journey of joy: "Gotcha 1 year!"

How can I even begin the describe the events of this past year? March 23, 2014, James and I were in Guiyang, Guizhou, China on our way to a building where we were to meet our daughter, Joyah Mi Ni for the first time. This is known as "Gotcha Day". We were excited and scared to death at the same time as we entered a small business building in the middle of the city. We rode an elevator to an area in which several children were waiting with their foster parents to meet their new adoptive parents. There she was, in the arms of her foster mother and foster sister waiting to meet us. It was a moment like no other in the world. She was very friendly and loved making faces at us. When her foster mom handed her over for the first time, we expected her to cry, but she didn't and we were overjoyed at this new gift that God had given us.

Over the past year, we have experienced new joys and many "firsts" with Joyah. She took her first steps on Mother's Day and has gone on to experience life outside of concrete walls. Joyah has not always liked new things such as grass, animals, trees etc but she has begun to enjoy them in her own timing. Today, she loved just playing in the rocks in our backyard. Last year, she would have been very upset to sit outside in grass to play with rocks. She has come so far!

In October, Joyah turned 2 years old and also received her glasses. Joyah loves her glasses and get a lot of attention from her cuteness in them, which she eats up. Along with the glasses, came a new stage to add to the many therapies she receives for speech and physical deficits. We had to begin "patching" her better eye in order to force the brain to use her weak eye. Her weak eye is legally blind and was so blind that when we started patching, she couldn't avoid walking into walls. 6 months later, we are happy to report that she can identify pictures in books using her left eye while being patched. She still isn't happy about being "patched" for 6 hours per day but seems to be tolerating it a little better.

In the midst of the joy that God brought to our family through Joyah, we have also experienced great confusion. We didn't realize at the time, but when Joyah didn't cry for her foster mom, like all the other kids being adopted the day we got her did, we should have known something wasn't quite normal. Joyah is charming and especially charming to people outside of our home. She can melt anyone's heart and be a perfect angel. However at home, we were beginning to see something quite different and realized that she would rather be anywhere else or with anyone else. After talking with professionals and finally putting pieces together in our heads that for a while didn't make sense, it became clear that Joyah has many symptoms of an "Attachment Disorder". This makes it difficult for her to allow herself to become close enough emotionally to fully attach to us as her Mom and Dad. In her little mind, she is waiting for us to leave her and therefore will not allow herself to become too close. To protect herself she has to push us away in anyway she can in order to feel safe emotionally.

Even though we are pushing through this new realization with Joyah, we know that God is stronger than anything and he is using this situation in our lives to bring glory to himself and the situation. I am now a full-time stay at home Mom in the past couple of weeks and I realize that God has given me a new full-time job. I may not get the "breaks" that I would like sometimes, but it gives me more time with the boys as well and gives me much more time and reason to say "Help God, I need you!" It's so easy to become less dependent on God when things are going well and I am so thankful that God chose us to be Joyah's Mom & Dad!

Here are some memories of the past year....