He's our Rescuer!

Well, it's finally happening: we're going to bring our son to his forever home!!!

Luke & I take off for Chicago next Sunday night and fly to Korea on September 11th, 2017 - a day that will now hold even more solemn  commemoration in our hearts. ♡

We arrive the evening of September 12th and pick up our son from the adoption agency the morning of September 13th; his "Gotcha Day!"

Our Visa interview is the following day, at the US Embassy located a block from our hotel.

We have a few days built-in to enjoy Korea with him and get his passport and Visa documents in order, flying back to the States on September 18th. A group of jammering brothers and sisters will be waiting to welcome this little guy!!

The trip is swiftly approaching!! We were given two dates to choose from for our Visa interview. We decided there was wisdom in going with the soonest date, given the political tensions on the Korean peninsula.

It is with great joy and excitement that we make this final monumental step in our adoption!

I read a great quote by David Platt the other day: "We adopt not because we are rescuers. No. We adopt because we were rescued."

Praising Jesus for His Sovereign plan in our lives and in the life of this little one around the world! We will soon introduce him to all of you!!

One of my favorite worship bands, Rend Collective, recently released this song about God being The Rescuer of all of us! In their uniquely eclectic Irish way, they present this music video: enjoy!

End of Summer... New Beginnings!

We are officially nearing the end of Summer ... the days are already getting shorter and on a cool morning we can feel that hint of fall!

Our garden is overflowing! The tomato plants are so laden with fruit they're barely standing up underneath it all! (... 'could also have something to do with the weak trellising I assembled this Spring!)

It's been a couple weeks since we've posted an update here ... the whole first week we were home, I admit jet lag got the best of me! Having never experienced it, I naively assumed it was something that could be beaten with willpower. But that internal clock telling me day was night and night was day took several days to sort out!!

Last week, having a renewed burst of energy, was spent preparing the Schurter homeschool classroom and enjoying final swim parties at the pool and the more vacant parks, now that public school has officially begun.

We have continued to keep in touch with our adoption agency. We received an enormous "welcome home from your first trip!" email filled with details for preparations we can do before our second trip, as well as Court proceedings we should be aware of.

 We're excited to share the following update that we texted out to family and friends this morning:

Thank you friends and family for your continued prayers! Yesterday we heard from our agency that by the end of next week we should hear that our decree has been issued!

After the staff translates the decree documents for the US Embassy, and our family, we should receive a visa interview date at the US Embassy in Seoul & can book our next trip to beautiful Korea.

  

We're still hoping for a September travel date!! This week we are all looking forward to my brother's wedding on September 2nd... 'so glad that we will be here to participate in the celebration!!

Here are a few pictures from the past few weeks... we appreciate your prayers and support more than you can ever know!!

Jude is trying out the new felt board for our classroom!

Luke and the boys made a pinhole cereal box to safely look at the eclipse last Monday.

The kids and I enjoyed a picnic out at Lake Evergreen in Comlara Park. It was an absolutely gorgeous day! Notice our jackets; the temperatures were in the 70s with magnificent breezes!

We hope you're enjoying this final blush of Summer!!

Home sweet home!!

We wrapped up the week in Seoul with another visit to see our little boy and then a trip to court on Friday. It went very well, in spite of us feeling pretty nervous to be in a courtroom; especially in a foreign country!

The judge was about our parents age and was very friendly and warm. He asked a few questions, mainly why we wanted to adopt when we had four of our own. It seems they're more familiar with adoption following infertility, than the concept of adoption for the sake of giving a child a loving family.

He finished by asking the most important question: this child has been abandoned once; we don't want that to happen again. Will you swear to be there for, to love and support this child for the rest of his life?

It was very solemn moment, but we could whole heartily pledge our lives to that commitment!

Finally boarded Korean Air on Saturday morning August 12th for a long 13-hour flight home (shorter than the trip over, due to crossing the international dateline LOL) arrived in Chicago Saturday morning August 12th. !!!

After being picked up at O'hare  by our hotel driver, we asked, and they considerately consented, and allowed us to use one of their rooms to change and freshen up for our friend's wedding. We arrived, do to Chicago traffic, only in time for the reception. But it was a blessing to be able to take at least some part in their special day!

There were four little kiddos excited to greet us when we finally made it to Grandma & Grandpa Schurter's house Saturday evening around 5. We are so thankful and so incredibly blessed to be safely all together again!

Thank you so much for your prayers throughout this entire trip!! We could feel them as things went so smoothly, safely, and satisfactory throughout the entire 10 days!! 

We look forward to Susi's brother's wedding on September 2nd, with a trip to Korea soon to follow; Lord-willing in mid-september to bring this little one home to join his forever family!!

Exciting day in Seoul!!

Yesterday morning we started off shortly after breakfast walking to the subway. We had a quick consultation in the hotel lobby with staff who speak limited English, but are so warm and helpful. He advised us to take a bus or taxi to the subway.

However, we both happily agreed that the quickest and most thorough way to immerse in a culture is to walk their streets; so we have chosen to walk and take the subway everywhere!

Sometimes that means asking for help or confirming that we are headed in the right direction, as in this case! We built in over an hour to get to the Holt office in time for our meeting at 9:30 and we got there with about 10 minutes to spare... 😊

There are a lot of statues and artistic displays around Korea ... there's a very colorful and vibrant art community in Seoul.

Because Seoul is the capital of South Korea, it is very much like Washington DC; with lots of leaders depicted in statues and monuments. Here is King Sejong the Great.

He is one of Korea's most famous leaders and ushered in a time of great history and prosperity for the people. He also created Hangul; the Korean style of lettering, so that the common people could read and write.

The US Embassy is a street or two across from our hotel; so very close and guarded.

And after walking over and under the streets of Seoul for a while, transferring from one subway line to another, we arrived at Holt Korea's Children Services office.

 We met Sera, the lovely staff person who is our host for our trip in Seoul and has handled the bulk of our paperwork and translation.

After signing another paper and delivering the stack of documents we carefully protected and carried over here from the States, we were ushered up to a conference room where the families would meet their children for the first time. There are five other families here adopting from the US.

As we left the office and went down the hall, we could hear voices outside the elevator. We turned the corner and there he was!! I didn't even need to look up at the foster mom to identify him.

(Unfortunately, you won't see his face because we're not supposed to post publicly until the adoption is finalized... but couldn't resist showing you a few! And in September, Lord-willing the rest of the pictures from our day will be posted here!)

We brought a few stacking blocks from home and a bottle of bubbles. Oh my goodness, did he love the bubbles! I think he and Luke played with bubbles the first 15 minutes we were together!

It was wonderful to finally be able to hug kiss and play with a sweet little guy after nearly a year of waiting to see him!

It's difficult to describe a conference room full of babies, toddlers, staff and anxious parents. It was a little distracting for me to focus to say the least, but Luke really zeroed in on our little guy as if he was the only person in the room!

I asked the foster mom a lot of questions; we use to translator when we couldn't understand each other. It was a very special time for us.  She is such a sweet woman! She brought her high school aged son, who is an exemplary young man. 

 Our little one is her 8th and final foster child, so I'm sure this has been very bittersweet for her. She's extremely attentive to him and we know that he has been in the best of care. It was interesting to hear that her husband works on Jeju Island and she will be traveling with our little guy next week to visit him! So we all will be have been on Jeju-do this month!

He loves to imitate.  Luke put on a little hand sanitizer and the little guy wanted his own! He rubbed and slapped his hands together, amusing all of us! SO cute!!!

It was depressing to have to say goodbye to him until Thursday... so we decided a brisk jaunt would perk us up! We walked to the top of Seoul Tower and ate a lovely anniversary dinner at a restaurant on one of the round levels! Gorgeous! 

On our walk,  we stopped at a fire station.  Firefighters and medics speak the same language in every culture!!

Yep... dial "119" in Korea for rescue!

Good night from Seoul, South Korea!

Arms wide open

God has been so good to us... and we have been loving this trip so far.... learning to keep our arms wide open to change and the beauty of differences between cultures!

Things we're learning... 

To be humble and teachable...
Bumbling around in a foreign country has definitely  given us more sympathy for the way our international students feel at ISU when they first arrive. EVERYTHING is in a different language... you search frantically on each sign for a scrap of the language you speak in your native tongue; knowing that even when you find some, you're still going to have to decipher it, as the word for word translation will probably be slightly off (and most likely a hilarious version of the phrase they actually mean to say!)

Luke calls these "the smashed spider signs"...

To slow down when we communicate... 
People talk too fast in their own language! The few words you know in the foreign language, you keep repeating over and over and hope they will come down to your level of simplistic communication so you can understand what the other is trying to get across!!

"Wait; it's not okay to park here? You want me to park there. No, you think that's a better place or view of the ocean. I'm really okay parking here...unless, it's not okay ... unless I'm going to get a ticket or you're going to turn me into the police if I park here..."

Struggling through a conversation, grasping at clarity and trying to understand, often leaves you weary and feeling like an idiot.
"I'm really smarter than this, people. I'm fairly eloquent in my native tongue. It doesn't take me this long to ask for a bottle of water.... really." Language barrier has a humbling experience.

That we're not really that important & don't have the right to be wherever we want...
In the States if you come even close to hitting a pedestrian, you will probably get pulled over by the police, given a stern talking-to, or maybe even a ticket or arrest. When driving back home,  we're constantly hitting the breaks or waiting for someone to take their sweet time walking the cross walk.

Here, pedestrians aren't king: they don't have the right of way in anything! If you even slightly look like you're going to step out in front of them, drivers will lay on their horn and whip their vehicle around you with a look of disgust or annoyance.

If you're walking behind their vehicle in a parking lot and they start to back out, you'd better get out of the way, because they're not going to stop to backing out! (...and yes; they did see you walking there!) "You're not that special, people, and I've got places to be," they seem to be thinking... "so get out of my way!"

I have to say that this part of the culture Luke appears to enjoy immensely! He's been sneaking around through the narrow streets veering around cars and getting from point A to B with the finesse of a far more experienced international driver! I admit my mind has wandered sometimes as I sit in the passenger seat... secretly imagining we're in a Bourne movie on some exotic foreign location. (Thanks, Luke, for upping the romanticism of this trip!!)

To admire and give God glory for His handiwork in other nations... 
God is SO amazing.  He is SO creative.  He has created SO much beauty around the world... As an avid "people - watcher", this trip has given us an endless scope. The sights, sounds and faces we've experienced are all so unfamiliar and beautiful and unique to this corner of the world! We're embracing it with arms wide open!!!!

Island bumbling

We have been soaking up the culture on Jeju-do! ("Do" means Island in Korean.) It has been humbling to witness all of the rich heritage that we will be taking our son away from... and gives us the desire to expose him to as much of that culture as we can in America; through our Korean church and friends at the Korean Academy.

 We truly believe that adoption is not the best plan that God has for little ones... plan A is that a loving Mommy and Daddy take care of the child God has given them; but when Daddy cannot be found and Mommy can't take care of the little one, adoption is not just the next best thing; adoption is their only hope! Adoption is where their redemption story begins.

Similarly, adoption is where our own redemption story begins! We have no way to make things whole again ... something will always be broken; but praise God, through Jesus we can be His adopted sons and daughters! We can know the joy and peace of wholeness and oneness again!

While we are privileged and excited to be part of our son's redemption story, there is a bittersweet sadness. As we take in all of the beauty of Korea, we understand that our son will never truly experience what it's like to actually live here, in the land of his birth with the people of his culture.

It has been an incredible experience to truly slow down and take the time as his parents to explore this rich heritage he comes from ... it has been a blessing beyond measure. It excites us to find more creative ways to bring Korean culture into our family.

We have one more day to enjoy the island we drove half of the island today; including visiting a traditional market and the Jeju Korean folk Village; which is an exact replica of the way Koreans lived here hundreds of years ago (think of walking through historic New England in the United States.)

The sights and sounds at the market, as well as the natural beauty God created in this part of the world, gave our senses a full day! We know that it will be a very different feel when we fly up to big-city Seoul on Monday (which will be Sunday for you back in the States).

View of Hallasan Volcano rising in the middle of the island

We meet our son Tuesday morning!! It is with great anticipation and much more understanding that we will embrace this little one ... hoping to keep a part of Korea alive for him, having experienced it with our own eyes.

Safe landings and calm seas...

Our first view of the beautiful country of South Korea!

Praise the Lord for His protection over us! Very thankful to have our feet back on the ground,  we arrived at Incheon International Airport in Seoul around 4:30 p.m. Korean time,  2:30 a.m. Illinois time. 

SEOUL

The final hours of our flight had mild turbulence, but otherwise, was thankfully uneventful. Breathing a sigh of relief - and fervent prayers of thanks, boy were we ever glad to get off that jet!!! 

(Korean Air is amazing,  by the way... they took care of us so well, we felt like royalty!)

We had plenty of opportunity to stretch our legs! We had just over 2 hours to get our checked luggage, go through customs and foreign passports, and find/take the train to Gimpo International Airport. (The equivalent of Ohare and Midway airports.) Our flight from Gimpo down to Jeju Island was about an hour. 

As we logged miles walking the airport,  it struck me that this was the closest we've ever been to our 5th child. During the flight, I was thinking about our four littles at home; missing them and hoping they weren't too sad we were away. But as the jet flew us further and further away from our first 4, it took us closer and closer to our 5th!

 We were able to find our way around Seoul without too much difficulty... there are a lot of English signs.  But I could tell that even Luke, with a career of 24 & 48 hr shifts, was feeling the sleep deprivation by the time we got to the rental car counter. It had been over 20 hours of travel... we were both eager to find our hotel and crash. 

We felt like we were staggering around in a kind of fog, broken up by the jarring bumps of the 2 roll on luggage pieces we were each dragging behind us.  (We got pretty good at managing them, tho; even up and down countless escalators!!)

The view from the balcony off our hotel rm

As unfamiliar as this place is to us, we have a sense of awe and excitement that we're actually here experiencing the culture in which our child lives. Eating the foods he eats; witnessing the sights and sounds that are familiar to him. 'Hard to believe that in a few short days, that little guy is going to be in our arms!!

Some of the 3k islands around Korea.

Yes! We made it! ' Still feels surreal... the weather is gorgeous! 'Loving everything this beautiful island has to offer...

Thanks for praying for us! We're enjoying a relaxing weekend as we sort out jet-lag. It's Friday night already for us!