Nine Looks Good on You

The Mental Institute

Alias: Happy Reindeer

Alias: Happy Beaver

 

Alias: Little Monkey

Alias: Bashful Squirrel

Alias:  The Chipper Chipmunks

 

 

 

photos courtesy of Fritz Photography Studios

The Mugshots

Alias: Brinx

Alias: Mak'n Hamburger

Alias: The Smolder

Alias: Whisk

 

 

photos courtesy of Fritz Photography Studios

Finding my son on Facebook

Yesterday was a momentous day.  Just imagine scrolling through hundreds of pictures on Facebook and recognizing photos that you never knew existed.  That is what happened to me.  I found Teddy's beginnings that strangers were commenting on years before I knew my son.  It was like going house hunting and finding photos on the wall of your grandfather posed with the owner.  I sure did not expect such a treasure.  What a gift of God to live in the digital age of photography.

 

 

Teddy, 4, and another little munchkin, 3, were driven 800 miles to another province to receive treatment on their feet 

Playing washers

 

Teddy, my little scholar, is reading while his friend poses

 

Teddy with his double casts is second from right

Sky High- Teddy with his back to the camera

Proof even back then, electronics were fascinating to Teddy.

Teddy with some special friends

Looks like they may have done some shenanigans together.  I'm sure Teddy was the innocent party ;)

 
 

Marked his face in his artistic endeavors, Teddy reminds me of a little lion with his shag and pen whiskers.

 

American children are told they are digging holes to China, but I imagine Chinese children think they are digging holes to the other side of China. 

 

 

 

Floating a handmade boat.

 

Once so small

 

The pencil looks bigger than him

 

 

 

Fire trucks hold fascination everywhere.


Precious ponderings. 

Expectant children.  Teddy, front row, second from right.




Years later the two children that arrive together, return 800 miles to their first orphanage.  They are about to be adopted by two different families in the same state, 8,000 miles away from their birth country.

Only God can write such improbable stories. 

Packaged Food and Imported Telly

Best chip I have ever tasted! 
Grand chips could be paired with Grand Designs. 
 British telly that follows homeowners as they build their dream homes.  Some are lavish and others are eco driven.  The styles of the homes and locations vary greatly by episode.

Woodsman Cottage
https://vimeo.com/28848933

 

I've missed all the jasmine tea in China. One day I found this tin at our Asian market.  Love it.

As you sip your hot tea, you might be in the mood for an episode of Restoration Home.

Again the British must love their homes.  Watch determined, deep-pocketed people overcome planning permission and months of renovations to transform unique properties.

 

Nutborne Common Pumping Station

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1N3CLCBkwE

 

This is mocha flavored perfection.

You might like to pair this ice cream with an episode of May the Best House Win.

An often zany British competition betwen four strangers that allow them full access to each others homes on the hopes of winning the title of the best house and cash.

 

Rimbard Manor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEi_IpijmmI

On the Shelf

Since you know I have a thing for books, I bet you thought this was about my recent reads.  Well, life is full of surprises.  These are the living stories that don't stay on the shelf for long.  My favorite reads have human flesh and I get to "photo bully" them as my husband calls it.  However from youngest to oldest, they seemed to have a good time posing for my camera.  Since each shelf was rated for up to 2,000 pounds, I think next time Ben and I should have joined them on the shelf.

A Lion's Share of Dr. P

To the Mother I Never Knew

I don't know if you are alive or dead.   I wonder if you wish circumstances were different.  Do you live with nine years of regret?  Do you live with recurring nightmares?  Is the earth around your feet soft with tears?  On the anniversary of the drop-off, do you visit the site of your heartache?  Are you the stranger that asks what happened to the round-faced, man child, or are you glad in the not knowing?  Were you brave to birth a child without permission?  Or maybe you were the privileged one with a pregnancy sanctioned by the government.  Did all your hopes and dreams alter with his twisted feet and folded hands?  Do you keep the matching newspaper clipping in a secret spot in your drawer?  I will never know if you sob into your pillow or bite your lips and think of something else. 

This Mother's Day, I want you to know that your great sacrifice birthed your child in another woman's heart.  I am your son's second mother and I know I would not have him without you.  Oh, may you know he is loved, safe and treasured.  Your son's brown eyes sparkle when he smiles, and he tells me jokes about barefoot bears.  His twisted feet are straightened and he runs on a different continent with your blood coursing through his veins.  He is first Chinese and second American.  He wrote me a beautiful card for Mother's Day saying, "I love you, Mommy."  My heart knows that that card should have been yours.  Your love was bigger than his 14 pounds.  You entrusted something priceless to the passing finder.  He was found and named "little warrior."  He inherited your strength and fought for the life you gave him.

The child found in Bengbu on February 7, 2007 is now our "gift of God."  As he gets older and as he asks questions, I want you to know I will honor you.   You chose life and our son is learning about the Life Giver, Jesus.  May your Heavenly Father so assure you of his love for you that where your tears have softened the ground may 100 flowers grow. 

Dear Mother across the ocean, may my thanks reach you and give you hope, joy and peace.

Driving Me Crazy

Just kidding :)

Curlicious

Jane has been longing to curl her hair. Tonight we finally pulled out the hot rollers. 

The bad news is her hair didn't hold a curl.  The good news is it sure made cute photos. 

Own a New Mindset in a Month

Much of our material life can be taken away in a blink of an eye, yet what shapes our ideas, thoughts and devotion is an area that we can own forever.  I tell my kids that Americans invest so much time on gym memberships as if a flabby body is the worst that can happen to them, yet their minds are turning flabby with lack of use.  Education has become test-taking regurgitating rather than training minds to form original thoughts and conclusions.   Here are my suggestions to own a new mindset in a month:

The 5 Pound Mental Curl

You can smell the gunpowder and taste the salty tears.  The Civil War becomes very familial through the telling of four women's lives.  Whether you are a northerner by upbringing or a southerner by choice, you will feel the virtues and shortcomings of both sides as they devise codes, hide strangers and fight in disguise.  Because it is nonfiction that is written to entertain rather than compel action, I have ranked it as a beginner weight.

The 7 Pound Mental Lift

You get to read how a Canadian family sells their possessions and follows God's leading to the mission field in the early days of Youth With a Mission.  The presence of the Holy Spirit is at work in this book as the author discusses the tensions of living in close community and the rewards of a full faith lifestyle where you are not sure how you'll pay for the food or the laundromat.  It is a personal journey that is surprisingly open and humble.  Not everything is perfect and the author understands that God's timing transforms the impossible situations.  Weighted lighter, because the book could dismiss personal accountability as you think, "That is fine and grand for him, but I'm on a different path."

The 15 Pound Mental Rep

A free Kindle read.  I loved how the author shares his own kidnapping story and yet titles the book Rescue the Captors.  He really understood that after almost half a year with Marxist Columbian guerrillas, they were the real ones taken captive by the prince of darkness and a brutal political system.  He used his time with them to recount how God has worked in his life and even how he made some very foolish decisions and yet God was merciful to him.  After his release, he willingly endangers his life by creatively sharing Christ to his former captors.  This book packs a lot of punch in a small spine.

The 25 Pound Mental Hold

I have often thought my life has turned out differently than I expected, so I was intrigued by the making peace of it all.  I found this book a precious personal story of how Jesus teaches a lady his sufficiency in being utterly undone.   The story was never suppose to be about us.  Over and over again the church can pretend there are unacceptable sins like ruined marriages and the speck they see in the churchgoer's eye is awful big to the plank in their own.  Though this book delves into living free from censure, because Christ took the ultimate condemnation, there is a painful struggle which endures that is healing and then broken open again.  True to life are self-doubts and hurtful labels.  The universal need to find our peace in God make this book contend for some real muscle building.

The 35 Pound Tie

These two stories come from two different continents and yet the brutality might as well as come from one.  Both books have highly graphic word pictures that are disturbing.  The Camp 14 book allows us, well-fed Americans, to understand how the power of survival and the dream of food drive a North Korean labor prisoner to escape.  Freedom means nothing to the hungry.  Give a starving man a steamed bun and he will be your slave.  Sadly communism tapped into that principle by making millions unable to eat without a government handout.  The track record around the world is you gain more control of your populace when they are eating from your hand. 

This Voice in My Heart tells a similar story of surviving a genocide with a huge amount of guilt.   The wings on his feet may be a gift to run from his past nightmares.  This book is far more redemptive as sufferings of Jesus remind this young man that he will survive.  As God whispers to his heart, you are amazed that one so brutally hurt can say,"I am a very, very fortunate man to have lost and to have gained so much."  After reading this book, you will have no doubt that forgiveness is divine and humanly impossible without the Spirit of God.

The 50 Pound Mental Giant

This book redefines who our neighbor is as the world shrinks with technology and knowledge.

Is it an easy read?  No.  It might even leave you feeling burnt out with the enormity of the task.  I think this is a book you read slowly and pace it with prayer and lots of Scripture.  Caution should be used that you don't pull a muscle so badly that you quit.  Know that Ephesians says that Christ prepared good works for us to do in advance and ask him for the ability to see what they are and walk in them.   Remember that when you follow Jesus you will never be overextended.  He promises to carry our burdens and give us rest.  Rest in the fact that changing the world is not solely up to us; God is the force behind all significant and eternal change.

Time Frozen

There is a sense of strength and expectancy in his arms. 

I love thes photos Fritz took.  He captured Ben unaware as he tossed the ball in his hand.  

For one brief moment the ball dangled on an invisible cord in the air and the cicada's ceased chirping.