Our last few months of 2014 and first few months of 2015 changed all future China trips for us forever. For 6 months, our single-family home became a double-family home so that a very special little person could start her life without any fear. At about a month old, that little person and all her big people who cared for her returned to China, leaving our home feeling very empty with just the 6 of us.
As the team who joined me at the orphanage headed back to the states, I got on a fast train in Beijing and went to spend a few days in their single-family home where Helen treated me as she would a sister. She made me eggs with tomato and Chinese pancakes and steamed bread—all the things she makes that she knows I like. And, we chatted long into the night about the marriage book I am reading, Drew’s new guitar lessons, Lydia’s gymnastics class, how the older kids are doing in middle school. We also talked about the worries of parenting and adjusting to a new baby, the expectations on them to give “gifts” to Caleb’s kindergarten teachers, and how the neighborhood grandmothers shake their heads at Grace’s disposable diapers and tell Helen she’s lazy for using them instead of traditional split pants. She’s Chinese. I’m American. We’re so very different as are our worlds. Yet, there are so many things that we share and so many places in our hearts that the other is able to encourage. And, no China trip of ours would be complete ever again without at least a few days with Helen and her quiver.
Oh, how I love her little ones who are growing and learning so fast that my heart aches that I’m missing it all when I’m across the ocean. Gracie girl is so big and smiley and vocal, not at all that sleepy little baby who at one time lived here. And, Caleb seems inches taller and definitely more grown up now that he’s an official schoolboy.
The day I left to return home, I got up early to see Caleb before they took him to kindergarten at 7:30am. Right before they left, they gathered in a circle and held hands and asked me to join them and lift up him and his day of school. When I thanked them for inviting me into that, they said, “Of course we would. We only started doing that because we learned it from your family. There’s so much we learned from you.”
When you live so closely with others, truly living in community with others, they get to see it all. And, it’s not all pretty. In fact, most of it is not pretty at all. What a blessing to me to know that they took away something so beautiful despite our frailty. What a blessing.
