Home at last!

Thirty days on the road is a lot to ask of any family.  Thirty days on the other side of the world spanning language and cultural barriers in close quarters with all the children while simultaneously growing from a group of six to a group of eight might have been just plain reckless.  But we don't follow the same rules as the rest of the world, do we?

Our journey began one year ago as my wife, Song-Ae, approached me to tell me God had completely change her heart.  The two additional children that I had mentioned years before were indeed going to be part of our family and she had been feeling the Lord's gentle nudge tugging at her heart for some time.  To do this, she said that it was time for her to stay home and put to rest the career she had worked at for so long.  We embraced and rejoiced and sat the children down to see how they felt about things.

Previously, we had involved the children prior to every one of our adoptions and this would be no different.  We would do this as a family or not at all.  Moments after absorbing the news that their parents had gone off a cliff, to their credit, all four of them raised their hands and offered to share their rooms with their new siblings.  Our family embraced amidst tears and set about the task of making this happen.

Adopting one child was expensive; adopting two was something beyond our capabilities.  So how could we do this?  The answer was a bit shocking but very clearly defined within our hearts.  The very next day we met with a realtor to put our home on the market.  We would purchase a cheaper home and use the excess equity to ransom two more lives.

Telling our friends was a humorous experience as their mouths gaped in silent incredulity.  Summer was over, the housing market had tanked with the fall of Houston oil and homes everywhere had been placed on sale.  It was simply not a viable plan.  But then .……with God .,....... all things are possible!

To make this work our home had to sell very quickly at no less than a respectable price or we would not have the funds to move forward.  I truly believe that the Lord has a sense of humor.  To the amazement of us all, not only did we get a respectable price but we were physically and financially out of the home in under two months.  But to live now?

 We desperately wanted to stay in the same school district.  Here in Houston there is a pilot program for students from foreign countries with little schooling that do not speak the English language.  It is a program that is "pre" ESOL (English as a Second Language) and Song-Ae sits on the parent supervisory board for this great system.  

Again, God placed within our grasp something that should have been well beyond our reach.  We needed a house quickly because He had already answered our initial prayer and we were about to loose our current home.  At the last possible moment another home came up on the market that was a "court-ordered" sale.  It was to be sold well below market rates so the estate could be broken up quickly.  Not only was it perfect for us and was in the same school system but it was only three minutes from where we lived before.  Although it was leaps and bounds cheaper than our previous home it was also substantially bigger.  Room enough for eight!

So we joined this new path that the Lord had placed us on and now we needed to find our two new teenage daughters.  We fervently believed that our calling was to bring home children that would not otherwise have a home.  In China, the children are pushed out onto the street at 14 years old.  We were searching for those that had not yet been chosen.

Imagine our surprise when God showed us who those two new children would be.  Not two teenage girls, but a boy and a girl.  Biological siblings whose parents had been lost when they were very young.  They had been in the orphanage ever since and it was time for them to come home.  The older brother would be less than a year from aging out and then he and his sister would be separated forever.  We felt the Lord's gentle prodding and committed to these two wonderful children on the other side of the world.

Unbeknownst to those around us, adopting two children would be a little more expensive than we realized and we didn't quite have all the funds that we needed to complete the task - and God chuckled at such a silly little problem.  He tugged at the hearts of our friends and we received not one, not two, not three but four giant anonymous donations towards the adoption of these two wonderful souls.

This has been our journey over the last year.  The miracles that were performed to get us home today would have been practically unfathomable only one year ago.  Yet, the most incredible part of our journey and astonishing miracles that were performed are things to which I cannot yet share with you.  Perhaps some day I will, but for now, these must remain tightly held within our family.

How are the children doing so far you ask?  What do you think?  Travelling on the road that the Lord has paved for us is a privilege and an honor.  It will not be free from potholes or sharp curves for there is much that the Father still has to teach, but it will always be taking us in the direction for which we've been chosen.  The children are incredible, kind and loving.  We could not have asked for two more wonderful human beings.

I leave you with this thought.  Our lives are very different than what we'd envisioned them to be but that is a life in service to the Lord.  Proverbs 16:9  "In his heart a man plans his course but the Lord determines his steps."

Our fervent desire is to get to the end of our lives and turn around to look back behind us.  We want to see that we have done everything possible to serve the Lord.  We want to know that we have done everything within our power to make a difference and change lives for the better.  After all, isn't that what we were put here for?

Sisters Arm in Arm....