My Overthinking

Philly Area mom, Life forever changed by adoption

Archives for May 2014

#ohChina

If you’re going to be in China, there are a few things you need to know.

lazysusan

1. Your new best friend is named Susan. And, she’s lazy. Nearly every restaurant is going to have one of these twirly deals on the table. I’ve fallen so hard for my BFF lazy Susan that I’m looking to get a round table for our kitchen and get one of our own.

2. Meals are about community, not efficiency. If you try to load up those little plates set around the big round table at meals, you will feel like a giant…and look like a rude American. Use your chopsticks and take one bite at a time as your BFF Susan brings a dish in front of you. It’s totally okay to share dishes with your friends around the table.

hot water bottle

3. Hot water is a cure all. It’s sorta like Tylenol. It’s a wonder drug. Accept it.

food-bag

4. Eating out of a plastic bag isn’t all that different than eating out of a styrofoam box. 

slurp

5. Spitting, loudly clearing your throat, slurping. It’s all good.

china-traffic

6. Mandarin and horn beeping are the national languages. Drivers beep their horns like some people bite their nails.

China Olympics Traffic Plan

7. Lines are overrated. Why bother with lines? A crowd all moving in the same direction works just fine.

china market ladies

8. Yes means maybe; maybe means no; impossible means just don’t want to. Glad to clear that up for you.

china gift

9. Gift giving is the Chinese love language. They’re a big deal. And, when you give one, you’ll likely receive one. Just don’t open it right then and there.

china conversation

10. Chinese is not a love language. They could be saying You are the most kindhearted person in the world and I love you and it will sorta sound like yelling.

china shopping

11. Do not ever buy something for the sticker price or you’ll end up making a shopkeeper very happy and pay likely 4x more than you should.

horse-1

12. There’s a big difference between the way you say Ma and the way they say Ma. Tones make a big difference in a tonal language, ya’ll.

china allergies

13. Expect your allergies to bother you. Don’t have allergies? You suddenly will discover you have them after all.

china sign

14. Stock photos are the bomb just as they are. No need to customize.

chinese ordering

15. That word you are hearing over and over again is not the N-word. Ni ga is the Chinese version of ummmm.

tomb sweeping

16. Why do the Chinese have the corner on the holiday market? I wish we all had as many holidays as they do. I think we’d be a lot happier.

china pajamas

17. If it has a collar and buttons, it’s a perfectly acceptable outfit. 

product-shoe-covers-01

18. Outdoor shoes worn indoors? Are you kidding me? It’s barbaric to even think of such a thing.

pictures in china

19. Pa-pa-pa papparazzi complete with peace signs. Your face will be all over QQ before you step foot on American soil again.

arm in arm

20. Friends walk arm in arm. And, I will take your arm if we’re friends. And, I will say something about how I totally wish that was the norm in America. Just expect it…and everything else here. #ohChina

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Be a Blessing {Guest Post and Shameless Plug}

We were all hot and drenched with sweat by the time we reached the steep incline.  Hours of hiking the rugged country of Israel had left us drained.  But there was more to see just ahead, so one by one we tackled the climb searching for footholds and struggling to keep our balance.  Our guide had paused midway up the climb offering his hand to us in assistance.  However, nearly everybody in our group declined his help, perhaps not wanting to appear weak or tired or needy.

Once our group had made the climb and was ready to continue, our guide gave us a bit of an earful.  Why had we all declined his offer of help?  We were surprised by his question and stood silently.  He went on to explain that by declining his help we had denied him the opportunity to bless us.  Our declining actually took something away from him.

Whether we like it or not, we all need help from each other.  God designed us to live in community—in community with Him and with each other.  And in community living, there is help that is needed and help to be given.

The Sparrow Fund specializes in being on the helping side of things, in being a blessing to others.  What began as a fund to give grants to families to help cover the cost of medical reviews of a referral quickly grew to include training and speaking, retreats, orphan care trips, and offering whatever resources they could to adoptive families.  All of these “acts of helping” fall right in line with their mission: Encouraging and supporting families in the adventure of adoption.  The Sparrow Fund has made it their mission to help, to be a blessing others.  But, they can’t do it alone.

They need help.  This is your opportunity to be a blessing to them.

They need funding in order to continue to do the work to which God has called them.  Most of that funding comes from Building the Nest — an event that lasts for only one month.  One month to raise funding for all that they do.  And that month is May.

Tomorrow is the LAST day of May…the LAST day to buy from any of the businesses listed here and have 10% of the profits go right back to supporting the work of The Sparrow Fund.

So, on their behalf, can I ask you to take a look at the businesses involved in this year’s Building the Nest, and then make a list of all the people you will need to buy a gift in the coming months—birthdays, anniversaries, teacher gifts, Christmas, etc.  You need to shop for them anyways, why not do it now and shop with a purpose.  Shop knowing that your purchases are helping to continue the work of The Sparrow Fund.  By being intentional about your shopping right now — today or tomorrow — you will be a blessing to all of the families TSF supports throughout the year.

Each and every purchase will make a difference, and each and every purchase you make will enter you in a drawing to win an iPad bundle!  Just follow this link and leave a comment to the original post telling what you bought and you will be entered!

The Sparrow Fund exists to bless others.  Won’t you take this opportunity to bless them with your purchases?

                                    _____________________________

stephanie smit

Stephanie Smit

18 years in the classroom as a teacher was easy compared to parenting three little ones at home full-time. Through their three daughters, God has revealed Himself most clearly to Stephanie and her husband Matthew. He not only worked a miracle in giving them their biological daughter, He continued to show Himself in mighty ways throughout adoption journeys in China and Bhutan that were anything but normal. Nowadays she enjoys encouraging and connecting with other adoptive families through speaking and her work on the leadership team of “We Are Grafted In”.  You can read more about their family on their personal blog We Are Family.

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Just enough

He never knows what to get me. I can just picture Mark walking around the Beijing market, vendors calling out to the Meiguo ren showing him their pearls and silk. He sent me an email while I slept one night with the subject line “Found you an awesome prize” and these words: “Really cool and very excited about it! Hope you like it.”

He had ventured a little off the beaten path to an open market where digging for treasure is required. As he dug, he found an old heavy bowl made to look like a basket with characters on each side. It was made to hold grain and sit in the center of your table with the message translated: Every year, we have just enough.

It’s been sitting in the center of our table since he got home from China last week, gently reminding my sometimes wayward heart. When he left his full-time career in the finance industry in October of last year, our world dramatically changed. We have had to believe that every year, we will have just enough. In that is a juxtaposition of joy and freedom with the desire to hold on even tighter just in case. 

The team I’m leading to China this October to an orphanage is just getting started. But, there’s another team going to a different orphanage in the same area in China in just a couple weeks now. A young girl named April had committed to being a part of that team. Allow me to introduce her to you in this video.

 

When she sensed a nudged in her spirit to go, she responded, not letting any limitations get in the way of her walking in His will for her. But, the trip coordinator shared yesterday that April’s going may not happen. She was over $1000 short of the funds she needed to go, and those funds were needed today.

Every year, we have just enough. In this case, just enough was an awful lot. I hesitated for a few seconds, my wayward heart wondering if His provision may have a limit and wondering what I could do as one who needs His provision too. If I tried to rally people to come alongside, would I be taking grain out of our own bowl to fill another, leaving ours partly empty? Could I trust God to supply our portion and then stand guard around it, essentially believing that He may fill it once…but again and again?

I shared her need. Others did too. And, people responded. Trusting Him to supply a need that can only He can do is contagious. By 8pm last night, several hours after I first heard of her need, several hours after April had resigned that she would not be going to China after all, she was completely funded. Every last dollar. Paid in full. Just like Paul reported how the churches of Macedonia had responded to the needs they were made aware of, people gave according to their means and beyond their means, earnestly asking for the pleasure of taking part in meeting April’s needs so she could go (2 Cor 8:3-4).

My bowl from that market in China sits before me, forged by hands belonging to someone who likely does not love the author of the message it reads and brought home to me by a husband who knew the truth I need to see day in and day out.

Every year, every day, every moment, He gives us just what we need. And, not only does He meet us at our very point of need and supply it, but He takes great pleasure in doing it. There is no reluctance or hesitation, only a desire to bless us for His glory and our good. My bowl is full today as is April’s, and I’m trusting they will be refilled again tomorrow and the next day and the day after that by the One whose love and generosity has no limit and overflows and pours out into eternity.

Chinese bowl

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Land of the free

Memorial Day post pic 2Memorial Day. Pools everywhere open for the season. Grills are fired up. Sparkles are sparkling. That’s what it’s always been—a day off and a homecoming party for our good friend summer. I wouldn’t say I grew up without a patriotic heart; I knew all the words to the national anthem and belt out the alto part with my sisters. But, Memorial Day was more about burgers and hammocks than the red, white, and blue.

This weekend marks my 37th Memorial Day. Along the journey of the last several, my heart swelled for those stars and stripes and all they represent.

Four years ago, when I rode those escalators up to the 5th floor of an office building in Guangzhou, I rose my right hand and took an oath of truth, the last step in a 3-year journey that started before the life of the little one I wore on my side started. Our Chinese translators were not allowed into the room with us, a room packed full of American citizens who all either cradled or held the little hands of Chinese children who were nearly American citizens too. Despite the nearly tangible fatigue of red tape in that room, I could almost hear the sound of the national anthem in my heart as I saw the freedom I have in a new way.

I’ve never been more grateful for the sacrifice of the brave before me as I am now. I have never felt as indebted to those who have fought the fight and continue to do so to protect the freedom that I live everyday as a wife and mother of four—one of whom was not born to me within these borders but who now calls it her home too.

I don’t agree with all American policies. There are all sorts of things awry here, I know, but politics and patriotism are not the same thing. And, perhaps international adoptive parents should be the most patriotic of all, not in an egocentric or arrogant sort of way at all but with deep gratitude for those who have paid the greatest price for our peace and freedom, a freedom that allows our family to be a family.

The sun is shining today, and the air is just warm enough to tease us to go to the pool and try taking a dip in the water that still feels like spring. We’ll grill cheeseburgers, and my husband and I will sit together out back while the kids ride scooters in our driveway. Traditions are sweet especially when they help us celebrate a day that means more now to me than it did before. The freedom so many people have given their lives for is what has made our family what it is.

Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

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