A New Name

First of all, I must thank so many of you who have been posting comments and emailing us about Gwen. Your encouragement and love is so precious to us and I am printing out all of this affirmation for Gwen to read someday! You are all already a part of the scrapbook that I will eventually put together for her. Thank you SO much for all your love and support for our family.

Yesterday was a whirlwind of activity after the referral package arrived: phone calls, paperwork, a run to the FedEx Kinko's to mail back acceptance papers, and of course a run to Sam's Club to the photomaker machine... had to have my 8x10 and a page of wallets of our girl!

But before that package came... oh my, were we antsy! Scott had already called me at 9:30 a.m. to see if it had arrived, and continued to check in every hour and a half or so. The kids and I did our morning of schoolwork with one ear always straining for the screeching brakes of a UPS truck stopping by our driveway. At one point Seth slipped outside and rang the doorbell to trick me! Right before lunch I spoke on the phone with a girl with whom I have been exchanging emails, who is with Children's Hope also and right at the same point as us. She and I chatted for about ten minutes, wondering when our packages would come and how many more minutes or hours it would be until we saw our daughters' faces. While the kids and I were eating lunch, a playmate of Madelyn's from down the street rang the doorbell and we all jumped! But no UPS man yet. I knew it HAD to come, the agency overnights the referral packages, but it was sheer torture waiting to see that picture! By mid-afternoon Madelyn and I were in on her bed, reading a book which is coincidentally about a mom going to China to get her daughter and the special blanket she takes to her. Midway through the book, we heard the tell-tale screeching brakes. "I think it's here!" My heart started pounding... Seth got the door and the package. I held it for a minute... where should we sit to open it? I decided on the family room floor. We got it open... and there she was! What an amazing moment it was to see this little stranger and realize that she is the one we've had in our hearts for the last year. Overwhelming! Then the calls to Scott, scanning the pictures in and emailing them to him began. Visits from dear friends to share our joy. A whirlwind.

And so last night, Scott and I sat across the kitchen table from each other with the acceptance papers between us. We fill in the spaces: Child's name, Child's Birth date, parent's names, passport numbers, etc. Then at the end of the form, the last space says: New Name. It caught me off guard a little bit. We were choosing Wang Yu's new name. Gwendolyn Yu Sarah Liptak, I wrote out. It gave me a little shiver, that New Name space. I remember a Bible verse about a new name... what is it? I looked it up tonight. It is in Revelations 2:17~

"To him who overcomes I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it."

I really don't know exactly what this verse means. But I guess that maybe someday in heaven we'll have a new name? A name given to us by the Father who has adopted us as sons.