One Year Ago: July 28, 2010

One year ago tomorrow my family and I embarked on one of the most incredible journeys ever...traveling 8,000 miles to China to finally bring home our little girl. I can get emotional really easy when I think about how amazing God is, how he has blessed us, molded us in ways that only He could do, how He continues to teach us through the eyes of our children, and how He has used and is using our 38-week-old son Kyler, who never lived outside my womb, for His glory! If you would have asked me in high school what I thought my life would be like almost 20 years later, I would have never guessed this. Mine was always the fairytale story living happily ever after. Certainly I have learned life is hard at times and not always happy. But I am thankful that the joy of the Lord is my strength even through the storms of this life.

What a year this has been!! August 2nd will be our Gotcha Day, the day we held our princess in our arms for the first time. Kylie has taught us so much about how to live. She gives it her all no matter what she is doing! She has survivor skills from being a former orphan that makes me sad that any child should have those. She is learning a lot about the love of Jesus at home and church. We can see God working in her heart by hearing her pray. She looks up to her big brother Karsten and he absolutely adores her. It has blessed our hearts this last year seeing Karsten playing out his role as a big brother. He waited six years to do that.


I have been a Christ follower for 13 years now. I am still learning everyday about what it means to follow Jesus. Following Jesus is the best journey you will ever take. I didn't say it's easy by no means, but God will take you places that you would never expect. This is what this life is all about, being the hands and feet of Jesus. We were created for His glory, to do His will, abandoning our desires to yield to His. I was born a child of wrath, now I am His daughter. I was an orphan, but He rescued me out of darkness and into His marvelous light. God gives each of us special gifts to use for Him. We all have a calling. The last three years God slowly began planting a seed deep in my heart for orphan awareness. That is what I was learning while we were waiting 4 1/2 years for Kylie. God does not waste time. It was a long time for us to wait, but He used that long wait to prick our hearts for something more. My family and I have a passion for orphans. I know that there will always be orphans in the world, but that doesn't justify to not do something. If we just help ONE. It may not be adoption and that's okay because God doesn't call everyone to adopt. However, He does call every believer to care for orphans. Jesus demonstrated His love for us, therefore we need to do the same for others. I am humbled and grateful to be a child of the King of kings. Everything I am, have, and do is all because of Jesus Christ my Savior. May He be exalted in each of our lives!

Recent picture of Kylie


Karsten and Kylie the day after we returned from China

Blessed Beyond Measure

I admit I don't blog like I used to. Maybe that's a good thing. However, five months is too long to go without a post. To say I am much busier is a great thing!

Kylie is 4 now and has had two surgeries since she's been home. Her last surgery was a lip revision on her right side and the doctor also removed the scar that was between her lip and nose. She is recovering well from it. Her next surgery will be later this year when the surgeon will take cartilage from her rib to build up her nose. She will most likely be in the hospital for several days.

Karsten is 9 now and it is great seeing him fulfill his role as a big brother. He loves his little sister, mei mei, and most of the time is very patient with her. It blesses my heart to see them playing together. Karsten is an amazing son. My prayer is that he will hunger and thirst for the things of God and continue to have a love for Him. God has given Karsten something that most children will never experience, the pain of losing his brother. Karsten talks of Kyler often and misses him. He has questions that I can't answer. But that's okay. I think God wants us to know Him more and become more like Christ, than us trying to figure out the whys of this life. We love and miss Kyler each day and that will never change. Having to bury your child is something that seems totally out of order. The great news is that God is making all things new. His works are wonderful and He does give garments of praise out of a spirit of despair. Last week I read something very meaningful out my Beth Moore devotion book:

If God can gain glory through the miracle I've requested, hallelujah! If I don't get my miracle but God gets greater glory, I believe I received the greater miracle with the most dividends. We are most blessed when God is most glorified.

As many of you know, Kylie Hope was born in our hearts through the pain of Kyler leaving this earth to join our Savior. God continues to amaze me. Kylie is a firecracker with an infectious personality. We are blessed to have her as our daughter. She is pretty much fluent in English and has forgotten most of her Chinese already. We still and probably always will say the three things for potty, brush teeth, and bath in chinese. Emotionally, Kylie is doing much better. When we first brought her home she had many 2- year -old like temper tantrums, which is very normal because like other children who live in orphanages, the emotional age does not match the chronological age. In fact, for every year a child is in an orphanage he or she is behind developmentally 4-6 months. So with Kylie living in an orphanage all but 5 weeks of her life, at 3 1/2 years old when we got her, she was emotionally on about a 2 year old level. However, as far as doing things like folding clothes, washing dishes, unloading the dishwasher, she was way ahead of most 3 and 4 year olds. My prayer for Kylie is that she will trust Christ as her Savior at a young age.

Karsten and Kylie both love playing the guitar. Karsten has been taking lessons for a couple years and is doing super. We are seeing in Kylie that she, too, has a natural gift from God for music. Hearing Kylie sing praises to our King is refreshing. She loves to sing to Chris Tomlin's "Our God." She especially loves the verse, Our God is Healer, awesome in power, our God, our God..." I cannot stress enough how perfectly God put us all together.