handsful

So, last week a mom posted pictures on the Luoyang Orphanage Yahoo group we’re members of.  She had sent a birthday cake to her soon-to-be daughter…there are organizations that allow you to do this, they deliver the cake to the orphanage and everything.  We’ll be doing that in July for Dylan’s 3rd birthday.  Anyway, she added the pictures to the yahoo site and told the other waiting families to check and see if any of our kiddos might be in the pictures. 

Well, I’ve looked through ALL the photos posted on that site, in the off chance I might recognize Dylan…even though the latest pictures we have are almost 12 months old.  (We have to wait until May for our agency to request new pictures and updated stats of him.)  In all those photos, none have ever jumped out at me as a possibility for Dylan.  Until…

I was looking through my friend’s pictures and I stopped at this one. 

He’s sitting beside the birthday girl (I cropped the picture).  Is that Dylan?  My friend thought so, after she compared this photo to our referral pictures.  And, someone else on the board posted that she enjoyed the birthday pictures and said “I see Donna’s son, too.”  I asked them why they thought so, and they pointed out…same hairline, eyes, ears (left one looks a little larger, like in our referral pics), and left eyebrow is a little more pointed, too (like we’ve seen in the referral pics). 

After checking other pictures on the Louyang site, I found that someone else had JUST posted a few more from this month.  They were in China with their daughter, and were able to visit the orphanage and take pictures of some of the kids.  And, there he was again…

Scroll down and compare these to our referral pics – understanding that he would have obviously aged quite a bit.  I really see it in his close-up with the red background.  What do you think??

inside and out.

Forgive the picture quality, but here are the contents of the care package we sent Dylan today.  A few toys, photo album showing him his new family, a camera that we hope is used to take pictures of him, and treats for the nanny’s and children. 

We sent 2 care packages to Lainey while waiting, and sadly neither were received by the orphanage…we have no idea why.  So, we’re praying this one makes it.  It will let him know that there is a family waiting for him (China usually doesn’t officially inform the orphanage until travel has already been approved, and we’re months away from that). 

On another note, Randy did some tweaking to the Pages part of the blog – some of them hadn’t been updated since we began Lainey’s adoption.  Oops.  That’s been taken care of, so check them out :)

He’s wearing some form of pink or purple in EVERY picture we have of him. 

We’ve decided to name our new son Dylan.  Randy suggested this name a while back, when we were still making our decision to adopt him.  One night, we were online looking at boy names and decided to look up the meanings of the boys names we had on a list. 

Remember what Yu Hai means?  Yu – “of” or “for”  Hai – “sea”.   So, you could say it means “of the sea”. 

We were floored to read what the name Dylan means…. it means “son of the sea”

How cool is that? 

So, Yu Hai is our Dylan.  Dylan YuHai.

taken around age 1

Dang Yu Hai…our son!  Yes, we’re headed back to China for just one more.  One more child to love, one more sibling for the “crew”.

Ever since adopting Lainey, we’ve kept our minds and hearts open to going back.  Sometimes we felt a clear sense of going back, and other times we felt the opposite.  Most of the time, Randy’s and my feelings didn’t match.  I think maybe God was working on us separately :)

We were like minded about several things, however.  If we did go back, it would be for a son.  And, we were both feeling very comfortable with the special need of limb difference – this can mean additional digits, missing limbs, etc.  We also wanted him only slightly younger than Lainey (Randy was fine with slightly older).

taken at age 21 months

On December 23rd, I was “browsing” the files on the CCAI Waiting Child website.  When our agency receives files from China, they then match the children’s files with waiting parents who have indicated on their medical checklist that they’d like  a child of this gender/age/special need.  The files that do not match anyone’s checklist are posted on CCAI’s website.

A photo caught my eye, so I clicked on the link to read more.  I noticed it was a boy (the photo had him in a pink shirt, so I wasn’t sure at first!), noticed he was born in 2007, and saw that  he had a limb difference.  I started an email to send to the waiting child department, asking if we could be put on the list to see his file (there are usually others in front of you).  While I was reading the email, I looked at his actual birthdate.  July 4, 2007.  One year to the DAY younger than Lainey.  Wow.

The next few days were filled with lots of prayer, thought, and discussion with our kids.  The kids were totally on board right away, rolling their eyes at us as we continued to ponder and pray.  Eventually, we knew.  He was ours, we had to go get him.

So, the major details are:

Dang (surname) Yu (“of” or “for”)  Hai (“sea”) – birthdate 7/4/07 – residing in the Luoyang Children’s Welfare Institute in Luoyang, Henan province.  It’s interesting that this province is directly beside Anui, where Lainey was born.  He is missing the lower 2 bones (fibula and tibia) in his left leg and he left foot is malformed.

We’ve consulted with a national adoption doctor, our pediatrician, and local pediatric orthopedist.  All tell us he’ll need an amputation of that leg – either above or below knee (which, we have no idea at this point if he HAS a knee) – and then will be fitted with a prosthetic leg.  Other than periodic adjustments and regular replacements of the leg as he grows, he’ll be “good to go”.

We’re busy working on our dossier now, and “should” travel within a year – maybe more, hopefully less.  We’re still working on what his new name will be. :)  Lainey already knows him as Yu Hai, she talks about him all the time.  This year of waiting will be hard on all of us.  But, for now, we’re celebrating and looking forward to that next trip to China.

Matching game…classic, preschool task to learn.  Lainey digs it big time. 

And, Payton is more than happy to set aside his school books long enough to play a game. 

Afterall, school is more than just books.  It’s learning to take turns…to match pictures…and, to celebrate when the other person finds that perfect match. 

This little preschooler is learning her lessons well.

Our kids had an amazing experience today at church. It’s been Missions Weekend at our church, and the Jr. High decided that their project would be raising money to feed the people of Haiti. 

The kids spent the night at church last night, and packaged 1,000 meals with the help of Change This World (www.changethisworld.com) and Kids Against Hunger (www.kidsagainsthunger.org).  The meals consist of rice, dried vegetables, soy/protein powder, and vitamin powder.  Each individual meal costs approximately 25 cents to make.  The goal for the Jr. High kids was to raise enough money to feed 15,000 Haitians. 

All the kids were super motivated.  They were giving their allowances, birthday money, babysitting money, etc.  Our kids went door to door and raised money, too.  The fact that there was a boys vs. girls competition MIGHT have encouraged them a little.  Not sure who won, yet! 

They awoke this morning at 7am, and by 8am were back at their packaging stations.  Randy and I saw them at work, as we walked into church.  A whole group of teens standing around tables, wearing hair nets.  I hope to get a few of those pictures.  After about 3 hours, they were done.  15,080 meals packaged and ready to go to Haiti.  The organizations rep told them they would be on their way in a couple of weeks, but when they actually make it to Haiti depends on Customs. 

Today, they’re all pretty worn out.  But, with the satisfaction of knowing that each one of them was part of something really big.  What a blessing and honor to be the hands and feet of God.