Successful Bathtime

Sophie Mei 01.01.08

Thank you so much for all of the suggestions on bathtime. Yesterday was our first successful bathtime with no tears. Sophie's cousin, Isabelle, gave her a bathtime Cabbage Patch doll named Quinton. We started off by sitting Sophie on the edge of the sink, fully dressed, while I gave Quinton a bath. She slowly started playing in the water with her feet. I filled the other side of the sink with warm, soapy water and let her put her feet in there. It was a good thing I wasn't on a time schedule. I took off layers of clothing little at a time and finally slid her in. She whimpered for 1/2 a second but then resumed playing in the water. I thought this was such good progress that I didn't wash her hair. Then, today she had so much banana wiped through her hair I decided I would take the plunge. But as you can see she was all smiles with a sudsy mohawk. The tears and screams came when I tried to rinse her hair. She doesn't want even one drop of water to touch her face or eyes. I know this will get better with time. The time of day was better too. I'm going to continue giving baths in the daytime for now and we'll move to nighttime later. Thanks so much for your suggestions. This blog thing is way too cool. Don't be surprised if I post many questions for you.

The other pictures were from the Rocker girls coming to visit. Mary Elle has been dying to see Sophie. Everytime I have seen Mary Elle for the last two years (on atleast a monthly basis) we have the same short conversation the second she sees me, "Where is Baby Sophie?", "She's in China.", "Why?", "Because that's where she lives right now?" "Why?" "Because that's where she was born.". "Why?" "Because that's where God wanted her to be born." "Well, go get her." "I will.", "Go get her now." ..... That conversation always made me smile. Mary Elle was also adopted and her intense interest in my bringing Sophie home was beautiful to me. It meant something more deeply to her than the other kids her age in our family. I know that was from the Lord. When I say intense, I mean intense. The day we got our referral picture on the computer she and her mom came over and I thought she was going to run over her mom to get through our door. She ran through the door yelling, "Where is she? Where is Baby Sophie?" She was a little disappointed when she found out it was just a picture. She did the same thing when she walked in the door today, "Where is Baby Sophie?" She came around the corner, saw Sophie and let out the biggest, "Awwwwwww." She started asking her, "Did you come from China?" Sophie proceeded to tell her all about our flight home. :-) I was unable to get that initial meeting on video. I'm not as quick as Marc is.

I'm not sure if many people are still reading our blog now that we're home but its pretty therapeutic for us. Right now its 12:15 am and Marc and Sophie are asleep. I'm hoping both will sleep through the night.

Our first day out in Guangzhou

Sophie Mei Lewis 12.23.2007

Well, right now I'm (Sherry) in Starbucks. When I left Sophie was playing with Marc, winding down for bedtime. They have had some good one on one time today. After our outing to the museum and park, we came back to the hotel, had lunch and then I had two hours worth of paperwork to do. One parent from each family had to meet with the director and his wife to do paperwork, Marc volunteered me. It was so funny to see all of the women in that meeting. It was mostly the moms who prepared the paperwork through the process, evidence of the passion of a women pursuing her child. After that gruelling process, we got ready for dinner and ate with most of the families at the Japanese restaurant. Tomorrow morning all of the babies will have a physical exam as part of the application for an American visa. After that we will go shopping together as a group. Then, the next day is Christmas!!!! We have a free day to celebrate however we want. Marc is trying to put together some sort of small Christmas service for everyone.

In case any of you wondered, Marc is an incredible Daddy. I'm not sure if we've ever told eachother we loved eachother so many times in such a short period of time. I think there is a very good possibility she could turn out to be a Daddy's girl. He is such a natural at loving, thinking for, and taking care of her. And, of course, he can make her laugh at the drop of a hat. Speaking of laughing, if you'll notice Marc is playing hackey sack with some people in the pictures. He just walked up to these older people (very impressed with the 50+ year old ladies playing)and asked if he could play with them, they were thrilled. We are both really enjoying our time here in China, we're ready to be home to introduce little Sophie Mei to everyone but this time has been so special and refreshing. Sophie is doing really well too. The very first night we had her she was a little shy and would even jerk her head away from us when we tried to talk to her. But as you can see from the pictures and video she is quite affectionate and personable. She is eating better and better. She is probably the smallest baby in our group. She was 11 months old last week but she isn't even thinking about crawling yet. We're working on that right now. In her referral it was noted that she was "obstinate". Some people told us that they will put the same thing in everyone's referral so we didn't think a whole lot about this description. We've since learned that she is, indeed, obstinate at times. She knows how to scream when she doesn't like something or if you're not moving quickly enough. She's learning to give kisses though, and that makes up for any screaming that's done. Kisses for Mommy and Daddy make everything better.

Well, for those of you who know me, its way past my bedtime, 10:08 pm, and my eyes are beginning to cross. I am hoping that staying up this late will help me sleep past 4:30 am tomorrow. We will be sure to send you Christmas pictures. Everyone have a wonderful Christmas eve tomoorrow.

Love you,
Sherry

The Day is Drawing Near

Friends and Family,
I'm sorry I've been so negligent on updating everyone. Our heads have been spinning getting everything ready. We found out the day before Thanksgiving that we are leaving 2 weeks earlier than we expected. What a nice change, earlier rather than later. We will leave on December 12, that's 10 days from now! I just wanted to share with everyone and ask you to be praying for us during this time. Please pray for the following:

1. Thoroughness of preparation. Details don't come naturally for me, please pray that the Lord will help us keep our heads on straight so that we can think for the right things.

2. Travel goes smoothly. We will leave on the morning of the 12th, fly to San Francisco with only an hour layover. We will fly straight to Beijing from there. We will come home on the night of December 28th.

3. It is our understanding that Sophie was moved back to the orphanage for the last two weeks before we get her. Please pray for her little heart and mind as she has so many transitions taking place. I'm sure it was very difficult for her to leave the only home she's ever known as well as the woman she has known as "Mama" for the last 10 months. Please pray for her foster mom as well.

4. Also, that the Lord would supernaturally be preparing Sophie for us. I know she will be frightened by the strange white woman who is weeping uncontrollably the minute they put her in my arms. Maybe pray more for me that I will be able to hold it all together so I don't make a disturbing memory for her. :-). But seriously, I'm really trusting the Lord for that initial meeting. I'm trying to go with no expectations but to be as sensitive to her emotions as I can.

5. And finally, that He would just allow us to walk by faith through this whole experience, and to be looking to Him the entire time.

Thank you so much for everyone's love and support. I may not be able to return all the emails and phone calls but you will be sure to hear from us soon.

God Bless You,Sherry and Marc

Lewis Referral!!!!

We proudly introduce you all to our precious baby girl, Sophie Mei Lewis. Her Chinese given name is Yu Cai Guang. She was born on January 19, 2007. We got the call today and they emailed us this first picture. Tomorrow we will be receiving a Fed-Ex package with two other pictures and all the history they have for her. Marc and I are on Cloud 9. I'm really exhausted about now because I haven't slept very well in the last couple of days, we've been anticipating this phone call since Friday. We are hoping to travel to China in late December or early January. I will post more later when I'm able to process a little more.

Love you all!!!!

100 Prayers Quilt

Friends and Family,

As you know, we are getting closer to receiving our daughter, Sophia Mei (we’re planning to call her Sophie), from China. The wait has been very long but very much worth it. We are so excited about what God has in store for us.

We appreciate so much all of your prayers for us over this entire process. But I do have another request. There's an old Chinese tradition that some of you may have heard of before, its called "bai jia bei", "100 wishes quilt", though we might want to call it “100 prayers quilt”. I’ve been thinking a lot about it over these last few months but am just feeling led to follow through with it. The way it works is that we ask friends and family to pick out a fabric of their choice (it can have some meaning to you or just be a pattern you happen to like), and mail two 5" squares of that material to us along with a scripture verse or prayer you would like to pray for our little Sophie Mei.

Once I collect all the squares, I will begin to sew a quilt for her. The reason I ask for two squares is that one of the squares will be used for the actual quilt, while the other I will use to cut a piece and place in a scrapbook along with the prayer or scripture you include. The other part of that second square might go toward making a miniature quilt for Sophie’s baby doll.

This quilt would be such a treasure to Marc and I and such a tool to use as we teach Sophie about God’s unique plan in bringing her into our family. I would love for her to have a tangible picture of all the people who were so excited about her arrival and even prayed for her before we ever met her. I know this is something she will come to treasure and likely pass on to her children and grandchildren.

I am very excited about this project. It would be great if I could start the quilt in mid-to late October. I’m sorry I didn’t leave you very much time.  Please don’t worry about the fabrics matching anything, it will be exciting how God puts it all together.

So, in a nutshell, this is what I’m asking of you:

• Mail 2 5” fabric squares (100% cotton is preferred), along with a scripture or prayer (or both) for Sophie Mei.

• Mail it to us at: 1702 Highway 155 N. McDonough, GA 30252

Thank you and God Bless,

Marc and Sherry Lewis

One Step Closer

Well, we are officially the next in line to receive our referral!!! Today, I received an email that Groups 239 and 240 received their referrals and we're group 241. This really doesn't change any of our estimations, its just not bad news. I did have a small glimmer of hope that we could receive a referral in October but I'm a little more sobered that that's not likely. I think the safest thing is to say we're hoping to have our referral at the beginning of December and travel to get Sophie 6-8 weeks after that. Please keep us in your prayers. Love you.

Reunion

Here is a group of precious sisters who encourage me greatly. We have been meeting together in some capacity for the last 14 years. It began when one woman began discipling 5 younger college women. Then those 5 women began discipling other women. This is what is commonly referred to as "spiritual multiplication". This particular spiritual lineage has continued on past us to bear much fruit on the campus of Georgia College and State University. But something happened in those first 2 generations to bond us together. What started off as a few college "small groups" is now one group of women who are spread around the world, literally, but who try to come together once a year to share what the Lord has been accomplishing in their lives and in their faith. We are all in such different places in life. We have the incredible priveledge of walking through pain and suffering with one another. It seems that the older we get, the more difficult the trials get. But getting together on this one weekend every year always feels like such a significant marker to me. "Whewww! I made it here once again. I lived through the last year, fighting the good fight of faith, to tell about it. To share with some of my dearest friends all that the Lord has done and has taught." Its incredible! We get to spill our guts out in such a safe place and have the godliest women we know pray for us. And then before we know it the weekend is over and we're on our way back to our places of battle, feeling refueled and recharged and ready to live the next year of life to the fullest, only by the grace of God.

This group of women have been especially dear to me through this adoption process. As soon as I start to talk about Sophie and where we are in this journey, I see this sweet little smile come up on everyone's face. Sometimes I even notice a few moist eyes at the first mention of her name. I'm not sure why it always catches me by surprise a little. I guess because these kinds of realtionships are so uncommon. These are the friendships that truly represent the unselfish, others-focused, love of Christ. I know that these women are praying for Sophie, and for the Lord to hasten the day that we will meet her. I can't wait for them to meet her too.

Blessings during the Wait

This wait has not been easy. Having to daily surrender control of circumstances and choose to trust God has been quite a test. He has continued to remind me that He tells me to wait on Him, but not to be idle during this wait. God has continued to provide opportunities to invest in the lives of others. Alot of times I feel like I'm getting more out of these relationships than the other party. Over the last 2 years of being at Salem Baptist there has formed a small group of teenage girls who have grown near and dear to my heart. Initially, we just announced to the youth group that we were going to have small groups. A hand full signed up and we started meeting on Sunday nights. This group has mainly stayed at about 12 girls, losing a few and gaining a few but still the main "core" group still meets at my house every Sunday night. (We have named it "Core Group") This school year we've even added meeting on Thursday mornings at 7:15 for prayer and encouragement. Half of them are seniors now. Its been so neat to watch them grow and change over the last couple of years. The other day, I was commenting about how much life changes for them in such a short amount of time, and that I felt like nothing much had changed for me in that same amount of time. One girl chimed, "Except your hair color." I tried not to take offense at that. :-) I have had a hard time making up my mind about my hair color the last couple of years. Oh well. All this to say, I'm so thankful for these girls. They are so excited about Sophie coming home. They've been around from the beginning of this wait in the summer of 2005. I have no doubt that I will have no shortage of babysitters to choose from.