Summer Vacation 2016

This year's summer vay-kay took us to Williamsburg, Virginia to visit all sorts of adoption friends:

Day 1: Long travel day from Seattle to Detroit to Richmond, VA.  Isaac did WONDERFULLY and was even more excited to open a little gift every couple of hours on the flights.  (Thank you Dollar Store!).  Our airport chauffeur and hosts for the first few days were dear adoption friends...whom we had never met! The running joke of the week was "hanging out with our internet friends" which can sound more than a bit concerning to people on the outside of this particular group of people. As one Bamboo dad explained to his co-worker "These are the people you WANT to stay at your house. They've been vetted by the local police, the FBI, Homeland Security AND a communist nation; they have multiple pastoral references, their finances have been confirmed, and they've even had blood work. I can't say any of that of my own mother."  This is very, very true!

Day 2:  While we attempted to beat the 3 hour time difference and 97 degree heat, we met up with a lovely family with traveled with in China 4 years ago. I was so impressed with their peaceful presence while we were together across the world and have enjoyed maintaining the relationship through the magic of the internet since. In fact, they've brought home two more sons to their tribe of 7 since our trip together, so they were more than sympathetic with my occasional feeling of having my hands full with one boy!

Adoption Cousins
(and also part time chef and children's museum fake ambulance driver)

Isaac & Ms. Judy

Mr. Paul & Isaac

Four years and four boys later

In the evening, Isaac experienced his first Trampoline park with our friends/hosts. Goodness, my child has an unending supply of energy!

Playing dodge ball with Isaac's new BFF Max

Isaac & Ruby (one of our precious Bamboo cousins)

To cap off a wonderful day, a Hibachi dinner!

Day 3: We stayed local for most of the day visiting area historical sites (for me) and enjoying the pool (for Isaac).

Amazing artistic recreation of the Historic Polegreen Church

Thankful for our friend snapping a picture of us here!

Sweet Max took such gentle care of Isaac while we stayed at their house.
We love him <3 

We ended our day by driving to meet a Bamboo family who was leaving for China the very next morning to pick up their precious daughter. Such a lovely family! Their youngest son unexpectedly blessed their family with an extra chromosome and turned their hearts toward DS adoption. What an exciting journey of faith this family has been on...and an absolute pleasure to be with them in the final hours before they traveled to the ends of the earth to follow God's call. 

Three Bamboo Families loving Jesus together!

Day 4-6: The Bamboo Cousins Reunion was the main focus of our trip to Virginia and what a wonderful weekend it was!  I will write more about the specifics in a separate post but I will just say GOD IS GOOD. When you take 52 stranger from the internet, all who have adopted children with Down syndrome from China, and put them in a single lodge at a Christian retreat center in the middle of Virginia...you get to see God's heart in motion. People who love Jesus by loving each other as we bring our kids HOME...this is the tribe that makes the Bamboo Cousins.

"Auntie" Desiree and a few of the Bamboo cousins we've gotten to pray HOME. 

Isaac helping Mr. Randall with worship. 

This will forever be the weekend that Isaac conquered the diving board, learned arm farts (including inserting a particularly well timed one in the middle of a campfire worship session) and wrestled with 'big boys' until he nearly passed out. 

Just watch this boy and his diving skills!

One of our 'big boy' friends. 

Just wait until you see the pictures of the sweet Bamboo kids and their families! EEEEK!  I took a moment just to watch how our Heavenly Father had placed each of these children perfectly with their families and it melted me. The miracle of it all is almost too much to take in...

Alright, alright...one sneak peak:

The Bamboo Cousins
Orphans no more!

Ok...ONE more:

The Bamboo Mamas
"Find your tribe and love them hard"

Day: 7: We spent the next two days in an accidental Bamboo compound...20 people (4 families) under the roof of a local and dear Bamboo family. We BBQ'd and passed kids around, someone did the dishes while someone else did their laundry. One momma helped a little one clean up after a potty accident while a daddy helped form light sabers for the boys outside. There were air mattresses and camping gear and lots of bare feet running through the kitchen snagging whatever open Gatorade was nearest. I didn't shower for two days but felt totally comfortable coming down stairs in all my morning glory with somebody's child in tow, chatting with whomever was picking up spilled cheerios or finding a missing sandal. There is a beautiful confidence that comes with knowing you are loved...and that includes morning breath bedhead!

Swimming together in Chesapeake Bay

Day 8: Time to come home. While I had an incredible time visiting with all our wonderful adoption friends, the truth is Isaac did not have a good trip. He struggled with the time change, the intense heat (115 degrees!) and new surroundings. He refused to eat most days and was emotionally frustrated. I was so very, very thankful for the compassion and grace our Bamboo family surrounded us with. They get it. It was alright.

As we boarded our flight home I leaned down to my little boy's ear and whispered "Momma is never leaving you, Isaac. And you will always be with me no matter what. I love you just because you are you". He looked up at me with his chocolate chip eyes an started to cry. Oh my heart...my sweet boy spent 8 days thinking I was going to leave him behind. Even after nearly 4 years, his little heart still needs reassurance that he'll NEVER again be forsaken.  

Headed home to Gramma!

Napping through our layover in DC. 

My heart is full. Even while Isaac had a hard time away from home, we were surrounded by our tribe--people who have traveled our journey, who speak our language, who love our God---and they loved us hard for 8 days, and let us do the same to them.  I am already looking forward to next year!

Stay tuned to details & photos from the Bamboo Reunion...!

Bamboo Project Update

In just over a week, ten families from across the nation will meet up together with their beautiful, Chinese chromosomally enhanced children to marvel at God's ability...His deep & passionate desire...to repair the broken, to heal the hurt, to regrow the tree after it's been cut down. These sweet children, who once shared sterile cribs in an orphanage, now run with glee towards their forever parents. They absolutely glow with the love that they were once starved for! This is the miracle--God's love in us transforms; transforms a sad face on an adoption flyer into a beloved child thriving in a loving family. This is HOPE.

This is why I love the Bamboo Project so much. Children who were once labeled unadoptable are now adoptable!  Job 14:7 sits as a banner over this precious advocacy campaign: “For there is hope for a tree/bamboo, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again and that its shoots will not cease!”  The hope available extends so far beyond the physical adoption of a child with Down syndrome from China. The hope for the child, for the family, for the support group, for the complete stranger in the grocery store that gets an unexpected high-five…it doesn’t end! That is God’s promise to The Bamboo Project and ALL those involved.  Doesn’t that just send shivers up your spine?!

Below are the precious ones we are loving from afar right now. Many are in an orphanage. Some are in foster homes. A few are in a new Christian home for children with Down syndrome. As each are waiting for their new forever, we pray that the Holy Spirit’s presence would rest heavily over each of their hearts. I’ve been praying specifically for Christian nurses and nannies to be placed strategically over the care of our little Bambooies. I so desperately want that these beautiful children are protected physically & emotionally and have God’s Word spoken over them even now as they wait. I have learned the absolute value of that in my own son’s homecoming.

Don't you just want to smooch them ALL over their sweet faces??

Will you join us in loving these sweet children from afar?

1.    Pray. Pray for birth families. Pray for physical and emotional safety over the children waiting. Pray for their health and for resources to be miraculously available. Pray for favor over their social welfare files.  Pray for caregivers and medical providers in China. Pray for the hearts of potential family families. There is no distance in prayer. The power of the Holy Spirit knows no bounds.

2.    Give.  Give of your time to practically support adoption families and their new children. Can you cook? Can you clean? Can you wash a car or run to Target? Are you available to be a buddy in Sunday School? Your time and talents are valuable!!  Give of your finances. Do you know a family who needs financial support to bring their child home? If you don’t, I can give you a list!! Literally, every dollar is a miraculous gift. No amount is too small or too big. Give to agencies or ministries IN CHINA that are desperately fighting for every tiny life that comes into their care. Ministries like: LoveWithout Boundaries, Grace Village & Ava’s House, Shepherd’s Field and Hope House all are under financed and praying for a miracle. Your dollars can be the Lord’s hands as they daily care for the Lord’s most precious children.

3.    Share. Share posts like these that advocate for children waiting. The power of social media is an amazing thing!  I can’t tell you how many people have said they “saw their child’s picture” on Facebook or in an email. The Holy Spirit doesn’t mind getting creative…He’ll use whatever media available to get someone’s attention! :)

4. Adopt. Step out in faith and welcome a child HOME. Seek the Lord’s wisdom and be honestly open to His answer. I guarantee you will be pushed…no SHOVED out of your comfort zone and spend more nights that you can remember crying out for guidance, but IT IS SO VERY WORTH IT. The life of a child will be transformed, yes, but so will yours!