Visit wtih the foster family - Part 1

I am sorry for the delay in posting about our visit to the foster family.  I have wanted to do this since we got home but got overwhelmed every time I thought about it.  For some reason it's a really emotional thing for me.  I suppose it might be for anyone in our shoes, but it still just all seems so fresh.  My heart aches for this family, for us, for Jake, and for the things that I will never know and experiences that our little guy had that we weren't apart of....both good and bad ones.  Somehow thinking of that day reminds me of the fallen state of mankind and the results of sin in the world.  It's not God's best for children to be orphaned.  I know that's really obvious, but just thinking back on that day and all that it entailed with visiting the orphanage, the foster family, and Jake's finding spot, I am reminded of that. 

Jeff and I struggled from the time we got Jake on Monday until we visited the foster family on Thursday as to whether or not we should visit them.  Jeff really wanted to pass on it and I really felt (sort of, kind of, at least intellectually) that we should visit them.  I thought it would be good for Jake to have pictures down the road, for us to see where he had been, for him even now to see all of us together and know it was okay, etc.  But Jeff worried about how he would respond.  Would it set him back?  I worried about that too, but still thought we should go.  I think now we are both extremely glad we went.  We and they were blessed by that time.  And anything I could do to bless them (short of giving my sweet little one back) I wanted to do.  It was so good for my other children to see where Jake had been. 

I don't know that I can do all of this in one post as I'm fading and promising myself more sleep tonight.  I could not figure out for the life of me why my knee felt it was going to burst when I bent it beyond 90 degrees until after about 4 days or so, it hit me that I had been carrying a 30 lb little one for over a month now.  My body just isn't the same as it was when I had Parker at 28 years old.  But it's all good. So anyway, here's the beginning from where I had started to post back in China.  I'll fill in more details in the next day or two.

"After the orphanage, we just rode down a street or two, still in the "oldest" part of town, and turned on to a side street. My heart was racing. Jeff is so different from me, which is a good thing, but I could feel his anxiety throughout the day. But I just had no idea what to expect. As soon as we turned onto this little side street, we stopped and got out. There was a swarm of people just taking in this van full of "white" people but within seconds I saw Jake's foster father. I immediately started to cry but the sweet prayer of a dear friend from a Saturday before we left helped me, I believe, to remember and hold back the tears. I felt renewed strength and just watched as our little guy took his hand and we proceeded to make our way back to their home. It was a bit like a procession. We didn't walk far before Jake saw his friend, also about 2 and with CP, and the foster dad lead him and us over to say hey to DumDum (sorry, don't have any idea how to spell it) who was sitting on the curb of his foster family's corner little supermarket stand / store. We got pictures of them together and Jake shared a car with him that we had bought for Jake that morning. Jake "beed" with him, which means he shared. I have no idea how to do the past tense of share in Chinese so I just did it the English way. It was precious. We then went on to the family's house. Up some staires to a very small but loving home where all the family had gathered to see Jake. I let the foster mom do what she's always done with Jake and she fed him congee and at some point gave him formula. Why in the world I was worried about what water she used to mix it, I have no idea. This is what he had been doing for over a year. We all gathered and began to dialogue. They shared so many stories of Jake. It was priceless. Just about brings me to tears as I type. I couldn't begin to share them all with you. But just a few. They say he is the "happy one of the home" and he is. He just seems so glad to be alive and wants to play games with you and by himself. They said that he greets the mom at the door by bringing her her shoes when she gets home. I can so see him doing that. They showed me what he likes to play with (a scooter) and told us about when they got Jake. They said that he was "very sick". That he couldn't sit up. That was at 1 year old. I asked them what they did for him and they said that they sat him and one sat behind him and they held him there."