His Plans

I had several errands on the other side of the river yesterday. I ended up eating lunch at a restaurant in the complex of the hotel Scott and I stayed in when we first came to Shanghai to consider the possibility of moving our family here. We had eaten our breakfast in this place our first jet lagged morning.

Here I was again, only three months shy of four years later, dining in this same establishment. Shanghai is a different city to me now than it was then. No longer foreign and unfamiliar, it is my home.

There was something even more striking to me in that lunch yesterday, more than remembering my first meal in a new city. I was not eating alone yesterday. I had a little companion, one I couldn't even have fathomed joining me had I considered it four years ago.

I've mentioned the Baobei Foundation, the organization I volunteer for that provides surgery for orphans with nuerological and gastrointestinal birth defects. A big part of Baobei's process involves placing these babies in foster homes among the expat community to gain strength and heal post surgery.

Well, we had a little guy arrive in Shanghai recently with a medical need that requires surgery, but he was so tiny our doctor recommended he put on some weight first and we plan the surgery for January. I had helped arrange a foster family for him, but they weren't available to take him until mid-December.

Well, you can guess what transpired. The girls have been begging to get to take care of a Baobei baby in our home. Scott has been quick to remind them that that isn't part of my job with Baobei. But this time we knew it would be short, only a couple of weeks...

So this little one has been with us now for nearly a week. I had forgotten the physical effort required to care for one so new... but what I didn't forget is the time cuddled together on the couch, with the Christmas lights twinkling beside me, feeding a baby. Having a baby forces you to slow down, to leave other things undone, to sit, to rock, to look into little eyes that stare back unblinking. I remembered this. I wanted to have to slow down and sit, especially at Christmas.

Oh, my arms have ached with the fatigue of muscles that haven't been used this way in a long while. I've lost a little sleep, up in the night making and feeding bottles. But what a privilege and a joy it's been to have little Michael in our home. He has helped us all slow down, to sit and reflect by the light of the Christmas tree.

Who would have thought, on that February morning nearly four years ago, that just a few years later I would have the opportunity to love on a baby with no family? That a beautiful, orphaned boy would sit with me on my couch and listen to Christmas music with me? That we would dress him up in a little red sweater and take his picture holding a candy cane? That we and our friends would have the chance to pray over him and read scripture to him? That we would wonder about where God will place this little one, what his life will look like? I couldn't have imagined, in February 2007, that I would eat in that restaurant again with an orphan cuddled on my lap.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart. I will be found by you," declares the Lord. Jeremiah 29:11-13

Day Trip to the Past

Yesterday I was in Henan province. It was a day trip, just a 90 minute flight there and back, and my task while there was brief. Just get one picture taken. No big deal, right?

I haven't mentioned Baobei Foundation here much, maybe not at all by name. If you'd like to check it out officially, you can look at the website, which you can find by clicking here. I have a volunteer position with Baobei that has filled quite a bit of my free time during the day while our kids are in school. I've gotten to visit lots of babies in the hospital, orphaned little ones that Baobei brings to Shanghai for neurological or gastrointestinal surgery. I've cuddled infants who couldn't eat all day before their surgery. I watched IV lines started and checked out healing incision sites. I've helped settle these little ones post surgically into foster care with expat families. I've visited these families, gone to physical therapy appointments, searched through Baobei's stash of equipment and clothing, and had meetings where we discussed new children coming and who will next care for the ones we have in Shanghai now.

But a couple of times now I've been privileged to be a small part of one of our Baoebei babies being adopted. Yesterday was one of those times. I traveled with Lily, one of our local Chinese Baobei staff, and a toddler Baobei who is about to have his adoption into his expat foster family completed. We had to return to the city he came from to have his picture taken for his Chinese passport, one of many steps leading up to finalizing his adoption. The actual taking of the photo took only a moment, but we carefully brushed his hair over beforehand, having had to wake him from a sound sleep on my shoulder. The photographer called to him, he looked, and the camera clicked. Then we stood in line for a turn to sit at the police counter with him on my lap while they looked at him and stamped and signed various papers that would ultimately release him from the jurisdiction of the province and allow him to be adopted. Of course everything was said in Chinese and only interpreted to me here and there, so I was just a warm body to hold this Baobei and carry him from place to place, comforting and entertaining on the way.

By 8 PM last night we were back from the day of travel for the photo, and our Baobei (did I mention Baobei means "precious child" in Chinese?) was safely back with his foster family, soon to be forever family. I was left to wonder who took Gwen to get her passport photo taken before her adoption. Did she fall asleep on their shoulder on the way to the police station? Did they smooth down her hair? Did she wonder what this outing from her regular surroundings at the Yibin Social Welfare Institute would mean?

As I look at her little round face on the Chinese passport that she left China with in December 2005, I wish I could read more in her face. I wish I knew more about what came before the day we met her. At least now I know how one more piece of her story happened. Someone dressed Gwen, who was then Wang Yu, in a bright red jacket that day. They took her to the police station. They held her up on the little stool, reaching over to keep her balanced in view of the camera, but with their own body out of the photo. They waited with her to sit at the police counter. Was she a wiggle worm, a ball of energy? Unless she had just woken from a nap like our Baobei yesterday, I'm sure she was!

The look on her face in this little passport picture looks uncertain, her eyes are looking off to one side. Was she wondering what was happening, what was about to happen?

I'm going to show her this picture when she gets home from school today. I don't think she'll remember a thing about it. But I know just a little bit more than I did before, and I kind of like that.