what the grown ups have been up to

Jet Lag
Our first few days in the US were rough. Neither girl knew when it was time to sleep, or eat or wake up. Just as little bodies were sleeping through the night, James and I made a trip to Amarillo (two hours away) for his doctor's appointment. We took nothing with us, as we planned to come home after the appointment. However, we ended up staying overnight to complete the check-in process to have surgery the next day. Then we stayed another night after the surgery.

James surgery/recovery

We knew surgery was a possibility (we wouldn't have made the trek home otherwise) but we didn't expect it to be on day five of our re-entry. We then entered the phase of James being flat on his back for a few weeks. He wears this brace when he's up and takes walks everyday. We had his first follow-up appointment and his lifting restriction was lifted from "nothing over the weight of a coffee mug" to "nothing over the weight of a gallon of milk." Please note that both of our children weigh more than a gallon of milk. It's a hard season for him not to be able to lift and play with them as normal. The past few days he's been feeling much better and is able to walk longer each time and sit up for longer periods of time each day.

Catherine's appointments/decisions regarding her care
The kind of specialist we needed to see for Catherine are few and far between. The first one we called in Amarillo had a six month waiting list. We found one in Lubbock that the wait was only two months. We had to wait for the referral to be processes by the local doctor here first. The day after the specialist received the referral they called us and said they had a cancellation, could we be there tomorrow? We decided it was worth it not to comply with the doctor's request for James not to travel for a bit in order for him to go with Catherine and me to the appointment. We drugged James and made the four hour trek to Lubbock. We have a more clear diagnosis of what is (and good news about what isn't) going on with Catherine's development. But, we now need to pursue some intensive speech therapy while we are here and have access to it. When we return to China, we may have to consider weekly or every-other-week trips to Beijing to continue therapy there.

the everyday grind,  living on two continents
On top of all the abnormal stuff going on, we still have to deal with the "daily grind" stuff of changing diapers, feeding tummies, entertaining minds and bodies, washing dishes, and so on. We also still live on two continents. As much as we enjoy catching up with friends and family here, we also have dear friends we left behind in China for this season. We make these lists everyday of who we need to call or email or get in touch with. Somedays we cross off the list, somedays we don't. Our house in China is mostly packed up and our friends on that side of the ocean are helping us move our things to storage this weekend. Coordinating the moving of all our worldly goods while not on the same continent as them is no easy task. We are so thankful for the generous help of our friends there.
Part of living on two continents is also having a visa to get back to China. And we found out our business registration is further delayed and therefore so is our visa. There are other visa types we can apply for, but all of them with 90 day exit/entry requirements and we are weary of having to haul the kids to another country every 90 days.

Jill's pregnancy, then miscarriage
We may (or may not) write more about this later, but before we left China we found out I was pregnant. We were so happy and excited about our third child. That means through the travel, the jet lag, the back surgery, Ranch Bible School (that's another post) and the daily grind, I was pregnant. And therefore very tired. And so I have taken a nap almost everyday when the girls do. And I don't feel guilty about it, but it has slowed down our productivity.
This is one of the main reasons we haven't written any update or blogged or been formally in touch. We haven't known what to say. We don't have firm plans. Just when we had a plan, the main factor changed so we're back to not having one.

selling our house
We had been in the US just a few days when we got notice that our renters had given their 30 day notice and would move out at the end of July. We had to spend time discussing whether since we were home while the property was empty if we should try to put it on the market to sell or find renters again. With much thanks to God, the first realtor we called to give us an opinion on price wanted to buy it. So without having to put it on the market we are under contract to close at the end of August. James is elated. I am simultaneously elated and heartbroken.

Deaths
We're also still grieving the passing of Jill's friend from college, the newborn daughter of some of our closest friends and partners in China, and Jill's uncle.


In conclusion, we know we're not going back to China on Sept 2 as our tickets say now. For a brief period we had decided to stay here until after the baby was born in early March. Now, we don't think we'll stay that long, but we do need an extended time of rest, healing, and to get therapy for Catherine. So we don't know anything. We don't know what visa we'll apply for. We don't know where we'll land for the next few months or how many months (or weeks) we'll be here. It's not an easy season but we have seen His work in all these situations and we are thankful to be "home" during this trying season.