Home!

It's official! I'm home (it's actual been official for a few days but this is first time I've been awake enough to write about it ^^)! 

  My mom and several of my sisters (including these two cuties, look at the wonderful sign they made!) came to pick me up from the airport. It feels good to be home yet it feels so foreign as well. I miss China and Taiwan very much and all the wonderful new friends I made there but I also missed my family here a lot! 

     Hopefully The Lord has it in His plans for me to go back very soon (2014!). 

Already we have so much going on here at home (some very, very, exciting things!) but I will post about that later. I will post a summery of the whole trip as soon as I catch my breath. 

Gabby

China and Wifi...

Hello my long lost bloggy friends :)

So, I'm supposed to be in China and Taiwan, updating you all on my journey... Well I am in China (actually I just arrived in Taiwan a couple days ago) but I had very, very little access to wifi while I was in China, almost none of the hotels had it and when they did we were usually gone for the whole day, came back and slept, then moved on to the next town and hotel the next morning so there hasn't been a lot of blogging opportunities. 

In Taiwan though there has been great wifi service so hopeful I'll be able to keep you all a bit more in the loop. I will do a whole summery of my trip when I get home but for now I will just briefly go over my thoughts thus far and what I am doing right now in Taiwan. 

My sister and I saying goodbye at the airport (right now she is also abroad in Italy for music but I will touch on that another day).

Thus far it's been so awesome! I have learned more about my Father, how He loves His children and how sovereign and good He is. I have also had life changing experiences and made new lifelong friends. 

 

I absolutely love China! I love the food, the culture, the people...etc

Now there will always be things I don't like or even agree with but as a whole I love this country and so look forward to the day (Lord willing) when I will get to live here and be in China everyday! 

We spent a lot of time in Guangxi, Southern China, and I loved it! We went to some large cities but also got to spend  a lot of time in the countryside. I will be in the rural countryside in north eastern China someday so it was really cool for me to see and experience what the countryside in the south was like :) 

Right now I'm at a University in Yilan (about an hour from Taipei) which is located very deep in the mountains. I can also see the Pacific Ocean from here though! Maybe if I look far enough I can see my home in Cali ;) 

 

I am working as a student leader and have six students that I am leading and guiding through the camp and all the topics, and so on. I was really blessed with my group! Most of them are actually around my age so sometimes it can be kind of awkward for me leading them and being their teacher but they are so great and just go with it! They are creative and most of them are not afraid to speak up and add their opinions and add to the conversations (a lot of the students are very quite and timid). 

 

I am also having a great time with the volunteer staff! They are all so fun to be around. The past couple of nights we have walked up from the dorms to the gym (this place is so big, it takes thirty minutes to get from the dorms to the gym!) and watched some of the men play basketball and is girls would play volleyball or just did around and talk. I also had my first ride on a motor bicycle (here they are like in between a motorcycle and a moped)! Because the gym is so far away some of the volunteers would give us rides up or down :) 

(This one is actually the outside court)

One girl who is here as one of the volunteers in particular has become dear to me. 

Her name is Kiwi. She is like an older sister to me, always watching over and taking care of me yet at the same time treating me as an equal. She is so kind and sweet! She reminds me a lot of my big sisters at home. It makes me miss them...

Well the countdown to me going home has begun. Only four days left! I have very mixed feeling about leaving. I'm ready to be home, see my family, and get back into helping in any way I can to bring Sevi home (we are so close!) but at the same time I love it here and wi miss everyone I have met so, so much! Hopefully it won't be too long before I come back.

 

Gabby

When Dreams Become Reality

Yep, you guessed it! I am going to China! I leave this coming Tuesday and will be there for almost a month (ah!). I'm going on this trip for a variety of reasons, the first on my list is I will get to volunteer at two orphanages (so excited for this!) as well as possibly play my violin for the children there :) I will get to tour different parts of Southern China, visiting minority groups, schools...etc. I will also be able to take cultural classes!

After about ten days the group I'm traveling with and I will head up to Beijing for a few days and get to see all the sights there :) We will be in mainland China for two weeks and then after that most of the group will go home but I was asked to be a student leader at a leadership conference in Taiwan so I will be there for a week, and then after that I will head back to the USA.

I am so excited and blessed to be able to go on this trip. I will miss my family so much and feel a bit lonely knowing that I will be experiencing this for the first time without any of them :( but I know that this is a great opportunity for me and something I have dreamed about for so long now! Speaking of dreams I would just like to highlight on my family, my mom and my grandfather in specific, and how they have impacted my life and helped me get to where I am today. 

My mom grew up in a christian home with four kids (my mom being the youngest), she had a mom who was loving, hardworking, and stubborn (love you grandma!), and a father who was kind, compassionate, stern, a pastor, and my moms inspiration. As a young child my mom grew up everyday watching the love and compassion my grandfather had for others and was exposed to different cultures through missionaries and families from other countries staying in her home. She had dreams and aspirations to live in either Africa or China, caring for orphans and those in need.

The love for the Lord and love for others my grandfather had was so strong and so full that it overflowed and filled my mom. Although my grandfather died when my mom was thirteen and I never had the chance to meet him, I am so thankful that The Lord saw fit to make him MY grandfather. 

(My grandfather is the man on the right. He, like a lot of young men back then, served in the military before he became a pastor.)

Fast foreword a lot of years (I'm sure my mom would just love for me to say how many ^_^) I was born as the fourth child of eight kids. Until I was about ten or eleven it was just my mom raising five of us on her own. Times were tough but she still felt the conviction to homeschool us and stay at home. She had so much responsibility and so much she had to take care of, but my moms heart was so big it always had room for others whether they were adults, children, or animals. 

I remember times when we were so pinched, but there would be that stray dog on the side of the road that she would take in and find a good home for, or times when her mind was so full and heart was weary, but she would always make time to listen to a person in need of a friend.

 As a young kid I was sure I would grow up working with/caring for animals. I couldn't bare to watch a baby bird fall out of the tree and ignore it until it died, I would always beg my mom to let me take care of it. I remember one bird in particular, I named him Lucky.

I was about nine years old when I found him out under the tree in my front yard. I watched him all day to see what would happen. At the end of the day I got a box, some rags, a pair of tweezers, meel worms, crushed up snail (yuck!), and a baby's medicine despensor filled with water. I carefully picked up that baby bird and took him in. I raised him so carefully and when the time came, I taught him to fly. After he could fly he would be gone for days at a time, but all I would have to do was whistle and call his name and he would fly back from wherever he was and land onto my shoulder. I think that was the first time I had anything be so dependent of me. He couldn't make it alone, but I could help. 

The next year after that, when I was ten, I read an article in a magazine that my mom had. It was about a young girl who was about the same age as I who lived in the Philipenes. She had just been orphaned.

It broke my heart to read. Just like my baby bird had no one to look after him, that young girl was now the same. I begged my mom that summer to let me go to the Philipenes. She told me no then but it was the start of something much greater.

It would be five years after that incident that I would first learn about North Korea, their orphans, the orphans in China, and the stateless children. Ever since The Lord has placed such a burden on my heart for these children. 

His command to care for the orphans has now become my dream and I am now taking the first steps to this dream becoming reality, and it all started with my grandfather. My mother watched him and was inspired to live her life out like he did, and now as I have grown up I have been so awed and inspired by the care and love that comes out of the woman I call mother, I couldn't ask for anything more then to be just a fraction of who she is (love you mom!!).

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

When dreams....

                                                                                               ...Become reality

Mother's Day

Well, 

I know that Father's Day has now gone and passed but I still have yet to post about Mother's Day! I've had it ready and written for a while, I just haven't gotten around to hitting that "publish" button. Talk about lazy! Anyway, here it is :) 

We got up early Mothers Day morning (all of us trying to look nice for the occasion) and had a nice morning at church and then headed to Newport beach for the day, just us girls, my mom, and grandma. 

 This is also Maida's first time at the beach. She was so excited. 

My lovely grandma with the littles before we headed out :) 

Walking on the pier. 

Trying to look at the camera without squinting :). I love these girls! 

When we finally got down to the sandy part of the beach Maida was just completely mesmerized. She'd never seen so much sand in her life! She was pretty sure that she was going to fall through the ground, haha.

 

After a little bit though she was fine and was galavanting around, totally loving it! 

These two were just so cute that day, we all ended taking a ton of pictures of them. 

Maida also had never seen kelp before and really didnt want anything to do with it. Big sister Bella showed her that it was ok. 

 

She eventually warmed up to that as well. 

Some of the big ones :) 

Bella loves her California beaches!

Discovering the ocean. 

Happy girl! 

My mom wanted to get a picture of all of her kids, sadly though my brother couldn't be there that day. Sevi will (Lord willing!) be here with us next Mothers Day to share in all this fun and love. 

True sisters, no matter how they came to be. 

Now for some flashback photos! Me with my mama when I was just a wee one

I love my mom so much and am so proud of her and so thankful for raising me to love Christ, to love my family, to love to play, and to learn. I hope one day I can be just 1/100th of a woman and a mother that my mom is. 

 

Love you mom!

Gabby

He Has the Whole World in His Hands

Today I was going to write about Mother's Day and something else that has recently come up in my life, but something so amazing happened in these last two days and I just had to write about it.

Our household has been very blue lately. Fundraising sometimes can be very disheartening, especially with so many people out there who oppose it, yet we still have so much funds to raise. Originally when we were in Congo last November we thought for sure we would be traveling again by this June to get Sevi, well things are looking very bleak in that regard, pushing Sevi further and further away. It was tough staying positive but God always has control!

Last night as my family went through our garage full of donated items for our adoption yard sale we got a surprise donation from someone we didn't even know, a stranger! Our spirits were definitely lifted, but it gets better! Today my mom and I went with Maida and Bella to watch my sister' string quartet preform at her college. On the way home we talked about what our next line of actions should be in the adoption process...etc. when we got home we checked our mailbox, hoping for something from USCIS. Instead we got another surprise donation! Our spirits are so lifted and we feel rejuvenated and ready to go! God always provides, He takes care of His own, He has the whole world in His hands and I am so very glad for that! 

Gabby

The Process

There is lots going on in our adoption process for Sevi right now!

A couple months ago a few families traveled to pick up their children and so we were blessed with getting some new pics of Sevi.

One of the girls who left had been there at the orphanage with Sevi for quite some time and was a close friend of hers. I can't imagine how sad Sevi felt when she left, but I am glad that her other friend, W, was and is there to keep her company :) (For privacy reasons some of the childrens faces have been hidden)
                 

Sevi with her friend Delice and her new mom

Three amigos!

We also have gotten to send her several care packages, and got to see the video of her getting her family book! (She says my name somewhere in there ^^)!

http://youtu.be/4DdPPHQxCNU (link to the video)

She was pointing out Maida to one of the nannies here

She wanted to show everyone her new family :)

Including Mama Julia of course

My mom sent her a picture of our entire family and a picture of us two (the only ones of us she has actually met and really knows). Our in country coordinator said that when she got those pictures she was so happy and showed everyone in the orphanage, we were told that she keeps them somewhere safe and special.

Here are some more photos that have trickled in over the course of these past few months.

Getting her nails painted

She is too cute!

She loves to sing and dance! Almost all the videos we have are of Sevi singing and dancing.

About a month or two ago an old friend contacted my family and told us that her brother lives in Congo right now and would love to go visit Sevi for us and tell us how she's doing, to be able to talk to her and translate all that we wanted to say to her, and take pictures of course! What a blessing that was for us, and other families as well!

Among other things Joel and his friends brought the kids some good ol' American baseball t's :)

Not only did this man and a couple of his friends go and hang out with the kids and take pictures for us, but they brought toys, and ice cream, and tried to and gave us suggestions on how to make the orphanage a better place with what they had to work with (he said he was already very impressed with the way the orphanage was run). It was just so great and we, along with many of the families in our agency, had our spirits finally lifted after a lot of tough roads in all of our adoption journeys. Before I get into that though I would like to write down what our friend said about Sevi, specifically.

This is what he said:
"Sevi does read. They do have classes in the morning for a couple hours. She is absolutely a beautiful young girl (Moi siki Toko in Lingala). She has a heart warming smile (that includes her eyes!). She is quite by nature. She does play, does warm up, does spend time playing with the other kids and is in a "big sister" role for quite a few of them, helping out where she can. Piggy back rides, changing clothes, setting them up for naps."

 "When asked she said her favorite food was spaghetti, but then changed her mind and said any kind of meat" :)

Something our friend told us about Sevi though made me a little sad, but all the more eager to bring her home. When we asked if she was excited, scared, happy, or sad about coming home to us he said: "I think Sevi is concerned it won't come to fruition (that we weren't really coming for her) so her hopes won't be to high..." :(

We areso thankful that Joel went to visit the orphanage and give us an update on how she's doing

He then went on to say (bragging on my sister a little here): "She has an awesome spirit, though! Holy cow is this kid wonderful! Don, Allen (his friends that went with him) and I all thought that and had independent conversations on it, unsolicited. She actually touched all 3 of us above and beyond the rest of the kids." Wow! We were so touched that he would say that. Oh we can't wait to bring her home!

Speaking of which this is the not so fun part :(. There has apparently been a lot of changes in the process on the Congo side of things which has been slowing things down quite a bit as they try to figure it all out. Part of the new ways is a longer wait period for her investigation and after it. The wait time has been pushed from a month to anywhere from 3-6 months! We are so bummed! We were hoping to travel in June or July at the latest, but it doesn't seem possible right now :( I know we just have to wait and trust in The Lord, His plans are always better then ours. We also are really done with fundraising (this topic is another post to come) but know we have to continue on to raise the last half of the money needed.

This past week we did get to do something very exciting though...We got to file the i600 for Sevi! We got her adopton decree and passport a couple weeks ago and were able to file last week. Hopefully that will all be finished soon and then it's on with the investigation. After that we just have her visa we need! So close, yet still so far away :( we are trusting and waiting though! Keep praying for us, that my family would be strong and that we will wait on The Lord and trust Him to provide.

Gabby