girlhood dreams

This little girl was born in southwest Michigan in 1980, to a tiny, freckled young woman and a happy, hairy young man.  She was raised in a squat, sturdy brick house on 34th Street, where she ran around until dark with neighborhood friends, pretending she was Laura Ingalls Wilder beside the creek, or a mermaid princess in her backyard pool.  She wanted to be a writer, a wife, a mommy, and a professional athlete.  She dreamed of seeing the world and reaching the lost with the good news of CHR1ST.

Well here I am, blabbing away on this blog, married with four kids, and living and serving in East Asia.  If you consider blogging "writing," and you disregard the professional athlete part, it looks like all of my dreams have come true!  My legs don't look like that anymore, but thankfully neither does my wardrobe.  Check out that TV in the background.  Aunt Cindy, was this picture taken at your house?

29 years after me, this little girl was born, somewhere in Guangdong Province, China, to a woman who could not take care of her.  She was left on the ground in the middle of the city, her belly button still weeping.  She went to live in an orphanage with lots of other kids, where she awaited an uncertain future.

(Be a peach, will you, and disregard the unfolded pile of clean dishrags and the random mismatched cushion, and choose to focus instead on the cutie in her playclothes.)

On August 16, 2011, that cutie became our precious daughter, Jubilee Sue!  She will play in the creek this summer, and she will splash like a mermaid in the pool.  She will dream of being things, and of seeing things, and of going places, and we will do everything we can to help make all of her dreams come true.  XOXO