My Overthinking

Philly Area mom, Life forever changed by adoption

#Chinalove

We said we were expecting the unexpected. We said we were ready for surprises. We had no idea that the element of surprise would start before we ever left the country. Six of us met up at the Philadelphia airport and boarded a plane to Chicago to meet up with the rest of us and then fly to Shanghai and onto Guangzhou. As we were preparing for take off in Philly, the de-icing truck clipped the right wing of the plan rendering the plane unable to fly at all. We all got off the plane, thankfully were first in line at the ticket counter to rebook and still spent 45 minutes working out alternative plans that would still get us where we needed to be. The result was a plan that meant sending our team on three (yes, three) different flights to China–5 on a flight from Chicago to Shanghai and then to Guangzhou, 3 on a flight from Philly to Washington to Beijing and then to Guangzhou, and 3 on a flight from Philly to Chicago to Tokyo (yes, that’s right) and then to Guangzhou. Everyone dashed to get to their respective flight like a seen from Amazing Race (which we lost, mind you, after we missed our connecting flight in Beijing). It was nothing short of a miracle that all 11 plus the 3 team members who live in China and took a train here arrived here on Saturday night WITH all but one piece of luggage (which just so happened to be poor Ashlyn’s).

It was a crazy, crazy travel day which took about 36 doors door to door.

But, isn’t it just like China to put me on this emotional roller coaster with plenty of loops and upward climbs of anticipation?

After a whole 4 hours of sleep, we were all reunited over a noodley and fried eggy breakfast after which we were greeted by our friend who works at the orphanage here. She offered us bottled waters and fresh hot potatoes then we boarded a bus for a day of shopping, a posh outdoor lunch, and a walk all afternoon and well into the evening that made me nearly forget that crazy travel day that had ended only hours earlier (and the associated jet lag).

Now, if only we had Ashlyn’s luggage.

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I don’t want to go {and other things that go through my mind when I’m leaving for China in 3 hours}

I’ve been looking at a bag packed full of supplies for a few days now. The top layer keeps changing as I’ve added new things when I’ve had another idea or the mailman or a friend drops off just one more thing. You’d think that the Mary Poppins bag in my dining room would have prepared me for this moment right now.

But, here I am. As I am every.single.time.I.go. feeling frazzled and anxious, wondering if I have everything I wanted to bring, overthinking if I brought the right gifts, feeling jet lagged before I ever even leave for the airport.

Every trip we go on, I act as the wise sage to the team: “Don’t be surprised when you have butterflies in your stomach right before we leave and you find yourself wondering why the heck you signed up for this and that it would just be a lot easier if you stayed home.” Yet, every trip we go on, I find myself right about there at right about now. And, I’m kind of surprised. There. I admit it.

I look at this 52 lb. bag of good things, and there is definitely a spark in me that knows that those good things are going to help create even better things. And, that thrills my heart a bit. But, there’s also part of me that remembers an inbox full of emails and Drew’s 5th grade ski trip after school tomorrow and the little girl asleep on my bedroom floor after a long day of a stomach bug. And, I hear myself thinking, “I don’t want to go. Can’t someone else do this?…the plane ride is so long…there’s so much going on…maybe there’s someone better suited for this…”

That’s where I am right now. 3 hours before we leave for the airport. And, in this place, I’m just going to finish turning my thoughts into words on a screen, and I’m going to zip up my suitcase (my non-Mary Poppins second suitcase where you will be glad to know I did actually pack clothing for myself), and I’m going to get ready to take a little nap right next to my little girl until it’s time to go. And, then we’re going to go. Mark, Ashlyn, and I are going to go. Because we’ve been called to go. And, because that little girl asleep on my floor has a mama to stroke her head and tell her how sorry she is that her tummy is “a lot a bit yucky” and because there are little girls her age right now who need that.

Yup. We’re going to go. We’re going to pour ourselves out and serve for a week aside 11 other people who may be feeling a lot of the same things tonight and who are also going to rally. And, then after that, the three of us are going to Shanghai where we will pour ourselves out for another week in a different way, encouraging and caring for the 24 men and women teachers we have the honor of supporting.

Only 3 more hours to go.

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the amazing grace in Silent Night

Everything was set. Together, the team had planned exactly what they were going to do and were excited about it. Surely, this would be their best team effort ever. They arrived to the village where they would be serving on December 23rd. But, there was a problem, a big problem. The St. Nicholas’ church organ wasn’t working and would not be repaired before Christmas. What would they do now? They needed the organ. Their entire plan rested on the music of that organ. Had someone told them about the broken organ as the team planned for this trip, they could have prepared. They could have brought other instruments or changed the plans somehow. Maybe they would have gone somewhere else entirely to a different church that would have the organ they needed. But, they were here now with no time to change the plan. Christmas was only two days away. They had to press on. They’d still offer the programs they had planned as close to the original plans as possible; but it would all take place in someone’s home instead. It wasn’t what they wanted, but it would have to work. Those who came enjoyed it; those who pulled it off shrugged their shoulders and struggled. It wasn’t all they had wanted to be. They trusted that God would redeem what seemed mediocre.

Josef Mohr was struggling too. He was one of the pastors at the organ-less church. He had so wanted to give those he shepherded more this Christmas. But, he just felt the church didn’t have enough; he wasn’t enough. Inviting this foreign team to come was his last effort to give his church something more. What they arrived and saw there was no organ, he was sure that this would be another failure. But, they rallied. They somehow pulled together and changed the plan and gave his church something remarkable after all. He didn’t see it as mediocre at all.

Josef remembered something he himself had planned years earlier. It was just a simple poem he had written in a moment of inspiration. He had never done anything more with it. But, if that team can do something beautiful in the face of a broken organ, maybe he could too. He dug out that old poem and took it to Franz Xaver Gruber who had been the church organist when they had had an organ that worked. He told him about the foreign team and his desire to be like them and redeem setbacks for good.

A few hours later, Josef and Franz welcomed people into the organ-less church where Franz stood in front of the pews facing the people instead of sitting with his back to them at an organ. He played a tune on his guitar that he had just created and sang the words Josef had written.

Silent night, holy night!
All is calm, all is bright.
Round yon Virgin, Mother and Child.
Holy infant so tender and mild,
Sleep in heavenly peace,
Sleep in heavenly peace.

Silent night, holy night!
Shepherds quake at the sight.
Glories stream from heaven afar
Heavenly hosts sing Alleluia,
Christ the Savior is born!
Christ the Savior is born.

Silent night, holy night!
Son of God love’s pure light.
Radiant beams from Thy holy face
With dawn of redeeming grace,
Jesus Lord, at Thy birth
Jesus Lord, at Thy birth.

200 years after Franz sang those lyrics for the first time for his tiny little church in a tiny little village in Austria, we’re still singing them here in our own living room with my son Drew who is just learning to strum and in classrooms in China as teachers explain to students how Americans celebrate our most important holiday of the year.

A broken organ. A leader who felt unable. A man who couldn’t do what he was hired to do. A team of people who felt called to a little place no one else really wanted to go, doubted that calling when they discovered what looked like a major setback, but rallied to be obedient within the context they were given. A series of events that looked like challenges that could ruin something good that instead were opportunities that led to one of the most beautiful creative expressions celebrating what God did for His people through Christmas.

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To the foster father of Z—- Chun Min

I know you as the orphanage driver. When our teams arrive to serve there, it is you who they meet first. It is your smile and hearty head nods that put them at ease. It is your offer to take their heavy bags and have a rest that lets them know they are welcome before they ever arrive at the orphanage gate. And, when they do, it is you who has safely brought them there.

You serve a very important role everyday. Everyday, you drive, taking leaders to meetings and taking nannies to trainings. You also take children to school as a parent would, scurrying to make sure they are on time and nudging them along when they are dragging their feet. Of all the streets you drive everyday, I know there’s one route you know very well–the drive to Xi’an. Many Sunday mornings, you drive an seemingly ordinary way for extraordinary purposes as you drive a child to meet his or her mommy and daddy for the very first time. I wish I could sit down with you over a cup of milk tea and ask you lots of questions and listen to your stories. I’m sure you have so many to tell.

I also know there’s one story that you’d tell me first and come back to over and over again. I know because it was on one of those drives to the orphanage one morning when I learned that you hadn’t always been the orphanage driver. You had been a Baba.

I saw you hand a photo album to our translator. And, I heard her Chinese “ahh”s as she flipped through it and then read some English words silently and told you something in Chinese. I saw you wipe your eyes as you smiled in response. I’m sure you had heard those words translated before. But, you clearly wanted to hear them again, the words she had put in the photo album she gave you a few years ago when she visited China as a girl: “Thank you for taking care of me when I was a baby and treating me like your own daughter. Love, Erin R—– (Z—- Chun Min).”

It was years ago, more than 10…maybe 12, that you said goodbye to a child you loved. She was still a baby when she left, just over a year old, you told me. And, for that year, she had been yours. In fact, you told me you had nearly held her in your arms for an entire year, you and your wife never letting her feet touch the ground. Your face lit up when you talked about her and as you showed me pictures you had of her on your phone, pictures of pictures I’m sure hang on your walls at home. You waited with bated breath when you asked me if I knew her.

From the way you talked about her, I wish I did because she sounds like she was an amazing little girl who is now a young lady somewhere. I know you want me to find her family so you can talk to her again. And, maybe, just maybe, I will. But, if I cannot, I want to make sure you hear a few words from me.

I’m not Chun Min’s mama; but, I am a mama to a little girl who was also nurtured by others until she was my little girl. I often think of those who bathed her and bounced her when she was fussy. I think of those who smiled when she cooed and tried their best to give her all she needed while doing the same for more than 20 other babies in her room. I think of those who propped her up on a pillow and took her picture for a file of papers that would be sent to Beijing so she could leave with a family. And, I think of the man who shopped for a pretty little going away outfit for her when the time was right and of the woman who tied all the strings on it that morning as they got into the orphanage van to drive on the same roads you drive now to meet us for the first time. Oh, if I could gather all those people in one place at one time, I’d show them pictures after pictures of our little girl and tell them that all they did for her everyday mattered. I’d tell them that what they do everyday for every child matters.

I know it is hard to not know where she is and what she is like and if she remembers you. I know you wonder if her family would ever welcome you in just to share a meal. I hope they would. But, I don’t know that. It can be hard for some parents and for some children to bring all the parts of their stories together. And, having a relationship with you, even from the other side of the world, might not be what is best for her and for them right now. But, I want you to know that what you did for her mattered, how you loved her well for that first year of her life truly mattered. You have played a part in her becoming the young lady she is now even if she doesn’t remember you the way you remember her.

When saying goodbye to her broke your heart, you decided not to foster a child again. That makes sense to me. But, even now, you have opportunities everyday to love children who are not your own well. Press on in that and know that every smile, every head nod, every “have a good day at school,” every quiet or not so quiet drive to and from a hospital, and every goodbye is an opportunity to do something that matters and changes the world as you show a child that he or she matters and can change the world.

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