She finally did it.  Fifteen steps across our living room.  Our baby girl had a major milestone with us today!  We hugged her and jumped up and down with her.  It was quite the triumphant moment.  Hurray!  (wish I could post the video clip!!)

One of the harder things about foster parenting is not the actual
parenting part but the fostering part. We are taking care of this
little one and loving her as our very own. We do not limit the love we
lavish on her nor the firmness needed for correction and guidance.
However, at the end of the day, we need to remind ourselves that she is
not ours for keeps. Weekly, she has visitations with her birth parents,
and it's those visits that drive the point home. God has given her to
us for a short season and after that, she will return to her parents.
If ever there was an experiential lesson on "the blessedness of
possessing nothing" (AW Tozer, The Pursuit of God), this would be the
one. To love fully but hold loosely and put our heart in God's hands
and our hope in His sovereign character -- that is the stretching
pattern of foster parenting.

When "God's gifts take the place of God...the whole course of nature is
upset by the monstrous substitution." -- AW Tozer, The Pursuit of God

"The blessed ones who possess the kingdom are they who have repudiated
every external thing and have rooted from their hearts all sense of
possessing." -- AW Tozer, The Pursuit of God

"The only ones who know how to parent are the ones who do not have children."

I saw this quote a few weeks before I became a parent.  Even then, I laughed because it is so true!  When you're not a parent and have never had children of your own, you hear one expert or one parent's way of doing things and you think that's the one-and-only way, so you try to tell other parents who are having similar problems to use that method as the solution.  But the reality is that every child is different (and even that one child changes every day or so), so there isn't just one band-aid method that will solve it all.  I think most parents realize pretty quickly into things that they really know nothing at all.  (We are a good case in point.)  I'm so thankful that God stands in the midst of all that we do and all that we are, and He parents us!

At church on Sunday, we sang a song by Hillsong United called "Hosanna".  Something about the words really stirred my heart... maybe because it's a song envisioning the things of God's heart.

I see a generation
Rising up to take their place
With selfless faith
With selfless faith

I see a near revival
Stirring as we pray and seek
We're on our knees
We're on our knees

We read about revivals.  We hear about life change and transformation en masse.  But what would it be like to actually see it happen?  I'm on my knees.  I'm on my knees...

Speaking of being on my knees, (foster) parenting is one of the most difficult things Sam & I have ever done.  The days that we don't pray for our little girl and for God's wisdom on how to parent end up being the most difficult and challenging days.  We tried it out without praying a few times (mostly because we were too exhausted and 'forgot'), but after having those few hard, prayerless days, we are convinced that we need to come together and seek God no matter what.  We are committed -- no matter how tired we are at the end of the day.  If not, we will be even more tired the next day!  Honestly, I have no idea how anyone can parent without God's power, wisdom and strength.  With Him, though, anything is possible.

I got the phone call on Tues afternoon.  Our agency rep told me that they had a baby girl at the P Center who needed to be placed in a foster home, would we be interested?  (Inside, I thought, "really??!")  I was pretty surprised by the call because we had still been waiting for them to call us to tell us first that we were officially certified foster parents. We thought we'd have to wait awhile after that phone call.  But nope, this was the phone call that we had been waiting for all these months (9 months to be exact)!  I called Sam and told him all the details about the little girl, and of course we both said, "Yes!  Let's do it!"

Wed afternoon, we went down to the P Center and picked up our new baby girl.  She cried when she saw us and almost had a major melt down when we tried to put her in the car seat.  Who were we, anyway?  Where were we taking her?  She had been at the Center for a few weeks already after being taken from her parents.  And if that wasn't enough trauma, she had been in a place where there were frequently changing caretakers and so many children in one place.  It was understandable that she was frightened!

The first two days were so difficult.  She cried so much, it broke my heart.  She was scared, and she had needs that we just didn't quite know how to meet.  The bright spot was that she became attached to me pretty quickly.  This meant that I could hold her and rock her a bit to calm her down.  However, everytime she saw Sam, she cried!  That made it difficult, as I never had a break.

After the hard day Thursday, Sam and I came together before God and prayed earnestly for help.  Would He help her bond with Sam?  Would He show us how to meet her needs?  And Friday we saw all our prayers answered.  We were able to understand her cues better and provide what she needed, and she really started to bond with Sam!  She laughed and smiled.  It was a great day.

It's still hard, and we have so much more to learn.  There will be many more difficult things that will come our way, but each day, we learn more about our little girl.  And each day, trust gets stronger.   She is an incredible joy and blessing to us!

Unfortunately, due to confidentiality reasons, I can't post a picture of her beautiful face nor her name, but here's a picture of her little footsies on mine and Sam's knees.

"Just think, next week at this time!" Sam had said last week. 
I completed his sentence, "We might not be looking at an empty crib anymore."

We got CPR and First Aid certified on Saturday.  Things have changed since the last time I got certified.  It's now 30 compressions to 2 rescue breaths.  I learned that, in 4 minutes, a person goes from clinical death to biological death.  If you can resuscitate a person in those first 4 minutes, then you have 98% chance of their recovery without brain damage.  But after that, the chances drop to less than 50%; at 8 minutes, it's 10% and at 10 minutes, it's 1% chance of recovery without brain damage.  On average, ambulance response time is 6 minutes.  So if we waited for the "professionals" to come and rescue our loved one or friend, it's possible that they've already experienced significant brain damage.  Scary, isn't it?  All the more reason to get CPR certified!

Our instructor also gave us this scenario:  if we were walking down the street and a homeless man fell over unconscious, what would we do?  If his wife walked up to us and said, "Please, do you know CPR?  Can you help him?  He's the only friend I have in the world!"  Would you give him CPR or grab your cell phone and call 911 because he stank so much and was so dirty?   That was such a challenging question, because it's easy to think of doing CPR on a loved one, but on a complete stranger -- who is grimy and could have any kind of disease???  That's the question.

Yesterday, we had our 'home interview'.  Our agency social worker did a walk-through to inspect our house.  Are our chemicals locked away?  Are our meds?  Do we have a fire extinguisher?  Do we have a first aid kit with a thermometer?  Is our water too hot? 

Then we had the interview:  first, a one-on-one interview with me, then both Sam and me together, and then just Sam.  The questions were very probing.  She basically wanted to know our life histories, relationships with significant members of our family, any traumatic things that have happened in our past.  She also wanted to know what our marriage was like, roles we have, values we have, etc.  All-in-all, it was a pretty intense interview.

Afterwards, she told us that we are just waiting for one more background check clearance to come back to them, and then we'll be set.  Which means...maybe in a week??  But then...Sam got the mail later in the evening and a copy of the background clearance was in the mail!  With the paper in our hands, it suddenly dawned on us that everything was done.  We have completed the long foster parenting licensing process!  Now we just wait to be told that we are officially licensed...and then we wait some more for the phone call which will mean that we will go down to the P. Center to pick up the baby!  Crazy, huh?

I feel excited.  And scared.  And excited.  And scared. This is probably one of the most out-of-the-comfort-zone things God has led me to.  I
mean, missions was out-of-the-comfort-zone, but I envision that this will require more
laying-of-my-life-down than that ever did.  (I think especially since I have only experienced short-term missions so far and not long term nor in the jungles.)  The "scared" feelings hint at the fact that I'm probably going to be
pretty stretched from this experience -- to learn a lot about myself, God and Sam...and whoever else
wants to get involved...

Our baby registry at Babies R Us.  Since we're not sure exactly what age we will get (somewhere between newborn and 2-3 year old), it's been hard to narrow down what stuff we should get.  Currently, we have an infant car seat and a crib, so we've been preparing for a baby under 1.  When we have our home interview on Monday, they will ask us our preference, and we'll tell them 0-6 months...but we'll see what happens.  We're open to whatever child God will bring our way -- no matter what age, gender or race. 

Kind of exciting all the unknowns involved in this -- exciting because these things are known by a Sovereign God!

About two more weeks to go at the earliest, maybe three, maybe more... but we are almost there.  Sam happily 'installed' the base for the infant car seat today into the car.  I know, it seems early, but for two very eager parents-to-be, this is actually 'late' when considering how long we've had the car seats! 

I'm not sure who's more excited about our future foster baby - him or me.  He is so excited!  I love that, because I'm so excited too!  We met a couple a few weeks back who are serving as foster parents also, but it was clear after talking to them for a few minutes that it was mostly the wife's idea, desire and domain.  (In fact, I asked, "What led you to become foster parents?"  and he said, "It was all her.")   Being that it is so, I'm sure it's fine and she is happy to take care of everything.  But in our case, it is definitely an equally shared desire.  Being egalitarians, that is something that is super-important to us.  I can't imagine doing this alone.  I would hate it if it was just 'my idea.'  And I love that Sam is 100% for this.  It helps because when we had just started our foster parenting licensing class and learned all the hard and challenging parts about being foster parents, I began to waver and doubt.  Sam, on the other hand, was unwavering in his desire to be a foster dad, and he stood by my side, patiently waiting for God to lead us to be on the same page.  So now, after having played devil's advocate a hundred times and assessing all the worse case scenarios and the challenges that will definitely come, we are confidently waiting for this new life-changing life that God is bringing into our lives!

Recently, one of my good friends gave birth to a wonderful little girl.  All of her family and friends eagerly rushed to her side to offer her congratulations, love and well-wishes.  That's how every life, every soul, should be celebrated.  Sadly, a welcome wagon doesn't arrive for every little life that enters this world.  These kids who have been placed in foster care are the "forgotten ones."  How sad to be forgotten, neglected, abused, abandoned!  But God has not forgotten them.  Nor have we.  We plan to CELEBRATE the little life that God will give to us (for this season of time) in a major way - with love and kisses, tons of attention and affection - in every way we can for as long as He wants us to.  Please do come by and celebrate that little one with us too -- when he or she arrives. 

We just came back from our very last foster parenting class tonight.  I can hardly believe 8 weeks have passed.  We are probably about 3-4 weeks away from having a placement!  We just need to do a few more things including finding some alternate caregivers (looking for those who would be open to coming over here to babysit on occasion?), and we'll be officially certified!  Wowee.

Last night, I was translating John 1:1-18 (from Greek to English). I was just going along, verse by verse, through this beautiful passage when I suddenly hit verse 14.  And for some reason, it hit me in a fresh new way that it has never hit me before.  Και ο λογος σαρξ εγενετο.  And the Word became flesh.  --that God would choose to make Himself known in vivid living color by becoming flesh!  He didn't just choose to tell us about Himself through words, He didn't choose to reveal Himself only by giving us a book about Himself or stop at sending messengers to mediate, no, instead, He Himself chose to take on flesh that we may see and smell and touch and really know intimately what He is like.

Perhaps I was so amazed because I just got through thinking for so long on the truth that "in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning.  All things came into existence through Him, and apart from Him, not one thing came into existence that has come into existence..." (my translation)  It set up the stage so well.  The Word is all these things - great and powerful indeed - and truly, He is God, and this one wanted to reveal Himself to us by becoming flesh.  Amazing!

As I thought about this last night, I suddenly found myself walking on the streets of East Asia again in my mind.  We went there in order to make the Word become flesh there - to bring the Word (God's heart, God's reality) into tangible, human form.  That's what missions is about.

And tonight as we got home after this last foster parenting class, the words came to me again, "ο λογος σαρξ εγενετο" -- We are making the Word become flesh to the babies who are placed in our home (as well as to the biological parents).  Such a powerful truth that God did that for us and powerful call for us to do the same as we follow in His footsteps...

"Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none..."  (Luke 3:11)  Tonight my New Testament professor taught us that the people who were being preached at in this passage lived in such poverty that they really only had one shirt.  It was a rarity that anyone would actually have a change of shirts.  Yet, here, John the Baptist is saying that if you wanted to live out the Kingdom and happened to have a spare shirt, you ought to give it away to someone else who has need.  That really puts things into perspective! 

We studied the Gospel of Luke this past week and learned that one of the many themes that is prominent in this gospel is salvation for outsiders.  You can't read Luke without seeing the emphasis on Jesus' love for the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized of society.  In fact, it is in Luke uniquely that we find Jesus saying, "Blessed are the poor...blessed are you who hunger now."  Poor, not poor in spirit.  Hunger, not hunger for righteousness.  Jesus really meant the physically poor and the physically hungry.  In His inaugural sermon in Luke 4, He said that He came for the poor, the prisoners and the oppressed.

So as believers how do we be obedient to Jesus' call to us to care for these "outsiders"?

Growing up in middle class suburbia, the only attempts my group of friends ever made was to go down to a soup kitchen to serve food to the homeless and sometimes distribute sandwiches in downtown SD.  Anything more than that was beyond our imagination and our capability.  But somehow I think these things, though nice, do not fully embody what Jesus meant.

Perhaps what Jesus meant was something more like what happened to me a few years ago.  I was hanging out with a friend of mine and nonchalantly complimented her on her shirt.  Pretty routine stuff.  That's just what girls do.  But rather than the usual, "Thanks," in response, she completely took me by surprise when she asked instead, "Do you want it?"  She wasn't kidding.  She was really offering me her shirt!  And as I contemplated how surprised I was, I realized also that I shouldn't be surprised. She was just living out the Gospel.

But things like that do surprise us.  We don't know what to do with it when someone truly follows Jesus.  It's weird.

After class tonight, I talked to one of my classmates, and she said that she felt so riled up; she felt convicted and inspired to use all of her mind, body, and hands to serve God's people, but she wasn't sure who or how.  I was excited with her and felt the same way... but as we ended the conversation, I realized that I knew who and how.   When Sam and I were first married, I kept writing about the "tax collectors and sinners" and our knowing, growing conviction to do something about them -- but the only problem was that we had no idea who and how.  Walking out the seminary doors tonight, I felt this affirming hand on me urging me forward in welcoming a little one into our home.  To be foster parents -- to use the abundance (material and spiritual) that God has given us to bless a child who has no true home or true parent or family -- this is what the gospel is about.