JasonSmells…all the love, Baby!

Many of you know that one of our shameless fundraising tactics for this adoption has been making and selling Jason’s homemade candles, all different sizes and scents. Except skunk. Jason hasn’t yet sprung for the 1-oz jar delightfully, though perhaps overenthusiastically, marketed as "oil direct from the scent glands of a skunk."

And bacon. Not sure why he hasn’t sprung for that one yet, though… For a while there he had a bacon air freshener for the car, and he wanted to add Sizzling Bacon to his official “mandle” (man-candle) collection.

Anyway, I have a friend (Sarah) in California who has been madly selling our JasonSmells Homemade Candles. It amazes me. I just kept getting order after order after order from her. A couple weeks ago, after the big Christmas rush went out, Sarah sends this package. I think to myself, "Huh...?" since I wasn't expecting anything. I open it up and you know what she did? She put together a photo album of her friends and family all over California who had bought our candles (I'm talking upwards of 6 dozen candles...) to help support our adoption.

On the inside of the cover she wrote:

“Here are photos of some of the California contributors to Dang Yong’s arrival into the Hendrickson home. Not all are accounted for, but know that the contingency was here only by God’s hand. Thank you for allowing us to support your family in a small way. The candles – and the opportunity – are phenomenal. I am privileged to have you as my brother and sister.”

She ended with this Bible verse: “In the same way, your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost.” (Matt. 18:14)

Each time I turned a page in the book, I saw another new face, split into grins, with each person holding one of the JasonSmells candles they'd bought. Ha! We're becoming a national sensation!

Most of these people were total strangers. As I kept turning page after page, it suddenly hit me and my eyes brimmed. That's the body of Christ!!!

So many people have contributed toward our adoption in whatever ways they could. We have a friend who is amazing with carpentry and remodel. One guess as to who it was who did the bulk of our home renovation, at a fraction of the cost. We have a friend who is a genius with computers. Guess who spent hours upon hours (we HATE Vista) setting up our laptop with all the functions we needed?

Through a yahoo adoption chat group I’ve struck up a friendship with this wonderful lady named Michele. Neat thing is, she’s adopting a little girl from Dang Yong’s orphanage. Our adoption processes were at about the same point, so we had good intel that we’d probably be traveling together. Due to a variety of circumstances, her paperwork got through faster than ours. She got her LOA (that’s the letter Jason and I are still waiting for) about 5 weeks ago, about the same time we were hoping to, and today she received travel permission!

I am psyched that she got this wonderful news. I’m totally excited for her with every ounce of energy in my body. For one thing, I have finally accepted that obviously God’s timing for us is different than what we expected, and I’m better with it. And second, she will be at the orphanage in mid-March and she will get to see Yong! I made her SWEAR she will take lots and lots of pictures and video. (Actually we made each other promise, way back when, that whoever got there first had to switch into paparazzi mode and get as much as they could for the other.)

So, anyway, in all her excitement and WILDNESS of today's news, she took the time to e-mail me, telling me, "I earnestly prayed for you today, that God would work a miracle and still let us travel together...." Hmmm. I don't think of myself as an especially selfish person, but I still think that would be the last thing on my mind if I had just gotten news I had permission from China to go get my son...

So, yeah, I readily admit we’ve been a little disappointed, especially initially, when we learned everything was getting pushed out a little further than we anticipated.

Sometimes when you’re bummed out, you try to put on your best poker face and forge ahead as usual. Unfortunately, I have a rotten poker face. I didn’t realize how see-through I really can be until we went to our mailbox yesterday. There was this card from a woman at church. She wrote:

"You guys looked a little down at Weds night Bible Study, not knowing for sure when you will be able to bring your son home. But we know God is in control of this whole adoption and there is some reason why things happen the way they do. We know our God is an awesome God and can change and do things if He sees fit to, if it is His plan."

So to all of you -- yes, you! -- sitting there reading this wherever you are, thank you for your part encouraging or helping us, large or small, because even the small things feel really, really big on days when you’re feeling, well, kinda small.