Matthew James (soon to be the newest member of the Lindner family)

Matthew \m(a)-tthew\: (pron.) gift of God [Matthaios Greek]




Two notable events occurred for the Lindner family on November 11, 2010: Emma turned eleven and Matthew became a part of our family as we began to foster him. At the time, we believed the arrangement was only temporary, that this relationship would be setting Matthew up to become the official member of another family. Our assumptions were that we were only fostering him. Yet, here we find ourselves near the end of a long process to adopt our wonderful little guy.

Needless to say, Matthew has come a long, long, long way since that first glorious day. Seeing as he first came into our family on November 11, this probably would have been a more appropriate post at that time but, hey, everybody makes mistakes. :)

Quick Facts
Favorite form of transportation: subway
Favorite snack: peanuts and cheese sticks 
Favorite food: noodles
Least favorite food: vegetables (surprise, surprise)
Favorite drink: chocolate milk
Favorite word: Why?
Favorite phrase: (enter name), what're you doin' here?
Favorite TV show: Super Why!
Favorite pastime: washing dishes (seriously)


As of a couple weeks ago, Matthew was introduced to the Christmas classic, Frosty the Snowman. I'm not sure if the story interests him so much as the song that it inspired. Here's Matthew's version of the song:

Frosty the snowman was a jopsy happy coal

With a corn-cup pipe and a button nose

And two eyes make of coal

And, yeah, that's pretty much it. He doesn't sing the whole song.

At Metro (supermarket nearby, similar to Costco), Christmas music has been playing. The other day, the Frosty song began to play. Matthew stood up in our carriage and, at the top of his little lungs, began belting out the words. While he was singing a small crowd formed around our carriage. Unfazed, Matthew continued to sing. Everyone was smiling, laughing, and a couple people even clapped. One Chinese lady approached us and, in broken English, inquired as to whether he would also be performing the next song.
This is just another way he makes us laugh everyday.

I don't believe we've mentioned Matthew's preschool before, so now seems an appropriate time to do so. He has been attending a nearby center since September. Nearby as in, get outside, walk for about two minutes within our courtyard, turn left, turn left again, and boom, you're there. From ten to twelve each Tuesday and Thursday, Matthew attends a little place called the Lighthouse Center. With a semester gone by, his academic progress is super. His teacher made a point last week to mention his wonderful progress. According to her report, he now actually participates in class, listens to the teacher, and understands more.



The Matthew-Zachary relationship has been rocky.



In the beginning, jealousy kept Matthew from sharing his parents with Zachary, like he was afraid Zach would take them. Now, Matthew acts like his big brother. He cares for Zach, getting him toys, attempting to feed him, and all. They get along like brothers, and they fight like brothers. Mostly over toys. Overall, Matthew truly loves Zachary.

Thanksgiving 2013

This past Thanksgiving was our fourth consecutive year in which we've celebrated Thanksgiving in China. We never imagined that we would be here long enough to do that. My teacher, her husband, and son came to our home to join in the festivities. Accompanying them was another lady, her son, and her mother, who went to my teacher's church. Presently she is struggling through a divorce; it has been really hard on her and her family. This was also Zachary's 1st Thanksgiving and he loved the food.

The tree was brought out and decorated the day before we celebrated Thanksgiving (which was Saturday instead of Thursday), so that was there. We've improved the star on the top of the tree from being surrounded by gold-and-red tinsel stars to being wrapped up in gold-and-red ribbon, and abandoned any attempts to include my plastic blue drums (which got crushed). Going for a look classier than last year's, the ornaments are composed primarily of red bulbs and silver bulbs. And there's a Red Sox baseball tucked in there somewhere, in the spirit of sports and all.

As he seriously doesn't do well with strangers waltzing around our humble abode, Brodie was transferred downstairs to have a haircut and a good wash at the pet shop right outside our south gate.

The guests came at around 4 pm, and the turkey completed its roasting about 5 pm. The fowl was done at a later time than expected (Cheryl started cooking it at 10:30 am and thought it would be done at 3:30 pm), so dinner was postponed by about 1 1/2 hours, but hey, good things come to those who wait! In the end, the turkey was delicious.

The funny thing was, our guest were supposed to come around 2 pm... around 3, they still weren't here. I sent a text to my teacher to ensure everything was okay. Sometimes, in translation, things get mixed up. Here we were cooking all this food, and then my teacher texts me back, "We are eating lunch and we will be there at 4."

Um, what...?

So I text her back, "Lunch? You do know we make a lot of food for Thanksgiving."

"Really?" she replied.

On Thursday, I filled her in on all the food we would be having, and she was excited about it. But, here she was having lunch before coming here or Thanksgiving dinner?

Having said all this, the dinner went great and everyone ate plenty. This was their first Thanksgiving dinner.

(A quick history note: During the first Thanksgiving between the Pilgrims and the Indians, turkey is not known to have really been consumed. A colonist mentions having caught wild fowl, but not necessarily turkey. We don't really know. It's possible, but we couldn't know for absolute certain. For more information, this article written on Thanksgiving Day, 2013, provides a few more facts.)

Matthew, being a people-person, especially enjoyed the company of two boys around his age to play with and other adults to gain the attention of. In the nature of boys, they were loud, but they didn't make a huge mess or go off the walls, so it was a-okay. He doesn't play with kids his age too often (he mostly plays with his older sisters), so he really enjoyed the opportunity. So did we. :D

It was a true blessing to our family being  able to celebrate Thanksgiving with our Chinese friends.

Our turkey just fit

The finished product

My teacher

Things That Happen On Our Walks

Hello, blog readers!

 So, yesterday Baba, Matthew, Zachary, and I went to buy peanut oil (we had to go all over the place because no one near us had any, which is weird as they use it often in Chinese cooking). After about thirty-maybe-more minutes, we found it in a big crowded market. Small bottle for 35 yuan.

BUT that's not important.

 While wandering back to our apartment complex, we encountered a group of boys who were enjoying themselves with a game of ping pong. Baba used to play ping pong quite often back at Shaanxi Normal (which he attended before he went to his present Chinese school) and occasionally now. Baba asked one of the boys (English name: Jason) if he could play. [As in, he pointed at the table and asked, "Wo ke yi ma? 我可以吗? Can I?"]

He asked me to take some pictures whilst he was playing, which I did.
I also took an almost-three minute video. :) Because it was easier to just move the iPod around rather than repeatedly take pictures. There was too much movement for proper pictures. The photos would have been blurred.

 At Baba's suggestion, we are now posting the video.  :D See, here it is! Enjoy.

~Abby


 

Children of China

Living in China, we have had many opportunities to work with orphans.  It started, as many know, a little over three months after we arrived; God put Matthew into our lives. Matthew means 'Gift from God'.

Matthew was born with HIV and was quite little in size when he came to us. When we first heard about him he was in an isolation room with little to no care. Due to lack of education about HIV, people were afraid to care for him. Now, three years later, he is a healthy, happy, handsome little boy. We are looking forward to completing his adoption and getting him back to the US, where he will be seen by a specialist and we can know exactly where he stands medically.

We started the adoption process for Matthew a couple of years ago; presently, we are in the final stages. We never thought we would be starting over at our age, but we are so glad we were open to Matthew. He is an amazing little man!  To us he is our son, but it will be a relief when it's official!

Cheryl and Jenna volunteer each week at a group foster home here in the city. This home cares for and nurtures children with special needs.

We have also had the opportunity to bridge foster a wonderful little girl for almost 4 months, preparing her for her forever family. She was divinely matched with a family from our home church. We got to meet her forever family when they came to China. Today, we are still able to keep in touch with them. It is a privilege to see one of these little ones on the other side of adoption. She is in a very special family, and their kindness toward us has truly touched our hearts. This is how great our God is: We were praying for a Christian family to adopt this little girl, and they were praying the foster family taking care of her was also a Christian family. God is so GREAT!



As for an update on our other foster boy, Zachary. He has been with us since June and is doing wonderfully. We are not miracle workers at all. Our works have been simple: we have loved him, hugged him, and fed him. He now weighs twenty pounds (ten or so kilograms) and eats like crazy. There are few types of food he does not like. Italian has been his favorite food thus far. Zachary still has a long road ahead of him, as he has a number of health issues and the poor little guy is fighting. It is truly amazing how far he has come in just the 4 short months he has been in our home. Zachary means 'The Lord Remembers'. The world forgot him but the Lord remembered him, and took him out of a horrible situation. He is a very special little boy and we hope he will have a forever family of his own one day soon. Until then, we are happy to love him!

He is scheduled to start his HIV medication next week which should help him a lot. We have been waiting for him to be in good enough shape to start his course of treatment with anti-retrovirals.

In September, we had the pleasure of having the leader of Matthew's orphanage come to our home. Such an occurrence is most unusual -- to have the leader of a Chinese orphanage visit your home. He brought Matthew to us three years ago and had not seen him in person since. Although Matthew doesn't understand all of this, we were glad to have a picture of the two of them. We send them monthly updates and we have had a good relationship with this orphanage.

We have been so blessed that God has put us in China at this point in time and has brought  into our lives these precious children. We are so thankful to all of our family and friends; without them, all of this would not be possible.

Thank you for your prayers and support,

Rick

A Few Days in the Mountains

A Chinese friend we met in Xi'an, Sissia, asked us if we would like to go to the mountains with her for a few days last week. She said she would pay for everything - how could we say no? Things have been a little stressful lately and this would be a great respite for our family. We had a friend come to take care of Zachary while we went away.

The mountain air was beautiful. The sky was clear and blue, a rare sight in the city, and it was much cooler. Cutting through the mountain was a long, shallow river that only added to the beauty of the atmosphere. It 

was like the rest of the scenery - beautiful, clear, and cool. Some people were fishing in its torrents; Emma tried a bit herself using a little net, but succeeded only in catching ridiculously tiny ones. A certain frog she and I attempted multiple times to catch continually succeeded in escaping. 

Emma looking for fish

The river was clear and cold

We went out one night to see the stars and it was the most amazing sight I have ever seen. If you've ever seen that sort of scene, an endless array of stars littering the deep night sky, you know what I mean. It's unbelievable; it's hardly even real. It's like a dream. (Jen and I tried getting some pictures, but none of them came out.)

The hotel seemed to be a family-run business. When we would leave our room at night all the lights were out, just as if we were at home. If we hadn't yet had dinner, the staff would knock on our door to see if we wanted some. One night we even had dinner in the lobby, with the whole staff watching us and their dogs running around the table.

Dinner in the lobby

Front view of the hotel

Matthew loved throwing rocks

The owner of the hotel

Peacocks were the hotel greeters

Emma crossing a sketchy bridge

~Rick

[Abby] Look at that last picture. So calm. So elegant. So alluring. Yet it's so simple. The tips of mountains, darkened by a shadow as a result of a non-existent sun, scraping a sharp blue sky. A sky painted with quick, soft strokes of white paint that form clouds that meet the mountains. It's not the best picture quality, not the best picture, but it still conveys so much. :D 

Third Birthday

This past weekend we celebrated Matthew's third birthday! It's hard to believe nearly three years have gone by since he joined our family!

We invited some of our Chinese friends and some kids over to a party on Saturday. Matthew's always had a favorite show (Elmo, Pooh, Cedarmont Kids, Karyn Henley, Chuck the Dump Truck...) and now he's really into Jake & the Neverland Pirates (a spin-off on the classic Peter Pan). As such, Cheryl & Jenna made him a treasure chest birthday cake. :D

 

For those who would not join in during the eating of the treasure chest, we also provided a mousse-ish chocolate cake we bought at a bakery (It's called Ali's Bakery.) I [Abby] think I was the only one who didn't have any treasure chest cake, simply because the mousse cake was just too good to be replaced by the likes of a cake with frosting. (I am of the odd few that do not like consuming tons of frosting. I like whipped cream and cherries and such, but frosting is just too thick for me.) 

This was a delicious chocolate mousse cake made at our favorite bakery.

Some of the invited

Matthew & Mom

~Rick

~Cheryl

~Abby

A Morning in the Life of The Lindners...Amidst an Earthquake.

The following takes place between 7:00 am and 8:00 am CST (Read with Jack Bauer's voice). The times are all approximate because nobody was looking at the clock. Events are portrayed from Jenna's perspective.

7:00 Matthew wakes up at his usual time, slapping his bare feet as he runs down the hall. He does this every single morning.

7:30 I finally dose back to sleep.

7:45 Mom announces"we are having an earthquake". I am startled awake and immediately say no we're not only to find that my bed is indeed swaying and my heart is racing.

7:45:15 Dad yells from the living room that we are having an earthquake, his warning more startling than the first.

7:45:30 Mad race begins to get a family of 8 (including the dog) down 16 flights of stairs and outside.

Viewer/Reader discretion now partially advised.

7:46 Frantically in search of pants and boulder holders (there are 4 women in our home) so I can go get the baby (Zachary, our foster boy) up. Also mentally preparing myself for the very messy diaper he presents us with every morning.

7:48 Mom is getting a bottle prepared as Dad gets Matthew dressed and grabs the Passports. Emma gets the leash on the dog and Abby grabs umbrellas (we noticed is was pouring outside).

7:49 I was successful in changing Zachary's diaper and getting him dressed. Now begins our descent.

7:51 Made it down 16 flights of stairs with 3 adults, 2 teenagers, a 3 year old, a 2 year old, stroller, umbrellas, passports, a diaper bag and are now amongst quite a few people huddled under the overhang above the apartment building entrance (I am not a morning person and don't think well that early and without my coffee so I was unable to capture a picture during the huddle, my apologies).

7:51:30 Matthew, huge smile on face, announces "Look! Everybody is here"

7:53 We have 3 baby bottles and 3 covers, 1 of which Zachary refuses to drink from...we grabbed that 1. Cranky, hungry baby...check.

7:55 Matthew comes back to the shelter of the overhang after enjoying some jumps in the puddles. He was a happy camper.

7:56 Dad comes back from the front store with news of the location of the earthquake. Gansu province, about 300 miles NW of us.

7:57 Really wishing we had time to brush our teeth, morning breath started to overtake us.

We headed back up after about 25 minutes knowing we were in no imminent danger. Pretty proud of our 4 minute evacuation considering a majority of us were awoken mid-sleep. As I began typing this post, our earthquake warner (lights above our kitchen table) started to sway. We thought it was maybe an aftershock. We had things packed and ready for descent number 2, but decided we were ok after the swaying duration lasted for only 15 seconds.

Thankful for God's protection and praying for the areas affected more severely from this earthquake.

Also thankful for my Mom's preparedness amidst the the chaos as she started handing out cheese crackers to our fellow huddle mates.

Servant Leadership Talk

I had the opportunity to teach servant leadership to a developer company. They are one of the larger companies here building new apartments for all of China. My teacher and her husband requested this. (Her husband is the general manager of this company to talk with his employees.) I based my talk on Pastor Rick's teaching on servant leadership “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:28).  Here are the points Pastor Rick talks about, 1. What servant leadership looks like. 2. What a servant leader says to others. 3. What a servant leader says to himself.  I talked to about twenty-five employees. The problem my friend is having at his company is the same one companies all over the have; issues with integrity,dishonesty and not wanting to do extra work,with employees often saying "that's not my job".

We played a variation of musical chairs, in which we removed chairs and not people. The men were on one team and the women were on another. They had so much fun; the women were the smarter ones and were able to get everyone on one chair before the guys did. I shared with them that the women just knew what to do while the men tried to think too much about how to get everyone onto one chair. They were planning it all out ahead of time and it did not work. I feel it went well; they have asked me to come back and share more.

The next topic they would like me to discuss Jesus (ye su in Chinese). I am so excited to have this opportunity. They also want my wife and daughters to go to the company and share with the women. They want them to teach the ladies how to cook western food and share their testimony. God is using us more and more on a daily basis. We told the Lord the saying our Pastor always says, "Use me and/or us".

You really. have to be ready if you use these words.

Well, we are excited. Thank you again for all of your prayers and support! :)

A few of Matthew's favorite things to do

Matthew loves riding in a Beng Beng Che, going shopping at Metro, and riding on the subway. Metro is like the Chinese version of Costco, without the $2.00 hot dogs, coke, or pizza. Just about five months ago Matthew wasn't allowed in Metro because he was under 1.2 meters. For some reason they now just let him in, yet he is still not yet 1.2 meters 

The completion of Matthew's adoption is pretty close. All of his paperwork is in Beijing and we are just waiting for the permission to travel to his province for the final steps. Thank you to God, Show Hope (http://www.showhope.org/), and The JSC Foundation (http://www.jscfoundation.org/)  for giving us the grants to make this adoption possible. Also, thank you to Elim Kids (Dr. Sam & Dr. Julie) for giving us the opportunity to foster Matthew almost three years ago.  

So GQ

Riding the subway

View from the inside of our Beng Beng Che.

~Rick

P.S. from Abby: Hope you had a happy Fourth of July holiday. And, for those who don't celebrate Independence Day, I still hope you had a good day. :D