Safe In The Arms of the Shepherd

Safe In The Arms of the Shepherd
This is Who we want our children to know!

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Lambie hats and the love of the Shepherd

After my first post I promised to tell you about a very special hat. It's a long story though!

When we saw YiLi's video, way back almost one year ago, reps from our agency were there videotaping her being interviewed so that the video could be shown to families like us who showed interest in possibly adopting her. We saw her teensy picture on an adoption advocacy site called Rainbow Kids (check it out). We immediately contacted WACAP and requested her file. Well, Seattle received so much snow that they had to dig themselves out, and it was two weeks before we received the video!

In her video she sings a song. She starts on too high of a pitch, but this girl never gives up! She finished her song gloriously!

YiLi explained, through a translator, that she lives with her "mama" , "baba", and grandmothers on both sides - no other foster children. She obviously loves them dearly, and is too young to understand that she could not live with them past the age of 14 within the foster care system, atleast. And very few families would be able to afford or would be willing to keep a foster child without being recompensed by the government. Please pray for YiLi as she works through her grief when she comes home to us.

She wants to own a grocery store when she grows up so that she can have all the food she wants and so that she can share it with all her friends. Even this is unusual. Many orphans cannot give an answer when asked what they want to be "when they grow up" because they cannot imagine the future at all.

When asked her favorite toy, she almost could not think of an answer. When she finally did, she gave this little sideways grim toward her nanny as if they shared this funny little secret, and then said "toy gun".

Her favorite animal? Little sheep . . . why . . . because they eat grass. Now it very well may be that a lamb is not her favorite animal at all. Maybe it's all she could think of in the stress of the moment. But it got me to thinking about how we are all just little lambs . . . and how we are all adopted . . . and how we can tell YiLi about a loving Shepherd who doesn't rest until all His sheep are safe in the fold. When He calls her name, I hope with my whole heart that she knows the Shepherd's voice and follows him!

OK, almost done! Here's the connection. A young mom at my church makes these hats on demand in the shape of different animals. So I asked her to come up with a lambie hat, to use her own creativity, which she has a LOT of, to create a hat for YiLi to wear. It went from there to her making a dozen or so hats for us to leave at YiLi's orphanage! God must have known that we would be headed there right at the onset of a very cold winter, to the north of China! Thank you, Nicole, for your ministry of hats! So much love went into these hats, and we can't wait to take them with us. Here's Lambie Hat!

4 comments:

  1. Love the Lambie Hat! I am so excited for you! Almost as good as if I was going! Please tell Journey not to give up, I'm coming!

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  2. Loved reading your story and the Lambie hats are adorable! Love them!

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  3. I am so super excited for you! I can not wait to see you with those precious girls!

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  4. Love the hats and all of the pictures of the girls! How exciting for all of you!!!

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