We have so much to be THANKFUL for!
Today we are celebrating Lucy Joy’s Adoption Day!

Here’s a snippet of our breakfast conversation as we talked about the party banner hung up in the kitchen and our plans to have ice cream and cookies… and, of course, strawberries later tonight when Baba gets home…

“Lucy, you’ve been a Rothfuss for a whole year now!”

“We gonna be forever?” Lucy asked,
and then before I could answer, she said, “Yeah!”

Every year on August 21, we celebrate the day Michael’s Adoption was finalized.  Here’s a glimpse of how we celebrated today and a recent interaction I had with Michael…

Mom:  “…and thank you for sunshine and good food and blankies…”

Michael:  “Do some more.”

Mom:  “…and thank you for Birth Mom Miss Lynsie and Mr. Ryan…”

Michael:  “What is a birth mom?”

Mom:  “Before you were born, you grew in Miss Lynsie’s tummy, she knew she did not have a good nest for you to grow up in, so she went looking for one. And mom and dad were looking for a baby…”

Michael:  “And it was me!”

Mom:  “That’s right, and we met and we all decided together to name you Michael Joseph and when you were ready to come out of Miss Lynsie’s tummy, mom and dad brought you home and adopted you.”

Michael:  “Oh, thank you! I glad you ‘dopted me.”

Lucy has an insatiable curiosity. She is always asking questions and fascinated at the thought of trying out new experiences that she hears about. She keeps a mental list of things she wants to try out and periodically reminds me about the things on it. Well, Sunday she checked three things off! She was dedicated at church (she had been counting down the days all week), got the chance to hold a new butterfly on her hand (she had been waiting since last winter when she saw a picture of Hanna doing the same), and learned how to snap (a skill that had been eluding her). How she managed to contain all the excitement,
I just don’t know!

After a season of hearing the Lord say “wait,” we had been talking about and praying into the possibility of adopting again…  with no nest egg to put towards it, already feeling stretched thin in every way!

In the mean time, I had been reading the Jesus Storybook Bible to Michael and Lucy…
Do you know it?
I LOVE it!

“God will do it for you. Trust him. And watch!”
“God will make a way!”
“…they were lost, they didn’t know the way back. But God knew the way.”

So, here is how God entered into our story…
A few weeks ago on June 22, a Monday… Jason prayed and asked God to show us if he wanted us to adopt again.  He included in his prayer that maybe if He wanted us to, He could bring together a project Jason had been working on for a few years.  Jason had a domain name that a company was interested in purchasing, but they had been unable to settle on a price.  He had last talked to them several months ago before our China trip in hopes that the money would help make that all happen for our Sparrow.  Well, God provided all we needed there in other ways… and then some, of course – even allowing us to repay our interest free loan to Lifesong.  So after praying this prayer on that Monday,  the next day – they called him. They settled on a price, got an escrow company involved, and we  just received the check… for $11,000.
That’s amazing to type!
Can you believe that?
God is amazing.
We shouldn’t be surprised!

So, as it is hard to finish a thought around here, much less a conversation with each other… Jason and I are still at the “jaw hanging open” stage, and haven’t yet figured out exactly how to proceed or exactly what this all means… except that we are
buckling our seat belts for another adventure! 

We will keep you posted!

So, Lucy and I have a little game we have been playing where we pretend to call someone on the telephone.  Usually I am supposed to place the call… ring, ring, ring… and say hello to the recipient on the other end of the line.  Then I pass the phone to her and she says hello and passes it back and then proceeds to tell me what else I should tell them.  I think I am learning all kinds of interesting things by being part of these phone calls that I may not otherwise be privy to!  Recently, we started out calling Hanna, Spencer, Becca, Baba… then we moved on to calling people in China.  We called Baoji Mama and Baba (her foster parents in Baoji) and some other familiar names of her friends.  Then things started to get interesting and she started asking me to call other friends from China with names I was not yet familiar with… some of them were younger children, some older, some had been adopted.  It is amazing to me how well we can communicate in our combination of Chinese and English after only 3 months and how quickly more and more of the balance of our communication continues to lean toward English.  Sometimes we talk around ideas or use a translator app on my phone like Google Translate or Pleco to help us get over a hurdle.  On this particular day, as we continued to make calls, I used the English word “adopted” and she stopped and asked what I meant.  “Remember that Baba Mama came to China to find Lucy?  Remember that we signed papers together?  Remember the blue thumbprints and your hand print that we put on the papers?”

Nods and agreement from Lucy to all of this.  “Lucy, do you understand?  Now I am your mama.  No more new mamas.”  Yes, she nodded and asked to tell me something in Chinese using the translator app.  I found it on my phone and we both patiently waited for the little ding that indicates she should start talking.  Then I held the phone and waited for the English word to appear…

Back in China, in the world that Lucy knew, all the female caregivers were called “mama” and all the male caregivers “baba.”  These caregivers have come and gone in Lucy’s life and have not been “forever and always.”  When I caught my breath, I couldn’t help but be amazed and be so blessed.  As I type tonight, I am thinking of how easy it is for things to be lost in translation even among speakers of a common language and
of the other game called “telephone” that demonstrates this so well!
I am so grateful that this truth is taking hold in Lucy.
May she truly feel it in the depth of her heart.
She has a family forever and always.

“…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*

I am so inspired by what I read here… the story of this daughter is somewhat different than the story of our daughter, but similar in many ways too.  Here is a quote that puts our hearts into words…

The Father looks on my daughter not with eyes of hopelessness and fear. He stares into her deep and calls forth Himself, planted in her from before the day she met the streets. What the enemy calls misfit, He reclaims as heiress.

And as her now-mother, my role is to carry this torch over her life. I live advocacy in my flesh and in my spirit. My prayers and my words form the bridge of partnership between His promises and her reality. I partner. She is being made new and it’s my job to speak it loud and to believe it in my quiet.

We see that our trip and arriving home from China with our girl (!!!!!!!) is just the beginning. We have another journey ahead that will begin as soon as we get home.  There are some things about adoptive parenting that are the same as parenting a biological child. There are also quite a few areas that we have learned are different. We have learned that our daughter needs a specific type of environment and parenting when she first comes home in order to feel safe and secure and to learn how to live successfully in our family.  Our child needs to learn that we’re the parents. She needs to feel nurtured and safe. She will not be used to having parents to love and care for her. We’ll be living a very quiet life with limited trips out and no visitors in for a little while to help us make this happen. By keeping our lives very boring at first, we’ll be helping our Sparrow feel safe.

After our airport celebration, we will enter into a season of family time and bonding at home.  Although you will still see some of us out and about, we will not all make it to church for awhile or to all of the wonderful  festivities that will be happening this season.   We believe that this will go a long way to helping Lucy adjust and bond as she joins our family.  Sometimes things are not always what they seem.  If Lucy appears too comfortable with too many people in too large of a circle right from the beginning – this might not actually be a good thing.  As strange as it may seem, adopted children  acting very outgoing and affectionate with “everyone” is not a healthy thing. It is called “indiscriminate affection” and can mean that they haven’t really attached to anyone. We hope by doing life and family quietly and privately for a season, we can help Lucy have a successful transition home.

We cannot wait to get to China… and then get home… and we cannot wait for all of you to be able to get to know our girl too!  Just think, she will be adapting to a lot of new things . . .  parents, family, new home, new foods, new language, new time zone … and on top of all of that, she will be taking all of this on without the foundation of an early childhood in a loving family as God designed it.

We are believing for  healing, adjustment, bonding, and a wonderful future for our Lucy Joy.  Thank you for understanding how we are going about partnering with Him hoping to bring all this to reality for our daughter.