the time had arrived!

for 14 months we had been praying and loving for our daughter a half a world away. when the whole adoption process began- she had not made her appearance into the world.

after 11.5 months of paperchasing and waiting- we received information on who and where our daughter was- Cheng Tian Xi was born on april 24, 2004 and was waiting for us in Xiaogan City- Hubei Province- Peoples Republic of China.

for 7 weeks- we had 3 pictures of our daughter. i studied those pictures until i had every detail of them burned into my memory. every detail from the dirty mismatched clothes, the rosy chubby cheeks, her sharp vigilance, her excited look when she tried something new.

yet- in spite of all of the praying, waiting, picture memorizing- nothing compared to the emotions I felt when I actually laid eyes on xixi for the first time.

at 3:30- we arrived at the civil affairs office where we would meet xixi for the first time and finalize the adoption-

our bus pulled up at the same time the babies did-

4 precious little girls in matching yellow sweat suits-

it took us a few minutes to figure out which child was xixi- she was bald in all of her referral pictures- but one of the other moms said "look- she's the one on the left- look at her face!"




of course! how could I forget those cheeks!


all of my hopes, love, excitement, joyful anticipation were thrown out of the window- I was looking at my daughter for the first time. the world stopped. all i wanted to do at that moment was hold her and never put her down.


as soon as I snapped a few pictures- the babies were whisked off to a room until we had signed and sealed all of the official paperwork.


that was the longest 45 minutes of my life!


when they brought xixi out to us- i grabbed her out of the nanny's hands. our 14 month journey to katherine grace tian xi blauwkamp had ended. GOD at last- had united us as a family!




xixi's first hours with us were not as joyful to her.


she took one look at us and screamed bloody murder for 2.5 straight hours.


in one short day she went from the foster family who had cared for her since she was two days old, put on a bus for 2 hours, had a hot and stuffy sweat suit stuffed on her and handed off to 2 people who looked like aliens and smelled like sour milk.


and yet- here were are- 3 years later- the family god put together.


god knew that xixi was our daughter and we were her parents. he sent us half way around the world to unite us- but here we are!

CZ 3118

this was the last leg of our journey to xixi- a china airlines flight 3118 from beijing to wuhan-

this picture was taken 3 years ago about right now- (12 hour time difference!)

our guide had to bribe the airline to allow all of our luggage to make the flight without being fined for having too many and way too heavy bags- one of those bags being a new suitcase we'd purchased the nite before to hold all of the goodies we'd purchased in Beijing for XiXi's future family day gifts!

we took off over mountains and landed in rice paddies-

2.5 hours of flight time- an hour bus ride from the airport to the hotel- a crazy hour of unpacking and praying in the hotel room, and a crazy bus trip across town (READ- kinda like riding the Knight bus on Harry Potter!) separated us from our childless life and the little girl we'd been loving and praying for over the last 14 months.

can you feel the tension?

spelling bee

this is a great video- I couldn't find the original- but the soundtrack is original- unfortunately it doen's capture will forte's facial expressions!

NUMB3R5

3:

number of houses we've owned, number of states Ross and I have both lived in (Ross- michigan, Illinois, Maryland) (Me- South Carolina, Illinois, Maryland), number of siblings in Ross' family

4:

number of siblings in my family- ALL GIRLS!

8:

number of weeks Ross and I knew each other before dating, number of weeks Ross and I dated before getting engaged, number of months we were engaged

13:

number of years we've been married, age I first started playing percussion

14:

number of years between Ross and his younger sister (he was the baby in the family until he was 28 and his folks adopted Irina at age 14!)

23,639:

approximate number of air miles traveled to and from China in 1995.

122,600:

number of frequent flyer miles my dad had on USAir that helped get us there and back for free!

1,573,770:

approximate number of minutes we've been blessed to be parents of XiXi (time taken as of 4am on 3.26.08)

tuesday's mostly unknown, but great faves

here's my mostly unknown, but good faves for the week

movie:

Strictly Ballroom

this movie came out in 1992- was directed and produced by Baz Luhrmann and is the 1st of 3 of the Red Curtain Trilogy(Romeo and Juliet and Moulin Rouge top it out ). It follows the story of Scott Hastings- an up and coming ballroom champion and his desire to dance- not so "strictly ballroom".

There are some great themes of old vs new (like wineskins from the Gospels!), returning to your first love, and "a life lived in fear is a life half lived." There are some beautiful city shots and the dancing is not so bad either! If you like movies with dry humor and deep meaning- you'll love this one!

music:

Burlap to Cashmere

these guys put out an album in the late 1990s- Is there Anybody out there?

it's one of my all time faves- smoking guitars, kicking percussion, amazing lyrics- their musical genre is similar to Rusted Root-

i saw them in concert and I don't think I've ever seen anyone's hands move so fast on the guitar or the drums- they were amazing.

I'm sad they're not around anymore.

Fave songs: Diggee Dime (about Heaven), Eileen's Song (great love song), Scenes (just a great song musically) and Mansions (about the Kingdom of God)

3 years ago today...

ross and i began our 16 day journey to china to meet and adopt xixi.

the above photo was taken at bwi at around 4:00am. 6 of my beloved hopkins students jumped out from behind a large plant near the air canada desk and gave us a wonderful surprise send off on our 20 hour journey to china.

the days preceding our trip were a blur of activity. we got "the travel call" only 72 hours prior to arriving at the airport. my dad had given us his frequent flyer miles so we were able to fly for free (YAY!) but spent several hours on the phone with USAir buying and rebuying tickets for our flight.

the floor of our basement was covered in travel items- clothes for 3, diapers, medicine of all sorts, cheerios, important documents...all to be packed in 2 suitcases and 2 carry on bags.

13.5 months of paperchasing, praying, hoping and waiting were coming down to the wire-

a plane trip over the north pole and 6 days in beijing were all that separated us from a country we had begun to love and adopt as our own , becoming parents, and xixi at last having a family....

it's hard to remember what life was like before that plane trip

we can't wait until our next farewell departure to china!!!

2 tombs at easter

3 easters ago we were in Tiananmen Square with 3 other families on the first of 3 days of touring in Beijing.

one of the spots we saw was mao's tomb (pictured above). the building was ENORMOUS (look at the people in the picture to get a sense of scale!) and there was a line of at least a 1000 people waiting outside to see mao's body which is entombed in glass. seeing mao's body is a pilgrimage- a "must see"- for people in this beautiful country. a lot like seeing the statue of liberty or the washington monument.

to try to explain the influence of mao would be like trying to explain the influence of mickey mouse and dora on a toddler. it's complex and not always logical.

i remember having an eerie feeling when i saw the long line of people waiting to get a glimpse of the embalmed body of this iconic legend. at the time- i think it was more a feeling of how this man's leadership had resulted in the overpopulation of a country that couldn't sustain the birth rate and lead to one of the many factors in the complex tapestry of why we were in china in the first place.

adopting xixi.

what didn't hit me until the following easter was the irony and the sadness of the line of nameless, faceless people waiting to see an embalmed body in a tomb. the body of a man many have worshipped.

i was standing in tiananmen square on easter morning watching people pay tribute to a dead man. a man whose power and authority shaped the culture of a nation of a billion people over the course of the last 100 years.

what a shocking contrast to worshipping a man who rose from the tomb. a man who had
the power and authority to conquer death. a man who has had the power to transform the world for the last 2000 years. a man who knows me by name and knows my whole life story! a man who for the joy set before him suffered the cross, endured the shame, and sat down at the throne of God!

spending easter in tiananmen square witnessing this sharp contrast of tombs has been forever burned in my memory.