Our Sweet Cai Yun

¹³ For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your bookbefore one of them came to be.
Psalm 139 (NIV)

A translated version of Cai Yun’s Devlopment Report – the only real description of her that we were provided when considering her for adoption after first seeing her photograph in January 2012:

Name: Zhu Cai Yun
DOB: February 10, 2003
Date entered institute: January 12, 2011

When Cai Yun entered the institute, she was already [almost] 8 years old, but compared with other children her age, she was thin and small. She has pale skin and big eyes. The impression she gave us was that she’s lively and cheerful. She can speak logically. She is intelligent and quick-witted. She is relatively charming.

Although she is handicapped, she does not lack confidence. When she was just attending first grade, since before that she did not have a set living place or school attendance, her grades were relatively poor, and also her habits were not great. Basic Pinyin [a system for transliterating Chinese into the Latin alphabet: introduced in 1958 and adopted as the official system of romanization by the People's Republic of China in 1979 (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pinyin)] and basic addition and subtraction under 10 were difficult for her, but Cai Yun worked very hard, and with help from the teacher as well as her own intelligence and wit, she quickly made huge progress. Not before long, she had already passed the school entrance exams, and she immediately became a formal elementary school student. Under the guidance of the nanny, Cai Yun has already changed her habits and become very earnest, obedient, and perceptive.

Cai Yun is also an especially clean little girl. Every day, she dresses in clean clothes. Her ability to take care of herself is relatively good. She washes her own clothes and folds them neatly. She never makes the nanny worry. She often helps the nanny sweep and clean, clear the table, and sometimes helps the younger children wash their clothes. Every time she has something good to eat, she always firsts gives some to the nanny to eat. She also understands to share with the other children. Everyone praises her for being so perceptive.

Currently, in addition to attending school on time, studying hard, and her cultural knowledge, outside of class, Cai Yun also studies the piano and singing.

We have had to come to terms with accepting that we were not able to be there for this little girl, who will soon become our daughter, for the first nine years of her life.   At different times we each have felt uneasy about what she may be experiencing as she waits for us, frustrated that we have had no way to really get to start knowing who she is, what she is like or really anything much about her first nine years, or impatient that we have had to wade through the tedious process of redoing some of the big adoption requirements since our original homestudy and approvals had long expired, while still continuing our long wait for our adoption trip to finally become a reality even after making the huge leap to move forward in the process to specifically adopt her.  All this fades away when we instead think about the one who has always been there for Cai Yun…her creator, the one who made the entire universe!  Even though we are a world away from her, we can be confident that God never has abandoned Cai Yun, that He knows her intimately, holds her in the palm of His hand and continues to look after her each and every moment. 

Thank you Lord for being there for Cai Yun when we could not be.

¹ You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
² You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
³ You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
⁴ Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
⁵ You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
Psalm 139 (NIV)

2011:  Zhu Cai Yun at Zhumadian City Welfare Institute, Henan Province

 April 2012:  Zhu Cai Yun at Zhumadian City Welfare Institute, Henan Province
(holding items from our 1st care package we sent in March and the photos we sent of us...her 1st glimpse of the "foreigners" who were adopting her)

 July 2012:  Zhu Cai Yun in Zhumadian, Henan Province, PR China
(the eternal peace sign has been passed on...)

July 2012:  Zhu Cai Yun in Zhumadian, Henan Province, PR China
(Max saw these photos first and gasped, "she looks like a little doll!"