Unbroken

We've had a typical Saturday morning--the day starts with us shot out like a cannon in different directions. My big girls head out the door for a rehearsal for the school musical, Brad and Brady are at a local gym warming up for a basketball game. I scramble to get the little girls fed and dressed to watch Brady play, Daniel types the gym address into my phone so I know where we're going, I stir my coffee with a fork because we've run out of clean spoons and sip it on the way out the door. We sit on hard bleachers to watch a bunch of 3rd graders dribble and cheer with each basket made as if this is some kind of professional arena. This is the normal that I love.

Yesterday wasn't so easy. I walked around the house with a box of Kleenex close by--I blamed the sniffles on my head cold but truth be told, I spent the day fighting back tears. We celebrate three significant anniversaries this time of year starting with Christmas Eve and ending with January 9th. It's the last one that I dread.  These special days are related to my three boys--brothers who won't all meet until someday in heaven and yet their lives are so significantly and marvelously intertwined that it can only be attributed to the Healer of the Broken.

Eleven years ago today, I delivered our first son Luke. We never heard his first glorious cry. Due to an umbilical cord knot, he was in the arms of Jesus before he made it into mine.  Although we haven't stopped missing him, God in his goodness has since filled my arms so overflowing with children that I don't waste a day wallowing in the what-if. 

Many of you loved on us throughout the following year and know the rest of that story. Three months later I found out I was pregnant again with a baby due on Luke's birthday. We were blessed with our precious Brady born a little early to ring in the the new year. (I'm leaving much of that story out but it can be read here .) He just celebrated his 10th birthday and oh how we love him! He is the peacemaker and prayer warrior of our family--such a gentle and caring young man with a big heart for others. He is a living testimony of God's goodness and there isn't a day that goes by that I don't thank God for the gift of him.

Eleven years ago I sat in a hospital bed so broken that I couldn't imagine being whole again--if only I could have known that a year later we would be blessed with another son. What I also didn't know is that in Guatemala, my future son was also in a state of brokenness. Only a toddler at the time, but living in Third World level poverty and criminal level abuse. 

This past Christmas Eve marked the five year anniversary of his Gotcha Day. In the adoption world, that is the day that your new family "gotcha". We celebrate Ella's on the day she was placed in our arms in China but since it took a two and a half year ordeal to get Daniel, we celebrate his adoption on that glorious day that we finally brought him home. 

And so this past Christmas Eve we were talking about what a big deal it was--how we couldn't believe it had been 5 years and yet how we couldn't remember life without him. Christmas morning he gave me and Brad one of the most precious gifts I may ever receive. He typed out a full-page letter, printed us each a copy, put them in plastic page protectors (yes, this kid is one of a kind), and placed them on our pillows on our bed. We didn't find them till after the presents had been opened and we were upstairs getting dressed for the rest of the day. 

I don't want to share the entire letter here because it is such a personal outpouring of his heart, but I feel it's okay to share some sentiments. He said he remembers longing for a family at Christmas, but not believing it would ever happen. He shared that he is so glad God didn't give him boring parents (haha) and every Christmas he thanks God for the "first parents who really loved him".  He thanked us for not giving up on him through the long and difficult adoption. He thanked us for believing in him and loving him even when he is hard to love. He thanked us for making the holidays fun and regular days happy. He said his greatest gift is having a family and he is so thankful that we are his parents.

Those plastic page protectors were a good call on his part because the tears were abundant. 

Every year we celebrate Daniel's "gotcha" a few days after Christmas Eve. It's a family night celebration and he gets to choose where we go and what we do. It's usually dinner and a movie. This year he chose "Unbroken" that wasn't age appropriate for all of us. I haven't seen it and probably won't (I can't handle watching anything graphically tragic even if I know it will have a happy ending--never saw the end of "Schindler's List", "Slumdog Millionaire", "Bambi", . . . ).  I do know it's about an Olympic track star who overcame a life of hardship.  Daniel is a runner and he wanted to see it, but I was worried the content of the story would trigger bad memories.

But I let him go--he watched it with his dad and sister Ava and the rest of us went home for our night of G-rated fun. I couldn't help but think how the title of that movie is the perfect caption of his life. If you met him today--you'd have no idea that he didn't start out as a Williams--he is so very much like our other kids I often forget it myself. Our sweet son was protected just like that letter he wrote to us. He experienced pain, and trauma, and tragedy but throughout it all there was a covering from the Almighty that protected his spirit, that preserved his innocence, that provided him hope. Unbroken indeed!

And on the anniversary of the loss of one son, the blessing of another by birth, and the blessing of another by adoption--I see that I am unbroken too. 

Because that's what God can do. He can take a life shattered and make it whole. Not leaving us in bandaged state of repair--like a vase that has been glued back together in bits . . . still revealing the cracks and still displaying the damage and ready to fall apart at any minute. No. He is the Redeemer who restores it all if we focus on His scars from the cross instead of ours from this fallen world.

Daniel summed this truth up in one sentence of that letter. "We don't know His plans, but we know that His plans are for a purpose." Wow. Embracing that is the very reason he is doing so well now. His behavior when he first came home was often difficult. He lived in survivor mode--his words and his actions were rooted in bitterness about the lost years of his childhood and anger about the adult-sized pain he had to endure. He had a need to control everything and trust no one.

While my pain had been different--I understood him. I was also "acquainted with grief." The loss of one son helped me understand the pain of another. The day that I surrendered to the truth that all God's plans are for a purpose--even when the road is hard, and it's not fair, and we don't see how on earth this could possibly bring Him glory--that's the day I was freed from the burden of bitterness and the bondage of fear. I knew if I could just get Daniel to understand this, he would begin to heal as well. Yes, we will have times of sorrow and pain--but we "do not grieve like those who have no hope" 1 Thessalonians 4:13. How grateful I am that he already knows what I didn't fully understand till I was an adult. And I'm so glad that when God gave this boy a second chance to have a family, He gave me the privilege of being his mom.

I've taken a lot of pictures of these brothers together the last five years. Oh how they needed each other! Although in each photo it seems there's a brother missing, I know Luke's presence is still very much with us. Thank you, God, for the gifts of Luke, Brady, and Daniel and for your plans that always have a purpose.

Time to Get Our Girl!

I've been needing to update for some time, but just haven't been able to squeeze a spare minute in. To catch you up in a sentence: WE ARE LEAVING FOR CHINA IN HOURS! Yes, HOURS. We are finally getting our little China doll. 

I do plan to give updates on Facebook and on my blog as I'm able (if you aren't my FB friend and would like to follow along that way--send a friend request to Katherine Dobra Williams). 

Anyway, we are leaving our house at about 7:00 p.m. to drop some of our kiddos off with grandparents, then heading to the airport for our 12:30 a.m. flight. Yes, that's just after midnight. Sounds crazy but it actually might work to our advantage because we are taking our 2 year old and 8 year old with us. (We are hoping/praying they will sleep much of the first flight.) And I realize that decision moves us from crazy to a whole new category of Laughably Foolish. We agonized over which kiddos to take with us and for many reasons it was best to take the two youngest. But . . . I'm fighting back tears right now at the thought of being away from my oldest 3 for two weeks.

This will have to be a short post because even though we are packed--my house looks like a fraternity party was here. Well, that is if college boys like to play with Fisher-Price toys and eat animal crackers. Anyway, I'll have lots of time later to write more (sure I will!) but for now all you need to know is that we are finally going to meet our new daughter!

And her name is 

Ella Evangeline Xin Williams.

These sweet photos were taken in May when we were able to send a birthday party to her orphanage to celebrate her 4th birthday. Can't wait to finally kiss on those sweet cheeks!

Thanks for your love and prayers,

Kathie

Happy Mother's Day from a Special Needs Mom

It's Mother's Day! Got home from church a bit ago and my crew made me a very interesting, I mean, special lunch. They are taking me to dinner later tonight and but this meal will be hard to top.

I've read a lot of beautiful, poetic tributes to mothers the past couple days and didn't feel I needed to attempt to do the same. Kind of feels unnecessary to serve my picnic of peanut butter and jelly sandwich-like prose after dining on a gourmet dinner of words.

But I did think it okay to reheat an old post I wrote when we started our adoption from China two years ago (that we put on hold when we found out I was pregnant with Victoria). I reread it the other night as I was pondering what our new little girl might be thinking knowing she has a family coming to get her in a few months. I wonder if she's excited about the new life ahead of her; I wonder if she is afraid of leaving all she knows behind. 

I wonder--if given the chance to look through a hundred files of "waiting families"--if she would choose us. I wonder--if given the choice of who her new mother would become--if she would choose me. 

I am grateful that had I been given the choice of mother, I would have chosen the very one that God gave me. She died 9 years ago, but her legacy lives on. And I have been so blessed by other mothers given to me by His grace--they are known as sister, mother-in-law, aunt, and friend.

And I'm so very grateful for the 6 precious children that God has blessed me with. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't thank Him for each treasure.

When we were doing our homestudy, I had to make a listing of all the "special needs" that we would consider. Once we knew we had fallen for Xin Xin,  we spent many hours researching her condition and talking with doctors about what kind of long-term care she would need and how we could improve her quality of life.

And here's what I discovered. There was no "special need" on any listing that outdid my own "special needs." I felt that it would only be fair for any prospective adoptive child to be given the same information on this possible mother with full disclosure of all imperfections.

My file would read something like this:

She goes by the name "Kathie." She is considered an "older parent" (over the age of 40) although there are no grants available. Should you choose her, it is with the understanding that by the time you are in high school, others will think she is your grandmother.

She will need reading glasses to read you a bedtime story and may not be able to stand upright after sitting Indian style at a tea party.

She has many well-meaning behaviors that may cause extreme irritation. For example, she will take millions of photos of you but has no actual photography skills. You will have to put up with the auto-flashing and shutter-clicking, but you'll only have out-of-focus pics with your eyes closed to show for your patience. 

Small toys not put away will mysteriously disappear. She can't stand "happy meal" items that didn't make anyone happy and you should note that these items are quickly donated or discarded.

She will sing you lullabies in spite of the fact that she has the vocal range of three notes. Every song will sound like "Mary Had a Little Lamb."

She will want to dress you until you go to college. This may not be an issue in the early years, but by the time you are a teen, you will be wondering if you can escape through the air-conditioning vents of the dressing room during a shopping trip gone bad.

She will occasionally go freaky with the food she serves--going gluten-free, low-sugar, wholly whole wheat, and completely organic. You may try to trade up lunch items at school but no one will want a protein bar that tastes like cardboard in exchange for their Little Debbie snack cake. And then there are moments that she passes a Krispy Kreme establishment and the "hot donuts" sign is on. You should not call her a hypocrite if you'd like to partake of the white-flour, sugar-glazed manna that she is about to inhale.

She will often seem completely unfair. There will be movies and music and TV shows that everyone else is allowed to see and hear, and you will be the ONLY one not watching/listening. If you ask why, she will simply respond with "Not Philippians 4:8 standards." ("Whatever things are good, pure, lovely, think on these things. . . .")

When you need clean socks you will be directed to a laundry basket solely dedicated to socks who have no partner. It is your job to play matchmaker and find two that are somewhat the same size and color. Good luck.

You will be fine if you need this mom to provide help in proofing papers, annotating poetry, and diagramming sentences, but you will up a creek without a scientific calculator if you need math help past the 6th grade. The Pythagorean Theorem makes her break out in hives, any attempt to find the area of a complex polygon will reduce her to her lowest common denominator, and she would rather poke her eyes out with a protractor than check your math homework.

She is a strong advocate for enjoying God's creation. She will pull over on the side of the road to behold a sunset, a rainbow, or wildflowers growing among asphalt. She will make everyone stop what they are doing to hear the birds singing outside and make you watch butterflies instead of TV. She will insist that you run outside at night to marvel at the stars and require that everyone pose for a picture with the first flower of springtime (which will no doubt capture you not smiling and cut off part of your head).

Although she cooks with love, she also cooks using whatever she has in the pantry and with the fewest number of ingredients possible. All her recipes are named something that ends in the word "surprise" (some surprises are better than others) and it's a safe bet that these culinary creations will never be featured on the Food Network. 

She absolutely can not handle whining or pouting. If there are words/sounds/looks that even hint at ungratefulness, you will be forced to select an item from her "consequence jar." On this little slip of paper, you will read your consequence (for example, wiping down baseboards and window blinds) for attempting to voice your concern. It's her sick way of teaching you a lesson while having you do a chore that she hates to do herself.

She suffers from Broken Record Syndrome. For example, you will hear phrases such as "good behavior equals privileges, bad behavior equals consequences" repeated till you think your ears are going to be permanently damaged.

She is a cryer. She will cry at your classroom doorway on the first day of school and at your ballet recital or soccer game. She will weep the first time you get your hair cut, swim without floaties, and ride a bike without training wheels. She will wail at birthday parties, graduations, and your wedding day. (Note: We are not talking delicate tears caught in monogrammed handkerchiefs. We are talking big ugly sobbing, sometimes snorting, pass-that-woman-a-box-of-tissues kinds of boo-hooing.) She is also a hugger and a kiss blower. You've been warned.

She might have attachment issues. Every single time another child is added to the family, she worries and wonders how she can possibly love the new one as much as the others. (But she, thus far, has had no trouble attaching to the ones God has given her.) 

No matter how hard she tries, she will never understand what it feels like to be taken from your home country, to lose the only family and friends you have ever known, to have to learn a new language, adapt to a new culture, and acquire a taste for new food. 

She will often feel overwhelmed in caring for your physical and emotional needs and wonder if she will ever be the mother you deserve. She won't understand that some days you need special care and other days you just want to be treated like everyone else. 

Sometimes she gets tired, sometimes she feels stress, sometimes she loses her patience, sometimes she says things that she wishes she could take back.

She is a sinner, in need of a Savior, living in a fallen world, raising children who are sinners, in need of a Savior, living in a fallen world. And this means that she is flawed, that she will make mistakes, that she will need forgiveness. 

And this is why she often feels so unworthy to be the mother of those precious children God has already entrusted her with and why she is so grateful for every child He brings to their family. 

Hoping She Chooses My File,

Kathie

Our Little China Doll

This post has been a long time coming. I shared with family and friends in our Christmas letter that we were adding another precious child to our family (that post is here), but I haven't added specifics until now for a number of reasons.

I think I've become a bit guarded in sharing info because many times the plan we were so sure God had for us has changed. With the loss of our first son late in my pregnancy, then the two and a half year ordeal it took to adopt Daniel from Guatemala, we learned that "His ways are not our ways." We were reminded of this (and His sense of humor) when we had to put our last adoption on hold because of the surprise blessing of Victoria. (We joke that she's our only biological child with a complete set of international adoption paperwork.)

I've got a bad case of not counting the chickens before they hatch, and yet I'm completely surrendered and at peace regarding this adoption and any future ones. We are getting close to bringing our new daughter home and want to share our journey with anyone who would like to follow and pray for us during these last few months of waiting for her.

This is probably going to be a long post (kind of an all or nothing blogger these days) so I'm going to break this info up into our most frequently asked questions. You can pick and choose to read what you're curious about regarding our adoption journey.

When there are so many children in the United States needing homes, why are you adopting internationally?

We have actually seriously looked into domestic adoption and are very open to foster care in the future. Once we got Daniel home we felt pretty burned by the whole international adoption mess and welcomed the idea of adding to our family with children in need close to home. But as we inquired about it, the need was often to have families willing to care for children for temporary amounts of time with the goal of reunification with the biological parents (which I believe should be the primary goal when possible). We have close friends who are foster parents--in some cases they ended up adopting these children, in other cases they have been returned to their biological families.  God is doing some beautiful things in the lives of these children and those foster families who love on them as long as they can. But even though Daniel is doing so well, he is still healing from hurt in his past. He needs our home to feel like a place of permanence. It would be difficult for him to see children come and go, make attachments with potential siblings that might abruptly leave us, and possibly worry that his own placement in our family was temporary. We also looked at children available for adoption now, but most of the children we saw had been through so much trauma they advised them to be placed with smaller families or families without young children. Thus we felt this wasn't where God was leading us at this time.

Believe it or not, this was one of the most frequently asked questions with both of our adoptions. Not sure if it's asked out of curiosity or they are making a judgment of our choices (or both). But here's the funny thing--I've never been asked that question by someone who has adopted (domestically or internationally). I think adoptive families understand that we have all been enlisted into the same army, just called to serve in different branches. Some called to domestic adoption, some called to international adoption. Some led to newborn babies, others led to teens about to age out of the system. Some feel equipped to care for emotional needs, some feel prepared to care for physical ones. We may look divided into different camps (because it really helps to be part of a support group of parents adopting from the same country, dealing with the same medical needs, etc.), but we are unified by the shared belief that EVERY CHILD DESERVES A FAMILY. 

Why did you choose to adopt from China?

I think I always knew I would would adopt from China. I grew up hearing stories of missionaries like Gladys Aylward and Hudson Taylor and my love for the people of China grew as I read about their ministries.  We thought our first child would be from China after we saw a documentary about the crisis of abandoned baby girls many years ago before we had any biological children. We actually contacted an agency to start the process because at that time you couldn't have any other children in the home to adopt from China (that was 18 years ago). We were so disappointed to find out that we weren't old enough. (I think the minimum age was 30.) Fortunately we are well-qualified with our ages now and the size of our family is not an issue because we are adopting through the special needs program. There are many children in China waiting for a family and we felt led to adopt a child with moderate to significant needs who might not otherwise find a family.

We were also wanting our next child to be one of a different ethnicity. With Daniel being our middle child--it bothers him a bit that he doesn't "match" the rest of us.  Guatemala is closed for future adoptions, but the precious children in China have that same silky hair and beautiful dark eyes as our Daniel. I know Daniel and his new sister will have a special bond because of their similar beginnings and I can't wait to see this relationship blossom.

Why did you choose this particular child?

When we found out I was pregnant with Victoria, we put our adoption plans on hold indefinitely. We planned to wait till little sis was a few years old to adopt again, so in the mean time we were just content to chip in to others' adoption funds and pray for the children listed on various waiting child sites till it was our turn to bring another home. 

Well, May of last year I saw this photo on a waiting child photolisting.

We thought she was precious and we added her to our family's list of kiddos that we pray/advocate for. But logic told me that we already had our hands full with our youngest not even a year old. My schedule reminded me that we were too busy to take on a 6th child, particularly one with medical needs. (And I knew her needs must be significant for such a cutie to not have already been snatched up.) I was content with my justifications . . . until I finally took a peek at her video. 

This is it.

Ella Video from Lifeline Children's Services on Vimeo.

To say I was smitten is an understatement--there was something so special about her. Such a sweetness in her voice and softness in her smile. I melted when I saw how her face lit up with the attention of the woman interviewing her. I loved how she--with her orthopedic challenges--was pushing her buddy (who seemed to be fully capable of walking) in the doll stroller. We all sat around our computer watching her video over and over. We quickly went from "wouldn't she be a wonderful addition to someone's family" to "wouldn't she be a blessed addition to OUR family."

We kept expecting to see the words MATCHED by her listing--confirmation that she wasn't meant to be ours--but the summer came and went with no celebration that her family had found her. I finally asked for Brad's blessing to inquire about her and the rest is history. I went into much greater detail in our Christmas letter, but it was the information in her file that made us sure that we couldn't say no to this precious girl. It was the love story of her birthparents (who gave her up with the hope of her having a better life) that moved us in such a way that we couldn't let the ending of her story be that she spent her childhood in a government institution. And we are absolutely overjoyed that God has chosen us to be this darling little girl's new family!

How old is she? Where is she currently living?

She was abandoned in a bus station so they don't know her exact birthdate, but estimated her to be a year old when she was found. They assigned May 30, 2009 as her birthdate. She has spent the last 3 years in the same government orphanage at the Social Welfare Institute of Guangzhou City in Guangdong Province. While we wish she had made it into a foster home or private care facility, we are very grateful for the stability she has had in staying in the same place her whole life. And in the photos and video we have of her, she looks they are taking good care of her. 

What are her special needs? Does she know she has a family?

She was born with spina bifida and may have tethered cord syndrome. She also has some secondary challenges because of her spina bifida. We honestly don't know exactly what kind of care she will need or what can be corrected, but we think she is perfect already and will be thrilled with whatever healing God will provide. We did have a local children's orthopedic group review her file. They seemed to think she would need surgery, a series of castings, and a lifetime of physical therapy. We are excited to have such an awesome group of specialists only 10 minutes from our home.

But here's a neat God story. A couple months after those doctors said she would probably never walk independently (would always need braces on her legs and arm crutches), we received the below videos. 

Chen Jian Xin from Lifeline Children's Services on Vimeo.

Chen Jian Xin Video 2 from Lifeline Children's Services on Vimeo.

We were so excited to see that she was walking on her own and so impressed by her determination.  A couple months later we had the privilege of meeting another mom who had adopted from our little girl's orphanage and was right there when those videos were taken! (Got to meet her adorable little boy they adopted, too. Thank you, Amy Hart!) It is her daughter in the background giving our little girl the lollipop in the first video. Anyway, after the video was taken, our daughter was very upset and said, "Can you do the video again because I want my new mom and dad to see that I can walk and I kept falling down!" Brad and I were so touched at how hard she was trying to please us and hope that she doesn't think we might change our minds. We are so very proud of her perseverance. Every single photo or video we've seen has her standing or walking. Those videos were taken in November of 2012 and she got a care package shortly after that we hope reassured her that we would never change our minds.

We got the photos below in February. If you've ever adopted you know what a treat it is to get new photos or video. Although it's sad to see how much she's grown since that first photo we saw of her, it is reassuring to see how happy she is in these two. And I know we are biased but we think she is just getting more beautiful.  (And doesn't she look so much like Daniel?)

What are you naming her?

I am embarrassed to say that we haven't settled on a name. This is typical of us--lots of folks in our household with an opinion. She is called Xin Xin now so we will put Xin as part of her name. The agency had her listed as Ella--a name we love but aren't so sure goes well with Williams. All our girls have the letter V in their names (even two girls in Guatemala that we sponsor and love as daughters have V's in their names)--but are running low on options that everyone likes. If we go with a V, Evangeline is a front runner (but worry if we nickname Evie would be too much like our Ava).  And all our girls have a name that ends with an A and in addition to Ella have Tessa, Julia, Elena, Jessa, Eliza, Audra, and Sofia on the list. If we ditched names with a V or ending in A altogether, we like Charlotte (after missionary to China Lottie Moon) and Josephine (nickname Josie), and I've always loved the name Lucy . Her birthparents abandoned her in an outfit described as white with flowers on it. (Sounds like they dressed her in something special so someone would want to rescue her.) So we are considering a flower name/middle name to honor her birthparents (Laurel, Rose, Lily, Violet). 

Okay so now you see that our lack of deciding on a name isn't because we haven't bothered to think about it. We welcome any suggestions as we try to narrow it down. Oh how we wish she could choose her new name! We just want something as special as she is!

What has been your adoption timeline?

Others who are adopting from China like to compare timelines. 

So here goes:

August 10, 2012--First inquired about Xin Xin

September 12, 2012--PA (Pre-Approvel)

January 21, 2013--Homestudy complete

January 29, 2013--I 800A submitted

February 21, 2013--Fingerprinted

March 5, 2013--USCIS approval

March 22, 2013--DTC (Dossier to China)

April 19, 2013--LID (Log in Date)

When do you expect to travel?

It all depends on how long it takes to get our LOA (Letter of Acceptance). We could travel any time from late summer to some time in the fall.

What adoption agency are you using?

We are using Lifeline Children's Services and can't say enough good things about every single person there who is helping us bring our new daughter home. This can be an overwhelming process and they have made every step as easy as possible. They have some precious children listed on their waiting child pages.  Take a minute to look at these sweet faces. You just might find your son or daughter!

Thanks for your prayers and encouragement.

With Much Love,

Kathie

       

Merry Christmas, Happy Gotcha Day, and Introducing Our New Daughter

It's a rainy Christmas evening in Georgia right now. We have attended five family gatherings in four days, given/received many gifts, eaten way too many cookies, and hugged a lot of necks. As much as I love the crazy fun of Christmas, I really cherish the post-Christmas time as a family where we are just simply enjoying being together.  I'm sitting by the fire now and am grateful for the time to write.

I've seen those cards that say, "Santa, I can explain" and feel like saying, "Bloggy friends, I can explain." I never intended to take such a long break and I have so terribly missed blogging.  But we have had such a wildly busy year, I haven't found much time to update. God has been doing some awesome things in our lives and I know I need to document every detail. I will try to be better about doing so in the coming year.

Not only are we celebrating the birth of our Savior today, we are celebrating Daniel's "gotcha day"this week--the day we brought Daniel home from Guatemala. After two and a half years of praying him home and after Brad and I took turns living 6 weeks with him in a hotel room in Guatemala, having him walk off the plane to see a huge gathering of family and friends to greet him is one of our sweetest Christmas memories. He came home Christmas Eve night three years ago and we are still so grateful for this precious gift to our family. 

He is such a blessing and a joy to our family. Here we are picking out our Christmas tree Thanksgiving weekend. (Some of my kids have asked me not to share our Christmas morning photos of them in their PJs so this will have to do.)

Keeping up with this crew keeps me busy, but my lack of blogging time isn't just because of our life full of baseball, soccer, play practice, carpool.  I've been doing some paperwork . . . yes, adoption paperwork.

This is what our family looks like now . . . .

Olivia (15), Ava (12), Daniel (10), Brady (7), and Victoria (18 months).

But here's a glimpse of what it will look like in the coming year. We hope to have our new daughter home this coming summer.

There's so much that I want to share and will try my best to update in the coming year. The prayers and encouragement of so many of you helped us get through that long journey to bring Daniel home. I would be so grateful to have your support as we bring home the newest member of the Williams family.

Below is the annual Christmas letter that I sent out in those last days before Christmas. (The more children we add to our family, the later these cards seem to get sent.) It tells the story of how God led us to our newest daughter. I wasn't able to send it to many of you who are dear to us--realized a bit too late that our list had grown and I just didn't order enough cards. But know this letter is meant for every person taking the time to read it now.

We hope you and your family are having a wonderful Christmas season celebrating the birth of our Savior!

Dear Family and Friends,

You would think with the end of the world breathing down my neck, I’d be able to get my cards out before the 20^th of December. If you are reading this it means the Mayans and I have about the same sense of timing. If not, I was standing in line at the post office when the asteroid hit.

I could give you a list of things that delayed this Christmas greeting—when you have a family of 7 it increases the number of trips to the doctor for ear infections/cold/flu, the pile of laundry that accumulates, the number of parties and programs to attend. But although there are days that I can hardly keep my eyes open, I truly have never been happier. Life is loud and crazy and busy, but it’s so much fun.

I’ve debated whether or not to even do a Christmas letter this year or in the future. When I started writing these letters, it was the only option to reconnect with friends.  But times have changed. I remember a conversation with my kids about the “olden days” (what they call my childhood years). They were most certainly envisioning me in Little House on the Prairie attire churning butter. Their eyes widened with horror as I told of a world with four TV channels and no computer or Internet. Their response was “How did you get a connection for your cell phones or iPods?” I informed them that our phone had a 6-foot spiral cord and music came from a boom box that weighed more than the average 7 year old. They uttered declarations that I had the “worst childhood ever.”

When my kids are grown and sending out their own Christmas cards, I’ll tell them about my years of taking photos with a camera that had two settings—flash working/flash not working. I’ll share about waiting for film to be developed hoping for one decent picture, explain that cropping was only done by farmers, and if you asked where you could find a memory card you would be sent to Hallmark. And then I will tell about Christmas letters—little updates between friends they didn’t see often. And then they will ask, “But what about Facebook? Instagram? Twitter?” Upon realization that I survived those critical years without social media, they will tweet that their mother had the “worst young adult life ever.”

Twelve years ago, I started writing these letters like many of you. Each year we get fewer—I guess they seem unnecessary in a world where we can all see every detail of each other’s lives the minute it happens. This piece of paper doesn’t have a “like” button or a comment section, can’t be reposted or go viral. (Unless you sneeze on it.) It is an old-fashioned Christmas letter and yet, when I find one tucked inside my Christmas card, it’s a treat.

Our year has been so full that I don’t even know where to start. It has been such a heartbreaking time for so many that it makes me feel like all I need to report is that we are grateful for another year. There isn’t a day that goes by that I’m not overwhelmed by God’s grace, grateful for the health of our children, awed by God’s provision in every area of our lives.

There will be a new member of the Williams family in the coming year and she deserves an introduction. Thus far I haven’t posted anything about her because I’ve been up to my eyeballs in adoption paperwork since August, but also because I just simply didn’t know how to share the news since to many of you an additional child is the last thing our family seems to need.

This story starts May of 2010. Daniel had been home a year and a half and was doing so well. We just love that sweet boy and can’t imagine our lives without him. But I was haunted by the children we left behind. As Daniel said good-bye to his friends at the orphanage, children came to me in tears pleading, “Take me, too.” Guatemala is now closed for adoption but there are millions in other countries who desperately need a mom and dad and we can’t forget that fact.

We started our adoption paperwork and by October had completed our homestudy. We even had a precious little girl on hold and were about to submit our documents to be officially matched when we found out I was pregnant with Victoria.  God provided another family for her (a sweet story in itself) and it was clear that we needed to put our adoption plans on hold. While we were disappointed to have missed out on the little girl in China, we were so grateful for this precious new life God had granted us. Victoria has brought our family so much joy--what a precious gift she is to us all.

As our life was returning to a new normal, plans to add to our family were indefinitely on hold. We would occasionally look at the photolistings of children waiting for a family--we’d pick out specific ones to pray for and rejoice when it showed they had been chosen. But there was one little girl posted last summer by Lifeline Christian Services. It wasn’t her photo that won us over; it was a video they had posted. Although she can barely walk, she was pushing her buddy in a doll stroller. She stopped and politely answered questions she was asked and waved at the camera. There was something so sweet and so familiar about her that we were smitten. Months passed and she still wasn’t matched with a family.

In August Brad gave me his blessing to inquire about her. Her agency told us she was still waiting and sent a copy of her file to review. I didn’t want to admit that we were just “browsing”—that this was not a good time for us to adopt. I looked over what I thought would be a basic account of her medical history. What it turned out to be was a love story.

As most of you know, in China they have a one-child policy. Most want a son—they carry on the family name and take care of their parents when they are old. For years this caused the abandonment of thousands of healthy baby girls—many who have been adopted by families around the world. But as ultrasounds have become available for these expecting couples, many of these unwanted girls are now aborted instead of abandoned. The orphanages in China are still overflowing, but now it is with children with medical needs (both boys and girls) born to parents who did not have access to medical care and didn’t know the child they were expecting was not the preferred gender and had medical issues.

Some of these needs are minor and easily corrected, some are more severe, but all of these needs pose a problem. Many families are very superstitious and consider these defects a curse. Others simply can’t afford the lifetime of medical care that child will require. These special needs babies are usually abandoned at birth.

But what I read in this child’s file was a different story. This baby girl was born May 2009 with spina bifida. Her medical needs were obvious from the very first time they held her and perhaps she wasn’t the son they had longed for—but they kept her anyway. Perhaps there was pressure from family members to abandon her immediately before they got too attached—not to delay the inevitable and go ahead and try for another child. Still, they kept her anyway. Not only did they love on her for a year, they scraped together enough money to get a surgery that she most likely would not have gotten in the care of an orphanage. And then knowing they could not provide the long-term care she needed, they made the heartbreaking decision to give her up.

This little girl’s file told of the busy bus station in which she was abandoned; it detailed the beautiful white outfit adorned with flowers that her mother had dressed her in for the very last time. Both evidence that this child was dearly loved and their hope was that someone would find her and rescue her. The tears began to flow as I read her story—for I, too, have held a baby that I knew I wouldn’t be able to parent on this earth and wished for just one more day. I, too, have lost my mother and imagine the ache in that baby girl’s heart as she looked around the bus station of strangers wondering where her loving parents had gone. I, too, have a one-year-old daughter and would be beyond broken to have to make such a choice out of love. And then I saw when she was abandoned—May 2010. The very same time my longing to add another child began. I felt a connection that I couldn’t undo--as if our lives were already intertwined.

I flipped through the pages to see the end of this story. She was found and taken to a local orphanage. She has spent the last two and a half years there—yet she was still waiting. I couldn’t walk away from her knowing we had the ability to change the ending of her story. And to be honest, we feel we need her more than she needs us. Our sweetest times as a family have been during times of brokenness . . . during times of complete dependency on God. We have gotten to a place of green pastures and still waters and are starting to forget those days where He carried us through the darkest valleys. It is our turn to do some carrying. We look forward to what God will teach us as we care for her needs and we are honored to be this little girl’s new family. Oh how proud I am of our children for how excited they are about their new little sister. How grateful I am to have a husband that saw her video and said, “Let’s go get her.”

I must admit that in this world of sorrow and uncertainty, it has been our efforts to bring this little girl home that give us hope and purpose. Just as the wise men must have certainly looked foolish for the years of searching for the promised Messiah, we must certainly look foolish to many for adding another child to our family. But only by seeking Him, will you find Him (Matt.7:7) and we see evidence of His guiding hand as we obey His leading.

This Christmas and always, we are grateful for a Child born to change the ending of our story. Thanks for your love and support for so many years. May you seek Him and find Him in the coming year.

With Much Love from the Williams Family