When first
meeting Jaci, I (Kate) was sitting next to her in gymnastics as both of our
daughters were in at the same time. Little did I know that I would be able to
hear her story further into how truly inspirational this woman is! She shares
her story of how God has worked in her life and has brought so many blessings
along the way...One blessing that has been laid on her heart is bringing home
her son and becoming the "Party of Six" that God had designed for
their lives. We can't wait for you to read more about Jaci's journey in
bringing home her son and how we can all play a role in a big way!
Jaci's Story:
I am a mom of three, with one on the way—arriving sometime in
the next 12 months from South Korea. And I thought nine months was a long time
to wait for my first three?
But I didn’t start life as a mom. I started life as a daughter
of two amazing parents who taught me about life, and Jesus and hard work
through raising me on a family dairy farm. I also started life as sister to one
older brother, and eventually to a younger brother and younger sister. Those
relationships formed me, the me that I am pretty sure only they get to see and
understand. Throughout my life I often take for granted how much stability and
courage were birthed out of my home, my roots. I really do owe much of who I am
to the experiences of my first 18 years of life under that old farmhouse roof,
with those people who get to see the best and worst of me, still.
With those roots and a courage only found in a woman who has
been raised to believe that her life matters immensely to God and others, I set
out to the “big city” to earn a degree at Bethel University in St. Paul. When I
was in fourth grade, I determined that I would be a teacher. And I never really
wandered far from that declaration. I wavered on what I would teach, finally
settling on Communication Arts & Literature Education (aka an English
teacher). I knew that no matter the subject I taught, I wanted to be
instrumental in the lives of kids—giving them a little bit of courage and
strength to have a voice and run hard after their dreams. Just as so many
teachers and coaches had done for me. I knew that I wouldn’t be who I was if it
hadn’t been for the many adults in my life steering me with encouragement and
cheering me on toward my goals—both academic and athletic. So, I added to my, “who
are you?” list, teacher.
While I was navigating the world of learning I was brought
another relationship that would begin to define me and grow me into a wife.
This man of my dreams helped me see my dreams, chase my dreams and live my
dreams. Mostly, because God had given us similar dreams—to love God, to love
and equip kids, to enjoy adventure, and travel light along the way. Thus, my
roots began to become entwined with his roots, and through that we began to build
our own foundation: One set squarely on Jesus, forgiveness, endurance, honesty,
trust, hope. We realized without those, our journey would be anything but light
and our days would be clouded with anger, distrust, and quarreling.
Adventure found us quickly! Just two weeks before our one-year
wedding anniversary, we packed six suitcases, flew around the globe and landed
in our new “home,” Daejon, South Korea. There we would together teach at a
little international school, Taejon Christian International School (TCIS). What
we thought would be a two year experiment in expanding our horizons and
spreading our wings, turned in to seven years of establishing who we were:
educators in the international world, passionate about the students and
families who walked our campus daily. We grew to love that place as home. In
this new place: I taught my first students, coached my first athletes, and
later birthed our first two children. We had pitched our tent and set the pegs
down deep.
But there were also burdens and challenges, just like in any
life, any job, at any school. Even in the best places, surrounded by the best
people there can be trials and burdens to carry. In our seventh year of service there, TCIS began
experiencing a financial crisis of sorts. Back home, Mike’s mom was
experiencing health-related trials. And in the midst of the trials we felt the
Lord tell us to return “home.” Ironically, when you live in a place for seven
years, sometimes returning doesn’t feel anything like home. So much of my identity had become deeply
connected to a foreign place, foreign experiences, and relationships spanning hundreds
of thousands of miles. This was the place I gave birth to my children and we
began to build our family. All of these were the ingredients for “home” to me
and I couldn’t quite bring them with me.
I struggled with the loss, almost as if I had experienced the
death of a dear friend. I think of the dog Marely, from the film, Marley & Me. To say good-bye to our
place and friends was like the family saying good-bye to Marley, the only one
who had seen them through the transitions of adult life. I was so lost some days, “Who are you?” and “What are you
passionate about?” were not questions I could even answer. Instead, I waded
through the days trying to grasp what exactly God was doing with this “return
home” adventure that didn’t seem like an adventure at all—more like a pit.
But God and my husband, and my sister and other family and
friends walked through it with me. It took me a long time to see that they were
there, darkness has a way of blocking things from view. But honestly, the loudest voice (not audible, but through songs, books,
conversations with others, the Bible) was God telling me “I see you there.
I have purpose for you there. Your experiences will be of value of you in this
new place.” It took several months for me to figure out what He meant and if I
believed it, but once I really settled on believing it, my perspective changed.
My passions were reignited. I felt like it was okay to dream again.
After that I was reminded of a dream that I had started chasing
five years prior: A dream that was connected to this theme of being seen. While
on a site-seeing tour, in a little tiny theater on the boarder of North and
South Korea, the Demilitarized Zone, I sat and watched a clip from the Korean
war of 1950. For about two seconds there was a little boy half-naked and alone
on the street crying as military guns and horrific sounds surrounded him. In
that ordinary but divinely orchestrated moment I felt God say, “I see that
little boy. He represents every orphan. This is an orphan’s life: They are
screaming for someone to run to them and wrap them up. Hold them. Keep them
safe.”
I went about my next weeks not knowing what to do with those
thoughts. I almost didn’t want to know. Where had this come from? Why was I
even thinking about orphans while on a site-seeing tour to the one of the
darkest places in the world?
At that point in time, we had two children. We wanted more but I
thought I would birth them. Was God calling us to adopt, instead? I started
investigating adoption. Dead ends. It seemed living overseas and trying to
adopt a child to become an American citizen was unprecedented and highly
unlikely. Cue, positive pregnancy test. Cue, moving home. Cue, floundering in unknown
purpose. Cue, birthing third baby in an American hospital (Glorious—I had no idea what I had missed out on the first two times!).
Cue, suffocating in post-partum and the Winter Vortex of 2012.
But once the fog lifted, and God graciously allowed me to find
contentment and purpose (i.e. places to serve and people to know) in this new
place. Then adoption made its way on the scene during a family walk to a park
near our house. Again, an ordinary moment tapped with eternal significance. A
conversation on asking God what our next adventure might be, turned into a
search for a child to adopt from South Korea.
And like God does, he provided. Not just a child for us to adopt
but a child who will forever tie our family together and tie our hearts to the
country in which we first put down roots as a family. A child that simply needs
love and a home, both of which we have waiting for him. God took our passion
for adventure and moved us to a foreign country. God took our passion to love,
teach and coach kids and gave us a home full of them to teach and train (along with being teachers we were the house
parents to 36 high school kids—yep!), enabling us to grasp and grow to love
the nuances of the Korean culture. God remind us of our roots and gave us the
courage to move back home.
God took my lost places and birthed life, dreams and
new adventure into them by giving me the truth (via the Bible, books by Christian authors, friends’ voices, and the
prayers of my husband) and assurance that I was seen by Him—that my life
had purpose and even in this unfamiliar setting my gifts and passion could be
used. God took my healed heart and opened it back up to the dream we had
briefly chased years before--adoption.
Then, even while adoption was still just a future idea in my
mind, I had a conversation with a mom at my kids’ school about their recent
adoption. I was lamenting that I had researched adoption in the past, but at
that time had read that Korea was closing international adoptions by 2015. This
somewhat paralyzed me until that day because I really felt like we were
supposed to adopt a Korean child. And again, I saw God use an ordinary
conversation on the school playground for a divine purpose. She said, that the
laws must not have passed because there were Korean children available through
the agency they had been working with. What? Are you kidding? As soon as I had
a down moment I was on the Children’s Home Society of MN website scanning the
waiting child list.
After much prayer and inquiries to the agency, we were ready to
start the journey to bring our son home. In just six weeks we completed the
paper work and classes that typically span a few months. We were operating on
mountains of faith because we had almost no savings and the projected price to
complete the adoption was around $48,000. Our social worker seemed a little nervous
for us (only in regards to where in the world the money would come from). But
we reassured her, God would provide.
Just one month later our family and church friends hosted a
Sock-Hop fundraiser that resulted in $10,000 to put toward our adoption. Our
faith was boosted our confidence in this being what we were to do was cemented.
In the weeks ahead we received checks in the mail and grants from local
businesses in amounts that brought tears to our eyes because we knew so many
people were giving completely sacrificially. The out-pouring of generosity from
people of our past and present, literally from around the world, overwhelmed
and astonished us. Yet, I knew that we would need to do more fundraisers to
finish paying for the rest of the adoptions expenses. So, I started
brainstorming and looking around for something easy, low in cost, and yet a
desirable product—something people would actually enjoy, not just purchase and
shove in a closet.
One day a friend showed me a pillow she had received from a
friend, made from a placemat. (Ordinary
moment full of divine purpose—catching that theme?) I had some sewing
skills from being in 4-H, saw the project, and thought, “I love that! It’s
cute. It’s easy. It’s warm. It’s going to be our fundraiser.”
Thus, Pillows of Love, was
born. The following week on a four-hour round trip to our adoption agency I
made eight pillows in the car! This is when I knew this would be “our thing” to
bring JW home. I could make them almost anywhere. They weren’t messy. The kids
could help me make them and they were so dang cute. (I have wanted to keep one
of every design.) In fact, each of my kids purchased their own for their room
because they love them and loved helping make them!
Apparently, other people liked them too. Christmas was drawing
near and I hadn’t sold all the pillows I had made for an event. I was worried I
would be storing them in my closet for the next 12 months if they weren’t sold.
Hesitantly, I posted them on Facebook. I just wasn’t sure I wanted to use my
personal page for marketing. But I took the plunge and did it anyway because
the worst that could happen is that no one would respond. Within two hours all
the pillows were spoken for. I was shocked! And a little stumped as to how to
get some of the pillows to other parts of the country. Thanks to my affinity for shopping on Amazon
I had plenty of big boxes to package the pillows in and send them off to
varying zip codes.
After trying to keep up with orders on Facebook and selling out
of 33 pillows at a local ladies outing event, I decided it was time to restock
and get an Etsy shop going. A few friends came to church one Saturday morning
and in three hours they helped me to get another 25 pillows made so I could
stock the shop.
This is where I find myself today: passionately stitching and
stuffing pillows to raise the last $10,000 we need to bring home our little guy
from Korea. In addition, I am a person changed by my experiences and in awe of
how God uses some of the most ordinary events in our lives to get our
attention, steer us down a road, and equip us to live lives that show that our
confidence, purpose and delight are found in Him knowing us, seeing us, and
giving us assignments and duties that align our past experiences and dreams
with our current places and callings.
I am a mom, a daughter, a wife, a friend, a teacher, but what
most defines me is that I am a child of God: when I was lost and lonely,
orphaned in the spiritual sense, He saw me and ran to me. In the process, by
the grace of God, both extraordinary and ordinarily moments have brought us to
unfamiliar places and an expansion of experiences. All of which have led us to
pray and hope for these words of Jesus to be true of our journey of bringing
home our little boy from Korea, “I will not leave you as an orphan; I will come
to you” (John 14:18).
~Jaci Loween
Pillows can be found at our Esty shop,
Donations can be made on our You Caring site:
I had no intentions of becoming a photographer, but wanted to have photos of my family that weren’t the typical “studio look”. I learned all I could about photography, lighting, and editing through the magic of Google, books and a photography mentor.
