Post by James...

Pickles the firecat and other musings.

It is our last night in Guangzhou.  We have one more night before we are home.  That will be spent somewhere over the Pacific en route to LAX.  So this kind of feels like are our last night of a long journey.

Kate is asleep.  Our good friends left this afternoon.  The room is quiet.  The lights of the city are bright and busy below, but no sound makes it into the room.  It is pretty so see it.  More so because it is our last time to see it.  It was not pretty to me last night.  I closed the curtains because the sight of it made me feel sick to my stomach because I was so homesick.  Every light and car and Chinese character reminded me that I had been away from Anne and Molly so long that I didn't know what to do, and the anxiousness of wanting all five of us together was overwhelming.   But God provided and the day passed quickly and now the city and I are spending our last night together on good terms. 

I feel very introspective tonight.  I realize when I get home, I will have 3 daughters ages 4 and under, a wife that will need more help than ever, and a job that has been neglected for weeks as this makes 21 nights out of the past 30 that I have been on the road.  I plan on being introspective again around 2019.  I don't know that I will have time before then, so I best get my thoughts out now.

Pickles.

I do not have big hands.  I am average size guy.  But a few weeks ago I was putting Anne to bed and she said that she wanted a back rub.  As I looked down rubbing her little back, I was surprised how big my hand looked.  My hand almost covers her entire miniature back.  I have big hands, I thought.

Pickles the firecat is one of my favorite books.  It helps that it is on my reading level.  If you do not have a copy, shame on you.  E-mail me and I will send you a copy.  Pickles caused a lot of trouble when he was young.  So did I.  My mother loves me, but described me in the family Christmas letter as "a slippery little fellow".  It was no accident, as she did it two years in a row.  She is my biggest fan and I love her more than words can say, I just offer that glimpse into my youth to substantiate the Pickles parallels.  There are stories I could tell, but I don't know when the statute of limitations expire so I will leave those out.  But Mrs Goodkind always looked out for Pickles.  Lord knows I have a lot of Mrs. Goodkinds in my life.  Pickles joins the fire department, as I did.  Pickles eventually goes on to be a productive member of society, as God has redeemed me to do as well.  Mrs. Goodkind tells Pickles that she always knew he would do big things, because Pickles had big paws.  This is where I wonder if Pickles had left me.  Have I done big things?  Do I have big paws?  I think my sin reveals itself in my thoughts as I confess now to you that the big things I always wanted to do were mostly centered on business accomplishments.  Just trying to do the next bigger thing.  Wanting someday people to look and say that I have done big things and that I have big paws, just like Pickles.  But I never felt like my hands, and the things they had done, were big enough.  Pickles was still just one step ahead of me.

Until Anne's backrub, that is.  I never realized how big my hands were.  And I sat by her bed in the half light of the night and came to understand that biggest things I ever do may just be to love my wife and raise these girls.  I rubbed her back until she went to sleep.  I have done big things. 

The timing of that was important because the addition of a child with special needs brings demands of time and money on our family.  On the first Monday after we return, I won't be at work trying to close a bigger deal than the last.  We will be meeting with a surgeon in Nashville.  There will be a lot of those Mondays.  So as we wind down this trip and bring Kate home to Anne and Molly, it is a new sense of committment to Liz and our daughters, and it is with a realization that biggest things I ever do won't be known to anyone but them.  That is hard for someone like me with so much pride and so much greed that penetrates my soul. I want to see my name in lights and everyone to say I have done big things.  Most of you parent sacrificially without a second thought.  It comes harder to me because a lot of the time I want to be out of the house trying to do something to make more money.  But God has shown me that what I thought were big things are not big things, but the things that are big, I am perfectly equipped to do.  You see, I have big paws, just like Pickles.

My wife.

This 14 days has been a treasure.  I cannot believe she married me.  Watching she and Kate bond, watching Liz handle this entire trip with grace and strength, watching how beautiful she is, it has been time that I will never forget and always treasure.  I am reminded how far above myself I married. 

The community.

If you are reading this you have probably done something with Anne and Molly in the past 14 days.  You will never know how much the service to our family has meant.  The love that has been shown to us is indescribable.  We have only left them for the night a handful of times since we first became parents 4.5 years ago.  To leave them for 14 days - and travel to China - seemed impossible.  What a blessing you are to have loved them and prayed over them and cared for them.  Word will never express our thankfulness, and there is not enough space on the internet to document every single thing that has been done to serve us in these two weeks.  We praise God for you.

The orphanage.

I was able to visit the orphanage last week before we left Nanchang.  It was a 3 hour drive to Yiyang County.  There maybe a million people in that county - most in the central city but there is a large countryside of farming and such surrounding the city.  The orphanage director, assistant director, and the nanny were all waiting for me.  They set of firecrackers in honor of my arrival and had hung a banner on the side of the building welcoming Kate back.  Kate actually stayed at the hotel with Liz, but it was a nice gesture on their part.  It was surreal to see where Kate spent her first 15 months of life.  Really hard to describe.  We will post some pictures if you are interested at some point.  Very surreal.  I was able learn so much about her life and ask so many questions and fill in so many gaps.  It was a blessing to be there.  Some of the only toys there were ones that you brought to Kate's birthday party and we mailed to the orphanage.  Your kindness continues to bless others a half a world away.  I believe that they loved Kate and did the best they could with what they had at the orphanage.  I was glad I went.  I will see if Liz can put the pictures up - some of them are very special.  Seeing Kate's empty crib is hard to describe. 

A rose for Kate.

Some of you read the story of the rose I found this summer.  I brought it with me to China.  They showed me the steps where Kate was left the day she was born.  I left one of the petals from the rose on the steps.  It was a sweet moment.  The orphanage said she was probably born in the country to poverty stricken farmers  and they left her because they would have no way to care for her cleft lip and palate and would not have known how to feed her.  It was a major act of love for her mother to leave her where she would be found.  Sadly some people never have a mother that loved them, Kate now has two mothers that love her.  I left the rose petal for the first.  It was my way of saying Kate is okay, and we will treasure her. 

Lunch.

The orphanage director took myself, the guide, our driver, and the assistant director out to a local restaurant for lunch.  The health department rating was not in the usual place that I look for it.  I have lived on protein bars for two weeks.  I could not pull the trigger on the local fare, so I simply said I do not eat lunch.  The guide was incredulous and asked me to repeat myself like 5 times.  I just stuck to my guns and said I only eat breakfast and dinner.  That stimulated a substantial amount of conversation amongst everyone in Chinese.  She did not translate that for me.  It was awkward as heck.  I don't care.  Liz thinks it is the funniest thing that happened on the trip.  It was embarrassing and not funny at all, but I am glad I didn't eat it. 

Bios and new lingo.

We are part of a new culture here with all of these adoptive families.  We are learning the lingo.  Children that you birthed are "bios".  Liz and I have two bios and one adopted.  I fancy myself funny at times and yesterday started referring to us as having two mergers and one acquisition.  I hope you find that as funny as I do.  Reponse has been guarded here so far.  Humor is not a requirement to adopt, so some of these families slid through the home study without it. 

Kate.

Last but not least, Kate.  She rocks.  You are all going to love her.  You are a big part of her story.  Come see her.  I could tell you everything that she does in great detail, as I have watched and loved every minute of it this week, but come see for yourself when we get home.  She is just precious.

Liz will post a few more things in the days to come and then turn the blog into a memory book for Kate to have as a story of how she became a Wessel. 

We are thankful for God's love for us, His adoption of us through Jesus, and the blessing that God has brought to us through each of you.

Good night....

James for the family.