Our little baby is coming soon — very, very soon — and we are super excited to be parents again.  Again.  Although this will be our first time as biological parents, it won’t be our first time as parents.  It feels a little different this time around.  The anticipation of our biological baby is visible with my growing belly, with all the doctor’s visits, with physical changes in my body, the ultrasounds and the universal excitement from all.  The anticipation of our foster baby was less visible – no bodily changes, no ultrasounds and mixed feelings from everyone around us.  Expecting a biological baby has been quite an experience.  There really is something so incredible and amazing about God developing a little life inside of me and the bonding I’ve already gotten to experience with this little baby.  But expecting a foster baby was also quite the experience as well.  It is no less wonderful and no less special to have an adopted/foster baby.  Having been down both roads, I wanted to set the record straight.  Some people foster/adopt because they are unable to have biological children.  Some people foster/adopt because they have been given that unique ability to love the orphans which God so often speaks of.  Both find, in the adoptive experience, the wonder, the beauty, and the joy in giving love in the way that the Father does.  There is nothing on earth that can replace doing as He does, imitating His character, being obedient to His will, embodying His love, and identifying with His heart. 

We absolutely love, love, love our coming biological baby!  But we also absolutely love, love, love the little foster baby that God gave us a year ago, and we will absolutely love, love, love the future foster/adopted babies that He will give to us.

This past weekend, I ran into Pastor Lam (senior pastor at Chinese Bible Church) who told me, “I was just thinking about you yesterday.”  It’s kinda amazing that the senior pastor of such an enormous church would be thinking about me — but when I talk to him, the personal interaction we have makes me feel as though CBC is still a tiny little church. 

I always love running into Pastor Lam.  He really cares about me and it shows.  He’s known me since I was a senior in high school, remembers when I would spend hours in the church library studying the Bible and come over and bother him with my millions of questions, has given me great advice on how to love my parents, has even talked to me about ‘boys’ in my single days and has supported me 100% in my call to being a missionary.

I told him about our decision to become foster parents — and to no surprise — he was very supportive.  He also asked whether we would choose to adopt.  I said, “yes probably.”  He asked if we would have biological children, and I said, “yes probably.”  “But you would adopt first?” he asked.  I said, “Yes, we want to do it this way so our adopted child would know that it wasn’t an afterthought but that we are really choosing him/her.”  At which point, he began to share with me that he had just preached a sermon about adoption — how God has adopted us and how it was His choice and that there was nothing we could’ve done to make God choose us.  And I just nodded in agreement, happily, knowing that we were on the same page about the incredible Christ-like love that is demonstrated when adoption takes place.

Speaking of sharing the news, it’s been fun in the last few weeks telling friends about becoming foster parents.  We’ve been amazed at how much support and enthusiasm we have met with and how many people we have found who were either adopted, fostered or knew someone who fostered — and all of these people have shared good experiences.  Sam’s coworkers have intentionally stopped by his cubicle just to ask him about fostering again and again.  They have all shown excitement, interest and given us much encouragement.  As a result, I can’t help but think about how tangible we are making the love of Christ to them.  Now his coworkers will have a clear example of what God’s love is like:  He takes in the lonely and adopts them as family.  As Christ-followers who are following in His footsteps, we are able to point people in His direction.  And because we are able to point people to Him, we are affirmed that we are following God’s will. 

Last night we were at a send-off party for a best friend — Pam.  After working diligently and prayerfully for the last few years, the foundations for Hope Harvest International have finally been set and is in a place where she can now go overseas to work out more details.  As the church stood together to pray for her last night, I couldn’t help but remember the “China Dreaming” meetings we had so many years ago when it all started.  We all sat around in her living room with a big white butcher paper, brainstormed and dreamed about all the needs there were in China and what needed to be done.  The possibilities seemed endless, exciting and overwhelming all at the same time.  But we believed together that with God all things are possible.  Today, years later, I am completely in awe of God and His faithfulness to His promises and amazed at Pam and her perseverance and faith in following hard after Him and after the dream He gave her to start a non-profit organization to care for the parent-less in China.  Most of us just dream about things, but Pam has done it.  Certainly, it has not been without blood, sweat and tears.  But as many of us who have walked alongside Pam, prayed with her and heard of all the “almosts” and the dead-ends and the going-around-in-circles, I am among the many who has learned so much from her example.  Mainly, that when God gives you a vision, you have to follow Him.  It won’t always be easy, but it will be worth it.

Here’s a picture of the two women who have most influenced me to follow God in faith, even when it seems impossible and even when it goes against the grain.  Sam on the left and Pam in the middle.

Pam read a verse to us last night from Psalm 68:5-6a:
“A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.  God sets the lonely in families…”

“The mission of Hope Harvest International is to parent neglected orphans in impoverished
areas of China within small family-style homes. Through nurturing home environments, it is our vision that these children develop their full potential so that they will better the communities
around them.”

As Pam shared these things last night, I kept thinking, “Exactly!!!”  This is the same exact reason why (husband)Sam and I want to become foster parents.  It’s so clear in Scripture — over and over, it states — God’s love and compassion for the orphans.  He sets the lonely in families.  May we all each in one way or another be a “family” for some of these lonely ones.

Let’s follow after the dreams and visions God gives us — even if it seems impossible! 

Verse of the day -
“Through the praise of children and infants
       you have established a stronghold against your enemies,
       to silence the foe and the avenger.”  Ps 8

Somehow God uses children to silence those who are not totally with Him.  Isn’t that interesting?  It seems strange that a baby would have such power… and if I had never looked into the beautiful eyes of a baby before, I would have my doubts about this verse.  But babies do cause hearts to melt.

We had a pretty rough week last week because we made the big announcement to our family about fostering and were not exactly met with enthusiasms all around.  Though the ones who were enthusiastic were so incredibly enthusiastic, the ones who were not… were definitely not.  We were not at all surprised by the response — but the reality of the rejection that we faced was so terribly disappointing.  It pretty much breaks our hearts and I am without adequate words to describe the amount of angst and wrestling conversation that has transpired between Sam and myself.   We are mostly sad that they will miss out.  We are not sure what the real issue is (beyond all the worse-worse case scenarios that they posed) except that perhaps the foreign concept of inviting others into our home really
challenges their core value of what ‘the family’ is.  We are breaking
up their idea of family.  But we are hoping that, in the end, they will
see that rather than breaking down the family, we are, in fact, enlarging it (by inviting ‘strangers’ in).  Perhaps the praise of infants and children will melt their hearts.

In the meantime, I wanted to share more about the WHYs we are doing this.  Though we have not started the 8-week course, in which we will learn a whole lot more, we have been doing a lot of research, so this is what we know thusfar.

At any given time in San Diego, there are over 6,000 children in
foster care who do not have parents to love them and teach them what is
right.  Without families, it would be unlikely that they will grow up to be helpful to our
society but, more likely, harmful.  If they have families, on the other hand, they could grow up to be contributors to society.

Studies show that without a consistent caregiver during the critical
period of infancy to 2 years, a baby will not be able to develop proper
attachment.  Their brains will not physically develop as it normally
should and will not be able to after this time period has passed.  This
means that they may not be able to relate with people in a healthy way –
they may not be able to have compassion on others and so would not feel
bad about hurting someone.  So, really, there is such a necessity to love the baby and bond with them by a consistent caregiver (i.e. foster parents).

The babies that might be placed in our home may have some minor developmental delays due to the abuse they may have experienced like being kept in a playpen all the time, so they may not crawl at the usual age, but they are very resilient at this young age and will catch up very quickly.  Since these babies are so young, they will not have much cognitive memory of any negative events they may have experienced so are unlikely to have any emotional issues.  And, furthermore, as they are placed in the loving and nurturing environment of a foster family, they will receive any emotional healing that they need.  Our agency has followed-up on babies that they have placed into homes who are now older, and they are doing well — well-adjusted like other kids. (Isn’t that exciting?)

As we have shared this news with friends, we have received a wide range of responses.  Mostly, good and very supportive – but for those who don’t know much about it, there are lotsa questions.  We want to answer questions and help educate people and perhaps even inspire others to do the same!   

One question that I get often is the matter of whether or not we are going to get ‘real children’ of ‘our own’.  This question could probably be better formed differently because the opposite of real children is fake children, and I sure hope that adopted children are not fake (seen or treated as fake or second-class).  Any kids who come into our home will be ‘our own’ kids, and we will treat them as if they are our flesh and blood.  We will treat them as the ‘real kids’ that they are.  So to answer the question…at this point, we are not sure how long we will foster for, we are not sure if we will adopt, we are not sure if we will have biological kids and when.  We are just following God one step at a time, one day at a time… 

If you have any questions about what this fostering thing is about, please ask!  We’ll try to find the answer for you if we don’t know it.

We celebrated Valentine’s yesterday because we were busy with seminary studies on Thursday.  Sam brought some special food home and decorated the table with candy-hearts, candlelight and chardonnay.  After dinner, he played some love songs that he had picked out just for us, and he asked me to dance.  So we danced and danced, just the two of us… and enjoyed ourselves in our very last Valentine with just the two of us.

They say that when you have a lot of love, the natural thing is to want to share that love. 

And so after much talking and praying and hashing things over, Sam and I are going to become foster parents.

What does it mean for us to be foster parents?
The foster
care agency that we have our eye on specializes
in babies from infants to 3 year olds, who have been taken from their
parents because the parents could not care for the baby (neglect, abuse or
abandonment, etc).  The babies, therefore, need to be put in foster
families as the courts give the parents time to become more responsible
individuals.  If the babies don’t go to a foster family, they stay at the Polinsky Children’s Center, where they will not have
a consistent caregiver.  So for us to be “foster parents”, this means
that we will have one baby (at a time) that we will take care of until the courts
are able to decide what is best for the child.  The goal is for the
baby to be reunified back with his/her mom/dad if the parent has taken positive
steps (get a job, become sober, etc).

What do we have to do to get prepared?
We have to become “licensed” in
order to be foster parents.  This process will take a few months,
because we need to take an 8-week course on foster parenting, become CPR
certified, do lots of paperwork, etc 

So why do we want to do this?
It will give us an
opportunity to contribute to a baby’s life, give them love and
structure — and hopefully, give them the foundation for a better life
in the future. 

If the courts decide that the parent of the child or a biological
family member is suitable for taking care of the baby (because they taken the positive steps so that they can be reunified), then we will
relinquish the baby to the biological family (and entrust him/her into God’s hands).  If the courts decide that none of the biological
family is fit for raising the child, then the child will be up for
adoption.  In this case, there is a possibility that we will consider adopting the child.

In conclusion…
So the exciting news is that if the Lord continues to lead us as He has been, sometime
this summerish, we will probably have a foster baby!  We are both really
excited about all this.  We
continue to talk and pray about all the different things that may come
up, all the difficulties and challenges that we may face, and the more
we talk and pray, the more we know that this is what we want to and must do.  We believe our lives will be wonderfully changed from this
experience — and anyone else’s too who would like to be a part of our lives as we take this journey.

“He is good; His love endures forever.” (2 Chron 5:13)  His love goes on and on.  There is no end to His love, there are no bounds and no limits. 

This means that no matter what we do or how far we stray, His love endures, it continues, He’ll keep loving us.  This means no matter how gross our sin or grotesque we seem to others, His love endures.

This means that no matter how far others stray, how gross their sin, how grotesque they seem to us, His love for them will endure — it continues, it goes on and on and will never end. 

His love has no bounds.  No matter their race (white, hispanic, black, chinese, vietnamese, korean), no matter their class (how rich or poor they are), no matter their gender, His love has no bounds.

It’s hard for us to love those who seem “less deserving” than we are — those who are the worse in our opinions — for example, the homeless person (because we are prejudiced to think they’re lazy) or the prostitute (because we think they’re dirty) or certain race minorities (because we have stereotypes about each one) — but God’s love has no bounds.

As Christians, many of us pride ourselves in thinking that we are able to love as God loves – but the reality is that many of us are usually only able to “love like He loves” as long as we can keep our personal space, as long as it doesn’t inconvenience us or cost us anything.  Talk to someone less deserving – sure.  Serve in a soup kitchen – sure.  But invite them into our home to serve them dinner, sleep in our bed or treat them as family???  That’s a different matter.  It’s hard for us to comprehend — but God wouldn’t just invite them home but He would adopt them and call them His own with great gladness and joy.  He wouldn’t even hesitate.  He doesn’t hesitate with us — and for that we are oh so very glad — but for some reason, we begrudge others of getting this same kind of unconditional love from the Lord.  We are unwilling to love as He truly loves.  Those people aren’t less deserving than us.  We are equally undeserving and when we lack the ability to love and act on that love – though we say that we do – we are staring our own hypocrisy right in the face.

I cannot love and worship a God whose love is so limitless and proclaim it so loudly without moving to imitate Him.  It’s not possible.  It’s pure hypocrisy to act contrary to my God’s nature.  I’m a hypocrite if I praise Him for a love that knows no bounds and yet represent Him as a judgmental, conditional kind of God to the world.  Oh, hypocrisy.  How desperately I want to nail my hypocrisy to the cross!  How about you?

Had a vivid dream last night.  Sam & I had somehow come to know two kids, a boy and a girl about 7 or 8 years old, who had tragic, abandoned lives of not being seen for their value and worth.  We adopted them.  We loved them just as quickly as we realized their need and our availability.  And I got this sense that they were supposed to be ours.  They really belonged to us. 

In the dream, we were living in a really large house — one that was given to us and that we were still discovering.  The top floor had six bedrooms in it.  We put the kids in a room that was large enough to have 4 twin-sized beds.  It was that big!  I’m not sure how it came to be that we were given this large house — but perhaps it’s God reminding me that, with Him, there is just always a lot of room.  No limit to His provision, His abundance, His love.

Adoption.  The idea has been on our radar for awhile now.  Out of God’s exemplary pattern of adopting us, how can we not follow in His footsteps of this kind of love in overflow?  I can’t think of very many reasons not to.  –except the reality that it’s a little out of the ordinary (in our little world) to adopt when you could have ‘biological’ children.  Will others not only accept but adopt the idea?  Lots to ponder and to pray over…  Do you have any thoughts on the subject?

Adoption is different from being born into a family.  It’s different because the one who was alone, abandoned, abused, neglected and unwanted gets to be swept up in a whirlwind of love, acceptance, affection, closeness, warmth and welcome.  The one who is adopted goes from being the unwanted one to being the wanted one.  He or she becomes the chosen one.  He or she becomes chosen!

Being chosen.

I only know a bit about not being chosen.  When I was in elementary school, we would have PE once a day.  Sometimes during PE, we would play sports like soccer or softball, and because I was terrible at sports, I would always stand there thinking, “Pick me, pick me,” knowing full well that the two captains would not pick me until the very end when they absolutely had to.  I hated that feeling — the embarrassed, awkward feeling of not being chosen, not being wanted.  It was always such a relief when at last someone would pick me to be a part of their team. 

I can very easily put myself back in my little tennis shoes from the 4th grade and remember that aching feeling of being unwanted.  It is not much, but it is definitely something that helps me understand and put myself in another’s shoes when I am reminded that God tells us that true religion that He accepts as pure and faultless is to look after the orphans and widows in their distress (Jas 1:27).

The orphans and widows.  How many are out there who feel abandoned, neglected, unwanted, unloved?

I know much about being chosen.  I’ve been chosen to belong to Jesus Christ (Rom 1:6).  I, who was once the prodigal daughter, was adopted by the Father to be his child and a co-heir with Christ.  I belong, I belong, I belong.  And how now do I respond to such generous love in a way that is pure and faultless?