A dad's perspective

The past two days have been incredible. God has blessed beyond what we could have ever imagined. I know the Father must have been thinking, "Oh you of little faith. Why did you doubt?"

Yesterday morning before we went to meet Mason, Mary and I both were a little apprehensive about what was to take place. As we sat in our hotel room and discussed our feelings we just began to read scripture from the Psalms that spoke of God's faithfulness and His goodness. Then we just began to remember how God had called us to adopt Mason. By the time we left to go to the Civil Affairs office to meet Mason we were filled with great peace and confidence.

We got to the Civil affairs office before Mason and sat in a waiting area. Although Mason has been living with a foster family for the past 4-5 years, he arrived at the Civil affairs office with a lady from the Chongqing Social Welfare Institute (the orphanage). Mason clung very closely to her leg as she brought him over and introduced him to us. You could sense that he was trying to be very brave and strong but that couldn't hide the frightened look in his eyes.

One of the things that Mary and I worried most about was whether Mason would truly understand what was happening. Since he is deaf, we wondered how it would be communicated to him. Mary and I (and many others) had prayed for him to understand. There is no doubt in my mind that he knew what was taking place. The orphanage worker knelt down beside him and pointed to Mary, signed something to him and said "MaMa". She then pointed to me, signed something else to him and said "BaBa". She then turned around and left the three of us together for the first time. The first few moments were a little awkward. Mary put her arms around him and we just stared at each other for awhile. Mary pulled out a photo album of our family and began to show him the pictures. Several months earlier Mary had sent copies of these same pictures to his foster mother. It was obvious that he recognized the pictures.

The real breakthrough came when Mary opened the backpack full of things that we had brought for him. He found a package of M&M's and his world suddenly changed. He tried at first to open the package himself but couldn't. He handed them to me and motioned for me to open them which I did (maybe this will be the beginning of Mason's thinking that his dad can do anything). I handed him the M&M's and an amazing thing happened. He pulled out the first piece of candy and handed it to Mary. The next piece he pulled out and gave to me. Finally, he began to eat some of the candy himself. We were officially a family!

I don't know what Mason or Mary were thinking, but I was once again reminded of God's goodness to me. Mason is an incredible little boy. I am overwhelmed at the thought that God has chosen me to be his dad. He is even more handsome in person than his pictures. He has a wonderful personality. He is very charming (and I think he knows it and sometime tries to use that to his advantage). He also seems very bright. His foster mother had told us that he was an active little boy. She was wrong. He is a VERY active little boy.

This afternoon I took Mason to fly a kite in the square near our hotel. When we were finished I asked Mason if he wanted to get an ice cream cone. The sign for ice cream must be universal (holding your hand up to your mouth and pretending to lick an ice cream cone) because he understood exactly what I meant. He was all in for that. We each got an ice cream cone and sat down on a bench near our hotel to eat them. Mason kept pointing at the hotel indicating to me that he wanted to take the ice cream into the hotel and eat it. I kept shaking my head "no". He began to inch his way down the bench and before I knew it he was heading for the hotel. I chased him down and picked him up in my arms. He began to squeal (in fun) very loudly. There was a Chinese man nearby who was watching all of this very closely. It dawned on me that he probably thought I was trying to kidnap Mason. I sat Mason down on the bench again but he continued to motion to me that he wanted to go into the hotel to eat the ice cream. I continued to say "no". His little mind went to work. At this point he only had about 1/3 of his cone left. He motioned to me and pointed at something over my back shoulder. When I turned to look at what he had pointed to he put his hand that was holding his ice cream cone behind his back and sat there with a sheepish grin. Now, if I hadn't already had 5 other kids I might have fallen for it but it didn't work this time. Mason finally relented and finished his ice cream outside.

There is a huge bookstore a couple of blocks from our hotel. On the top floor is the children's area complete with an indoor playground (similar to a McDonald's playground). We took Mason there this afternoon. It was before school let out so there weren't a whole lot of children in the play area. Mason was playing and having a great time. After a while, an older and much bigger boy climbed into the play area and began playing with a big ball that Mason had been playing with. He began looking at Mason and kind of taunting and teasing him with the ball as if to say "why don't you try to chase me and take this ball away from me." Mason looked at me with that look of "What should I do". I gave him the shrug of my shoulders that said "You do whatever you want to do." That was all he needed. He took off after the boy and the ball. (The proud Dad inside of me was saying, "That's my boy".) Well the other boy was much bigger and faster so Mason never caught him but he didn't back down from the challenge. I think that attitude will serve him well. I know he will face many greater challenges in the future and my prayer is that he will face them with courage and determination. Just like he has done for the past two days.