Celebrating 18 years of Penny's Life!

Well, folks, can you believe that my "baby" has turned 18 years old? She was born when I was living in Japan, as a single. When I look back, I see that her birth mom and I were both going through our own set of trials, which would ultimately lead to the unfolding of the story that would lead Penny to be my daughter and me to become her mom. I had always thought about adopting, and my heart had always held a special love for Asia. I always knew, since I was about 10 years old, that God wanted me to go to Asia. Thailand, Taiwan and Japan were three of the countries that I felt interested in. I ended up living in Japan for six and a half years, visiting Taiwan and teaching Taiwanese students while I was a college student in Chicago, and visiting Thailand two times, the second of which was when we went to adopt Penny. I can't believe that she is 18! She was 11 and a half when we first laid eyes on her photo. It was WACAP who was the agency that was advocating on her behalf, to try to find her a family. We were so surprised, but overjoyed when we heard that we were the only family that was pursuing to adopt her. She seemed to be such a lovely, kind and healthy child, that I couldn't comprehend that she was still waiting for a family. I guess it was because she was meant to be a part of our little family! I won't share the details of Penny's story in this public blog. But, I'll just say that I'm so thankful for the sacrifices that her birth mom made in order to give life to Penny. And I'm so thankful that we have been given the great gift and responsibility to help her life to blossom. As many of you adoptive parents know, it sometimes comes with tears and challenges to overcome the past hurts that our children carry around. So, if I ever get any compliments on how I'm doing on my parenting skills, I must really give the credit to God. I'm just one part of His plan to bring TRUE healing and eternal life to this, his precious daughter. If I hadn't been adopted into His family, then I wouldn't be able to know how to be His conduit to pour His healing life into my daughter. He helps me each day to learn how to have the enduring patience to pour into her His truth and goodness that help her understand what true love is and how much she is loved as the daughter of the King. It'll be exciting to see where her heavenly Father takes her in the future. I must say that the hardest time, for me, as her mom, was the period of time when we waited. Those two years seemed to drag on forever. It's especially hard when you have just photo to cling onto for so long. But, again, we were blessed that someone we knew took a few photos in between, so we could see that she was okay and was growing. It was hard, knowing that we were missing out on those formative preteen years. Here's the one photo we got during that time which showed us how she was growing out her bangs and had tried piercing her ears (which, wasn't really allowed, but most all of the girls tried at least once). So glad that our lovely daughter is now home and likes being home! In fact, it was her idea to do homeschooling. But, this past year has been a rough one with the huge transition of selling the house where we first became a family, moving to a big city and trying to feel like this place is now home. It's especially hard now being in limbo, again, wondering what Jay's next job will be. But, we're so thankful that God has always been providing all along. Speaking of His provision, He opened up the doors for me to work, part-time, as a receptionist at our church in Arvada. It's the same place where Penny goes on Friday mornings for her homeschool enrichment group, during the school year. I'll be starting on July 1st. I'm thankful that she'll only need to come along and do her homework at the church library two days per week. It's a great blessing for our family! We celebrated this 18th birthday by going out to a local Thai restaurant, which was quite good. The best part was that they had Isaan (Lao)-style Som Tum (papaya salad). That's a comfort food for Penny that she misses. After eating and opening a few presents at the restaurant, we came home and opened the biggest box. I bought her a new comforter for her bed. We're re-doing her bedroom. She wants the wall colors and woodwork to look more like her previous bedroom. She's also trying to get rid of some of the pink. She's growing up and deciding that she doesn't want too much pink, anymore. She's actually all about white and a soft green, at the present moment. The next day we met Grandpa and Grandma at the downtown aquarium. That was what Penny had asked to do for her birthday and it turned out to be a great choice. It was a lot of fun! Our favorite part was petting and feeding the stingrays at the end of the exhibit. It was also so much fun to eat at their restaurant with sharks, stingrays and other fish swimming by in a giant tank, next to our table. Her cake and ice cream were fun, with a shark waver on top. It was definitely a birthday to remember! And it really made me reminisce, since when we were first together in Bangkok, I remember going to the aquarium there. At that time, we could barely communicate, due to language gaps. And it was her first experience to be at an aquarium. I just remember her running away from us, because she would be SO excited to see EVERYTHING! It was rather thrilling, exhausting and terrifying for me. But, she was also in terrible pain, because she had just received the four required shots to get her immigrant visa at the BNH Hospital that morning. This time she was still VERY excited to be at an aquarium! But, now she would actually slow down and really enjoy things and even be able to read many of the signs. I was so proud to think of all the growth taking place in this beautiful young lady that the Lord has endowed us with!