Bye Summer, we will miss you…. (an overdue update with fun videos and pics)

Hey there! It’s been a minute since I wrote a general update and many have been asking, especially about Eviemira. Well, can I just first say that I don’t know where the summer went! I feel like crying a little that it is over. I am super sad about summer ending because I am not a fan of Season change. Fall is beautiful, yes.. I know! And, I will admit, it…however so are sunsets. And just like there is darkness waiting behind a sunset, there is a cold dark winter waiting behind a crisp Fall and I don’t like that at all. I was not made for winter and winter feels a lot like death to me, to be honest. Which is why I love sunrises and the season of spring MORE! And, Season change has a way of turning over deep grief and stirring it up fresh and raw which is hard to manage at times and hard to function in.

It’s hard to say goodbye to warmer days and all the green of the earth. I get sad when I see the trees start to die… I feel like I ache with them for the redemption of Spring and color of summer. For us it has been a wonderful summer full of so many memories and milestones, even amidst the covid madness! UGH…Covid! I mean, what is even happening in our world! So much brokenness….and sorrow. Jesus, please come back! I don’t know about each of you, but I know “for me” living in this landscape of Covid-ness has made everything that much more exhausting and so many things have lost their appeal. I feel like Covid has stolen so much more than we can ever begin to name for so many of us collectively as a society…. and it has taken away so many things we used to take for granted. For instance, it is So hard to go to medical appts, procedures and surgeries without the support of both parents and/or a sibling… and it is so hard to find paper towels and shopping is not ever fun anymore. And, who misses seeing people’s faces and trading smiles when out and about… I know I sure do.

sigh….

Jesus, please come back and heal our world.

Ok….

ok,so yeah…. I am gonna write a very random update… be ready, It’s not polished, probably gonna be pretty chaotic and you’ll find lots of typos because I threw it together in the marginal hours of my life (like late night, or between homeschool lessons). I am gonna include some fun videos too, I think! Not sure… let’s see where this post goes! But, I knew I just wanted to get the story documented…. I have always blogged (for over a decade) for the purpose of recording the moments. It’s helpful to us to see the ways God has carried us through the seasons as we push forward carrying deep grief, which is why I continue to write and share. I share so others can see His faithfulness too, even in all our brokenness and messiness. He is faithful.

so….We had to gear up for many family changes that would be taking place this fall. The best way we knew to prepare was to take time to be very intentional with our family time this summer with lots of swimming, family walks, dreaming, vision casting, duckling raising, ministry planning, Non-profit building, teeth surgery for JunJun, playing and sleepovers with Texas cousins, finishing our basement (longest DIY family project ever), piano learning (thank you teacher Ethan), expanding our Gianna’s Victory garden to ten times its size complete with a sunflower house(pics below!)… it is simply magical, and we even got to get away to the beach, which was so fun and refreshing! At the end of August, we all (yes, all 9 of us!) drove our oldest son to college 5.5 hours away to drop him off where he will finish his last two years of his degree! We had a blast moving him in for a couple days but it was so difficult to leave him there too. Yet, so much excitement also as we all know this place is exactly where God has been leading him and we are absolutely cheering him forward. Well…..All except JunJun who just can’t seem to understand why her EE can’t stay home for school, so he can play with her all day and every day!! She just loves her EE so much and cried when we had to say goodbye! We all did. And, well… it’s been quite the adjustment with Ethan gone…. As a forever homeschooling family, it feels that much harder to be separated since we’re so used to always being together and we LOVE being together.. And, You know how it is… joy and sorrow all tangled up together! Change can be wonderful and change can be terrible all at the same time. But, we are praising God for how He has been leading us all…and we hang out on facetime together A LOT which is such a blessing.

Among the changes that are happening this fall, our Ashton (10th grade) has started full time “brick and mortar” school at a local private school and he is so excited! He is our trailblazer and official first “traditional” schooler. Of course he has had more virtual school then in-person, because… stupid covid. but, he should be back to the classroom next week, and he is thankful for that as he enjoys it! Covid has taught us all the freedom and power of the “pivot” and the need for total flexibility.

Our oldest daughter, Isabella is continuing her online degree this year with hopes for being done her degree by next fall, as she has been working so faithfully while also balancing being a homeschool helper and amazing big sissy. We are thinking her and Ethan may be able to walk on stage at the same time to graduate in 2022! I am so proud of them! And our Helaina is finishing her senior year of homeschool and she is also an amazing hard worker as she has been working at her job for 2 years now to save money for all her adventures that she is excited to begin after she graduates. God is truly setting a HUGE fire in her heart and I can’t wait to see what HE does!

I seriously have the best kids ever! I am so blessed and so proud of each of them.

Our Tahlia and Hudson are continuing their homeschooling journey and also their Classical Conversations classes with their friends. This is their fourth year in CC and its probably one of my hardest emotionally as we are going back through the cycle that we did the first year we went to CC when Gianna was with us on earth.

The three of them were my triplets who loved learning together. And, going through the same material we did that year (3 years ago) tends to rip my heart out at times. It’s so hard to feel that hole be even more magnified at times. Yet, I am so thankful for our little CC community because they have been a beautiful support and family these past 2.5 years of valley walking. Furthermore, Tolly and Hud are amazing big siblings. We always say that GiaBia taught them well how to nurture and give fully of themselves as a big sissy and big brother. It is beautiful to watch their relationship to JunJun bloom as she adores them!! They are both such amazing teacher assistants too as they help Eviemira who is super excited to be starting “her” school like a big kid! I am tell you, this girl! She is super smart and has an amazing memory as she learns her letters and letter sounds.

But, I have to say….. its not easy. Even with being a teacher and parent for over 2 decades, it is all new to me now. I feel like a first time parent/teacher all over again as I have never taught a child with these specific special needs and different abilities and honestly, I feel very inadequate many days and stretched beyond my abilities. However, the Lord is teaching me His amazing strength and care through all my weaknesses. I am learning every day all the new ways to help her succeed and it looks very different then the approach I did with my other 7 children. Her and I and the kids all experiment with all kinds of adaptations, alternatives and different strategies to find her very own beautiful, and NEW way to do things. And, most times she shows US the best way to get tasks accomplished! She is our teacher most days. It is a humbling and exciting journey and one that keeps me on my knees, while also simultaneously keeps us cheering loudly as we are continually astounded to witness all the tiny miracles exploding in front of our eyes each day in this journey. What a blessing to be chosen by God for such a blessed gift to be her family. Eviemira is a true gift of goodness!

Speaking of miracles, Eviemira had an amazing summer learning to swim! She is a mermaid and LOVES the water. It is so good for her therapy too! I will let this video speak for itself! Daddy is the best swim coach ever!

She has also been busy bike riding and gardening and piano playing! Check out these sweet glimpses into all her miracles! We are the luckiest to be hers!

I told you she is amazing! NOTHING stops her!

JunJun has also been a warrior in learning to walk. She has taken 5-10 steps independently at times! It is exciting to watch this magical marathon take place. She is a fighter. If you remember, she had serial leg/foot casting last February (see this post) to straighten her club feet. This was successful in that it brought her to the place where she could stand and start learning her new miraculous walking gait with her long braces (KAFO’s), and we are excited for how far this procedure has brought her in learning to walk. We do therapy often and it is hard work for her but our girl has some grit! However, her AMC team wants to re-cast her again this October for 3-4 weeks of serial casting because her feet still are not fully straight and in order for her to get to a place where she can independently walk, they feel this would be necessary. It is not uncommon for castings to be done and re-done many times over many yearts as beautiful clubbed feet tend to want to return to their native positioning. Casting IS so hard and not fun at all, but we are prepared to do what we need to do to help JunJun fulfill her wish to walk and dance independently one day! She is so brave, so strong! Please pray for us and for her to have peace the month of October and that there are no complications and for JunJun’s heart as this always seems to bring out medical PTSD in her.

Also, as we have been praying and discussing JunJun’s needs with her team, and we all believe that it would be good to start getting her fitted for a power wheelchair so she can start gaining some fun indepence as she is also simultaneously learning to walk, but not quite walking yet. Now, for those who are wondering, I can assure you that “getting a wheelchair” in no way means that we are “giving up” on teaching her to walk. Of course not! JunJun Would have none of that crazy thinking either! But, getting a wheelchair simply means she has yet another way to feel confident, mobile and independent while learning to walk! This girl is not bound by disability, she is freed by her super ability and we love watching all her fire and determination! A wheelchair will allow her the beauty of attending fun social things like sunday school classes and library outings and stores and parks. And it will give her an alternative way to be mobile instead of just scooting, and rolling on the floor (which is her current adorable and preferred method of moving from place to place at home). She is very excited and we can’t wait to see how her confidence and freedom explodes even more with her own special mighty chair! In fact, today she was fitted for her new chair and she amazed her team at the clinic with how fast she learned to maneuver her chair! She did not hit one wall and turned corners with such ease! Seriously, this girl drove like she was on rails! They were astounded! She is simply amazing! She picked out a pretty wild powerchair just like this but with pink and it should be ready in 3-6 months! We are praying for no insurance issues and full coverage. She is excited and we are excited with her!

Another prayer request is for wisdom as we discuss surgical options and pathways for Eviemira’s wrists. It is not as easy of a decision as it was for her feet. Arms and wrists and hands are much more complicated and not as predictable when it comes to successful surgical outcomes. We want to do what is best for JunJun so we are asking for prayers as we navigate this decision process.

We are meeting with her team and making very important decisions over the next few weeks in regards to her special and beautiful hands and wrists and we are praying for clear direction going forward. Her surgeon feels she is a wonderful candidate to get wrist surgery and is hopeful it could improve grip and function. But, there is always the chance it could lessen function too. It is a hard decision and each child is so different, so we are proceeding carefully and praying for wisdom and peace and consulting many experts and AMC parents, but mostly praying and trusting God will lead us.

Oh, I almost forgot to share about her BIGGEST news from this summer!! So (after co-sleeping with mama and baba for 15 months) Eviemira got to move to a big girl bed! This was a big move for her but she was ready! We have always co-slept for the first few months or longer with our children upon bringing them home. We have learned that co-sleeping is a beautiful way to build bonding and trust for children who know trauma and are from hard places. But, that is a worthy of a whole separate blog post! ha! Look how snuggly she is! She sleeps through the night but gets up way too early! LOL

She loves having her own pink butterfly bed, complete with Christmas lights and she LOVES sharing a room now with Tahlia and Hudson and we call it the “awesome Asian bunk bed room” and she LOVES it! It’s just a big big party! LOL. The transition has been seamless, thankfully, and we are just so proud of her.

JunJun is a constant bright light and God is doing many miracles through this tiny warrior and we are so thankful to get to be the ones who walk her through these mountains and milestones! A gift never lost on us.

Yes, Spring and Summer were definitely weird with the whole Covid chaos but we are thankful for the treasure of pausing life even more through quarantining as Brian got to work from home and it was nice to be together. God showed us a lot during that time and His voice became even more clear as the world got quieter around us. We had to cancel a big international trip (it was our family Christmas gift) this May because of Covid which was so hard and sad, but we now see it as a gift. God has used that loss and space and ache as a pathway to a bigger gain. He has been feeding a fire in our hearts and we are thankful for this season to posture our hearts towards God and just to listen with arms open wide. He is giving us glimpses of something MORE …. An invitation to something that is terribly scary, yet completely in sync with our hearts’ desires. We will be sharing more later this year…. We just ask for prayer as we keep seeking God’s vision and purpose and praying for clarity and wisdom.

All in all, one thing we have surrendered to is that fact that the story looks nothing like we thought it was going to look like before April 22, 2018. The biggest change we have experienced these past aching 2.5 years and are continuing to experience has been in our souls and hearts. I write about this certain paradigm shift a lot because this is the focus of our life and it is the grid by which we now see and do everything. It is a huge crisis of faith. When Gianna’s heart stopped beating, it was at that holy and painful moment that we had to either believe all we said we believed and let truth guide our hearts, or let the enemy win by the tool of despair. We were either going to let the pain destroy us, and let satan win… or let the pain grow us and let GOD’s victory be incarnated in our lives and stories. Though there should always be an honorable space for pain and grief, I am thankful that we serve a God who rescues us from absolute hopelessness and uses the most shattered stories to bring NEW beauty. Our pain will never go away, but each time we lean into our God and give Him the pain…. we allow Him to use it for good. Death never has the final word…. because JESUS. This truth has catapulted us into vision and purpose beyond anything we could have ever written. Again, this is not the story we would have written, but by allowing God to use our most deepest broken for beauty brings a glimpse of the bigger redemption to come. By keeping our hearts ripped open and allowing our souls to keep growing, in our deepest grief, we are letting HIS power be released. God’s stories never end in ashes…. and The truth of Eternity becomes so much more clearer as it collides with the reality and heartbreak of Death. This has led us to many miracles that have been born of great pain. The pain is not wasted, and we know our tears are precious to our Lord and He is using all of them to water a garden of goodness and miracles to come straight into eternity.

We live now with a fierce eternal perspective that changes everything. We are not the same people we were before. Pain brought a deeper understanding of truth and God’s love and that truth of HIS love has untethered us from this world. This is nothing we have done ourselves…. only HIS grace.

When Gianna went to heaven and we lost our baby on earth and everything shattered to pieces on the floor, part of us had to die too. We are changed forever. And each day we have the choice to surrender to God’s plan and HIS story so that HE can redeem us and our tragedy into something new just as He redeemed our GiaBia into NEWNESS….and so He can use our deepest pain for a bigger redemptive purpose.

I know He is blooming LIFE in our wasteland. Because, that is what He does. It is His nature.

This truth has blown us away and given us joy within our grief and helped us to keep growing around our deep Gianna hole. To be able to see Gianna’s life and her story continue to grow and to be a part of that miracle is beautiful and overwhelming and humbling. God has used our broken to remake our lives. We miss our baby girl with every ounce of our DNA and each fiber of our cells. That never changes. The grief will always be a part of our life, but we do not grieve without HOPE.

HOPE changes everything. Changed forever. Our desire is to store up treasures in heaven where our baby is home. Our heavenly home is now more tangible than ever and God is more real than ever, even in all the wrestling and pounding on His chest, He is constant and He never leaves or forsakes us. I am so thankful for His grace.

I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. (phil 3:8).

AND!!!! Please stay tuned for updates about exciting things happening with our LIVE GIA GROW FOREVER Foundation. We had an amazing T-shirt fundraiser to help re-grow the fund so we can bless more adopting families with grants this coming January and help support partnering ministries! Thank you for all of you who purchased a T=shirt and helped us grow and share more HOPE.

You will often see us referring to it as LGGF Foundation. God is doing many awesome miracles that we get to witness and be a vehicle through which He sends provisions where they are most needed. But….More on that later! Another blog post coming soon! So, please make sure to subscribe to the blog and stay updated write from your “email inbox” and thank you for praying and walking beside us in this journey and reading this random family update and making it to the end (for those who stuck with me, ha!!)

Also, just a head’s up…. Brian and I were interviewed by Davey Blackburn from Nothing Is Wasted Ministries last May and I think our podcast interview is airing October 8. This was a hard interview to get through….I could hardly keep it together, and I don’t even know what the end product will turn out to be. But, I know that God wants us to share our story, … Gianna’s story…. HIS story…and to steward it well. As hard as it is to walk back through the most painful moments of our life, we know that it is worth it if one life can be changed, one person can come to see and know God, or one more child can get adopted or one broken heart can feel hope from how God has carried us. It is worth it for God’s light to shine in the darkness. Trusting God to use it for His glory…. because we sure needed a lot of edits I am sure!!

Much love and grace to you, dear friends and thank you for how you have walked with us and prayed for us over the years. A gift never lost on us.

And, for a sweet surprise….Here are some fun random Gianna’s Victory Garden Summer pics! Her garden was truly magical this past spring and summer and it was a visial of all that God is showing us. For those who don’t know Gianna’s garden was started under a fallen dead mulberry tree that was destroyed just days in a winter storm before Gianna got sick. When we got home, after walking her to Jesus, it was suddenly spring but we did not feel spring….and we started a garden under that broken tree to symbolize the truth that death does not win. Our eyes had to SEE what our hearts new was true… even when all we felt was death and darkness. This garden is a picture of God’s promise that LIFE wins! Light chases away darkness. And because of this promise and because of our little girl’s legacy, we will keep growing and fighting forward.

Enjoy all the beauty and light! I am going to miss Summer!!! Already dreaming about next June! (June is always my fav) and wish I could skip winter altogether…. but, We can do this! I will just have to keep referring back to these pics when I look at a brown dead garden for a few months.

HE IS MAKING ALL THINGS NEW! (Rev. 21:5)