New Pictures from the Far East

We received some new pictures of our Lilly and Levi... here is a peek at two of them.

God's goodness

The main reason I wanted to have a blog was to have a place to share all God is doing through this adoption process.  There is one thing I know....when you do what God asks you to do, even when it seems impossible or scary, He is going to move in a mighty way.  Matt and I want God to be glorified in all that He is doing in our lives especially through this process. 

God has poured out His goodness on us this week.  In the last 5 days, God has done so many things to lift us up.  I could make a list of how He has done more than we could ever imagine in the last few days.  Some ways were small ways that had His fingerprints all over it.  He knows what we need.  Some have completely blown our minds.  I received a phone call yesterday morning that left me speechless due to tears of sheer awe and gratefulness. God knew the weight on my shoulders and I felt as if He physically lifted it off of me yesterday.  I don't understand why God would be so good to us, but I know it is HIM and only HIM.  Thank you God.

We took a huge step of faith when we said yes to adopt.  Then, we were called out even farther into the water when we said "yes" to TWO at one time.  We know this is not something we can do alone.  We got out of the comfortable boat, fixed our eyes on Jesus and He is carrying us.  Many people ask why we are doing what we're doing.  It's way beyond us.  We want to live with total abandon and serve Him faithfully until our last breath.  This is what God has purposed us for.  He has been so very good to us.  Sometimes I think about how many times in the past have I missed out on God's blessings, because I was too afraid to act on what He was calling me to do.  If God is gently nudging you to step out on faith and act, do it!  He wants to show you in a tangible way His mighty hand and shower His blessings on you.  Fix your eyes on Jesus and get out of that boat!

To God be the Glory

Against All Odds

Over the past few weeks I have been reading A Compassionate Call to Counter Culture by David Platt.  Normally it doesn’t take me this long to work through a book but with Counter Culture, every chapter is a heavy topic with pages full of thoughts and actions to digest.  Each chapter is a hotly debated cultural topic, and the first ones it tackles are poverty, abortion, and widows & orphans.     You would think, as we are going through the adoption process to bring two abandoned impoverished children into our family and our home that the two chapters that would hit home would be poverty and widows & orphans… and while both of those chapters lowered the boom and hit me right in the gut, the one that blew my mind was on abortion.

The chapter starts off with the stat that 42 Million Babies are aborted every year worldwide.  That is 115,000 babies every day.  (stats taken from abort73.com).  After 18 pages of thought provoking material, Platt concludes with a personal touch that hit home for me.

Here is what it said…

“As I bring this chapter to a close, I think about a mom who lives in one of those countries of the world where baby girls are not favorably looked upon.  Over thirty-five thousand children are ripped from their wombs every day in China, and over half of the women there have had at least one abortion. (allgirlsallowed.org/forced-abortion-statistics) Some of these abortions are voluntary; other are mandatory.  Government officials enforce abortion to ensure population control.  Women in rural villages are routinely checked to make sure they neither are pregnant nor have given birth recently.

I don’t know all the details about this particular mom, but I do know that when she became pregnant, she believed she was not able to take care of her child.  Yet she refused to have an abortion.  Instead, she brought her child to term and gave birth to a precious little girl on her own.

Then she took that newborn baby girl, wrapped her in a light-blue cloth, place her in a brown paper box, and in the middle of the night laid her in front of an orphanage for children with special needs.  The orphanage found this baby girl the next morning and conducted a search for her mother only to come up empty.

Though I don’t know who that mom is, I thank God for her.  Because of her courage to refuse abortion, and because of her compassion for the unborn, a little girl was able to live.  And every day when I come home from work, that little girl comes running up to me with a smile spread across her face, jumps into my arms, yells DADDY and gives me the biggest bear hug you can imagine.”  (Platt, pg 75)

As I read that all I could think was… we are waiting on paperwork and funds to go get two kids… a little girl with special needs and a little boy with special needs who had mothers who helped these kids make it to birth against unbelievable odds.  Then, realizing that they could not care for these kids, they found an orphanage that some day could adopt them out to a family that could give them a chance to live life.

Every day I look at Endale and thank God for him and the way God worked out all the details for that little boy to come to a home that loves him.  To come to a place that could experience his mood-changing smile.  To change the lives of so many people that he has met (AND THAT IS ONLY IN THE FIRST YEAR - what is in his future?)

As I look at him, I think of Lilly and Levi and the impact they are going to make all because God brought them, against all odds, to a family that loves them and excited to see how they will change their world.

It is an amazing process that all of us get to be a part of.  Thank you for supporting us in all of this and we ask for your continued prayers as God’s plan continue to unfold.

Double the Fun

We are so excited to share with you that we will be bringing TWO home from China!

When we started looking into the China adoption process, Matt and I talked about adopting more than one child.  There are a lot of children in China with Down Syndrome that need families.  Unfortunately, we didn't meet the financial requirements per person that China required.  Our agency made us aware that China typically issues a waiver for families that wish to adopt children with special needs.  So we proceeded with committing to adopt Lilly and China gave us our pre-approval (PA).  We begin looking at files of a couple more children in Lilly's orphanage.  There is also several boys that have Down Syndrome.  One in particular stole our heart.  We looked over his file for several weeks.  We prayed over him.  We asked God what He was telling us to do.

We didn't want to make an emotional decision.  We wanted to make sure that God was leading us.  Matt and I and our children all agreed that God wanted us to bring him home too.  We submitted the form to commit to adopt him and then we waited.  We had to wait for  China to give us the "okay"...the PA for this sweet boy we had already fallen in love with.

This morning, we received word that China granted us pre-approval to proceed to adopt this sweet boy!  So we will be bringing home TWO from China at the end of the year.  God is SO good.  Our family is SO excited.

Meet Levi Nan Jun

Levi means Joined by God

Small me, BIG GOD

^" Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, 
according to his power that is at work within us,  to him be glory...."
Ephesians 3:20

  

First, let me say that every blessing this week has been GOD given and He deserves the glory.  We had a garage sale for two days.  We are so thankful for all the items that were donated for our cause.  Our garage was completely full.  We even had to leave furniture outside overnight, because we had no where to put it!  Thank you to all who donated their items. What may have seemed like a small thing to you is helping to change a child's life.

We are also VERY thankful for our friends who gave their time and helped unload our garage, organize bags of items, and manned the garage sale while all the customers came!  We could not have pulled it off without their help.  THANK YOU to all of our friends who helped and those who stopped by in support!

I was hoping we'd make around $1000 for both days.  I knew we had some big items and figured that was a decent number to project.  After the first day, I added up what we had so far and we had already made $1700 in day one!  Then, when I woke up Saturday morning, it was as if the garage sale fairy had visited and had left more stuff.  Our garage was still full after selling $1700 the first day!  To my amazement as we added everything up after two days of the garage sale....

$2354 !!!!

  

God did IMMEASURABLY MORE than I imagined!!!!!  
Praise Him.  Praise Him.  Praise Him.
He is so very faithful in our obedience. 

Join us in praising Him today.

Revelation 5:13

“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
    be praise and honor and glory and power,
forever and ever!”

 

Check! and Check!

An update at where we're at in the process...

This window of the adoption process is about the only part that we have control over how long it takes.  Some families take months to complete their home study.  We've been blessed by a wonderful social worker who has been diligent at doing her part, so we can get our home study in hand quickly.  

The home study is an approval through a state agency that says we're fit to adopt a child.  Some of the things that have been required of us to complete our home study:

-examination of our lives from birth to this point

-interview every family member

-medical exam for every family member

-inspection of our home

-police background clearances

-fingerprints

-documentation to prove everything

We've worked hard at completing everything quickly.  We've completed our 4 face to face interviews that are required.  Now, we wait for our home study to be written.  We'll proofread it and our adoption agency will proofread it.  Once approved on both ends it will be notarized and be done!  We're hoping by the end of next week, it should be complete.

Once our home study is approved and complete, we can apply with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).  We will submit an application with our home study and $805 each to seek approval to adopt an orphan and bring her back and make her a US citizen.  USCIS will send us an appointment letter in the mail with a time to go and have our fingerprints done at a USCIS office.  Once approval comes from USCIS, we can submit our dossier to China!

There are a lot of steps to this process.  We have to take it one step at a time.  

If you'd like to be a part of bringing Lilly home, you can adopt an envelope HERE.

Thank you for supporting us through prayer as well.  If you'd like to pray for our family, we would love to give you some specifics:

Please pray for Lilly and her care takers as she waits for us.

Pray for the Lord's leading as we have a big decision to make in the coming days.

Pray that God would continue to provide as we've trusted Him in the journey.

Join us as well in thanksgiving as He has been so faithful already. 

Pre-approval!

We got a call from our agency last night sharing the great news that our case has been pre-approved to adopt Lilly!  This is one of the first big steps on the legal side of things.  From here, the process will be approximately 9-10 months until we travel and bring Lilly home.  

From here, we will spend the next few weeks updating our home study to make it Hague accredited for China.  Our new home study will also include Endale.  This is the only part of the process we have a tiny bit of control over how long it takes.  We are still at the mercy of a few people and processes, but we can start checking things off our list!  We want to do whatever we can to get over to Lilly as soon as possible.  After walking the adoption journey with Endale in Ethiopia, we're encouraged at the stability and predictability that China offers.  According to our agency, China's adoptions go "by the book".  Sounds good to me!

These are the steps we have to take to get our Lilly home:

Sign Commitment to Adopt Paperwork     2/8/15

Letter of Intent to China     2/9/15

Agency Application     2/13/15

Pre-Approval from China    2/28/15

Update Home Study

File I-800a with USCIS

Dossier to China

Logged In Dossier in China

Letter of Action from China

I-800 to USCIS

I-800 approval from National Visa Center

Article 5 (Approval from US)

Travel Approval

Schedule Consulate Appt

Go to CHINA and get our Lilly!!!!!