One year ago today we held our sweet Mei in our arms for the first time.

We met her in an office at her orphanage. They brought us to her and less than an hour later she left the only life she could remember.

We wondered- “Would she be scared? Would she cry inconsolably? Would she learn to love us (for we already loved her)?”

But she wasn’t inconsolable. She was quiet at first. Just taking it all in… tentative… yet open to our love and affection.

In the past year, we have had the honor of watching Mei learn so much- she took her first steps when home just three days, and she learned to talk (she was not speaking yet in Ch*na)**. She is now speaking in full sentences (at a consistently elevated volume to be sure that she is heard!) Not only is she talking, but this child is one smart cookie! I am always amazed by the connections she makes and her comprehension of things for her age (and considering she’s only heard our language for a year!) For instance, the other day, I was watching her pretend to make some cookies out of sand, and I said “Mei, you are such a good cook!” She looked right at me and said, “I am not cooking; I am baking!”

We’ve seen wonderful things on the medical front, too. Our little peanut has gained a pound for every month she has been home- no longer can she be labeled ‘failure to thrive’! In Cincinnati this summer, she was able to receive the surgery that will give her the best chance at ‘normal’ function of all of her systems. And perhaps even more importantly, the testing prior to her surgery in Cincinnati revealed another condition that, left undiagnosed and untreated, would have led to kidney failure. (We sure stood in awe of God that He had orchestrated all of this – her crossing the ocean and then us all heading states away- to get her to the right doctor who would find this condition.)

Please if you hear anything in this post, please hear this. We share all of this for one reason and one reason alone- to give glory to our Lord. If you think for a second, what an amazing family… see what they’ve done for her… she is so lucky! … you have totally and completely missed the point. Oh, how my heart hurts inside when someone says this! I know it is meant for good, and we do receive it as such- as a gift of encouragement. But all I can think is- Oh, how I wish they knew the truth.

If there is one thing that I have learned this year, it is, ironically, exactly what Satan tried to convince me of to keep me from adopting Mei in the first place.

Because the truth is- we are not enough.

We are not strong enough, loving enough, or faithful enough. We do not have what it takes to save or redeem or heal the broken heart and body of an orphan child- (or, coincidentally, ourselves or our birth children).

Now I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is true… It is just not the whole story.

That day when we met Mei, we met a child in desperate need. And she met two parents in desperate need. And all we have done is carried her, sometimes crawling ourselves, to the altar of God. Where all those who know they have nothing to offer meet a God who delights in offering Himself to fulfill our every need.

So I have shared with you how Mei has changed in the past year. How we have seen a life renewed… redeemed. But what I cannot share with you is how. Because so much of it is mystery. This is all I remember, and quite frankly, much of these memories are foggy (smile). I remember …

hugs
kisses
pigtails
dirty diapers
doctor’s visits
laughter
tickling
laundry
reading together
playing
cleaning
hospital visits
prayers, tons of prayers
tears
awe
gratitude

That’s what I remember. That was my part, pretty much. So you can see I am pretty much un-awesome. Pretty much just like you. Doing the things you would do. Many of which were thoroughly enjoyable.

But what is awesome is how all of those things, offered into the hands of our Loving Father, have been shaped and molded to bring about miracles right under our roof- in both my life and MeiMei’s.

It is a mystery. A beautiful, marvelous, redemptive mystery. I have not the slightest idea how to explain it, but I know it is not new. It is, in fact, the Story we celebrate this Advent season, is it not?

Like Mary, I want to say- “I am your servant. Let it be to me as you have said.”

And yet, so very often, the best I feel I can offer Him is .. well, not much. I am a mess. I want to offer Him more, but at the end of the day, the truth is my greatest efforts often fail… I am a mess.

But then I remember… that’s where He first came. Into a messy, dirty, humble stable. That’s where our God chose to enter the world.

And (can I get a Halleluiah here?) HE STILL DOES!

This Christmas we celebrate Emmanuel, “GOD WITH US”. And that, my friends, is the key to the mystery. The mystery of my redemption.. of Mei’s redemption.. of all these mundane, commonplace things transformed by God into marvelous miracles.

He still comes! He is still Emmanuel!

I’m not talking about how he comes when I get a warm feeling while singing Silent Night by candlelight on Christmas Eve. (Because for eighteen years this is as close as I thought He got to me).

I am talking about how He comes in the everyday– even in… no, especially in… my stables, my messy places I set aside for Him with a hope-filled prayer that He would make His home here. Right here in my heart, in my home, in my arms as they reached for that no-longer-orphan child… Praying Oh, come Emmanuel. Just be with us. And help me to trust that is Enough.

My prayer for us this Christmas… That we may slow. Slow the searching for the “magic” of Christmas- in all the lights, and gifts, and parties, and food. That we might look deeper. Look for the miracle. Celebrate the God who came. The God who still comes. Emmanuel.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel has come to you…

** I would be remiss if I did not pause here to stress that Mei was in a very good institution. We believe that she was truly loved and cared for. We do not believe that she was mistreated in any way. To the contrary, we believe that she was given the best care that was available to her at that time. We are incredibly grateful for her birth country and specifically for the orphanage and caregivers who loved and cared for our daughter for those two years.

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I am a recipient of amazing grace. I’ve been married 12 years to my husband, Scott. We had 2 children, Isaac and Zoe. Then one day God met us both in the same moment and broke our hearts and filled them with love for orphan children. In 2008, we brought our son Beniam home from Ethiopia and in 2012, we brought home our daughter, Mei from China. I am a Florida girl who loves sunshine, water, and sand. I enjoy almost anything you can do outdoors, especially in the mountains. When forced to stay inside, I love to read and write.

This has been a busy and exhausting week.  We are hosting 2 sisters for 3 weeks at our home through Safe Families for Children.  Some days I’ve laughed and felt my heart burst at my girl’s ability to share, love them, and be welcoming.  And some days I’ve cried and felt defeated at our inability to get anywhere on time, the selfishness that emerges so quickly from the girls (and myself..ahem), and the death of our “normal routine.”  It is hard but the best kind of hard. The kind of hard that Jesus asks of us so that we know for sure with every ounce of our being that we are not self sufficient.  It has been almost one week and there have been days I was ready to say “this is just too much” but in those moments God has sustained.  I have visited a friend who is on the journey with us and has 2 of the siblings from this family as well.  I have remembered that when we come to the end of ourselves then God shows up and we cannot take credit.  And He does things better and more beautiful then we ever could.

The timing may seem crazy but as I sat in the Safe Families conference last week I felt so convicted that I always can think of a reason why right now is just not the right time.  And my reasons are pretty good ones:  I’m still feeling sick, I am almost 8th months preggers, we have two kids, we don’t have tons of extra space.  But as I examine my heart I know that those are excuses.  The truth is there is never a “great time” to serve and love and welcome in a stranger into your home because it is messy.  But yet that is exactly what Jesus calls us to do.  It is so important to Him because it costs us something, it transforms relationships, and it requires us to live in faith and not just talk about it.  It changes others but mostly it changes my selfish heart.  I read that the Bible instructs us to love, welcome, and care for the stranger over 100 times.  But yet I can always think of a reason why now is just not the best time.  I cannot recall a time in recent history when I have sat happily on my couch while perfectly behaved children played in a completely clean home while dinner cooks in the oven.  There will never be a “good time” to do this.  Our life is messy and real hospitality means inviting people into that mess and chaos and saying we love you.  We don’t love perfectly but because we are desperately loved and have received outrageous grace from our heavenly Father we gladly can extend what we can to others.  The grace we have been shown is not just nice or great it is ridiculous and life changing.  And it spills from us.

We want to support their mother in a difficult time and really show that we take seriously the command to love our neighbor as ourselves.  You see it is easy for me to think I am pretty good at that until my personal space and time is threatened.  It has been hard for us all to share our lives, our space, our stuff, and our time.  And the opportunity to do so has allowed us to loosen the grip on those things.  Anni and Evy are counting the cost with us and I am so proud of them.  Not because they perfectly share but because they are struggling through and living what it means to love others.  It has afforded us so many great chances to talk as a family and work through this all.  I am bursting with stories and it has only been a week but this morning as I was puking in the sink and thinking to myself “I just cannot do this one more day” I saw this….

The girls getting their hair did and then Annikah brought me this….

A note the oldest girl wrote about her time here so far (we eat a lot of fruit…be still my heart).

And I remembered that God knows best and His grace is enough.  And friends and family are supporting us in this and one will be here with pizza in an hour (crowns in heaven I tell you).  It is these things that convince me more and more we are meant to live exhausted and spent for His glory but full of abundant love and peace because of His scandalous grace.

Boasting in my weakness because that is where He is shown to be strong.

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Roxanne Engstrom is a mama of 3; Annikah, Evangeline, and the newest little boy Abishai. Roxanne and her husband Jason now live in Chicago after returning from 4 years learning, loving, and living on a small island in Africa. They have a heart for adoption and supporting vulnerable families and are now back stateside after a failed adoption overseas. They are currently a Safe Family through Safe Families for Children and becoming Foster parents in the hopes of adopting. She blogs about their family’s adventures and what God is doing in their lives at www.roxengstrom.blogspot.com. She is grateful that even though the journey can be difficult God gives joy and promises abundance along the way.

“Sometimes what we call ‘wisdom’ is actually fear,” she said, casually, but carefully in response to the story I’d just told her.

Searing truth.

We’d been parents for under two years. We’d just begun to hit a stride with Eden and Caleb when we felt the nudge to say ‘yes’ to yet another paper pregnancy. We suspected it would be two, but felt for sure it would be children who were the same age or younger as our two now. “The paint is still too fresh on the walls,” Nate said when I told him about the older girl lingering around the orphan babies with new stories emerging, often overlooked. She haunted my waking hours. “Later, we’ll adopt an older girl,” was his response.

I agreed. The thing I wanted most was actually the thing I feared most.

Isn’t that how it always is? Fear forms a hedge around our greatest calling.

But then, through a circuitous series of events –one that, in retrospect, was the undeniably kind and gentle way of the Father, we learned about her.

Nate’s heart changed. “We have to go after her, Sara” he said one morning.

Somewhere deep down I knew he was right, but my mind made a case otherwise. Fear wore the guise of reason.

And when I recounted to my friend, that afternoon over tea, all the reasons why adopting an older child, alongside another and outside of the birth order, at this time just didn’t feel wise, she spoke truth.

I had article after article and hours of classwork to back up my case. And, friends, I am a researcher by nature so my intent in this post is not to blow the research out of the water, but it’s to point to a Man who, at times, trumps both research and reason.
God builds the family.
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“I need to do what Lily does, Daddy,” she said. It was the first morning we saw significant progress in an issue on which we’d focused heavy attention, prayer and training weeks prior. Our “first” oldest child made a shift. Her newly-older sister’s example, the catalyst.

Eden was joyful and obedient. Her little-heart’s zeal for Jesus and His children was unquenchable, and she was about all-things-Mommy-and-Daddy. Her life carried the perfect mark of an oldest child, one that would set the pace for children to come after her. “We want to preserve her place in our family,” we told our social worker during our homestudy. Every time I said that phrase I felt a nudge, a check, as if maybe that framework was being checked by the true family Planner.
When we learned about Lily, all we knew of her was her picture and a few brief observations from her soon-to-be foster mama. On paper, she was foolish for us. Adopting a child who would be third or fourth in line seemed like less of a risk than this one (who could be as old as 10 or 11 for all we knew), after which all the others would now follow.

But He led. He confirmed. He gently course-corrected.

And we walked what felt like the plank, with no reason other than His.

At times while we waited — and even after we immersed ourselves in Africa’s dust — the fear felt unbearable to me. I would read an email, a post to an adoption forum, another research article and find myself shackled, again. What were we thinking? We’re nuts. Worst-case scenario thinking would rest over me like a cloud. Our first few weeks with her offered many opportunities for me to search for confirmation of those very fears. My perspective was horizontal, not first from His source, going out from me and back to me.

But then, beauty broke dirt’s surface. Early indications rolled in: His plan was better.
Her quiet, gentle spirit began to carry a mantle of leadership. She desired obedience, and they made her a role model. She looked for hidden ways to bless, and they stole her ideas. She giggled loud, and the joy that marked our family before she came only grew. She received, and they, too, sought to shed orphan-skin.

He sent us a first-born, late but just in time, who hungered for Jesus — my deepest heart cry for my children.*

We couldn’t have ever known. Our principles would have kept us from His perfect plan, had He not been so gentle to speak clear and consistently.

He showed Himself faithful to thwart our plans with a better one.

Just the other day Nate found this in his pocket.

Her own words, not copywork. She hid it in his coat. Full of surprises, our little girl, their big sister.
Full of surprises, this mysterious God.

*One caveat for those of you who have brought older children home and are in the midst of the inevitable intensity that comes with a life finding a new home in you: our highs with Lily are sometimes proportionate to our lows. But isn’t that so with life? We want her to soar with Him, but it’s in the lowest places where we find that we were made to soar the heights. Lest you read this post and think we drew a “lucky” card, Jesus is healer in our home. And He will show Himself healer in yours. Though you may not see it today, I pray my words might be the same signpost He’s flashed for me. (He continues to flash for me.) God always wins, their hearts are included in that promise. Part of the healing, for us — for our hearts, has been to set up memorials around beauty and make the decision not to see struggle as the final verdict, but a pathway. He is good.

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Sara is a wife to Nate and a mother of four (and one on the way) whose birth canal bridged the expanse between the United States and Africa. After almost a decade of Christian life she was introduced to pain and perplexity and, ultimately, intimacy with Jesus. God met her and moved her when life stopped working. And out of the overflow of this perplexity, came her writing.You can read more of her writing at Every Bitter Thing Is Sweet.