bodner003

You know the instruction the flight attendant gives when you board a plane, "In the event of an emergency and loss of oxygen, your mask will automatically drop for your use. Please put the mask on yourself before helping your child." I used to think that was so strange. Why on earth would I consume the oxygen before my child? Who could live with themselves? Parenting our first child put this into proper perspective for me. These past couple weeks have shed light on this concept on a whole new level. We've been home almost 2 weeks now.  I'll be perfectly honest. These have been 2 very hard weeks. As you know, Emily Hope was in the ER twice during the first week with fever reaching over 105. Praise God she's better! Then me. I have been very sick. This experience would be so different if I could just function normally. My mask... It hasn't been working properly. The oxygen isn't coming out. I feel helpless. I can't "breathe" so I certainly can...

I'm diggin' deep, y'all. Past the mental and physical exhaustion. Diggin' deep for some words to flow after being home for one week. Tell me the jet lag ends soon. Just lie to me. I think Seamus and Emily have proved to be the most resilient. Brady is a little overtired still. And me? Well, I'm just a pansy, apparently. I'm okay with that, as long as you just let me sleep. I'm sure it doesn't help that I'm sick. I've lost my voice which makes it really hard to yell at my kids. Ack! ;) I started on an antibiotic just to be safe but I'm pretty sure it's viral. Emily is making incredible progress. She has such a long road ahead but we are incredibly thankful for the daily milestones after only being home a week. First, her health is better. Praise God! After 2 ER visits and a fever that spiked to over 105 degrees, we were ready for her little body to heal. She loves to dance when music comes on. She went for her very first bike ride today. S...

We are truly in a fog. Being home is so wonderful yet so difficult. Our fog consists of exhaustion, joy, frustration, worry, gratitude, and confusion. Yes, one big hodge-podge of emotions. We are extremely jet-lagged and my brain is having a hard time processing anything I'm needing to process. Emily's fever from the flight continued to rise. When she woke up this morning, it was 104 degrees. If any of my other children had this fever with few other symptoms, I'd simply delve out the routine Tylenol and Motrin until it passed. We don't know much about Emily's little body so we decided to be safe. I took her to the ER where she tested negative for flu, strep, and RSV. She also had a chest x-ray and it came back clear. Its seems her little body is fighting a virus. It's no surprise with all she's been through over the past couple weeks. She's laying in our bed next to me right now, sound asleep. I'm pretty sure Seamus fell asleep praying with the boys ...

One less. I am forever grateful that of the overwhelming number of orphans in this world, literally hundreds of millions, Emily makes one less. Sometimes the large number is overwhelming and we feel like we can’t make a difference but God himself leaves his entire flock in order to save just one lost sheep.  (Luke 15:3-7)   As I write this, I am on the airplane from Hong Kong to Newark, NJ, pondering our little sheep who is coming home. If you have been following our story, you are familiar with the hardship that has come with our adoption. But the joy is infinitely more powerful. Abandonment, trauma, pain… all things Emily has experienced in ways we can never imagine. But we have experienced true redemption through our journey. She is coming home to our family, and coming home to know Jesus Christ, to be a part of His unfolding Kingdom. Just as our t-shirts read, “Bringing Home Emily Hope… into our family, into His Kingdom”. Oh happy day! We are so ready to be home. Bein...

I'm so happy to have gotten a picture of all the Lifeline families who are here with us! This picture was taken when we met downstairs this morning to go sightseeing together. These precious friends are the hands and feet of Jesus. Love every single one of them. After we took this picture, we loaded up on our bus for some morning sightseeing and shopping. We visited the Chen Family Temple, aka the Guangdong Folk Art Museum. The Chen family was and is a huge, prominent family in China, whose temple was eventually bought out from the government. It has beautiful gardens and amazing hand-carved architecture. Within the temple, there are some amazing art forms. All hand-carved architecture There is an entire room full of ivory that has been hand-carved in to sculptures. The detail was just incredible. There was a man hand-painting beautiful pictures of Chinese landmarks. He was using black ink and only his hands, fingers, and fingernails. Here's a picture of a quick demonstra...

Worship and shopping... I know. We hate to combine the 2 on the Sabbath but we have to adjust a little while we're here. ;) Today we took advantage of an amazing opportunity. We worshipped with a body of believers right in the heart of Guangzhou. This church meets in a hotel every Sunday, several miles from our hotel. We had no idea what to expect. I didn't feel like going. I wanted to stay in my pajamas, drink coffee and let Seamus lead us in worship in our hotel room but Seamus really wanted us to go. So we did. And I am so thankful that he made that decision for our family, despite my stubborn will. There were hundreds of people there, from all different countries. Americans, Indians, Africans, Europeans. Because it is the first Sunday of the month, we had the honor of sharing communion with these fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. So many of our Lifeline friends made the comment that this is what heaven will be like. Yes! It was amazing to be united with these people......

Okay, quick and dirty update on our Friday... Today we flew from Hohhot to Guangzhou. It was about a 3 hour flight. Mei Mei slept almost the whole way! We made it safely to our hotel, The Garden Inn. This is a 5 star hotel where Lifeline gets huge discounted rates. This hotel is truly amazing! I'll take pics and post some later in the week when I have a little more time and energy. Our guide took us to a grocery store for bottled water and some other essentials (diapers, juice, yogurt, etc.) before checking in to the hotel. Once we got settled, we ventured out and walked a little. We quickly found a McDonald's and chowed down. Girlfriend ate an entire cheeseburger! We are thinking we are going to really love Guangzhou compared to Beijing or Hohhot. The pollution and dust in those places were awful and the air was so dry. We've all had bloody noses, terrible congestion, and painfully dry skin. Guangzhou is in southern China and the climate is similar to south Louisiana. It...

It's been 2 days since I've written anything and so much has happened since then. I'm trying to write every day but I'm just so exhausted at the end of each day. Anyway, I'm excited to be sharing our Thursday with you. We drove 3 hours south to visit Emily's original orphanage, Baotou Social Welfare Institute. This is where Emily was abandoned and spent the first 6 months of her life before she was transferred to Harmony House. This was the day that I so looked forward to for many months. I knew it would be hard and beautiful. Turned out it was harder than expected. We have been praying about this day for so long. We prayed for God to reveal Himself to us through this experience. Show us truth, Lord, no matter how ugly it is. Break our hearts, Lord. Break them the way yours breaks. He did. In a big way. The scales fell off my eyes yesterday. God broke my heart a couple years ago for the orphan but yesterday He brought my faith to a new level. My world view, my p...

Emily did better today with her grieving. It's clear that she is getting to know and trust us, little by little. We are so thankful for your prayers through this battle. We had some very special moments with her today. Quick update about our Wednesday... Today we went to the Civil Affairs Office in Hohhot and received Emily's passport! We also visited the Inner Mongolia museum, which was filled with dinosaur fossils and other incredible history from Emily's province. This was important to us because we learned a lot about the region, which we will be able to share with her as she gets older. After the museum, our guide took us to eat dinner. This might have been the neatest experience so far. The area and restaurant was one where only common locals go. She explained to us that rich people would not come here. It was amazing. The street was like a market, with everything from meat to clothing. People everywhere (which generally describes most areas of China). We ate at a hol...

I probably don't need to remind you that we are very tired. My brain is not functioning properly. Please expect my writing to remain jumbled and excuse any rambling in advance. We have our hands full on top of being jet lagged and I'm writing at the end of our day. Now that we have that out of the way, here's more about our past couple days in China. ;) Monday was a very special day for us. We were instructed to come to the lobby of our hotel at 9:15am for "gotcha". Emily traveled all night on a train with a nanny from Harmony House. We came downstairs at 9:00, flooded with emotion. I kept thinking about all the gotcha days I'd watched on YouTube and Facebook and I couldn't believe today was OUR day. Our guide, Aggie, was there along with 2 government officials. We sat in the lobby in anticipation. I stared at the doors, waiting for my Mei to come through. We waited. And paced. And waited. We were told the train arrived at 9:00 and the walk to the hotel wa...