Names

A few weekends ago, we took our annual trip to the Edina Fall Into Arts festival.  We always seem to find something creative and unique for random gift giving opportunities.  This year was no exception…watch out mom and dad!

But this year, we also met Ching, who was selling her paintings, as well as her beautiful original Chinese characters. We decided to commission her to write our kids’ names in Chinese. The language has always struck me as beautiful and completely intimidating, so I’m learning about it in bite size portions.  We found out Timothy would be three characters because it’s three syllables. But Jude’s name is two characters because, although it’s only one syllable, it’s two sounds “ju” and “d”.  We then told her about Qiu Peng who is waiting for us in China and asked her to write his name as well. It was funny that it was Peng's Chinese name that  actually caused her the most hesitation. She said there are a few ways to say “Peng” and she wasn’t sure which one to use. From my small research, I had found that I thought “Peng” meant “mythical bird”. She lit up and said then she knew what to write.  She wrote it out, but something seemed off to me.  It looked different than what I remembered from Peng’s pictures where they had written his name in crayon and held it above him.  But, I took it home and thought I’d double check with the paperwork I had. I did a little more research and I did find out it was a different character. Thankfully, Ching graciously re-wrote his name and mailed it to us free of charge. 

In my learning, I found out that “Peng” the way his character is written actually means “luxurious growth”.  What a great name! Just finding out that little nugget made my heart skip a beat. It was such a picture of how God has SUCH plans for luxurious growth for this little guy. Our social worker said that the orphanage staff does try to give the kids names that have meaning. I hope to find out more about that when we go and maybe even meet the person who named him. And while “mythical bird” is OK and very Chinese, I love the future hope that “luxurious growth” implies. 

Peng’s full name includes Yang (for the region Yangzhou, where the orphanage is) and also Qiu. So his full name pronounced sounds like Young Chew Pong, but is spelled in pinyin Yang Qiu Peng.  Then, finally in characters 杨秋芃.

We are pretty sure about a new name we will give Peng when he gets here. We're not quite ready to share it yet though :) We would like him to have an easily recognizable name within the community we spend a lot of our time. We'd also like to keep him connected to his first name as it holds an important piece of his story as well. We might be calling him both these names for a while in the transition. We'll also likely add a family name in there too. The kid will have a lot of names.

So, a few days ago we officially entered the season of autumn. Qiu means “autumn”. His birthday is October 16^th, so he breathed his first breath in the full on autumn air. I have a feeling October will be a bittersweet month. I find myself wanting to know exactly what we were doing the day of his birth. I know when we were visiting Door County, WI for the first time in early October 2011, he was spending his last few weeks with his birth mother. I actually have my written planner from that time and so I know I had book club the day after his birth and Timmy had a guitar lesson the day before. But I don’t have much written down on Sunday October 16^th. I have no real triggers to remember that day. I’m a bit bummed about that, but it is what it is. I can remember the month…especially with the help of the pictures from Door County and that’s pretty close.

I do look at those Door County pictures and think “wow…I can’t imagine adding an infant to that mix!” Although it’s kind of amazing to look at them and know now that quite a significant little person was about to enter the world just a few days after these pictures were taken.

 

Door County October 2011

Door County October 2011

 

Washington Island, Door County October 2011



Looking forward to adding one more to the hug pile....



....and one more to the journey.

As far as logistics...we've not been informed of any significant movement on paperwork.  Still waiting for the province to move his file to Beijing. I need to daily surrender my expectations of what I was told and what I think "should" be happening. I hourly choose to fix my eyes on the everlasting and never stopping love of Jesus Christ.  It's actually an hourly choice.

I recently revisited Jeremiah 1:5 where God says “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you….” That means there has never been a time when we have NOT been known by God. When I get most frustrated about the waiting is when I think of Peng waiting. He deserves a family. My comfort comes when I remember that while Peng knows neither his birth family or his adoptive family right now, Peng has been known by his Father God for his entire life.

Markers of hope seem to help temporarily, but then I really grieve when we pass them with no forward motion....nevertheless I will put one more out.  October 2nd the Chinese celebrate a week of shopping.  I'm not kidding. Apparently it's to boost the economy and the whole government shuts down.  My heart would be thrilled if Peng's paperwork could at the very least transfer to the proper office where HIS paperwork and OURS could FINALLY be linked officially.  So, if you're inclined to petition God with us in a specific way....let's beat October 2nd.

Four names on a wall