Jack is coming home!

Really? Are you certain?

Yes!

Really!!

We are going! It is finally, finally time to step out into the world and go for our son. Finally.

Sinking spells? No time! There is much to do!

Manic. This sounds decidedly manic, and that is because I am.

You see, I had begun to believe that there was a place called "Nevergonnahappen" where our adoption paperwork lived. Lived and thrived. Right down to a predictable "and they lived happily ever after."

Well, I've checked the atlas! Pingdingshan is real, and Henan is real, and China is real, and nowhere on Google Earth is there a place near there named "Never". (You know I'd have gotten a drop-down box, so I stopped at Never :-) )

I'm packing!

Jack, I want to remember everything, good and bad, easy and hard that has happened since we saw your face on CCAI's website, and breathed the prayer.... "please".

I want you to hear me laugh and cry and proclaim, "God is good!".

What a sorry specimen I have been. How often I have doubted the timing of this journey.

As the months passed, I have to confess that I nearly lost hope. Other adoptive families received glorious updates, pictures, videos for crying out loud, while we heard very little. Other families traveled for their children while we redid home studies, moved to a new town, and struggled to make a house into a home.

And there is my problem. With me, Jackson, I'm prone to look at what the "others" are up to. But when my eyes are elsewhere, I miss my own "here and now". The good diminishes in comparison, the bad increases. Not the testimony I should have, but there it is.

Well, Jack, from this side of our travel approval, let me bring you up to date!

You are finally coming home:

Home to sister who has longed for you terribly and can't wait to meet you. She has insisted that there are noodles in the pantry.... stacks and stacks of noodles, and she's learned some pretty amazing recipes from Northern China to tempt your palate. Oh, and we have enough back-up rice to last a decade in case our noodle prediction is flawed.

Home to your brother, who at long last grasps the reality of having you IN PERSON, and he is giddy with joy, almost to the point that he'll share his toys. Almost. We'll work on that...

Home to a wonderful extended family... Grandparents, Super Nana, aunts, uncles, cousins... who all want to meet you as much as we want you to meet them.

Home to a church family who is almost as excited as we are, and who will be there to help you get adjusted to your new home and family, and to pray us through the rough spots.

Home to a little town near the sea, where a lovely gray heron comes some mornings to bless us from his place at the pond's edge; a town where people are friendly, and boats wait at the wharf, promising bright summer days ahead.

But first, Daddy and I are coming for you! We will leave here excited, get there tired, and prepare to have our world turned upside down two days later when we finally meet you. We can't wait! Your daddy had hernia surgery last week and can't lift more than ten pounds, so we are bringing balloons and bubbles and LIGHT stuff to play with. He will try to lift you, and we won't let him, for his own good. Will you sit on his lap instead?

And me, well, I'm giddy, Jackson! I am trying hard to have no expectations. I recognize and believe that you are going to be hard pressed as we make this adjustment of bringing you into our family. Don't feel bad, I probably will be too. Yes it's what I want, I understand it, I have chosen it, I have longed for it. And I expect it to be a challenge.

How then will it be for you.  You, who do not understand it, did not choose it?

My prayer is that you will be at peace. That somehow in the strangeness of it all you will feel safety and love. If you don't feel them immediately, we will help you to learn those words and grow to feel them.

Oh Jack, what will you be like? Are you funny? Are you quiet? Do you like to play? Do you like to read? Will your hurts be on the surface, or will we have to plumb the depths of your heart to find them and help you heal?

I can't believe that I will finally get to know you.

I can't believe that I will finally have the privilege of sharing your world. How can it be that I get to love you, to teach you, and share with you what Jesus means to me?

See why I'm giddy?

Greater things are yet to come, greater things are still to be done....

Yes indeed!

See you soon, Jack! I love you...

Mama