Bringing Home Hope from China

There is a little girl named Xiao-Hua at Bethel whom our family met when we were picking up Hope. She has poor vision, and also has some issues with her bones. They thinks she has something called Mandible Osteoperosis, but they need a US doctor to confirm that and do further testing.  A donor has graciously committed to giving $15,000 to send her to the United States for treatment. They also have said that they will give the $15k to any family who is willing to adopt her, so that instead of coming here for treatment, then going back to China, she would be able to stay on with a family who loves her. She is such a precious little girl. We met her while we were in China, and haven’t been able to get her off our hearts. She needs a family! Her deepest desire and prayer is that God would bring her a family, and she talks about it non-stop. If you or anyone you know would be interested in adopting her, please email me! This is an absolute miracle to have someone willing to pay for almost the entire adoption. Please stand with us in prayer that the Lord will bring her a family who will love and cherish her. Thank you!!!

In China – 22 pounds

Today- 27 pounds!

Total gained in 3 months- 5 pounds

She is now wearing a size 3t!!!!

Go Hope! 🙂

The following article was posted on www.cnn.com today. It was written by Steven Curtis Chapman, who will be live on Larry King tonight. I was deeply moved by this article, and I wanted to post it here.

FRANKLIN, Tennessee (CNN) — According to UNICEF, there are 143 million children in the world who have lost one or both parents.

In America alone, there are half a million children in foster care, and approximately 120,000 of these children are waiting to be adopted. In many countries, children are too often orphaned or abandoned because of poverty, disabilities and disease; every 15 seconds, a child loses a parent because of AIDS. These are staggering facts that can seem overwhelming and discouraging, but I believe that God has a loving plan for each child, and that plan is you and me.

Caring for these children is not the job of governments or institutions; instead, it is the job of families, people and communities. As Christians, our compassion is simply a response to the love that God has already shown us. Mother Teresa would constantly remind those who worked with her that the Bible clearly teaches that whatever we do for the least of these, we do for Jesus. So in a very real sense, caring for orphans is a chance to meet the person of Jesus in “the guise of human suffering.” This is an invitation from the heart of God to know him and to experience his love.

Nine years ago, my wife and my eldest daughter, Emily, traveled to Haiti on a mission trip. Having been exposed to extreme poverty for the first time, Emily returned home with a determined passion to make a difference in the lives of at-risk children.

Only 12 years old, Emily went on an all-out campaign to persuade us to adopt. She bought a book on international adoption with her Christmas money and would read it to us regularly. She began fervently praying and writing letters to Mary Beth and me, encouraging us to consider giving a waiting child a home. Emily knew God was leading us in the direction of adoption; however, Mary Beth and I were not yet convinced.

Larry King Live

Steven Curtis Chapman tells Larry King how a tragic accident helped restore his faith.

My wife and I had always supported the idea of adoption, and as Christians, we understood the importance of loving and caring for others. But what I had not yet grasped was that adoption is a physical picture of what Jesus has done for me. I did nothing to deserve God’s love; in fact, I was living as an orphan, without hope. Yet God chose to pursue a relationship with me, and through the death of his son Jesus, I was adopted into God’s family.

My wife and I began moving toward adoption with fear and trembling and asking all the questions people ask. I remember Mary Beth crying herself to sleep at night saying, “What are we doing? I can’t do this.” However, God kept reassuring us that this was the direction he was leading us. It was a huge journey of faith for us.

In May of 2000, we found ourselves in a hotel room in China’s Hunan province, welcoming the newest member of our family, Shaohannah Hope. From that moment, we began our journey into the world of adoption, orphan care and Shaohannah’s Hope.

We went on to adopt Stevey Joy and Maria. Recently, our youngest daughter, Maria, passed from life on this earth and is now safely in the arms of Jesus. We have been completely overwhelmed by the love and support of so many during this time of deep, deep sadness. Through all that we’ve experienced, one thing we still know is true: God’s heart is for the orphan.

In our travels to Latin America, Africa and Asia, we have visited many different orphanages. If you look past the surroundings and into the eyes of the children, they all have the same look. They seem to convey, “I don’t think this is what I was made for. Where do I belong?”

These children are crying out for the hope of a family, for the hope of community, for the hope of a permanent love. Our mission, and the mission of our adoption charity, Shaohannah’s Hope, is to show hope to these children and to mobilize people, families and communities to be living examples of God’s love for them.

We started Shaohannah’s Hope in order to connect willing families with waiting children, but the reality is that there are many orphans who cannot be adopted. Even though we may not be able to bring them into our homes, we still have the opportunity to show them the hope we have.

If only 7 percent of the 2 billion Christians in the world would care for a single orphan in distress, there would effectively be no more orphans. If everybody would be willing to simply do something to care for one of these precious treasures, I think we would be amazed by just how much we could change the world.

We can each do something, whether it is donating, adopting, fostering, mentoring, visiting orphans or supporting families that have taken in orphans. You can change the world for an orphan

Please pray for our friends the Cliftons. They are trying to adopt Hope’s best friend from Bethel, and have run into a ton of hurdles. They have been working for the past year to get this little girl’s file. It has seemed at times an impossible hurdle, but they are still making progress, and the Lord is granting them small victories along the way. At this point, they need the file of this little girl to go to their agency. I dont want to go into the logistics of the whole thing, but if you could just pray that the Clifton’s agency would receive the little girl’s file from China, we would absolutely appreciate it! These folks need a miracle, and we need it now! Thanks everybody!!!

Love,

Kim

Today we visited the Blind Children’s Learning Center of Orange County. We moved to Irvine recently, mainly to be closer to Todd’s job and reduce expenses. But it turns out that it was a great move in other ways too! We now live much closer to this learning center, which is one of just two such resource centers in all of Southern California! The other one is in L.A., which would be an hour commute each way. This works out well since it’s only ten minutes from our house! 🙂

We took a tour of the facility, and spoke with the staff. It was great to have them evaluate Hope, and see some of the behaviors I was worried about. She often hits my chin repeatedly, and it is something that has been really bothering me, because it hurts and I can’t seem to get her to stop doing it. They saw her doing this, and said that it is a very typical self stimulating behavior for blind children (she likes the way my chin feels, and it stimulates her). They have occupational therapists on staff there who will work with her to redirect those kinds of behaviors and teach her other things that she can do to stimulate herself that are more socially acceptable. It was great to get that feedback, because I wasn’t sure what her behaviors were stemming from. It turns out that many of the behaviors we have been most concerned about are common to blind children, and have been termed “blindisms”. The staff was so knowledgeable and kind to us, and Hope enjoyed her tour of the facility, and she got to play with a lot neat tactile toys. I appreciated how they have the classrooms geared to help the visually impaired. For instance, they have the kids on brailler machines, and from an early age the kids learn to “scribble” just like sighted kids do with crayons and paper. They teach them orientation and mobility, braille, and many other things.

It turns out that Hope will be able to start attending their preschool program twice a week, and also receive occupational therapy, and it’s all free of charge! What a relief to know that she will be in such great hands. At first I was hesitant about sending her to preschool so soon, but after watching her interact with the staff and seeing her interested in everything there, I think she will do just fine, especially once she is on a routine with it. The staff there also encouraged us that the sooner the better for her to get in and start benefiting from their resources.

We also recently found out some news about a great school in our city that our older two kids will begin attending in the fall. We have been homeschooling for the past five years, since our oldest son was in Kindergarten. This school is an extension of homeschooling, where they go and receive instruction in writing, science, music appreciation, social studies, math, and art on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and then we do our homeschooling on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays which will integrate with what they are doing at the school. We wanted to be a part of it last year, but it was too far from home. Now the school has moved, and is only about 10 minutes away from us here in Irvine. Everyone is excited, and this Mommy is also excited to have a little break this year! 🙂 Hannah will still be with me on those two days, and we will make it a fun date time together. Hooray!

So just wanted to share the good news. Hope goes back in for another checkup at the ophthalmologist on August 15th, and we will certainly keep you updated!

Love,

Kim

Hope experienced her first earthquake today. She was sitting in her high chair, chomping on cheerios, and then it hit. I was on the phone with my mom, and I said, “I gotta go! We’re having an earthquake!” She said, “What? You’re having an….Oh My! We’re having an earthquake!” So we hung up, and I ran and got Hope out of her chair, and all the other kids were sitting on the couch, so we all just sat there and rode it out. It wasnt too long, and it was actually, in everyone’s opinion, pretty fun. 🙂 Hope didnt seem to mind either way. It didnt even seem like she noticed anything. Just wanted to update all of you out of staters!

Love,

Kim

Today Hope had her second checkup since the surgery. The doctor did an ultrasound of her eyeball, and said that what he saw was “extraordinary”. Her retina has moved back into place, and is now in position to reattach itself. He said that it was remarkable that it happened so quickly, only a week and a half since surgery. He said it was something that usually would take a month or two. He said he was very hopeful for a great outcome. So I asked him what a great outcome would be in his opinion, and he said it meant that she may be able to see light, shadows, and possibly movement “if we’re lucky.” Well, I know that she already sees light for sure, because she turns her head to look at it all the time, even before surgery. And I know she sees shadows, because she navigates around stuff. So to me, it wasn’t all that spectacular. I wanted him to say something more like “we are hopeful for a full recovery” or something like that. But he was really impressed by the way her eye went from completely detached, to now bumped up right against the retina. I asked him if he has ever seen any miracles as a doctor. He said, “Well, not yet anyway. ” So I said, “We will be your first!” and he gave me a little chuckle.

Hope has a lot of people praying for her. We are excited about what God is doing, and we are believing Him for a great outcome! Thank you for keeping her in your prayers! We love you!

Tonight Hope was feeling her way around the house with her eye patches on. She likes to play with the door, so I was listening to the sound of her opening and closing her bedroom door. Suddenly it got quiet, and I knew something was up. I rounded the corner, and she was taking off her eye patches. I took a look at her eyes, and she kept looking over towards the kitchen light. So I took her into the kitchen, and she was looking up at the light smiling. I held up a little jam jar, and she grabbed it right out of my hand! Then I quietly held up a grape. Grabbed it! Held up a spoon. Grabbed it! She was giggling, and kept tilting her head, and looking at me.

I called the doctor, and told him, and he said that it would be too early to be able to make any conclusions about that, but he did find it encouraging…….. 😉

We just want to say thank you to all of you who have emailed us and encouraged us about Hope. Its so neat to know that we have so many people out there who are rooting for her, and praying for all of us! Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!

She has been doing well. She has to wear these big patches on her eyes for the next two weeks. They are outlined in pink, and she looks like a diva with huge sunglasses. She is taking it really well, and hasn’t been trying to pull them off, which we were worried about.

We took her back to the doctor the day after surgery. He took a look at her eyes, and said all looked well.  Basically, his report is this: her left eye has a severe detached retina, with a tear in the retina. He pretty much left that eye alone, except for removing some scar tissue. But he said that the right eye did well in the surgery. The retina was severely detached, but no tears or holes. He removed 90% of the scar tissue, and he said now we just wait for the retina to re-attach itself which will take 3-6 months. We will go back every week or so to check her eyes, and make sure they are healing up well from the surgery.

The news was a blow at first….especially the part about WHY she is blind in the first place. But the Lord has been showing us that HE is the healer, and He will heal her heart, and that LOVE conquers darkness. So we have been soaking that little girl in prayer, and we are so delighted that the God of Heaven chose our little family to be the ones that get to be with her and raise her up. We believe that God has AMAZING plans for this little girl. Although we grieve at her past, we rejoice in her future. And we will never stop believing that God does miracles, and He is the one who can heal this little girl!

Thank you for your love and your prayers! You’re awesome! 🙂

Today was such a hard day. We went to the hospital this morning with high hopes that today was the day that Hope was going to see! We were sooo excited! We got there at 5:30am, and went to admitting, then to the exam room, then to surgery prep. She had to drink a medicine to make her sleepy, but it took a LONG time for it to go into effect. All the other kids who drank it about the same time, were laying in their beds, nodding off, but not Hope! She was jumping up and down in the bed, practicing her drum beats on the mattress, and laughing and giggling. She looked like a drunken sailor. Finally, although she never got “sleepy” she was drunken enough to wheel into the anesthesia room without realizing that they were wheeling her away from me.

I spent the next few hours walking around the hospital, eating McDonald’s, and just waiting. All of the sudden I had a heavy feeling come over me like I knew the diagnosis wasn’t good. I kept trying to brush it off, but it didn’t go away. About 20 min later the nurse called me into the consult room to meet with the doctor. I was on the verge of tears because I was realizing that although my hopes had been SOOO high, I had to be prepared for the doctor to tell me what I didn’t want to hear.

He explained that Hope is one of the most unusual cases that he has ever seen. He said that she doesn’t have PVPH, what he originally thought she had. He said that it was clearly trauma, and that he strongly suspects that she has shaken baby syndrome. He showed me the pictures of her eyeballs, and her retinas were both almost completely detached. He wanted to do surgery to remove the scar tissue, so after a quick conversation, he went into surgery.

At that point, I just waited.  It took about 3 hours of surgery, and then they called me into the room to talk to the Dr. again. He told me that her left eye was considerably worse than he thought, and that not only was her retina detached, but there was a hole in her retina. There was nothing he could do for her left eye. He said that surgery on the right eye went considerably well, and that he removed 90% of the scar tissue. Now it’s time for the retina to reattach itself. It will take about 3 months. He said that the best case scenario would be that she would only be able to see light and shadows. It was kind of discouraging. Then they took me in to see her. She had big patches taped to her eye, with a big gauze wrapped around her head, to keep her hands from taking off the patches. They had her arms in slings, to keep her from bending them and ripping off her patches. It was so sad to see her that way. They let me rock her, and I just kept telling her again and again that we love her, and that she is going to be ok.

Now we go back in the morning to get the patches removed. They said that she shouldn’t be in any pain from the surgery, and to just give her tylenol. I will post tomorrow once we get the patches taken off, and let you know if there is any other news.

I was really feeling discouraged, not even about her eyes, but mainly about the fact that she was treated so badly as a baby. It makes me sick to think of it. But the Lord came in the midst of the darkness, and spoke to my heart. He said, “My Love is More Powerful than Hate. My Love Conquers All.”

Kimberly called me (Todd) earlier with an updated prognosis from the Doctor. She said she felt a heaviness come on her a while before he came out so she knew it wasn’t going to be good news. The doctor said that her retinas are almost completely detached. He showed Kimberly the pictures, and the retinas look all deflated. He said this is what they commonly see with Shaken Baby Syndrome.

He said he is going to go ahead and do surgery to remove scar tissue around the retinas, so that they have a chance to reattach themselves. He said it will probably require another surgery in about six months to remove more scar tissue, and then by doing so, Hope has a 25% (one in four) chance of acquiring improved vision.

This is just me, but I am wondering if he read the report from China that had already said her retinas were detached… I am just a little frustrated right now that he got us excited and now it turns out that the original report was accurate and it doesn’t look like she even has the condition he thought she had… But I have to keep it all in perspective because he is just trying to help, and if she was going to have this procedure, it is probably the sooner the better to give her retinas a chance to heal.

The surgery will probably still last another couple hours from now (11am PST)… Thanks for your prayers! 😉

Mike giving Hope a guitar lesson

Can you believe it?! Im just looking at this little girl, and I keep thinking about how she might be able to see TOMORROW!!!

We go to the hospital early in the am. I will keep you all posted!!!!!