February 2nd.
That doesn't seem like an auspicious date on the calendar. There are no national holidays. There are no parades. There are not even any Hallmark cards that are sold because of that date. But it has become an important date in my life. I didn't even realize that until I was looking back at old calendars.
Over the span of the past eight years, several important things have happened in my life on February 2nd.
February 2, 2006 was the first night of my Walk to Emmaus weekend, a weekend which profoundly deepened my Christian faith and actually set the foundation for my eventual willingness to adopt.
February 2, 2011 was the date that we went to see Steven Curtis Chapman and Josh Wilson in concert, and the priorities of my life were changed forever.
February 2, 2013 was our last day in China before bringing Jaden home (a day spent at Hong Kong Disneyland) ... the last day that he was not a US citizen.
Some of the people that I know have heard a little bit about what happened at the 2011 concert, but I don't think I have ever shared it on the blog.
February 2, 2011. Life was great. I was very satisfied with my life and with how things were going.
Little did I know that my life was about to be changed ... for the better. That night something happened that I can look back upon and absolutely state was a game-changer for me. What was so surprising is that the catalyst of this defining moment was a song lyric that was printed on a T-shirt.
I was waiting for the doors to open at the Steven Curtis Chapman (SCC) concert in Tulsa. There were two other artists listed as well (opening acts), but at that time I didn't know any of their songs. I had scored some seats to the pre-concert group-meet-and-greet with SCC, and so I got to the church where the concert was being held pretty early. The outside doors to the church were open, but the inner doors weren't open yet so I was in the hallway just waiting.
In my mind’s eye I can still see the hallway I was standing in, see the crowd of people milling around, see the workers setting up the stands to sell the bands’ T-shirts and CDs. I remember exactly how I was standing and what direction my body was turned. Isn’t it amazing that sometimes a moment in time is fixed forever in your memory because of its importance?
As I was glancing over the shirt designs, the words on one of the shirts for the "opening act" Josh Wilson caught my eye. "I REFUSE TO DO NOTHING"
That phrase stopped me in my tracks. For me it was a life challenge and a life message summarized in one sentence.
Once I got my seat, I Googled the lyrics to the song. The first line of the song reinforced my awareness that something important was happening to me. "Sometimes I just want to close my eyes / and act like everyone’s alright / when I know they’re not"
Then, during the concert, SCC showed a video about adoption. I had seen him at least twice before in concert, and at every concert he shows a video about the needs of orphans and the value of adoption. I had seen this at each of his previous concerts and had always thought something like, "yep, someone needs to do something to help those kids ... now let's get on with the show."
But that night I had been primed by the T-shirt's message, and my heart was not as guarded (or hardened) when the video started. After the concert I couldn't get the message of the video out of my mind.
This started a process which led me to evaluate what I was doing with my life, and ultimately led me to reevaluate my priorities in life.
I’ll admit, life was very comfortable at that time. Laura and Mitch were doing well at college, I had a great job and an amazing wife whom I love dearly, and my own little world was doing just fine on autopilot.
But several months earlier Tracy had mentioned an interest in adopting. I don’t know what I said out loud, but I do know what my internal response was: "Why would we want to do that?" You know … happy guy, happy family, comfortable little world … too blessed to take a chance like that … Being the wise woman that she is, Tracy just let it drop. (Incidentally, she doesn't say that it was wisdom that led to this but rather the fact that she was battling with the idea a little herself.)
I had not really given any further thought to that brief conversation, but after that T-shirt experience and the video in the concert, I began to evaluate my life and I kept coming back to the foreign and unexpected idea that maybe, just maybe I was supposed to reach outside of my comfortable life … maybe I wasn’t supposed to "do nothing" about those who are in need … maybe I should REFUSE TO DO NOTHING.
Ultimately this led me to being open to adopting.
Trust me, I didn’t get there overnight … it took several months of eliminating excuse after excuse. But I can definitely point to that moment in the hallway staring at that T-shirt as a turning point, a defining moment in my life.
Incidentally, Jaden has enjoyed plays and concerts ever since he became part of our lives. We got to go see Beauty and the Beast a few nights ago, and as always he sat enthralled the whole time. At intermission he was singing "Be Our Guest" and near the end of the 2nd act he turned to me and said "I want to see that again!"
He doesn't know it yet, but we will be taking him to see it again in 2 weeks, this time in Oklahoma City (and as an added bonus, we will be going back to the same auditorium where Tracy and I saw Jekyll and Hyde the night before we flew out to China last January to get Jaden.)
So what about February 2, 2013? We were in Hong Kong and visiting Hong Kong Disneyland for the final day. At that point we had officially adopted Jaden, but were in that strange situation where we were his parents but he was not yet a US citizen.
[Incidentally, we have booked a hotel in Hong Kong to spend a couple of days at Hong Kong Disneyland after we get Katie. Jaden was asking us to go play with him the other night, but we were going over details of the planning (well, Tracy taking care of all of the details and I was sitting next to her not really being helpful ... you know, the way we usually get our travel plans done!). Anyway, when he asked what we were doing, Tracy told him that we were making plans to go back and see Mickey Mouse. He was of course excited about that! But when we told him that this time his Mei Mei would be with him he had one of those bursts of cuteness that he is so adept at having ... he sucked in a big breath, froze, and then started shaking with excitement and let out a little breath of "wow!"]
Anyway, February 2, 2013 was another major transition point in my life. At that point we had been with Jaden in China for almost 2 weeks and had settled into our new relationship, but now we were taking the next step and flying across the ocean to bring him home. Things were about to change again ... for the better!
When we arrived in the USA it was February 3rd (incidentally, Super Bowl Sunday). You cannot take pictures in the customs area, and we wanted to get a picture of Jaden the first time he touched the ground in the US. As we carried him off of the plane and down the jetway into the terminal, we paused to put him down and take his picture. But he didn't want to get down. He wanted to be held (certainly understandable, with him not really knowing what in the world was going on). So I ended up holding him upside down, and the first time he touched the ground in the US was with his head! A few minutes later his paperwork had been handed off to the customs officials and we were through customs and he was officially a US citizen.
When we arrived in Tulsa he had finally fallen asleep (in the 26 hours of flying / travel time he only slept a little bit, and it was right there at the end of that flight). Unfortunately, he is a bit like me and does not like to have to wake up from naps on someone else's timetable, so his introduction to family and friends was not too, um, peaceful.
He cried for about 30 minutes on the drive home (that was Laura's introduction to him ... Mitch escaped it because he had to go back to Stillwater).
We had thought that he would not like car seats since they don't use them in China ... basically the kids just sit free without car seats or seat belts in China, and so we had expected him to balk at the idea of having to be in a car seat. Fortunately, he has never fussed about being in a car set after that day :-)
OTHER RANDOM THOUGHTS / COMMENTS
Jaden has enjoyed books since the night we got him in China. He enjoys lying down together and reading, and his library is rather extensive including books that used to be Mitch's and Laura's, new books given to him by Nai Nai and others, and books given to him by his friend Noah.
One of the things that we have always noted about Jaden is that he is drawn to Bibles. Regardless of what type of binding it has, regardless of size or color, regardless of anything that should or should not make a Bible stand out .... he is drawn to them. There can be a stack of six or seven books on a table and he will pick up the Bible and carry it around. When we go to a hotel (which he is always excited about), he will invariably find the Gideon Bible and carry it around.
(That reminds me of his fascination with crossed and roosters when we got him home from China. The first morning he woke up in his new home he walked around and explored, and was fascinated by the various crosses that we have around the house and also by the roosters (figurines, pictures, etc) that we have around the house ... and roosters are the image often associated with Emmaus, which has been so pivotal to the growth of my Christian faith.) (And when I went out to join Jaden after typing this ... he was walking around with two crosses in his hands :-) )
Anyway, back to the Bible story ... he was given a kids Bible at his adoption shower (that was given before we went to China to get him). He recently found it and he has been absolutely fascinated by it. He will look at it on his own for 30 minutes at a time, or he will have us read it all the way through in one reading and then ask us to read it again! He has been through the Bible more times than a lot of adults!
Since he has been home with us for one year, I went through our pictures from the last year trying to find a few that captured the main memories of 2013 ... there are really too many to put in a blog (I have narrowed our photos down to about 600 "absolute must use pictures" that will go into our 2013 photo book) ... but this next picture has always spoken to me for some reason.
One of my favorite pictures of our time in China is Jaden at the zoo in his OSU sweats. Those are also the same sweats that he wore home on the flight from China to the USA.
Those sweats were size 2T which aren't even close to fitting him anymore. It took me quite a while online, but I finally found the same sweats in 4T so we can get an updated shot of him in the same outfit when we go back to that zoo with Katie.
We have been gathering clothes for Katie, which is a little bit of a challenge because you never really know how accurate the information you get from China ends up being. From what we are hearing lately, though, she will be wearing smaller clothes than we had anticipated so we have been getting her smaller clothes to take with us to China. Tracy and Jaden were at Wal-Mart a couple of weeks ago while I was working on yet more adoption paperwork. While they were they Jaden told Tracy that we need to get a car seat for his Mei Mei. Tracy told him that we will probably get one online so we could pick the safest one for her. He was insistent that they get her something, so he ended up picking her some more clothes.
Jaden is so excited about Mei Mei coming home (although we are realistic enough to know that there will be times when he loses that excitement when he has to share our time with her.) Several times per week something will come up about her and he always gets excited about her joining our family.
His most recent excitement has been about the new floor space that we are having added to the house, a space that will be a play area for him and Mei Mei (and us). Tracy had the idea after seeing a post online about creative ways to utilize space above a staircase, and not long after that the first boards were being cut! This will be an added space which will tie into a small room upstairs that we have never really been able to use effectively due to its size.
Anyway, each day Jaden wants to see what has been done on this new area and now there is flooring down so he is able to walk around on it. Each time I mention that he and Mei Mei will be able to play here he gets such a beautiful smile on his face!
And just a few more pictures from 2013.
These are two of my all time favorites of just the two of us.
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And this one was taken at a little hidden pocket park at Six Flags, the same site that we have taken pictures of Laura and Mitch over the years as they have grown up.
And I know this blog is going on forever, but oh well ... here are a few more things.
As we near the end of the waiting period, things do start happening a little faster and so several important steps have been taken in the past few weeks.
Two weeks ago Jaden got his US passport ... he was VERY excited! When we applied for it a few weeks ago we explained to him that he had to have a passport like the ones we had (and we showed him ours) so that he would be able to go to China with us to get Katie. When his passport arrived I actually had thought that it was a book that Tracy had ordered online (Jaden LOVES to get mail, and she has been ordering books to come in occasionally so the package has his name on it). Anyway, I thought it was a book, so I handed it to him and told him he could open up his mail. When he opened it, though, it was his passport and he was ecstatic! Unfortunately none of the pictures that I took come even close to capturing his excitement. 
Last week the US government officially gave us permission to adopt Katie. (Prior to that, they had given us permission to adopt "a" child from China but had not given permission to adopt Katie.) This was yet another step in the process, but after that we were able to do a couple more things ...
1) we sent off for the visa for our travel into China and
2) we sent off for the visa for Katie to come into the USA.
In order to get his visa to enter China, we had to sign a paper saying that he renounced his China citizenship. While I am obviously very happy for him to be a US citizen, it felt very odd for me to be the one typing up the letter renouncing his citizenship.
One last comment about "recent events" although it is not really "recent" ... When the weather got cold a couple of months ago Tracy pulled out her jacket that she had worn in China. In her pocket were two Chinese coins. When she looked at them she noted the dates they had been minted ... 2009 (Jaden's birth year) and 2012 (Katie's birth year). When she put them in her pocket in China a year ago we didn't even know that Katie existed!
And a few final pictures to share from the days after Jaden got home ... the first one was while Laura still lived at home (she has moved to an apartment in Tulsa since then) ... when she had to leave to go to school on one of the first days Jaden was here, he wanted to stay with her. She told him that she had to leave to go to school, so he indicated that he would just go with her, picked up his stuff, and tried to leave with her :-) And the other two pics are just one of great sibling love!
Sorry about the length of this blog, but I don't do many so I kinda save up my thoughts I guess. Happy February everybody!
