love letter

My Father moved mountains for me. He cast off all he had to find me, because he knew that I was his and belonged to no one else.

Like my Father, I know that you belong to no one else but us. You are ours. Even before you were born, God intended you for us.

You are ours. And because I am unshakeably convinced of who you are and to whom you belong, I will move mountains to seek you out. I will empty myself for you. I will pursue you, because you are mine. Anything that stands in the way I will obliterate. Because you are mine, and I will give everything I have for you.

Welcome home.

Daddy

The original post is here.

101 things about me

On a more self-centered note...

1. I have always lived in Singapore, except for May 2007 to May 2008, when we moved to Claremont, California for K to do his masters.

2. Moving to Claremont provided me the impetus to start blogging. I am slightly addicted now.

3. I am a stay-at-home who loves staying at home for the most part, except for the times when I feel like I have to shut everyone out so that I can hear myself think.

4. I love listening to contemporary Christian music.

5. I love books. But reading is ploddingly slow these days.

6. I love Jesus. And he loves me.

7. My secret addiction is Grey's Anatomy. Ok, not so secret anymore. I cannot believe that the one year we lived in the US was the year the writers went on strike!

8. I love food: cooking, baking, eating.

9. But I hate washing up. Hate, hate, hate.

10. I make a mean chawanmushi. Of which I am very proud.

11. I studied political science and European studies in university.

12. I learned French in university, something I've wanted to do for a long time. I have since forgotten almost all the French I know.

13. I came dangerously close to eating cow brains once.

14. I fear being stuck in an airplane with my daughter, who bores quickly and easily. (Although she did do great on our flight back to Singapore from L.A.)

15. My favourite foods are sashimi, kway chap, thin crust pizza and clam chowder (that my husband makes for me!). But not all in the same meal.

16. I have delivered two babies naturally, both times without an epidural. This is not, however, an experience I would recommend to anyone.

17. I have an irrational fear of epidurals.

18. I will always pick seafood if it's on the menu.

19. I love exercising faith, even if it's not always easy.

20. I hate doing housework; as a coping mechanism, I have developed a high tolerance for dust.

21. I have imbibed my husband's love for desserts.

22. I love it that both kids now go to school. How to keep them occupied when school's out?

23. I want three kids, maybe four if my husband ever comes round to the idea.

24. Nigella Lawson always makes me hungry.

25. In a couple of months, I'll start working on a Certificate in Christian Studies from Fuller Theological Seminary. I'm still not quite sure how I'll manage.

26. I fantasize about making artfully frosted cupcakes for my kids' birthdays, when the reality is that they'd much rather have a store-bought Thomas the Tank Engine or Strawberry Shortcake cake.

27. The only exercise I do is pilates. Because the studio is air-conditioned.

28. I loved being pregnant.

29. I cannot stand whining.

30. I can finish a whole box of pineapple tarts by myself.

31. My husband and children make me laugh several times a day. Which I love.

32. After almost seven years of marriage, I still want to hold my husband's hand.

33. I am still trying to figure out how to cook with one hand, while carrying a crying toddler in the other.

34. There was a time in my life when I went rollerblading once a week. Hard to believe, but true.

35. I am a toy snob. I think toys that are handmade or made of wood are far superior to those made from plastic. My children do not agree with me.

36. My favourite museum is the Musee d'Orsay in Paris. I spent a lovely day there once, a long time ago.

37. I can't stay angry with my kids, not when my son asks, most plaintively, "Do you still love me, Mommy?"

38. I once had a crush on Aragorn.

39. I watched each of the Lord of the Rings movie twice, all with my husband. (I grabbed his hand each time Aragorn came on screen. He rolled his eyes each time Aragorn came on screen.)

40. I was once freaked out by an elephant walking down a street in Bangkok. It came out of nowhere.

41. My best vacation was my honeymoon to the Whitsunday Islands in Australia.

42. I once sang a nerve-wrecking solo on stage at Changi Village for a Christmas performance.

43. It poured on the day of my wedding. I don't remember much of the rain, but I do recall one of our ushers holding a huge golf umbrella out in the rain, waiting for me to arrive.

44. My least favourite thing about parenting right now is having to play judge and jury when the kids fight or disagree.

45. My least favourite thing about parenting when the kids were newborns was having to give up sleep.

46. I was Company Leader of my Girl Guides troop in secondary school.

47. I had shingles during my second pregnancy.

48. I got my driving license on my second attempt, at the ripe old age of 29. I was visibly pregnant at the time.

49. I quit coffee when I found out I was pregnant. I am now addicted again.

50. I have super-mom aspirations: I make my own bread, yoghurt, ice-cream and bolognese sauce.

51. I have an abject fear of all creepy-crawlies. This is a fear that I seem to have passed on to both my children.

52. I once ran a business creating handmade wedding stationery.

53. I used to play the piano, a long long time ago.

54. I played the violin, badly, an even longer time ago.

55. The first time my husband saw my wedding gown was when I was walking down the aisle. He is eternally grateful to me for not dragging him along on all those visits to the designer's.

56. I love a good bargain. Few things get me excited like a cute top for the kids for under $5.

57. I like singing. And often wish I had a better voice.

58. I spent the first three months of JC at Victoria Junior College, where I was in a class that my husband was in two years earlier.

59. I met my husband at work in 1999, way after the days of junior college.

60. I love pedicures and Thai massage.

61. I am always playing with my hair, a habit I never managed to break.

62. I love going to supermarkets. So much possibility in the air.

63. I am obsessed with making my writing as funny as possible. Unless it's about making it as poignant as possible.

64. I cannot remember why I used to dread long flights.

65. I will never let my husband forget that he got to fly to California alone, while I flew with the kids (even if it was with my parents' help).

66. Sappy movies always do me in.

67. I don't drink alcohol. I once got light-headed after eating my husband's beef bourguignon.

68. We were married exactly two years to the day we started dating.

69. I have not yet found a song by Casting Crowns that I don't like.

70. I usually ask my husband to do the math. Any math.

71. I was a fan of New Kids On The Block. I can't believe I'm admitting this.

72. I swim faster than my husband. But he'll outrun me without any effort at all.

73. I took a five-week-long backpacking trip around western Europe before university. I was so ready to go home at the end of it.

74. I am trying to reduce my carbon footprint. I keep empty bottles, rolls and cartons for the kids to use as toys or for crafts. I use cloth diapers. And I love my Envirosax reusable bags.

75. I used to wear contact lenses, now I just settle for my glasses. I'd like to do Lasik one day, if I ever get up the nerve.

76. I watch way more children's television than I care for.

77. I once won a 14" TV in a lucky draw at work.

78. I love the colour combination of chocolate brown and pink.

79. I only realised how much I like the colour green when I noticed it showing up a lot in my wardrobe.

80. I have watched migrating whales from a helicopter. It was pretty awesome.

81. My favourite city in western Europe is Florence, Italy.

82. To save money, I once climbed up the Eiffel Tower. Obviously I did not make it all the way to the top.

83. I can yo-yo.

84. But I cannot ride a bike.

85. My favourite musicals are Kiss Me, Kate and Rent.

86. I love women's bible study.

87. One of my pilates instructors was one of the winners of the Amazing Race Asia.

88. I once completely ruined a WMF saucepan because I didn't realise that the induction stove was still on and so cooked a sugar syrup until it turned into carbon. There was no way to save the saucepan. Much to my distress.

89. I read too fast to enjoy poetry. And I get too invested in the characters I read about to enjoy short stories.

90. I love making lists.

91. I am a stickler for grammar. It feels like a part of me dies every time I hear the word "irregardless" or the phrase "discuss about".

92. One of my favourite soups is made with spinach, dried shrimp, pumpkin, chilli and un-fried slices of keropok - my grandmother's invention. It sounds completely bizarre and surreal but is so so good.

93. I have had eczema all my life. The only time when it completely cleared up was when we were in the US. It was bliss.

94. In my life now, I regularly carry on three different conversations at the same time. My head spins from the effort.

95. I don't watch horror movies. I tried watching Gothika once - and lasted ten minutes.

96. My nearest death experience was when my husband was overtaking another car and came dangerously close to an oncoming school bus. We were in Australia.

97. The doctor who delivered my children delivered me too.

98. Just before my oldest child was born, I got it into my head that I could make clothes for him. My husband laughed when I told him about my brilliant idea. And the idea quickly left my head when my son was born.

99. I grew up on a steady diet of musicals like The King and I, The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

100. I used to play ultimate frisbee.

Is anyone still reading this? Here's the best one...

101. I am a sinner saved by grace. There is nothing I can do to make God love me more. And there is nothing I can do to make God love me less.

school uniforms

School for the kids won't start until July, but we've already gotten their school uniforms. The kids were excited, and wanted to try them on for size...

Postscript: I'm excited for them to start too!

start spreading the news

Sometimes it feels like I'm swimming upstream, against the current.

Now that we are home, we've been spreading the news, telling more and more people about our adoption plans. We have not always gotten the reaction we had hoped for.

But how great God is, that He knows exactly what I need to hear, exactly when I need to hear it.

You hear, O LORD, the desire of the afflicted;
you encourage them, and you listen to their cry,
defending the fatherless and the oppressed,
in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more.
Ps 10:17-18

You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.
Gen 50:20
(Joseph speaking to his brothers)

Scripture that speaks to God defending the fatherless. Scripture that speaks to the sovereignty and goodness of God's plan.

So we press on, holding onto God's hand.

home

View from our living room window...

That's the Singapore Flyer in the distance, the largest ferris wheel in the world (for now at least).

rain

Unlike in Claremont, it rains in Singapore regularly.

My kids have forgotten what it's like to live in a tropical climate.

J was, frankly, quite freaked out by the very prospect of getting wet. Even though he was indoors.

Today when he heard distant rumbling of thunder, he said, "Mom, God knows I'm afraid of the thunder, so he won't send the thunder, right?"

E? She just sang, "wain, wain... go way...".

the pain is in the waiting

What's different this time around: I didn't get to pee on a stick that three minutes later turned blue. No visits to the gynaecologist. No blurry ultrasound pictures to stare at. So I am working to keep this time, this period of expectancy, real and tangible.

We talk about our new baby with each other, with the kids, with our friends. This baby that God has planned for us, to be part of our family.

We pray about our baby, aloud with the kids. That God will bring him/her to us by the end of the year. That even now, God may be preparing the baby to join our family. That the kids will be open to the child. That the baby will be open to us.

We continue to tell people about our decision to adopt. The more people praying with us, the better, the surer we feel.

Then there's the paperwork. How I long for it to be done.

Most of all, I remind myself this: God led us down this path. He will continue to direct us to our child - the child He planned for us to have. I have to trust that He will work it out for us. I hold on to this.

on love

Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the desire to mate every second minute of the day, it is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every cranny of your body. No, don’t blush, I am telling you some truths. That is just being “in love”, which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two. But sometimes the petals fall away and the roots have not entwined. Imagine giving up your home and your people, only to discover after six months, a year, three years, that the trees have had no roots and have fallen over. Imagine the desolation. Imagine the imprisonment.

Louis de Bernieres, Corelli’s Mandolin

one step back, two steps forward

We. Are. Adopting.

How do I even explain how we got to this point? A year ago, adoption was nowhere near our radar, let alone on it. I just naturally assumed that our next child would be biological, just as our first two were.

But now, here we are, sure that this is the path that God has put before us. Here we are, wanting to be obedient to God. Here we are, understanding that this is our way to make a difference. Here we are, knowing that there is a child out there that God has planned for us; we just have to find him or her.

***

It has been a slow, gradual process. During our year in Claremont, God had, time after time, placed this before us.

One key moment was a concert of prayer at our church, on a Friday night, when we had a guest speaker in town. JKD led us in prayer, as she felt the Spirit lead. She said she sense that there was someone who wanted to have a baby (Me! Me!), and so prayed that that someone would be a parent, whether by birth or by adoption. And in referring to adoption, she said it was God's plan for the adoptive parents to have the baby, even if it grew in another woman's womb. This struck both K and me, although we only knew it after we compared notes afterwards.

There have been other moments, sometimes just small ones, for me. Stumbling upon blogs on adoption. Meeting people who have adopted. Learning about other people who have been adopted. These weren't those big A-ha! type moments, but they were, I believe, God's way of raising my consciousness to something I had been unconscious of.

It wasn't an easy decision for me. I had loved being pregnant, and had had easy pregnancies both times, apart from a scare about a Downs screening with E. (Labour was intense, to say the least, but that's another story.) I had definitely wanted to be pregnant again. There are few things quite so magical as feeling your baby kick and move inside of you. But I noticed in my journalling, that God had been bringing up Scripture that spoke to us denying ourselves, that spoke to following Him single-heartedly. And through what I was reading on the web, God brought me to Ephesians 1:4-5

For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love, he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will - to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.

I too am adopted, through Jesus Christ. See here.

At the same time, God gave K Scripture about taking care of the aliens, fatherless and widows among us. The fatherless!

All these taken together, it became too hard to ignore. So on 11 March 2008, a Tuesday, K and I talked it over again, wondered why we were still vacillating over it, and decided that yes, we were going to do it. This child was conceived in our hearts on 11 March 2008. (Right around the junction of the I-10 and I-57 in L.A. to be precise.)

***

Our family will look different from others. But it is no less our family. All our children have been planned for us by God. Of this we are sure.

***

Am I fearful, daunted, afraid? Yes. Am I also sure that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me? Yes. Do I know that there will be dark, difficult days ahead? Do I know that there will be days when I wonder what I've gotten myself into? Yes. And let's be clear here, these will be questions I'll face with my birth children too. But then I remember: my God supplies all my needs.

We've had such a wonderful time of affirmation when we shared our decision to adopt with our church family in Claremont. One of the most affirming moments for me was when I told the ladies at bible study. The whole table broke out into congratulations - everyone was excited. And I was blown away by their reaction because it was a reaction that I would have gotten if I were physically pregnant.

But that is what I am, isn't it? I may not be physically pregnant. But our third child has been conceived in our hearts. And so we are expectant.

about this blog

Journey Journal is the story of our journey as we adopt our third child.

It is the story of our journey as a family. And it is the story of my journey as I seek to obey and glorify God in my life.

It is also the story of whatever happens to be remotely entertaining on any given day.

I am a child of God, a wife, and a mom of two (but soon to be three!) hilarious kids. My life is a journey, an adventure and many lessons, all rolled up into one.