October 20, 2009

Dear friends and family,

You’ve probably always wondered how long it takes for 2 people to use a tube of toothpaste. It takes 101 days to use an 8 oz tube. Your trivia question/answer of the day!

We are so thankful for the continued to support and encouragement you bless us with.

Today has been an emotional day. This morning we woke to find out Florence from Zachary House passed away in the early hours. She was almost a year old and she “failed to thrive”. She has always been weak, wouldn’t eat very much, had some genetic abnormalities and was the size of a newborn. We had hoped to be able to help her but on this earth it hadn’t been possible. Our picture of her now is her running and jumping and being fully loved and cradled in the arms of the One who created her. That was our sad news of the day.

While still in our staff meeting on October 20th we heard the full story of Timothy. He is just a few months over 6 years old and has spent most of his life at Shepherd's Field Children's Village. Here is the story: 6 years ago a baby was born with CP, heart problems and ear and head deformities. At five months of age he had a fever. So his mother and her brother took him to doctors in Beijing. They went to three different doctors and they were not encouraging about the possibility of a successful operation and the expense involved was beyond the family's ability to afford. During this time his mother also got a fever. While the Mother was sleeping the uncle made a decision that would affect the next 6 years; he abandoned the baby at Langfang Children's Village and told the family the baby had died and he had taken care of the body to save them further heartache. Some 4 years later the uncle was deathly sick and confessed to his sister what he had done and that the baby was alive when he left him. Since that time the mother and father have been searching orphanage websites for a picture of their son. At a certain point they found a picture on our website that showed a child with ear and head deformity. Over the Holiday from October 1 to 8 they came to visit at SFCV and try to determine if he was their son. This boy didn’t have CP and his ayi said he didn’t have a heart problem but as the mother was helping him put on some new clothes they had brought for him she saw a scar on his chest, at some time he’d had a heart surgery. Their hearts were filled with hope and love. She and her husband spoke with the Langfang orphanage which is responsible for his paperwork and they were more than happy to look into this matter and to determine if he was indeed their son. The 3 of them went to the police station for a DNA test. October 19th we got the news, they match, Timothy is their birth son. October 20th, during our staff meeting, a knock on the door was heard and Christina recognized the Director of the Langfang orphanage and went to chat with him. When she came back in she announced to all that Timothy’s parents were there and ready to take him home….now. We all sat in stunned disbelief. Not enough time to say a satisfactory goodbye, to process that the boy who has been here for almost 6 years is leaving! After and emotional and tearful farewell, Timothy left to go to his home with his birth mother and birth father. We are so, so happy for Timothy and his mother and father, we will miss him so, so much!

We have had some additional difficult days since the end of September when our good friends Matthew, Karen, Christopher and Lee Winn left SFCV and went back to the states. For personal reasons they made a decision to go back and we have been missing them greatly. We are so grateful for their friendship and for the fellowship we were able to have with them. Matthew brought excellent organization to SFCV and we appreciate the guidance we received from him. While it doesn’t mean great changes in our job description there are still some additional things we are helping with because of their departure.

October 1st to 8th was a holiday and we celebrated the Moon Festival on 2 separate days with the kids. The staff, with the exception of the children’s caregivers, were gone and we had the 5 oldest boys to dinner on the 3rd and then the 5 oldest girls on the 4th. The menu was mac and cheese, carrots and cucumbers with dip, finger jello and juice. Then to toast the moon and give thanks for our family and friends we had mooncake and juice. Let’s just say mooncake is an acquired taste. Some are palatable but some are downright gross! Of the boys, 3 didn’t like the mac and cheese and 2 of the girls didn’t care for it but that didn’t matter at all! They were so excited to have dinner, play games and toast the moon. What a blessing to be surrounded by happy children!

Girls at moon festival dinner

During the holiday we had a few visitors. Gus and Katherine Wheeler, friends from Odessa, who are M’s in Weihei which is on the east coast of China, teach at a Korean Ch**stian School. Pete Eastman with his girlfriend Chanel came and spent a night also. Pete teaches ESL in a town south of Shanghai and was a friend of Ryan, our oldest son. What a great time it was to catch up on these friend’s lives and have a good visit with them!

September 26th, 2 separate vans with 6 adults 12 kids left to go to an auction in Beijing that would benefit SFCV. The ride there was quite eventful! In addition to getting lost and the trip taking 2 ½ hours, Clay had the priviledge of sitting next to Grady as he proceeded to be sick several times into one flimsy plastic bag which fortunately, and miraculously, didn’t have any holes! Going to an auction can be an adventure with kids who have never been before and we are thankful Lingling didn’t buy all our paintings to bring back home! She just couldn’t help but get into the spirit of the bidding. The paintings were made by the children and the surprise of the evening was the painting that brought the most action. The person doing the auctioning was actually apologetic as she read the characters on the painting: “Yesu ai wo, Jesus loves you.” Four individuals were bidding on this painting. While most of the paintings had friendly bidding going on this was a little more serious and the painting ended up going for 2500rmb ($370). When we saw that painting go up for bid we looked at it and thought, “wonder if we should have brought that?” When winning bidder came and visited with Clay and expressed to him their gratitude at our coming to China to care for these broken children was when we realized how the father works through our mistakes. James 1:27 tells us to “care for orphans and widow in their distress and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.” It is our honor to bring value to these lives that have been thrown away and to love them with a love only the father can give. Isaiah 1:17 tells to “defend the cause of the fatherless” and our being here challenges others in China to defend the cause of these children.

Jewel & Timothy at Auction

Last week Steve Allen from Valley 4th spent a few days here encouraging and just hanging out with us. We were blessed by this time and one evening we went into Beijing and had dinner with the pa**or of the government approved ch**ch. We were blessed and encouraged by this man and enjoyed the time of fellowship with him. His daughter is in America going to Jewel’s alma mater. He was also the official pa**or for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. We were very encouraged to see this man leading a growing ch**ch in China. We are pr**ying this meeting begins a serving partnership between his congregation and SFCV.

When things have been more difficult we are so glad He promised He can do much more than we ask or even imagine. We desire his power to be at work in us so He will be glorified through us. (look up Eph 3:20&21) Every day we pray we will glorify Him in all we do. We pr*y He increases His power to the weak, because that’s us! (look up Isaiah 40:29-31).

Christina and Clay

We want to end with a quote Matthew Winn uses on his website: Don’t fear failure; fear success in things that don’t matter. This has really struck us as we evaluate what we are doing with our lives and as we strive to listen to what the father wants us to do with our lives.

Please be on your knees for:

• Grady’s adoption, nothing new. Continue praying someone will say “yes”.
  
  
• Timothy as he goes through the changes of a new home.
  
  
• For the added responsibilities Matthew’s departure brings and wisdom in doing what needs to be done.
  
  
• Flexibility in our jobs.
  
  
• Language learning! We would try to impress you with the new words we learn but…we can’t spell them!
  
  
• That we will have an impact on the lives of those around us.
  
  
• Funds for Lucas’ cochlear implant.
  
  
• Weiwei, our financial accountant who has been sick for about 3 months. We need her! Please ask that the spirit of darkness will be lifted from her.

Big thanks for:

• The healing of Stacey’s hand is progressing well! She will have the apparatus off sometime in November and then have plastic surgery on the same hand sometime after that.
  
  
• Kyle has progressed to standing while holding on to a bar! Please keep praying for additional strength in his legs.
  
  
• Christina’s paperwork is in the system!
  
  
• Lingling learned to ride a bike! She is almost 17 and worked so hard to learn. She is working on the stopping part of bike riding nowJ
  
  
• Big steps in teaching life skills, things are moving forward!
  
  
• Timothy’s reunion with his birth parents!
  
  
• Visitors from home!
  
  
• For faithful supporters and faithful pr**yers!
  

With our love and our prayers,



Clay and Jewel

Going home from school - no one gets lost this way!

Kennedy getting ready for a haircut!