Memorial Stones

 During this waiting time, some of the things that have happened were obviously such God-kisses (is that a word?) that I wanted to share them with you.  In the Old Testament the children of God would set up stone memorials.  The first time we see this in the Bible is after the Israelites had finished crossing the river and the LORD told Joshua to choose one man from each tribe, 12 total, and have them pick up 12 stones from the Jordan River.  They each took a stone and carried them over to the camp where they were to stay for the night.  These stones were to serve as a sign among them, so that in the future when their children asked what the stones meant, the people would retell the story of their deliverance.  (Joshua 4:1-9)

Let me share with you some of our stones.

During our fast Stacy ran into an old bible study friend at a farm.  We hadn’t been to this farm in over a year and yet on that night Stacy ran into Bob.  Bob as it turns out was getting ready to go to the Philippines to adopt a sibling group of 4.  At the time they talked we really had felt that God was encouraging us to not be afraid of our age, that God doesn’t have an age limit on parenting.  And when you think of it, Sarah was 90 years old when she had her son!  You see Bob is in his 50’s and they have a million kids! Just kidding, not a million.   Anyhow after we decided to adopt, we got to thinking about Bob and we wondered if perhaps we missed something God wanted to tell us through him.  And so Stacy got hold of Bob and asked him some questions like what countries they’d adopted from, agencies, etc.  We had been having a hard time choosing a country and Bob told us the orphanage their kids just came home from was amazing.  The very best they had seen.  He gave us their website and as a family we checked it out.  I can remember plain as day sitting on the couch, Stacy behind us and looking at this orphanage.  It was amazing!  And we all said, “That is where we want our kids to come from!”  Only you don’t get the choice when you adopt.  When you choose a child from the Special Finding List the orphanage is not shown at first.  And so we prayed.  God knew the desires of our hearts.  The first 3 sibling groups that “fell through” were not from this orphanage.

And then came Micaela and C.J.!  Of course you know already, but they are from the same orphanage as Bob’s kids!!!  Our kids and their kids lived in the same house for a year!  How crazy is that?  These 6 children who were adopted to Americans will now live 5 miles away from each other. 

The day we saw that our precious kids were from the Children’s Shelter of Cebu was an amazing day.  Here we were ready to throw in the towel and then look what God did for us!!!

I want to tell you about Children’s Shelter of Cebu (CSC).  If you are ever looking for a ministry to support, look no further!  This orphanage is run by Christian Americans from Minnesota.  They have a huge presence on social media.  Tons of pictures, video and bloggers.  It takes just a few minutes to see the love of Jesus at this special place.  If you read the posts you will sense the Spirit’s hand on CSC.  These kids, our kids are very much loved.  They make sure they have excellent medical care.  When they could find cheaper doctors and hospitals they choose the best doctors and hospitals for their kids.  When they felt their kids weren’t getting a good enough education outside of the orphanage, they built a school.  It is amazing.  I’m not an expert at orphanages, but I’m telling you this place is special.  http://www.cscshelter.org/

And so one memorial stone is our chance meeting with Bob.  And the second stone is Children’s Shelter of Cebu. 

I mentioned that our daughter’s pictures are everywhere.  We’ve seen video of her singing her ABC’s, eating ice cream from a cup and playing with the kids.  We’ve seen her leading a line of children, kissing her brother, and playing dolls.  She. Is. Amazing.

Being the creepers that we are, we have searched everywhere for pictures of our kids.  The most recent picture we have of C.J. is from June of last year.  As you can imagine that is not good enough for this mama!  Well in searching for our kids, we found a blogger who taught at CSC for a year.  Her name is Lindsay and she has a wonderful blog called A Pinch of Yum.  As we creeped on this strangers blog we found wonderful pictures of the year she and her husband’s spent in the Philippines.  Beautiful pictures of the country, the people, the food, the children and funny, tons of Micaela and a few of C.J.  I’m telling you we were freaking out!!  Her blog was like finding a gold mine!  Do you realize how amazing it is to see multiple pictures of your kids?  My friends who have adopted internationally tell me that you usually get one or two pictures.  That’s it.  So guess what I did?  I emailed Lindsay and introduced myself! J 

What happened next I could have never imagined.  Here I am, a stranger asking her if she would mind sharing pictures of my children.  She also lives in Minnesota and so I told her it would be so much fun to meet when the kids came home.  (I know, I’m a crazy stranger!)    But this is a woman who spent 1 year with my kids!!  From the pictures she took, you could see her love for these kiddos. 

I got a reply within an hour or so.  Monday night Final Four Basketball game and she writes me, sobbing with her friend in the room even!  I like this girl.  She cries because she cares.  Anyhow, she proceeds to tell me that they fell in love with Micaela and when they got back to the states they prayed and sought counsel if they were supposed to adopt Micaela and C.J.  They decided it wasn't the time for them, and so they started praying for their parents who would adopt them.  US!  Are you seeing the crazy to this yet??  She was so blessed that I contacted her.  They never imagined they would ever see these two precious kids again, and now they can and will.  And then she blessed me more and told me about my daughter.

“She is something else, that little girl. So much spunk and character and independence and this incredible little sense of humor. I've never met a child quite like her - she is so much fun.”

I like Lindsay and you will to when you check out her blog.  But don’t go there when you’re hungry.  I warned you! http://pinchofyum.com/

Lindsay is a memorial stone.

Another something extra special came to us just the other night.  C.J.’s medical files are a little contradictory.  One part says he is now running with bare feet and flat sandals, and another part says he is using a walker!  This didn’t go unnoticed and so we requested a video of him walking and running, which we have yet to receive.  CSC puts a new picture up daily on Facebook and last week there was a picture entitled Toddlers Racing.  It was a picture taken from the side, but it look so much like C.J.!!  I couldn’t be 100% sure, but of course I shared the picture with all my friends, and then Stacy and Faith did the same.  Within an hour the picture was gone!  Gone from all of our pages and the CSC Facebook page.  I sort of freaked out wondering if we weren’t supposed to share the pictures, but no one ever told us not to….So I emailed Lindsay quick and asked her if we had done something wrong.  I told her I thought it was C.J.  As it turns out last year CSC made a decision to not publish our children’s pictures on Facebook.  Their birth mom has a difficult time seeing them as it was a very hard decision to make in choosing a better life for them.  By mistake C.J. had made it to Facebook!!! 

That picture, which hopefully I’ll see again soon, is a memorial stone.  Our son is running.  God was just letting us know.  Isn’t he good?

There is a song we used to sing years ago that I sang all day for a couple of days.  It sums it up.

“I stand, I stand in awe of you.  I stand, I stand in awe of you.  Holy God to whom all praise is due, I stand in awe of you.”

These memorial stones are for us.  They are for our children.  For Faith and Abbi, they are proof that we believe God speaks to us.  We believe his plans are for the best, even when it gets scary.  These stones are for Micaela and C.J. and it will be an amazing honor to share with them how God orchestrated all the details.  For Stacy and I, when the going gets tough bringing home kids from hard places, these stones will serve as a reminder that God knew before time what was to happen.  They will remind us that through this journey he was with us and his hand was upon us.

Candie