Summer Goal #1 Finished! / Remembering about China with Kara

Well, believe it or not, I have completed my first major goal for the summer: getting all of the Abeka DVD’s and grade reports ready to mail back to Pensacola.  This is the first step to getting school put away, so I am glad to have that done–it really takes more time than it looks like it would!

On another subject, yesterday Kara and I watched our home videos of when I got her in China and our first few months with her in our home.  It’s always interesting seeing how she responds to those.  She wondered if she used to be a boy because her hair was so short then.  I explained to her that she has always been and will always be a girl, and that her hair was short because it was easier for the nannies to keep the kids clean in the orphanage during the hot months to have short hair on all of the kids.  She noticed on the videos how scared she was in China, but she told me that “I’m not scared any more!” She thought it was strange to hear herself speaking Chinese too! 

It was equally as interesting for me to watch those videos.  Now that I know Kara practically inside-out, I can understand her behavior from those early days together better.   Even after being home for a couple of months, I could see how she was often in the background of the videos observing what everyone else was doing so she could copy.  It must have been so confusing to that sweet three-year-old!

As I was discussing this with my Mom, I mentioned that I don’t know how or when the transformation took place–it was probably too gradual to notice.  But I am so thankful that Kara is happy and confident now.  She has developed her own personality, and she is such a precious girl.  We named her Kara Joy which means “Pure Joy,” because we were confident that God would use her to be a pure joy to our family.  We had struggles and adjustments back then, but I can honestly say that God has been faithful–Kara truly brings pure joy to our family each and every day.