2015 Team member introduction - Jill!

An ACT team just arrived in China today.  That team includes a local friend and I can’t wait to hear about her experiences.  Another team leaves soon to serve in the same orphanage our team served in last summer.  All this travel is exciting and means our team is just getting that much closer to travelling! 

I’m a bit behind on my introductions.  Forgive me. 

I want to introduce you to Jill in this post.  Jill is one of those crazy talented, beautiful people and, truthfully, she intimated the heck out of me for years!  She just exudes excitement and an honest love for God.  She has an amazing voice and is a part of the vocal team at our church.  I’ve sat through many songs just awed by her vocal talent and how her love for God comes through in her signing.  Plus she’s gorgeous! 

I was so excited when I learned that Jill and her husband were adopting from China as I thought it might give me an “in” to get to know her a little better.  Little did I know what an amazing family Perry and I would get to know over the past few years.  (Full disclosure….one of her sons is on our very exclusive, very small list of “boys Elise might be able to date before she’s 35….maybe.”)

You can visit Jill’s blog at pursuit7.blogspot.com.

So, without further ado, let me introduce Jill….

Hello!  My name is Jill Winslow.  I am incredibly excited to be part of the June 2015 team traveling to China.  Thank you for indulging me and allowing me to tell you a little about my “story” and how I ended up in this group.

I love children.  I mean, I REALLY love children.  I chose Elementary Education as my college major and the first question I asked my husband on our first date is, “Do you want children someday?”  I know…in retrospect, I’m not sure why he didn’t run for the hills.  To be fair, he had some pretty hefty marriage expectations too.  My husband was born in Asia.  He actually spent the majority of his childhood in SE Asia.  As a 6’5”, blue-eyed hunk, most people have no idea he feels both Chinese and American.

After our first year of marriage, we moved to Hong Kong, China to teach for two years in an international school.  (Please see “hefty marriage expectations” above). I experienced culture shock for the first six months.  I’m pretty sure I could have written a book entitled, “Why the United States does EVERYTHING better.” These were the years that God knocked my preconceived notions of the world out of me.  Over time, I fell in love with a culture of people and began to understand their ways.  It was at this time, adoption became a heavy desire on my heart.  Once God lit a fire in my soul for little ones without families, man could not extinguish it.  For twelve years, we built a family of four boys, moved a few times, and carried on with life.  Throughout those twelve years, the subject of adoption kept coming front and center.  After much prayer, God prompting my husband, and a lot of faith, we began the process of adopting a special needs child from China.  And that is how, at 36 years of age, God began to grow me in a way I never saw coming. 

Looking back, I can see that God had to break me a little before I could ever be ready for this experience.  There are so many things I didn’t know (even though I had been a Christian for years) about faith and joy in the midst of struggle.

One devastating tornado, rebuilding our home, and several obstacles later, I was in China again with my husband.  This time, I was holding a grieving toddler that screamed at the very sight of me.  I am certain that God got really tired of hearing me say (or scream)” THIS IS NOT MY STORY!”  I am a lover of fairytales.  That is incredibly unfortunate for anyone forced to live in the real world. J

I have learned on this journey with Christ that everyone has a story.  That story will play out for each individual whether I sit comfortably in my cozy home, or travel 7,000 miles to hold orphans.  As a Christ follower, I am desperate to be more like Jesus.  As I study the life of Jesus, I see so many situations where He broke the rules and reached out to the unloved.  He was constantly allowing himself to be broken for others.  If I want to follow His example, I have to allow myself (as painful as it is) to be broken for others. 

I am expecting to have obstacles as I fundraise, prepare, leave five kids and a busy husband behind.  The flight will be long and uncomfortably economy-ish.  The food will be different, the language will be a barrier, and I will see things that will completely break my heart.  But, I know that God will continue to smooth the rough edges of my personality.  He will give me the amazing opportunity to be His arms, His lips, speak His prayers, and feed His sheep as I hold, play, and interact with the fatherless children of China.  What a privilege!  My prayer is that I will serve Him well.  That I will allow myself to be broken for others, and that it will make a difference in the stories of the sweet children of China.

That’s my story!  I can’t wait to return and tell you THEIR stories!!!

Thanks for reading, friends!

jill