The Wickershams

  

Last week we spent several days in south China with group of 30 or so friends and colleagues.  Our destination was a small city called Fenghuang, or "Pheonix Town."  Our days were filled with fun and adventure . . . river rafting, visiting a Miao village, exploring the shops and back alleys of the city, attending a culture show, sampling yummy Hunan food, and just enjoying lots of good time with friends.  Who could ask for more?

 

 

 

 

Saturday was the Spring Carnival -- a day full of food, fun and games, with proceeds going to support students and their summer outreach trips.  Rose and Grace had a great time having their face and nails painted, eating hotdogs, making little boats for a boat race, jumping on the trampoline, playing on the playground, and then later, watching the middle school play.  It was a fun fun day.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grace got her first haircut today!  Just a tiny "snip snip" for some bangs, but it does change her look quite a bit.  Here she is, before and after!

 

 

 

 

As most of you know, in December we were granted a great and unexpected gift:  the addition of little Rose into our family.   Before that time, we knew very little about Rose.  We'd never met her nor seen her picture, but had received a group email telling us about her situation and her need for a family to care for her.  God impressed upon our hearts that we were that family, and so, one Monday morning I found myself at the Tianjin orphanage with the purpose of bringing home this precious little girl. 
 
"I'm so glad you came to get me from my old school,"  she has said many times since that day.  
 
When I first saw Rose at her "old school" (Rose's name for the Tianjin orphanage) she was making Chinese dumplings with play-dough.  As I sat down and played with her, the toll that the events of recent months had taken on her was not hard to see.  She said little, avoided eye contact, and seemed fearful of those around her.  Her behavior was easy to understand considering all that she had been through.  We knew that a month previously her English foster mother, who had raised her from the age of 2 months, left China.  Rose was taken from her foster mother suddenly and returned to the orphanage.  In addition to the trauma of losing the only mother she had ever known, Rose also had to adjust to life in an institution, with caregivers who did not share her language.  To make matters worse, she became quite ill, which meant antibiotics through an IV.  She was also behind on her immunization schedule and had to receive numerous injections.  These events combined made her month-long stay at the orphanage a quite traumatic event.  
 
She seemed to be a favorite at the orphanage; on that day the Ayis gave her gifts of candy and clothing.  As they gave their goodbyes she hung her head, and passively allowed me to hold her hand.  As we left the building and walked out to the street, I tried to explain to her what was happening and prepare her for what was to come.  I told her what our apartment and her new room looked like.  I told her about 14-month old Grace who would be her playmate at our home.  I told her about Mark, who couldn't wait to meet her.  I told her of the countless friends in our neighborhood she would be able to play with.  I told her that she was safe and we would take care of her.  She said nothing, just looked down and nodded. 
 
On our way home, she spent most of her time looking out of the taxi window.  As we passed the Golden Arches, I heard a full sentence for the first time, a rather matter-of-fact: "I want to go to McDonalds."  Amy and I, quite quickly, decided that was exactly what we would do!  Later, as she played with Amy's son Gabe at the McDonalds play area, we were gifted to see her smile and hear her laugh.
 
During the first few days, she communicated with us largely through grunting and pointing.  As time went on, she opened up to us gradually, but would then shut down when anyone unfamiliar was present.  For weeks she struggled with nightmares, tantrums, outbursts of anger and tears.  At the same time, she was incredibly affectionate, wanting to be held, read to, and comforted.  Bath time and story time became parts of the day that we all treasured.  She began to process her experiences through her play and through make-believe stories.  We began to hear more about her "old school," her "Joy Mommy," her brother "Miah,"  (Jeremiah) and her sister, "big girl Andrea."  She began to ask lots of questions, and we were thankful to see her begin to work through her memories and emotions.  She began to call us Mommy and Daddy, and she started to show pride in being a good big sister to little Grace.  
 
During this time, God provided us with resources and encouragment in every way imaginable.  A friend with a background in counseling met with Rose regularly for play therapy sessions.  Another friend lent us books on how to help children dealing with trauma, and how to build attachment.  Other friends brought over clothes, toys, and books for Rose.  Grandparents in the States sent gifts.  And many prayed for us.  We could feel God binding us together as a family; we couldn't imagine not having Rose with us or seeing her go through yet another confusing transition.  We became certain of our desire to adopt this precious child. 
 
In late January we met with the director of the Tianjin orphanage and shared our desire to adopt Rose.  She agreed to support us, suggesting that we work with a Minnesota agency that the Tianjin orphanage has cooperated with in the past.  We contacted the agency, discussed our situation, and they agreed to work with us as well.  We helped provide pictures and developmental progress information necessary to update Rose's file with the CCAA.  In this process, an important consideration for us has been that Mark and I have not yet been married long enough to meet new requirements set forth by CCAA.  This glitch was solved simply enough: we talked with the translator on staff at the orphanage, and agreed that Rose's file would be held at the orphanage until the time when Mark and I would be eligible to adopt her. (or until CCAA granted us an exception)   
 
A quick look through the photo albums and video links on our spaces page can give you a glimpse into the lives of our girls in recent months.  We've seen Rose go from a fearful, quiet, tentative girl, to one who is secure, carefree, and incredibly social!  She adores the playground and has a special love for the swings.  She is fond of dress-up, bows, and nail polish.  She has become quite the leader for little Grace; they both adore games of peek-a-boo and hide and seek, acting like kittens, and begging for jelly beans.  She has grown to love the activities in our weekly routine: trips to the Tianjin International School library, playgroup mornings, Monday dance class with Ms. Beth, after school playtimes with Daddy.  She can't wait to turn 5, knowing that soon afterwards she'll be able to ride the gray van to junior kindergarten.  Her nightmares are virtually gone; her tantrums and outbursts of anger and tears have completely disappeared.  We have been incredibly blessed as we've watched God touch the life of this little one and bring healing and joy.  We can see that she feels safe and loved.  She is attached to us and we to her.  We've been continually grateful for the beautiful surprise of our second daughter, looking forward to the time when the law would affirm what we already felt to be true:  She is ours.     
 
My reason for posting today is to ask for your prayers.  It seemed our world came crashing down last Saturday evening when a friend emailed, telling us that she'd seen Rose's picture on an adoption agency's waiting child's list and that she was already matched with a family.  I was sure our friend was mistaken, and yet when I clicked on the link, I found myself looking at the very pictures we had taken of Rose in a nearby playground, and in Mark's classroom at TIS.   As we investigated further, we discovered that the message to hold Rose's file in Tianjin was not communicated clearly, and instead her file was sent to CCAA immediately after we'd submitted her updated information in February.  Although CCAA was also asked to hold her file, that request was overlooked/forgotten, and Rose's file quickly made its way to an agency.  My heart has been so heavy this week, wondering, "Could we really lose our daughter due to a mere error?"   

 
The situation is complex, difficult for all involved, with far too many details to describe here.  I'll simply say that we will do all we can to keep Rose in our family, firmly believing that this is what God would have us do, and firmly believing that if the family she's matched with could see her now, they would not choose to continue with the adoption.  We already know that hundreds of people are praying for Rose, and we ask that you would pray for her as well.  She has been through so much loss and transition; it just doesn't make sense for her to be taken from our family and asked to adjust, attach, and trust all over again.   Please pray that decisions would be made with Rose's best interests at heart, even if those decisions are complex and difficult.  Pray that we would trust God through this difficult time, and that we would glorify him in all of our attitudes and actions.   And most importantly, please pray that God would protect Rose's heart, guide her future, and show her that He is a parent who never fails.

 

~Mark and Megan

 

"For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope."
 Jeremiah 29:11

Generally speaking, our girls seem to have pretty different personalities.  Rose is all girl.  She's the forever-princess, constantly in her dress-up clothes with countless bows in her hair, begging for nailpolish or lip-gloss or anything frilly or sparkly.  Grace, on the other hand, is the kind of kid who laughs when she bangs her head or burps or makes noise filling her drawers.  She's the one who at 18 months will bully her big sister with bites and a firm backhand when she doesn't get her way, and would prefer sporting her diaper alone above any other item of clothing, sparkly or not. 

 

However, it seems that our Rose has started to influence our little Grace, because it has become quite clear that Grace is developing a shoe fetish. 

 

First of all, of all of her emerging new words, "shoe" is the only one that she's mastered in BOTH Chinese and English.   And not only does she know the words, but she voices them constantly.  On more than one occasion I've watched her wake up in the morning, raise her drowsy head and murmur, "xiezi?" while scanning the room for her shoe rack.  And she carries her love of shoes right to the end of the day.  Mark told me that when he put her to bed the other night she just kept repeating, "xiezi? xiezi? xiezi?" until she finally drifted off to sleep.   During the day she'll sit happily by her shoe rack trying on different pairs, begging to have them tied and untied, placed on different feet, etc.  If I'm holding her and she spots a random shoe on the floor that I fail to pick up and give her, she'll sob as if I've broken her heart.  And last night when I went through summer stuff and found a pair of hand-me-down pink sandals, Grace had them on in a flash and just marched around the room smiling at her feet, quite pleased.

 

Last week, as I was putting her down for her nap, parting with her shoes was just too much for her to bear.  Having compassion on this little shoe-loving soul, I placed a few shoes in the corner of her crib for companionship as she went to sleep.  Here are two pictures of Grace napping with her new love. 

It's been months since I've last posted a blog, and they've been months filled with some pretty major events in our family: Grace's first introduction to grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins during our trip back to the States at Christmas, a decision to sign a new 3 year contract with LDI, and our most unexpected blessing: the addition of a precious and lively 4 year old girl to our family.  It would be impossible to catch up, so let's just fast forward to this morning.  Palm Sunday. 

 

Rose's Sunday School class sang two songs for the congregation and were incredibly cute.  Here's a clip of her favorite song, "Jumping Up and Down" 

 

 

 

and afterwards, our girls celebrated with a little Palm Branch waving.  Notice Grace's grin at the start of the clip.  She gives me that face each time I get out the camera these days.  Hilarious. 

 

I'm becoming a huge proponent of teaching sign language to little tots.  Although verbally our little gal has a lot to say, it would take quite a bit of imagination on our parts to search for any recognizeable words.  But sign language -- that's a completely different story!  Some friends gifted us with a set of DVDs called SigningTime! that teach sign language to kids.  Grace LOVES them, and even better, she's catching on!  She has been signing "eat" "shoes" "more" and "ball" for some time now, but her most recent three took me completely off guard.  One afternoon we were reading a book and came across a picture of an apple, and she just looked and me and signed "apple!"  (Granted, you're supposed to twist your finger by your cheek, and hers was in her ear, but still!)  Yesterday when getting out her snack I said, "Do you want some cheese?" and she pushed her palms together and twisted.  (Yep, that's cheese!)  And then my favorite:  we were getting ready to head out of the apartment, when Grace started wildly slapping her leg (the sign for dog).  It took me a while to figure out what was going on, and then realized there was a dog barking outside!  She now goes into a slapping frenzy at the sight or sound of any dog  whether it's when we're out for a walk or reading one of her books.  However, I must admit we've got a bit of overgeneralization going on here.  She also slaps wildly for cats, a picture of a dinosaur in one of her books, and once, a car alarm :) 

Little Grace has been keeping me on my toes, so there's been little time for blog updates.  But since her 1 year birthday is approaching in a matter of hours, I thought I'd take some time to make a little "bag of tricks" list for our little gal.

 

Grace Noel is good at:

1. squealing

2. standing all by herself

3. eating a WHOLE banana at one sitting

4. speed crawling

5. getting into very small spaces and just hanging out

6. saying "baby" when pointing to anything/everything

7. splashing in the bathtub

8. riding on the back of mommy's bike

9. bobbing her head to music

10.  "reading" her books

11.  tearing the pages out of MY books

12.  waiting to wave bye-bye until several seconds AFTER the person has already left

13.  playing peek-a-boo

14.  slurping up her noodles

15.  guzzling from her sippy cup

 

She's great great fun.  

 

 

We just posted some "day Three" pictures of precious little baby Grace, but since I'm posting from an internet bar while Mark strolls around entertaining her, I'll have to wait to post other pictures and more detais about "Gotcha Day"  We've been with our sweet girl for almost three days now; each day we're seeing more and more of her personality and it's so fun!  She loves her carrot baby food, has the cutest little habit of biting on her lower lip, is crazy about clapping and trying to stand up by herself, and gets as mad as anything when it's time to stop playing in the bathtub.  :)  She's a sweet sweet sweet sweet girl, and we feel so blessed to be her parents.

 

Tomorrow we'll spend the day in Chongyang, the county where Grace spent the first 9 months of her life.  And then on Friday we'll take the overnight train back to Tianjin.

 

Thanks for the support and love you've given us!

 

Mark, Megan, and baby Grace

Today was another exciting milestone, which once again included a visit from the EMS man.  We received the document entitled, "Notice of Coming to China for Adoption" which basically means: WE CAN GO GET OUR BABY GIRL!  We'll leave this weekend for Wuhan and will have her in our arms on Monday, June 12th.  We'll spend the week in Wuhan completing paperwork and getting aquainted.  Please pray that Grace would feel safe and loved even with the many transitions, and that God would give us wisdom to know and understand her needs.  We are so thankful, and can't wait till the first time we see her smile!

 

 

 

 

On September 2nd, 2005, a newborn baby girl was found near the gate of the Chongyang Social Welfare Institute, which serves as both an orphanage and a nursing home.  Those who found her believed her to be only a day old, making her estimated birthday September 1st. 

 

We can make an educated guess as to the socio-economic and political factors which made it difficult for her parents to keep her, but the details we will probably never know for sure.  It seems pretty clear, however, that the person who placed her near the gate of the Chongyang SWI wanted her to be found quickly and to be well taken care of. 

 

On the first day of her arrival at the SWI, she had a full medical check-up and was found healthy.  That evening she went home with one of the workers on staff and has lived with that family ever since.  Whether this is common practice as part of a foster care program, or whether she just captured the heart of someone on staff, we don't know.  But what a blessing.  On the very day that she was found, she was taken into someone's home.  

 

The staff at the orphanage named her that day.  They gave her the family name Chong, representing where she was found: Chongyang County.  The rest of her name is Si Yuan, which means "remember the origin" or "remember the source of life."  The orphanage staff indicated that this name was given in order to express their care for her, and to express their hopes that she would always remember where she came from.  We've been told repeatedly by Chinese friends that this is a truly beautiful, elegant, and carefully chosen name.  And we like it too.  We do want her to know and understand the place where she was born, and more importantly to know and understand the true source of life, the one who created her and ordained her days before even one of them came to be.  (Psalm 139) 

 

We were given amazingly thorough information about her feeding and sleeping schedule.  Our friends that were helping us translate the form laughed at her numerous feedings, saying, "This girl has been treated WELL!"  She seems to be an avid fan of milk and rice porridge.   

 

Her foster mother says she has a mild temper, is introverted, quiet, very cute and smart.  She likes to smile and laugh out loud.  And our favorite part:  She likes to sit on the sofa and watch TV while feeding herself cookies!  Ha!   Who wouldn't?!  While that might not be the healthiest activity for a not-yet 9 month old, visualizing that little scene has been good for my heart.   For so long we've prayed that she would be warm and well fed and protected from harm.  We asked that she would experience love and would be well cared for.  As we prayed those prayers, I usually pictured her in a room with many other children, perhaps competing for attention and time from limited staff.  Hanging out on the sofa and snacking while watching the tube was NOT one of the visual pictures that came to mind!

 

Aside from some details about her schedule and iimmunizations and such, that's about all that we know about Grace Noel.  We eagerly await the day when we can post a picture of the three of us together and tell you all so much more!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This photography website is cool.  http://www.davidclapp.com/main.htm   Check out the section "Some babies come by plane" to see some really beautiful "Then and Now" photos of children adopted from China. 

 

 

 

Click Here for a link to a short video highlighting China adoptions.

 

1.  Don't give me a tall hat.                                                                          

2.  Big eyes stare at small eyes.

3.  Speak of a thousand to ten thousand

4.  Eat tasty and drink spicy

5.  Take a good heart for a donkey's liver

6.  Anger pail

7.  Go fishing for three days and dry the nets for two

8.  I'll give you some color to see

9.  Well water doesn't intrude into river water

10.  A blind cat caught a dead rat. 

 

 

 

 

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