Silent Night

I have experienced a lot of different kinds of silence.  The beautiful kind with deep friends or family where you do not have to talk to be comfortable together.  The awkward kind where people aren't responding to your phone calls or emails and you wonder what you might have done or said wrong.  The angry silence between husband and wife or parent and child, where one is trying to punish the other.
Tonight, I have the anxious kind. 
At around 9 pm our time the guys should be receiving Ellie.  There will be procedures and paperwork and who knows what, such that they may not get back to the hotel room to communicate with me until midnight or later.  I have told them to wake me up though!

Please pray for all three of them. 
It is likely that Ellie has never seen a man before.  I'd bet money that she has not seen a bearded Italian looking guy!!
It is not unheard of for the children to cry for hours after being given to their parents.  Sometimes even days (I may have left that little piece of information out of my notes for Serge and James...).  The alternative reaction is for them to "shut down" - they sit and stare and won't interact with anyone.  It is kind of spooky (there is a video about it on this forum I am on).  Either way the next day or two is likely to be hard.

I have been praying that the Lord will give her a vision of her father and her brother (and the rest of us, but mostly them).  He did that in the Bible.  I see no reason why He would not for her.  May her dreams right now be that they are safe and warm people that she can trust!  May they have strength and patience and communicate in the universal language of love to her:  
"You are wanted, Ellie."

Photos from China

Serge and James at Tiananmen Square.

James at The Great Wall.

Well, of course there are others, but we are having technical difficulties in loading them.  If tomorrow proves faster, I will try for some others.  They were also able to go to the Forbidden City and an acrobat show.  Last night included the traditional Peking duck dinner, though Serge seemed most fond of the dumplings on the breakfast bar.

They are now on their way to Ellie's province!

Roller Coasters

In about 62 hours the guys will meet Ellie - not that anybody is counting.

The last two mornings I have woken up with this clicking sound in my head - the one you hear when you are on a roller coaster going up.

I hate roller coasters.

When we were first married I tried to like them because Serge loves them.  We would often meet his siblings and their spouses at Busch Gardens or Kings Dominion and everybody (but me) liked riding them.  He would try to talk me into going on different ones by telling me how the hydraulics on this particular model made the ride smooth, not jerky.  (You can hear him, I know)  And about once a year, I would fall for his persuasions.  I didn't like any of them.  I was genuinely happy to be the keeper of the coats and the diet cokes.
Serge says what he likes about a good roller coaster is that they are virtually risk free excitement.  You can pretend like you are doing something exciting and dangerous without it being so.

Maybe this is why faith is easier for him - or so it seems to me.  Life is more or less like a roller coaster.  All of the ups and downs and unforseen bends in the road, the jerks, all of it ending with a sudden stop (I'm getting sick just thinking about it).  As believers in our good and gracious God, we know the end is safe and the track is laid by the Almighty.  It doesn't, however, feel that way.

Last night after we talked to the guys, Maggie said, "you know, when they come back, it's not going to be normal." 
Yeah, I know. 
"It'll be a new normal," I answer, because it seems like the right thing for the mother to say.

I'm always a bit suspicious of people who write only about the good and the up on their blogs or in their books.  It feels fake to me.  I realize it is difficult to be transparent, and even if you want to, so many of life's troubles involve other people and you have to be careful writing about others.  But I want to be honest and say that while I am very excited that we will soon have Ellie joining us, I am also very, very nervous about what this is going to look like in a practical way.  I believe this is the roller coaster we were meant to get on - Serge and I as well as Maggie and James and Julia - but I don't think for a minute that it is going to be without a lot of those places where we feel like we are dangling upside down in a loop wondering why on earth we chose to get on this thing. 

"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope."  Jeremiah 29:11 (ESV)

Since there is not much to say about the boys in China (they slept OK - woke up every couple of hours due to the time change) I will post a few pictures from our day:

I took Julia to the zoo for the first time.  It was a lovely day, but honestly she was far more interested in the other preschoolers there than the animals.

Maggie painted her bathroom while we were gone.

And Ginny decided to "play spa" Golden Retriever style, so Maggie gave her a bath.  I don't think either one of them were particularly happy about it.  This was probably about the moment when Maggie really started missing James.

Maybe tomorrow we'll have some photos from China....

Safe Landings

We had a brief conversation with Serge and James this morning.  The plane trip was "long" but uneventful (14 hours in case you were wondering).  They had an empty seat next to them which is almost unheard of!  Then an hour and forty minute car ride to the hotel.  Apparently the traffic is pretty phenomenal.  Twenty-two million people I think Serge said in the city.  They had had dinner with their facilitator (chicken for James and spicy beef for Serge) and were looking longingly at their tiny hotel beds. 

You're Tired, I'm tired, Can you imagine how tired they are??

I think the adrenaline of the past few weeks is finally beginning to wane as I am having trouble putting together a coherant thought.  Serge and James called around 11 this morning from the Chicago airport.  They sounded tired.  It might have been the 4 hours of sleep or the sausage biscuits they had for second breakfast.  Their plane departed on time at 1 pm EST and should land in Beijing around 3 am.  It is possible we might hear from them in the wee hours.
Maggie and I spent the day trying to reassemble the house and catch up on laundry - no small feat after three weeks of neglect.  You have to keep a pretty steady pace to out run Julia's efforts in the opposite direction too.  Good conversations and a lot of good "girl food". 
Serge recorded a book for Julia which she enjoyed a great deal today.  Ginny is thoroughly depressed.  I think she is hoping if she continues that Golden Retriever thing, one of us will let her sleep with us.

Sticky Situation

I wanted to title this post with a cuss word and TSA, but it seemed the wrong way to start when you were planning to quote scripture later.  My friend Ginger can do that kind of thing, it looks good on her, but I am not sure I can pull it off.

The boys took off this morning.  At 6:46a.m.  Airport farewells lack the romance of days past when you could wave at them on the airplane stairs, but I saw them to security at least.  I tried to snap a few photos that didn't include random TSA employees, but that was difficult too.

Earlier we had checked the two very large and very full suitcases (thank you Cheri and Trisha).  One had been 2 pounds over the weight limit - "Quick! Grab something and put it in your carry on we were advised."  I was digging for the formula container when Serge said, "no, grab food."  We look at the granola bars - they don't weigh enough.  Wait! Peanut butter - two jars - one pound each.  We got it!  We stuffed those babies in the carry on.  Suitcase - zipped, locked, latched and loaded.

Well, my more experienced readers will immediately see the problem: peanut butter doesn't make it through security.
James texts me later to tell me so.  Bummer.

I am talking to Jesus while I drive home.  "Why? (about the peanut butter).  Why did we pick that?  We should have known better!  Couldn't You have moved our hands to something else?"
I remember - sort of - the verse in Romans 8 about the Lord and those who love Him and good things and all.
"Tell me, now, how is this good?" I ask.  I am not really angry, just asking Him to sometime show me please.  But then I get on a roll and name a few other things - "How was this, and this, and this good?"  The night I spent in the Charlotte airport last week instead of eating the celebratory meal that Maggie had planned, for example.  And - just for good measure, I throw in a biggie - "How was Philip dying a good thing?"  Because if you are going to risk being struck down by the Almighty you should just go for it all, right?

Then the patient response - the still, small voice - "I didn't say the things were good, Stewart, I said I work them for good."

Indeed.

"And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose"  -  Romans 8:28 (ESV)

P.S. I'll add a photo when "Technical Support" wakes up.  :)