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

Lindkids in China

I mentioned in the Meat Market post that I was going to (in two to three days time) upload a seventeen minute video featuring our apartment complex. Well, that didn't happen in the time I was anticipating. I uploaded it four times before it failed in processing. The fifth time is a charm. :D It worked this last time.

This is a video of Weifeng Gardens with commentary by Emma and me. We tend to talk too fast or soft often, though, so I added subtitles to make it easier. Just for you. ;) Click the CC at the bottom right to enable subtitles. Select English - Lindkids in China subtitles, not English (automatic subtitles). The English (automatic subtitles) are VERY WRONG.

A picture is worth a thousand words, and a video file has a gazillion different pictures all grouped together, so I probably have an uncountable-zillion words in this video. That saves me a zillion lifetimes. :)

Sorry for the twelve-day wait.

(In reference to the name: Emma and I are LINDner KIDS. Lindkids.)

P.S. Some subtitles may be off by about two seconds - sorry about that. 

~Abby

The Meat Market

While I am waiting for a seventeen minute video to upload and process on Youtube (the uploading process should take somewhere around one thousand minutes, assuming it does upload) to post her, I will put this forty-eight second video taped by Baba (Rick) of a meat market where he goes to get us beef. It's available at Metro, but according to our family shopper (which, of course, would be Baba), the beef here is WAY BETTER, so I'll just go with his word for it.

Matthew relatively always tags along with Baba on his bike rides here, and Jenna has most recently decided to join him as well. Matthew is famous at the meat market. :D As I have never gone myself (1. because they always ride bikes and 2. because raw meat is disgusting), I can not describe that experience of being among all these lovely cows and pigs and such as well as Baba or Jenna could, you're only source of explanation concerning this place will be this video. Otherwise, I would fill you with five-hundred words of description.

The seventeen minute video I alluded to at the top should be up in two to three days. Hopefully.

~Abby