“…But his mother treasured all these things in her heart.”
Luke 2:51

I can remember my cousin, Craig, as a little boy hearing this verse at Mass during one of the readings.  He loudly mentioned that in his opinion, Mary ought to share!
At the time, even as a child myself, I thought it was cute and knew that he was supposed to be quiet during Mass!  As I think about it now, I think he was right…
we ought to share!

You see, as I came across this verse this weekend and thought of this childhood memory,
it made me think about why we are chronicling our adoption story here to share with you.
Truly we should treasure these things in our hearts,
this story of redemption and adoption that we are living…
but we should share them too,
this faith building story, this story of the goodness of God and his work in our lives.

Thank you for reading along with us
and for all the comments and encouragement
that you send our way here and on Facebook and in emails.
We appreciate you!

Our day to day life is a hard fought battle for the heart and mind of our Sweet Sparrow, Lucy Joy.  Many things are cropping up and threatening to distract us from our goal of pointing Lucy to Jesus and knitting all our hearts into a new family, a family that God has put together, just like any other… continued illness and injury, life experiences and wrong thinking, as well as numerous home and auto repairs needing our attention…
Not to mention the laundry!
We are believing God for big things, our God, 
“…the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not.”  (Romans 4:17)

During this season of “cocooning,” we have learned that the transformations that God brings about inside that little refuge is intense and that it requires undoing before rebuilding… I will never look at a butterfly the same way again!

And yet, in the midst of it all there is joy!
We laugh, we create, we dance, we sing, we play, we help one another, we are getting to know each other and we are so aware that being a part of this story is a great gift.

We are all in and committed to this journey with our sister and our daughter!

And yes, in case you were wondering,
this entire winter is evidently one big pajama party for Michael.
*smile*

As we are settling in there have been a few minutes to process. We (Kirstin, Jason and the ‘bigs’) went through the first 4 days of our China pictures together a few weeks ago. Hope to get through the rest with them soon. Here are a few things we saw on our trip and didn’t eat.

This is the Chinese version of a taco truck. This enterprising woman is selling bread with meat and rice. Notice the upside down plastic cups that are being used as condiment containers. These guys along with many other types of seafood were prominently displayed in the restaurant we at in often (OK, we ate in some, and got carry out from a lot). Seafood and amphibians… I’m sure our Chinese is much worse than their English, but I think something was lost in translation on this menu item. These were in the traditional medicine section of a large grocery store. I think they are dried squid. They keep the good stuff in the case behind the counter (notice the lock).  Here is another menu item we did not fit in during our trip. Notice the disclaimer at the bottom “The picture is for reference only, refer to the actual product”.  Prawn crackers and shrimp flakes didn’t make our list. 

These giant salamanders are a delicacy in China. They are endangered, which means they should be on every menu (no risk of chickens and cows going extinct…). But we didn’t do our part to save the species while there.

At this restaurant we didn’t know which intestine they were talking about, and we didn’t want to find out. 

So grateful for our friends and family; the meals we have received since returning home have been much more comforting to us.