Signs of Life : The Brownie Chronicles

It should be no secret to those of you who have followed this blog from the adoption days that I identify as a Christian.  It might be a secret how much I've struggled with that identity over the past 8 years. I've often felt shut down in my questioning of the Bible, of God, of the various denominations I've been in over my 44 years.  I thought the types of questions I was asking were evidence that my faith wasn't solid, that I should "always be prepared to give an answer" for why I believed what I did. I just finished the recently departed Rachel Held Evans' book Faith Unraveled , previously titled Evolving in Monkey Town .  I identified with her so much, as I know many other readers have for many years. She mentions often being told "God's ways are higher than our ways" when she asked difficult questions.  For me, I think of this verse, which has been used by Christians to dissuade other Christians for choosing to err on the side of ...

My older three kids plus their cousin, D! Have I mentioned how much we love Austin?  Well, we do!  We adore this house.  Of all 3 homes we've owned, this is by far my favorite!  While I did really enjoy our location and pool in Highland Village, this house is arranged better and is easier to maintain.  In our 15 years of marriage and ownership of 3 homes, we've learned that extensive landscaping is beautiful, but also costly and a ton of work!  We have a few pretty shrubs and plants in the front yard.  There are two trees in the back, but otherwise, it's just a grassy backyard, which means easy maintenance.  Of course, we have the fabulous team at The Austin Lawn Service taking care of our mowing and trimming, so the amount of work we have to do in the yard is minimal. We had hoped for a one-story home, but with the layout of this house, we don't mind two stories at all.  The stairs lead to an open "balcony" hallway that looks down to ...

Ken and I have enjoyed aspects of each city in which we have lived.  In Oklahoma, we had some of our best friends; in Las Vegas, we enjoyed the mountains, dry climate, and church family; in North Dallas, we met some wonderful homeschooling and neighborhood families.  However, being a Deaf/hearing couple presents challenges when it comes to socializing with the general population.   In most cities, I would get plugged in with a women's bible study group, a homeschooling group, and either AWANA or Scouts.  I might work in the nursery or run the soundboard at church, so I would quickly get to know a lot of people.  In these settings, 99.9% of the friends I made were hearing people who didn't know ASL.   Language certainly presents itself as a barrier.  It was easy for me to visit with other ladies on a deep level, but not so easy to connect our families.  (We love with all our heart a lot of hearing friends who do not sign.  Just making sure...

It's hard to believe I posted this entry in November of last year, but I did!  I went looking for this old entry and figured I posted it back in February or something.  I was shocked that it was from November! I had posted: "Because of the season of life I'm in (nearing 40, newly-expanded family, major life-changing move, and weight gain that ticks me off greatly), I've been experiencing days feeling very low.  I've blogged before about how I don't like using the word "depressed" lightly, so I don't think I'll use it here.  But I've been feeling dark, low, melancholy, aimless, and tired." Since November, those feelings didn't go away.  Oh, they might subside for a time, but would rear their ugly heads at any random time.  In addition to those feelings, I was experiencing an overwhelming feeling of failure.   These feelings would manifest themselves by my simply giving up and doing nothing.  I felt so overwhelmed by everythin...

I know that in light of what I normally blog about here, these next couple of entries may seem totally random; but as a mom of young girls, this blog post has everything to do with parenting.  It may also tell you a thing or two about my worldview. When the first book, Twilight was released at the end of 2005, I had absolutely no desire to read it.  I didn't even know much about it until the movie came out three years ago.  When the movie came out on DVD, Ken and I rented and watched it.  I remember feeling like it was highly romantic, yet cheesy movie and was quite astonished that many of the young girls my kids knew, even girls as young as 10 years old, were reading the books and watching the movie. At that time, I made my judgement based on the first movie and what I heard about the books and decided I didn't want my girls reading anything that encouraged rebellious, dangerous love.  In the first movie, Bella pursues Edward even after warnings from trust...

Over the past several months, even before we left for China, I've been feeling like I'm wandering without direction.  For almost an entire year leading up to the adoption, our lives were consumed with paperwork, homestudy, grant applications, budgeting, selling a house, moving, unpacking, more paperwork, and waiting.  A lot of our schoolwork and anything resembling a "normal" schedule went out the window during those months. Once we had settled into our new place, we also reached the end of our paper chase and began the couple of months of just waiting.  During that time, I purposed to get a lot accomplished, but didn't.  I think that waiting time began my season of wandering.  (Yes, I mean wandering and not wondering, although a lot of that was going on, too.) Almost immediately after we started the adoption process, I started dumping outside responsibilities.  At the time I was serving on the board of our amazing homeschool co-op, facilitating our month...

A couple of months ago, I blogged about the negative comments my kids were hearing regarding our choice to homeschool.  In addition to the homeschool comments, my kids have been told by other kids in our neighborhood that they "don't matter," they are "idiots" "fa**ots""gay."  They have a stupid family.   They've been introduced to the "n" word for the first time ever and have gotten an earful of other colorful expletives.  We can deal with so-called "bad" words, but the name-calling and cruel terms are the ones that get to me. The kids had an interesting way they learned about the "n" word.  They were playing with two of their friends who are Black.  An older Black boy casually called another Black boy this name.  My girls wouldn't have even noticed, but their girl friends gasped and covered their mouths.  My girls asked them what that meant and the girls said, "You need to ask your mom, but it...

A few cute, funny, or warm-hearted things happened this week that I need to note. 1. I discovered little two-year-old Tian on the floor, holding a baby doll with one hand on the wrist and the other on the head, teaching it to sign "daddy".  He was saying, "Baba. Baba."  (Which means "daddy" in Mandrin.) 2. Outside the other night, the Brownies were playing with friends.  Ken and I were watching the two littles ride their new Strider Bikes .  As we were gathering up the boys to come inside, I asked TJ to grab one of the Striders.  TJ was lagging behind and one of his friends, who happens to be Black (that will matter in a second), asked TJ if he could ride the Strider.  TJ told him that, no, it's just for our family.  (Truly, he should have said it's just for the little boys, but I digress.)   TJ's friend ran to his sister, who was playing with our girls, and said, "TJ just told me only white people can ride that bike!"   We all cr...

Last photo of our Dickinson house. Many great memories here. As of 1:45 this afternoon, we are no longer homeowners!  It's a true feeling of relief.  3 1/2 months on the market doesn't sound bad in today's economy, but to us, it was a true test of our faith and our character. Yesterday was a whirlwind with a few last-minute glitches that added just enough stress to the closing that I had to keep a constant prayer on my heart.  I truly believe that's why the glitches were there. Ken was out of state for work, so the kids and I showed up at the closing at our appointed time.  45 minutes later, I was able to go in and sign the papers.  Another 45 minutes later, I walked out feeling better, but still not confident.  As tempting as it might could have been to celebrate after our closing yesterday, we just couldn't until the proceeds from the sale of our home funded into our account today. After another glitch or two today, it did indeed fund and we hav...

Today was full of more surprises and more waiting, but I couldn't be anxious about it.  As tiring as some of the waiting is, God has proven too faithful for me to worry.  Worrying and becoming upset would be an insult to His work in our lives so far. Yesterday, due to so many circumstances I can't list them all here, we were down to our last dime.  Literally.  We hadn't told anyone except our realtor, who is also a Christian sister and has become a dear friend.  We were out of most of our groceries and were completely counting on our house to close so we could breathe.  Yesterday afternoon, a friend called and asked us to stop by their house on the way home.  They blessed us with a generous check to help with the adoption.  I was (and still am) blown away.  God put on their heart two months ago the desire to help us out, but they didn't feel it was the right time until yesterday .  They had no idea how desperate o...

Ken recently mentioned that we should have moved to a place like this when we first came to Texas 4 years ago, but we have no regrets.   First of all, if we had moved here to begin with, we wouldn't have some of our dearest friends from Dickinson Drive and may not have gone to Valley Creek Church and met so many people we love there. The dark side of "no regrets" is the fact that I know we wouldn't have been satisfied living here 4 years ago.  Ken and I have been notorious for thinking "things will be better when _____ happens."  When we left Las Vegas, we were thrilled to have done so well in the real estate market and were taken in by how big of a house we could get for "cheap" in Texas.  We were enamored with the idea of a BIG house with a BIG yard and BIG pool as if that would bring us joy.  I hate to admit it, but if we had moved here first, we would have been discontent, pining away until we could have our "dream home."  Now, ha...

This afternoon, I visited with someone from our agency who told me to expect our LOA (Letter of Approval) from China in the next week or two.  From that date, we can expect to travel 11 to 15 weeks later.  That puts us heading to China some time in June!  This is a very solid prediction at this point.  In just 4 months, Ken and I will be able to hold these boys in our very own arms!  I can't imagine it! It only takes a few seconds of giddy excitement before anxiety creeps in.  The house hasn't sold.  It has to sell by the end of this month if we're going to have the cash we need to pay for the adoption.  (We are applying for an exciting adoption fundraiser/grant . I'll keep you posted!) I have no idea what God is doing with the timing of our sell.  I'm daily fighting worry, frustration and a sense of entitlement.   God, isn't adopting Your brainchild?  You said yourself that caring for orphans is "pure undefiled religion." ...

When Ken and I shared our plans to downsize from our 3000 square foot home, several friends and family were concerned. "Are you guys doing okay?" "Do you need help with anything?" "I'm sorry to hear you're having to move." We totally understood others' concerns because what we are doing is so odd in this culture, the only assumption was that we had fallen on hard times. The truth is times ARE hard, for many people all over the country.  But Ken has a great job with an excellent, growing company .  While our ultimate security rests in God's plan for us, we don't have any fears on the job front that would lead us to cut back. A few months ago, if you had asked us if we'd ever move, we could have answered with an emphatic "no way!"  My answer tended to be, "We'll live here until the kids are grown unless God has something crazy-different in store for us that we can't foresee." Ken came to me in No...

{ Maria’s Big House of Hope } If you don’t know the story of the Chapman family, it’s worth learning. MBHOH is in a city just 85 miles from Tian’s and in his province, Henan. These are the days I wish I was prophetic.  How nice it would be to see into the future; to know how God was working this out and what was going to happen. Things we are wondering about at this moment and how my dialogue with God looks: When will we sell this house? Will we sell it in time to fund the adoption? If not, how will You work this out? Is it truly Your will that we sell this house? What’s up with the apartment we have planned to move in to? It’s disappeared off the face of the internet.  ?? Seems under new management.  Can this be good for us? Bad for us? No difference to us? Will our dossier be ready to send to China after Chinese New Year (CNY) on Feb 3rd? How long before we get travel approval? Do the boys have any clue we are coming for them? Are they okay? Safe? W...