Forward

Madison had her taekwondo, and she's almost there at the third stripe, which means she's going to be getting that blue belt confirmed soon enough.  The testing might be in October, which seems to be a time of testing in many other ways:  Ba-Ba will possibly be starting his chemotherapy and radiation at that time, and so there is much in the way of preparations going on right now.  It's a difficult season.

This is why we're considering our options for Christmas plays coming up.  We've been tasked with a unique Christmas play, but this one might have to be scaled back a bit if things continue in this direction with the grandparents.  We obviously can't invest too much time writing something or even costuming things.

We're even scaling back KidPak somewhat, moving our "Lost World" series back yet again, this also due to the Divine Conference upcoming.  Our resources are being taken from us at the children's ministry in order to make things for the conference, so the end result - again - is that we have to make accommodations.  We're the bottom of the food chain, and this year, it seems as if we've had to make emergency changes time and again.  It's worked out for us, but time after time, we're getting the hint. The very fundamental nature of KidPak, after sixteen years or so, could be shifting to something entirely different.  We'll see as time goes on, and see if we can squeeze a few more series in.  So far, we got to seventy, and that's been fun.

Speaking of fun, we've signed up for three years of the new streaming service Disney Plus today.  It is remarkably inexpensive for what you get, and we'll no doubt be enjoying that for quite some time.  It starts in November, and I think we're something fancy because we signed up early:  part of the Founders Circle.  Yes, that's pretty highfalutin there!

Streaming starts on November 12, and there's a countdown you can go to until that point.  It's one tiny little bright spot in a pretty dreary day.  We're supremely worried about Zena's parents.

Madison was studying her math today, getting ready for summative tests not only in that topic, but for ELA and Social Studies as well.  Her teacher had us write a forward for her autobiography, which we did, and we'll include that here below before closing out this daily entry:

     In January of 2006, my wife Zena and I finally finished what is known as “the paper chase,” an extensive, exhausting, and expensive process of collecting testimonies, background checks, blood samples, and official documents that were notarized, authenticated andcertified.  The reason for our labor was this one hope: a daughter, one that would soon come and change our lives forever.

      We’d always wanted a child, and after our marriage in 2000, the idea of having a child became an increasingly frequent topic.  Zena was a nanny all of her life, taking care of a multitude of children, and I myself was in school to become a teacher.  The two of us work extensively with children in a nearby ministry, surrounded by all kinds of kids.  We were only married a few years when we knew in our hearts that it was time.  We wanted a child of our own.
      It sounds quick and easy to simply say, “We can’t have children.”  But this is a discovery that takes a bit of time, a long and drawn out process made up of all the dashed hopes and dreams that many parents endure.  Several years and doctor’s appointments later though, nevertheless, we still arrived at that same statement:  “We can’t have children.”

      It was disappointing to say the very least.  But from the very first day of our marriage, we were both okay with the idea of adoption.  This is why were very quick to begin our research on adoption around 2004.  We have friends who adopted from certain countries, and we read as much as we could about adopting from other nations as well.  We researched about bribes for officials, hidden alcohol syndrome, and other menacing possibilities that awaited us if we chose certain countries to go to.  But all along the research process, there was the Red Thread.

      In Chinese culture, the Red Thread is an old Chinese saying that means when babies are born, they are already connected to the important people in their life by a red thread.  This thread can be twisted or stretched, but not broken.

     Indeed, we felt as if we already had a connection with someone waiting for us in China.  It helped that the adoption process in China was so streamlined at the time, this due to a large number of unwanted girls in their orphanages.  All we had to do was fill out our paperwork, send in our information, pay our fees, and six months later, go to China.

      Or, at least that’s the way it used to be.  The ten years prior to this, thousands of parents would take this trip, returning home with a child of their own.  We attended countless seminars, classes and festivals, looking on with envy at all these parents, knowing that one day soon we too would have a child just like each one of them.

      It was in January of 2006 that we submitted our information, and based on all the information from adoption agencies across the nation, the waiting time to go to China would be about six months.  Baby showers were planned and preparations were made.  We were going to have a little girl.

      But a few other things were going on at the same time, one of them something very ugly, lurking beneath the surface.  My wife Zena was in pain for a year.  Throughout the paper chase, she was struggling, and doctors were missing the diagnosis completely.  In February of 2006, one month after we submitted our information, finally an answer was discovered:  she had cancer.

     That day, I remember being outside the doctor’s office immediately afterwards, looking downward and trying to process it all, looking at the cracks in the sidewalk, and picturing our whole world crumbling away.  It was an advanced form of cancer, and we would learn that Zena’s recovery process involved seven or eight months of chemotherapy, along with radiation treatments and at least four surgeries, one of them an emergency procedure.

     She wasn’t going to China in six months.  

     But by this time, the Red Thread was already there, already firmly secured, and already pulling tighter.  Unbeknownst to us, at that same exact season, a baby was born in a southeastern region of China, a half a world away from our struggles.  This sort of thing, of course, happens all the time.  But this little girl would soon come to know life in an orphanage in a small place called Cangwu, where she would be named Mei Yang Long. 
     It’s easy now to see how it all fell into place, how in fact our steps were ordered and how our faith would be rewarded.  At the time, however, it was something different, an immense physical, mental, and spiritual battle for us.  Zena went through the chemotherapy, and I was there by her side every step of the way.  A year previous, I had joined the staff of a church, weighing out whether to be a teacher or be in children’s ministry.  We joined a church staff, and our decision gave us unforeseen consequences that blessed us tremendously.  Firstly, we had  the ability to do a lot of our work right there at the hospital, so I could be by my wife’s side through all of this.  Secondly, we had a better insurance policy to help us out financially. But for Zena, the greatest motivating tool of all was simply this:  the idea of having a child.  Her name would be Madison, the daughter of a warrior.

     A remarkable thing occurred during Zena’s cancer treatment.  We knew very well that we could not make the journey to China in six months, as Zena was literally in the midst of a life and death battle.  But it turns out we didn’t need to.  

     Simultaneous to all of this, the adoption process began to lengthen somewhat.  This was a result of a logjam of people hoping to adopt, combined with sudden government policy changes and some well-publicized awful behavior by certain adoptive parents.  During these years, we were in close contact with several other waiting parents in Washington, New Jersey, Tennessee, Texas, Iowa, Wisconsin, Florida, and Oklahoma, all of us having submitted our documents and fees at the same time.  Collectively, we watched in shock as the adoption process began to lengthen.  No longer was it six months.  The wait began to stretch.  We watched as those who submitted documents twenty-four weeks earlier than us suddenly had an eight month wait, instead of six.   Those who submitted their forms twenty-three weeks earlier now had a ten month wait.  You can imagine the horror for those who submitted adoption paperwork on our date. We were watching the wait increase to a year, and then a year and a half and possibly more.  Just how long would the wait stretch to?

     For my wife and I, we didn’t care.  Of course, we couldn’t spend time thinking about the wait, when our primary concern was a fight for survival.  We sympathized with the plight of those who had thought they would adopt in six months, only to discover that their wait had increased dramatically.  But inside, we were quietly grateful for the extra time. We needed it.

      Two and a half years later, two things happened at the same time, and both were miracles for us.  The first of which was Zena’s full recovery.  She’s had to deal with the issues of a smaller gastrointestinal system ever since, but to this day, there has been no sign of cancer within her body.  She’s cancer free. 

     Her recovery came just in time for our second miracle:  we got our referral letter, and we were going to China.  On May 2, 2008, we saw our daughter’s face for the first time in a small photo sent by email.  We always knew that when this email arrived, and when China told us to go, we would have to, regardless of Zena’s condition.  But the truth of the matter is that any time before May of 2008, Zena was not physically able to go to China.  Everything timed out perfectly.  While the waiting time for adoption was prolonged to an agonizing two and a half years, this was exactly the time needed for my wife to recover completely, enough for her to make this most important trip to China.

      All along, we never wavered in our faith.  We knew Madison was there, waiting for us.  We knew if we went too early, we would have gotten another girl, a different girl.  And that would be good as well, of course.  But it wouldn’t be the perfect match for us.  It wouldn’t be Madison, the little girl at the end of that very long Red Thread.
      Towards the end of June of 2008, that Red Thread became much shorter in distance as we began our unforgettable journey to China.  We met Madison for the first time in Nanning, China, on June 30, 2008, on a day that will forever be imprinted in our hearts and minds.  It canceled out all the dreadful feelings of that day two and a half years prior, sitting outside a doctor’s office in the midst of winter.  The contrasting warmth and joy of this new day shines so brilliantly in our memories that we don’t think as much on those darker years of our life.  And ever since then, it has been beautiful.

     In fact, that’s why we kept her middle name “Mei.”  This was her given name at the orphanage, a name that means beautiful. And that’s what she is, and has been to us, one of the most beautiful gifts we have ever been given.

      On July 1^st, 2008, just eight days before the Beijing Olympics began in China, we officially adopted Madison Mei Cypher into our family.  There were many celebrations going on in China at that time, but of all of them, ours was the most joyous and the most beautiful of all. It was the beginning of our happily ever after, or as Madison has called it, “Life Before Heaven.”