changed, since we were last there for an adoption. Sue was awesome at dealing with these people. Oh, and while you are there, they will want to get … you guessed it! Their own private set of your finger-prints.

You will also include a set of your fingerprints in your dossier to send to your country of adoption. We were able to get a set from our local state police station. They have the cards there that you will need usually, but be sure that you know the right fingerprint form required and see if the place you get those prints have their own copies of that form or not.

Next post? More dossier talk.

Post 6 - Adoption Pregnancy??? - Trimester 1

2009-11-18T23:51:00.016-07:00

If you thought that at least one benefit of going through the adoption process was not having to deal with pregnancy hormones, I am so sorry! Pregnancy hormones will merely be replaced by paperwork hormones, and the guy has them too. That is whatever reactions and emotions you were going to have due to being pregnant (or having to deal with those things from a pregnant wife), you are now going to experience those same reactions and emotions, but they will be caused by adoption paperwork and processes instead of hormones. AND, depending on the country you adopt from, your adoption process gestation period may be longer than 9 months. I know it doesn't seem fair, but that's your reality when you decide to adopt. Stateside is no better. In fact, it is probably much worse in many ways.

But wait! It gets better. Adopting costs much more than having a biological baby. That’s got to make up for the paperwork hormones at least a little. And to make you feel still better, you will learn things about our system of government to confirm all your suspicions. Yes, we really do operate horribly inefficiently ... everywhere. For example, you’d think that if your fingerprints are already on file somewhere that you would not have to have them taken again during your adoption process. Oh chuckle, chuckle, chuckle. Silly. Why would the various agencies that require your fingerprints bother to share those prints with other agencies that will also want your prints? And never mind the expense. That’s no big deal. You get to eat up your time off from work to go get at least three sets of fingerprints. Just get ready to hurry up and wait.

“Hey Thom, are you trying to dissuade people from adopting? That’s not very spiritual of you.” Honestly, I found that knowing these things ahead of time prepared me mentally for what we were going up against. Actually, I think Sue wanted me to know ahead of time, because we absolutely loath watching the other get frustrated with something, so it was easier for her to tell me it would be agonizing up front, so that we did not react so strongly when we ran into the series of stupid things we ran into. I did see one good side to all of the expense and agony of the process. Only those people that really wanted to parent a child would put up with it.And, I will be honest about adoption expenses in this blog, but not yet.

In short, adoption is a mountain that is easily moved by faith, and the process is one of the bigger obstacles. Know that up front, ask for help from those that have gone before you (or look it up on the internet, or buy a book about the process, or read the process post that Sue will help me with later), and just remember this. It is worth it! Honest. Even if you end up with a child as tough as my one of my beautiful daughters from Africa, it will be very much worth it. (Understand that 5 of 9, one of my African daughters, has the potential of any 10 kids I’ve ever known, and it is hard to parent a child with that much potential whose 1st 5+ years were spent surviving in and dealing with a post ethnic war culture – she is a huge diamond in the rough ... very rough).

Post 5 – Birth of Change

2009-11-17T22:54:00.009-07:00

A professor decided rather than simply explaining Archimedes principle of buoyancy, he would tell the story of how Archimedes discovered the principle. He explained how Archimedes had been struggling with how to calculate buoyancy. To take a break, he went to the local bath house. As he stepped down into the bath he noticed the water rise, and then ran out into the streets yelling, “Eureka, Eureka!” The kind old professor paused and smiled at the class and asked, “What do you suppose that meant?” One student ventured to answer, “I’m naked, I’m naked?”

OK, so I’m in the shower, and what is this grand revelation from God?

“Thom, why do you always have to come up with big plans all the time? Can’t you just start with one child?”

The only way I know to explain how clear this was is to explain what I did next. I screamed from the shower (cause even during a great revelation from God, I was not going to leave my prayer chamber and its comfortable flow of warm water over my skin and go running through my house naked, nor the streets, like Archimedes did), “Sue!, Sue!, Suuuuuue!!!” She bolted into the bathroom and said, “What’s wrong, what’s wrong?” “Honey, we need to adopt a Chinese girl yesterday! Can you make that happen?” Now, I need to slow down and give some perspective here. I’m standing naked in my own bathroom inside my shower with the shower door open in front of my wife and yelling like a wild man. But hey, it’s my wife here, so the naked part really doesn’t count. Also, wives already know their husbands are crazy, so nothing strange there either. And so I’m clean here (no pun intended) … from my perspective. Also, we’ve got water, revelation, crazed excitement, and I’m a geek; hence, the similarity to Archimedes.

Now for Sue’s perspective: she has 4 kids from 4 to 11, she home schools, we have a small house, and a single income. Her husband rather than waiting to gently discuss this decision with her, which will have huge consequences for our family for the remainder of our lives and our finances, has interrupted her morning work and treated this like a life or death emergency and is asking for an immediate decision. Sue is sane, very reasonable, and fairly level headed. How would you think she would answer? She simply said, “Uh, ok.” And what was my response? “Great, thanks.” I went back to my shower overjoyed, she went back to her work, and thus began our adoption ministry.

Of course, none of the points from the previous paragraph occurred to me until writing this right now. She went to work on it right away, drawing from her training as a social worker and her post graduate studies on adoption. She would report to me things that we would need to do and would ask for my help when needed. The explanation of her immediate acceptance of my revelation to adopt was clarified for me two weeks later. I overheard her explain to a friend, “I was feeling convicted that Thom and I should adopt a girl from China, but I didn’t know how to talk to him about it, and then he just all of a sudden asked me to do it.” Hence, I never had to face how apparently stupid I had been until writing this post – it’s kinda like writing a tabloid on yourself, but it ends up more like one of those “Feeling Lucky?” commercials in the end. OK, seriously, it seems that you get away with being crazy when God is involved, and there has never been one doubt that He was, which will become more and more apparent with every posting. So, I guess you could call it Crazy Love.

Now, I must warn you that some of the upcoming posts will be rated “R” for the following.

“The blog hosting services of Googledom have rated this posting R for disturbing explanations of the extreme nonsense of the adoption process and its associated paperwork.”

Post 4 - Conception of Change (continued)

2009-11-16T21:44:00.008-07:00

To make a long story short, I ended up partnering with others at HP, and we did some really great training and ministry on our site. It was amazing what we were able to get approved and the things that we were able to ~~get away with~~ do. We had studies in apologetics and evangelism. We showed apologetics films in the main auditorium. We had open forum discussions on questions about God and other tough spiritual topics. One brother and I took a group of men through evangelism training. When we finished that, we sought to switch to a mode of prayer for implementation. The group attendance dropped to one half. Hmmm?

Then we had a final meeting to plan for action, and no one wanted to do anything. I became disenchanted with the whole effort and really questioned the value of everything that I had just done. In hindsight, I now know it was immature of me to just give up. I should have gone back to the scriptures and sought some counseling from others, but I frankly felt very alone and had no idea who to talk to about the whole ordeal. Another thing I wish that I would have known at the time is that I get injured way too easily, and some things that happened around this time did injure me deeply. I was aptly named Thomas. I can really empathize with the apostle Thomas. He was the first one to follow Jesus into Jerusalem to die with Him, but he was also the apostle that was the most injured by Christ’s death and, as we know, subsequently refused to believe without seeing the risen Christ for himself.

So, I went back to my prayer closet otherwise known as the shower. I was crying out to God all over again. I wanted to do a real ministry with real and lasting results for the kingdom. I wanted to start or be part of a ministry that was clearly led by God, obedient to God, blessed by God and pleasing to God all with the goal of knowing Him better through that work of ministry. I’ve memorized a lot of scripture over the years, so I just let the Holy Spirit guide me through verses that talked about serving others in a way that is pleasing to God, and naturally James 1:27 came to mind:

Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

I went through a series of thoughts thinking how great it would be if I could work at an orphanage and just love on the kids there and teach them. Then I realized wait! I could actually run the orphanage and do more than just take care of the orphans. I could make them my own kids. I could adopt them all so that they would feel like they belonged to someone. Then I started designing the perfect home in my mind that could house and serve several ~~orphans~~ of my adopted kids. Then I began thinking of how I could raise the money for this.

OK, I need to interject something here. You know how some people will tell you how God spoke some great revelation to them directly? What are people like that tend to do this and why are they telling us this? OK, let’s not go there. Anyway, I have heard from God on several occasions, very clearly and very distinctly. It is not an audible voice, it is more like a revelation – an epiphany – an awareness. But wait! Before you think I am like one of those other people, I have to qualify something. When God speaks to me, it has always been something like, “Oh Thom, you poor ignorant fool. …” and then I get the revelation of how stupid I have been and how I can crawl out of my ignorance if I will just stop thinking this stupid way and stop doing such and such stupid things. Sometimes I am sure that my life verse starting out was Proverbs 30:2 and I am very slowly moving to John 14:21. You’ll have to look Proverbs 30:2 up on your own. I refuse to insult myself that deeply and directly on my own blog!

So, my grand revelation in the shower was this. Ooops! Out of time. I’ll post it tomorrow.

Post 3 - Conception of Change

2009-11-15T18:25:00.014-07:00

This quest of obedience to know Christ better did not take shape all at once. I sure wish I knew then what I know now. (The problem with that statement is that you can say it anew each year. Only recently, I could say it again, even about the time since we brought home our first adopted child from China.) After a while, I at least developed the sense to realize that I needed to take baby steps. I felt that participating in the Sunday morning show by leading the music or teaching a class had little to do with this quest. I was looking for ways to truly have and keep Christ’s commandments. Well, I say that, but I still enjoyed, in a worldly way, too much, leading music and being up front and seeking the attention of men.

I started a discipleship group in my home and accomplished deeply encouraging at least two men out of about 10. I tried to witness more on campus (I was in graduate school at the time). Sue and I got involved serving at a Chinese fellowship where I led music and taught Sunday school and preached some messages using an interpreter. We had a ministry where we tried to minister to and witness to visiting Chinese scholars – that was interesting. We also had a period of time where we taught 3 and 4 year olds. I think that was the beginning of some real ministry for us. All this time, I can at least say that I was attempting to be guided by John 14:21, and I was making some progress in the revelation of Christ, but I don’t think that I was really finding the depth of relationship with Christ that I was hoping to find.

When we left graduate school, I worked for one company for about 6 months in Boise, Idaho. I loved what they did, but I had little confidence in the leadership to keep the company alive for the long term (they did get worse and worse over time and eventually had to close their doors), so I moved over to HP in March, 1998. The winds of change were just beginning to happen there too with the death of one of the founders, Dave Packard. Bill Hewlett died not long after Dave. I tried to hold on through the changes while trying to come up with some way to have my own business. I tried to bloom where I was, doing what I could by serving in AWANA, teaching Sunday school when possible, leading music when needed and witnessing at work, but my hunger to truly experience John 14:21 was not being quenched as deeply as I thought that it could be.

Then, a great opportunity came my way, one of my advisors in graduate school had taught overseas in the Muslim 10:40 window in United Arab Emirates. Through his contacts, I would be able to teach there. I had gotten my Ph.D. so that I could possibly teach someday (and have a ministry with college students) and to possibly teach in a closed country and secretly do mission work. Here was our chance!

I went to Sue and explained the whole thing to her. I couldn’t wait to see her reaction. I remember like it was yesterday telling her about this and the look on her face. She said, “Wow, that’s great!” But she looked like a deer in the headlights. Our biological kids were 6, 3, 2 and baby at this time. I can be a pretty dense husband at times, but I knew very clearly that I could not put her through such a move right then.

I calmly told Sue that I did not think we should go right now, and she said, “Really?” “Yeah,” I said. “I need to go for a walk.” “Are you OK,” she asked? “Oh yeah, I just need to go for a walk.”

I was deep in prayer and crying out to God for a way to live John 14:21 more deeply. Just as I was at the point of my deepest sadness and disappointment, I stopped (I don’t know why) and looked back across the last patch of land owned by the farmer that had sold the land for the Boise site to HP and could see the two buildings that I worked in, and I said to myself simply, “Thom, you fool. You want to go into a closed country to teach, but you have a badge to get into that place now.” I made up my mind that day to start a ministry on that site or lose my job trying.

More tomorrow …

Post 2 - A Beginning

2009-11-14T20:07:00.009-07:00

"Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start ...", Maria from the Sound of Music

Thinking about what I would write and how I would write it as I was cooking cheese omelets and toast for breakfast for my kids (it’s a long running Saturday morning ritual while Sue goes out on errands) made me think deeply about beginnings.

What was the real beginning to my walk with Christ? What were the beginnings to significant changes in my walk with Christ? What was the real beginning to deciding to adopt internationally. Thinking about beginnings made me realize that there were many key points in life that were the beginnings of new phases.

Somewhere around the late 1980’s, some guy taught from some pulpit that we should read the Bible to have it affect our doctrines rather than just reading it to find support for the teaching from our current affiliation. I feel guilty for not remembering who said it now. I owe that guy a lot! That challenge hit me right between my theological eyes. I read the New Testament in that spirit. It was hard at first, because I had to allow my current beliefs to be challenged by the apparent meaning. If I hadn’t read George McDonald’s novels and let his way of challenging norms open my mind, I don’t think it would have been as easy for me to accept the changes in thinking that this brought my way.

Reading the New Testament in that spirit was a beginning. Let me assure you that I did not walk away with a conviction that I should be baptized in the nude or any such thing. What really jumped out at me were the themes. One theme was extremely salient – Christ did what He did so that we could be close to Him and His Father.

The verse that seemed to make this the most obvious at the time was this one:

“He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me. And he who loves Me, shall be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose (some versions say reveal) Myself to him.” NASB John 14:21.

I have continued to meditate on that verse for over 20 years now, and I am still learning from it.

I wish I could say that I am only ever attracted to my wife, but even at my age I can still be stopped dead in my tracks by a beautiful woman. I wish I could say that I was the most intelligent person on the planet, but I still watch people around me and read writings of people whose intelligence greatly inspires me. I wish the comedy channel knew what they were missing by not giving me my own show, but then I hear some new comedian and think, “I can’t hold a candle to that guy.” I spar my oldest son Gabe in Tae Kwon Do, and I outweigh him by 50+ lbs, and he scares me. I watch my daughter (5 of 9) learn some new type of move at Black Belt Club and think, "Wow! How does she do that?" Tonight, I was reviewing some power point slides that one of my partners created, and thought, “Dang, she’s good at this!” We can all be awe struck by other humans at times. I think we could be more so if we took more interest.

Imagine meeting the most beautiful, most creative, most practical, most elegant, most intelligent, most funny, most articulate, most loving person on the planet. (I know all these things don’t exist in any one human on the planet, but play along with me please). How would you react? I know how I would react, and I’ll take the 5th Amendment on describing it. BUT, imagine that person says to you, “Hey, I’d like to disciple you, you know, make you my protégé’. Would you like that?” I’ll venture to say that I would say, “Yes! I’d love that. Wow, thanks!”

Christ is orders of magnitude more than such a person. That no man can see God and live does not surprise me. Meeting someone like I described above would take my breath away. It stands to reason that coming into the presence of someone orders of magnitude greater would take my life away. I’d be overwhelmed to death.

In my experience, I know all of this in my mind, and it really is in my heart, but why not more so. I can only think that it’s because I am more into things that touch me through my senses than through my mind and soul. And yet I am learning at this point in my life that it is grand things that start in the mind and soul and that are put into a plan that truly grow into something great. Not realizing this as much as I do now, I at least began to try to actually live out John 14:21 so that I could know God better through Christ. I would say that seeking for the revelation of Christ through loving obedience to Him was a seed that would someday grow into me wanting to adopt 5 or more kids on top of having 4 biological kids and to do more than that too.