Do not fear...

It is hard to believe a week has gone by already! Time is going by so fast! We have compiled all the documents for the home study and are waiting on our birth certificates and abuse clearances from the state. It feels like it is taking forever to get these documents and it feels like we need them right now! Once we finish the home study and receive our summary we will submit our I-800A and then wait the 60 days for the approval. 
I am continually reminding myself that it is all in God's timing. God will work everything out in his timing. It is so hard when we already have information on our daughter. I just want to talk to her, to send her whatever she needs, to give her hugs! At this point she may not even know that her family is rushing to her. She may still have fears of never finding a family to be part of. She is getting older and in just 3 years she will be too "old" and not qualify for adoption. 
Every day I pray for her heart to not be troubled. I pray that God would surround her with His angels and keep her safe and happy. I pray that she will not despair. I long to tell her it will be ok! 

One of my weaknesses is that I give in to fear. I fear the worst. I fear that we will not get approval of our I-800A which basically approves us to adopt from a foreign country. Fear that all the required documents will not get through the many validation checks. Fear of not having the needed funds to pay the fees or the $6000 donation! Fear of this and fear of that! I look back to just 4 weeks ago when we really didn't know how we would raise $4,000 in just 2 weeks. God provided. How are we going to afford another 2,000 by next week for our home study??? God will provide. We have committed to walk this path as God opens doors. This fear is so exhausting and does nothing good. Did you get that? Let me say it again, if not for you, then for myself. This fear is so exhausting and does nothing good. So, saying that, I have taken to letting go of that fear and seeking God's promises that he is with me. Yes, letting go, really really letting go one day at a time. Sometimes one hour at a time.

"Do not fear" is quoted in the Bible 365 times! That is once for every day of the year! I think I need to read one verse for each day to really take it in. 

Here are just a few that renew my strength:

Exodus 20:20 Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.”

Isaiah 35:4 “say to those with fearful hearts, “Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you.”

Isaiah 41:10 “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

Isaiah 41:13-14 “For I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, ‘Do not fear; I will help you. Do not be afraid, you worm Jacob, little Israel, do not fear, for I myself will help you,’ declares the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.”

Isaiah 43:1 “But now, this is what the Lord says— he who created you, Jacob, he who formed you, Israel: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.”

John 14:27 “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”

 Ah, ok! I do not have to fear. Take one day at a time and continue to walk as God has called me to walk. Take a break from refreshing my email every 2 minutes waiting for some news on the process of my paperwork! God has already planned this day out from the beginning of time. I am so thankful for that reminder. 

So, if you are just starting out in your adoption story like us, or are already close to getting your Dossier to the foreign/domestic Agency, or about to meet your child for the first time, or have your child home already; keep God's word in your heart and "Do Not Fear". Easier said than done, but amazingly calming when you let go and let God.

Blessed by so many!

I cannot say enough how thankful we are for the outpouring of support! Family and friends have all been letting us know they are praying for us and for Joy!!! THANK YOU! Prayers are always needed! 
We are awaiting the dossier paperwork and list of required documents. We will also be receiving the home study agency requirements. Thankfully some items are on both lists and we have very friendly and helpful agents to help us stay organized! What a blessing to have so much help! 
I keep telling myself not to look too far ahead. I can't look at the mountain top and see how far away and how high it is without getting intimidated by the amount of work to accomplish! So I focus on my lists and take one day at a time! I celebrate with my friends who are further along in the process themselves, and encourage those who are still only thinking about getting started. It really is a neat picture of how God calls us to "run the race" in our Christian lives. Each day can be a challenge, but if we just sit around and pout about how hard it is, we miss out on the blessing of looking behind to encourage another. We miss seeing the one just ahead looking back and encouraging us to keep going! 
The process of adoption... we were adopted. God adopted us into His kingdom and our sanctification or "being like him" is a process that will not be completed until He calls us home. 
So, if you are like me and you are stuck somewhere in the middle, or just starting out and daunted by how much has to get done, remember that it is all worth it! A child who was abandoned, a child needing a forever family, a child needing our Savior to wipe away the hurts and the fears is at the end of this seemingly endless wait. Stay strong, keep going, encourage those behind you, get to know people who are ahead of you!!!

Ephesians 1:3-14

3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to son ship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace 8 that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, 9 he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10 to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.
11 In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, 12 in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. 13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.

We truly are thankful for each one of you!! 

Finding balance

It is easy to get caught up in the mountain of paper work! Thankfully I am pretty good at staying organized and keeping track of things. To-do lists and lists of all my to-do lists are just a regular part of my life. Excel is a wonderful tool and I am using it extensively! Keeping track of what items are needed, which documents are ordered, which ones we have, how long certain ones will take to collect and how much each little things costs is enough to make anyone crazy! Our home study list is just as long! 
While we are still just in the beginning phase of our journey, we are thankful for the extensive network of resources we have at our disposal. I am spending approximately 4-5 hours a day just on research and documentation collection. Reading up on requirements, the best way to obtain certain documents, and studying Chinese culture and food! It is almost a full time job!
While adding all this new "work" to my schedule I am just so thankful for what the last couple years have taught me. 

A little history:
Just over a year ago I had a packed full schedule. I am a mom of two teens, a wife, stay at home mom and teacher of my teens (homeschool), a college student myself at the local community college studying Culinary Arts and Food Service Management, Bible Study Coordinator and member of our Woman2Woman ministry at our church, playing in a weekly volleyball league and baking specialty cakes on the side plus everything else required of a mom and wife inside the home! I can tell you.... I was burnt out! 
I decided to knock everything extra off my plate that did not involve my husband and kids and learned to say "No". I thought I had to say yes to everything that was asked of me. I didn't want to disappoint those who knew I had skills to perform certain tasks. I love to serve, I love to minister, I love doing things for others. I was taking care of everyone else, but not taking care of myself. 
It is ok to say "No". I needed to hear that. I needed to believe that I did not have to be involved in everything. God will take care to have others step up when I can't add that one more responsibility. God will provide for someone else who has been waiting to be asked to help, an opportunity to do so. It is my responsibility to do what God calls me to do but not to the point of burn out! 

Now a year later I am realizing how God was changing my spirit to be more aligned with Him. I was so busy and concerned about getting approval from those around me that my own quiet time was almost non-existent. What I needed most was God's approval and love. Now that I have only a few commitments outside the home I am able to have more time to spend with my teens. I make time to spend with God. I have a better relationship with my husband and don't feel as rushed to get things done. I am not stressed about getting everything just right.

Now, I do have a lot of things to accomplish each day and more now going through this adoption process, but I have been able to find some of that balance. Balance between what the world is asking of me, and balance of what God wants me to do for His kingdom. I have my crazy busy days, but thankfully most of my days are just right! God is working on my heart and each day I am learning to lean on Him. I know that when this process is complete and we have our new daughter home with us, there will be challenges and change. I am praying that I imprint God's words on my heart so that I have them to lean on through the tough days ahead.

Psalm 92:1-5 

1 It is good to praise the Lord and make music to your name, O Most High, proclaiming your love in the morning and your faithfulness at night, to the music of the ten-stringed lyre and the melody of the harp. For you make me glad by your deeds, Lord; I sing for joy at what your hands have done. How great are your works, Lord, how profound your thoughts!

Three weeks in...

It has been 3 weeks since we made the call to get information on our daughter!! Three weeks, $4,100 dollars and a mountain of paperwork and we have just barely scratched the surface in this process! I am amazed at the calm I feel even though we are in the process of making huge changes to our family. 

Prayers... I just have to say God Answers Prayers. I already have a page full of prayers that have been answered. I have been journaling again and have a whole section on "God sightings". As we continue through this process we ask that you continue to pray. Praying for Joy and her foster parents and the Orphans in her school. Pray that God would continue to open the doors financially and emotionally as we walk in faith. We are bending, stretching and are way out of our comfort zone, but we are trusting in His promises. 

Philippians 4:4-9, 19-20

4 "Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. 9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.19 And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus. 20 To our God and Father be glory for ever and ever. Amen."

Family and friends and their support, prayers and love have just been amazing! Meeting other families who have adopted and are in the process themselves is such an important community of friends! I pray one day I can also be on the "other side" of this whole process and can help other families in their journey. But for now, I am praying for so many more families who have adopted and are struggling or exhausted in their walk. I know it is work. And we just have to know that it is all worth it!  

Pray. God will hear, even if you say "I don't know what to pray." or "I have nothing left to give." Jesus will interpret what needs to be said or done and take it from there. :)

We got our pre-approval!!!!

Oh happy day!! We just got our pre-approval notice from China!! First step done! Now the real work begins!! We are so EXCITED!!!! Now my full time job starts to complete our dossier to be submitted by July!!! So much to be done! 

God is good! He is showing us in many ways how He is working. We received some very needed help in the mail just today and we are praying God continues to bless and provide during each step of this journey! 

Please continue to pray and to give and be blessed as you keep us in your prayers! God is working! 

Answered Prayer

Ephesians 6:10-18
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.

Sometimes I am just amazed with answered prayers. We need prayers daily in our lives. We should be breathing praise and prayer. God is answering prayers that only yesterday I was asking about. We were able to get more information on Joy and more details about her life in China and more pictures! She loves to draw! This is really great because our daughter is an artist as well (her bedroom walls are covered with drawings and pictures from her sketch books!) This is a great connecting point that may ease her transition when the adoption is final! We are hoping to get even more information once our application is approved by China. 

Although the process is just beginning, I can see God working in our family. Raising teenagers is a challenge, but God has planned out each day and I just need to trust Him for daily strength to point our children to Christ and to keep my sinful desires out of the picture! We are all a work in progress and through Christ's work in each of our lives we can make a difference to those around us. 

Prayer is appreciated and we are so thankful for the body of Christ that already is holding us up in prayer! 

"And Mary pondered all these things"

In these days of waiting for pre-approval from China and finding out all I can about China and our daughter and her health, I can't help but think of Mary in the Bible who treasured up all that was said about Jesus from the shepherds and pondered them in her heart. 

Luke 2:15-20
15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”16 So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 17 When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

God has opened our hearts and the door to adopt a precious little girl who has been waiting years for her forever family. God uses each situation (good and bad) in our lives to build towards His plans. We don't always understand them, but we do need to stop and ponder them in our hearts. I long to know what her favorite color is. What she thinks about cats. What are her favorite songs. There are so many questions I have that I want to know. I need to learn Mandarin and learn it fast! She knows very little English and I want the transition to America to be as easy as possible!

I have been praying for her every day when I wake up because I know it is around the time she will be going to sleep. I pray protection of her heart and her dreams. That God's angels would surround her and she would know the peace that comes from knowing the Almighty God sees her and is with her. It causes me to be more diligent in praying for my own two I have here at home. We have felt like a piece of our family has been missing, and now that we have a face and a name to fill that space we can hardly stand the waiting. There are many many more documents and meetings and approvals yet to come to finalize everything. I know this whole journey will bring tears, frustrations, fears and longing and I know this is bigger than we can handle. BUT it is not bigger than God can handle, and our faith will be stretched and grown and tested. I pray for her salvation and for the foster parents who have been caring for her. 

Praying for the strength to kneel at God's feet and take His leading in this.

Isaiah 41:10
So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Our next hurdle to come is raising $4,000 dollars in two weeks. Our paperwork and fees have to be submitted by the end of January!! Am I freaking out? No. All things are possible when God is in it. 

If you would like to buy one of our scarves in the picture below, they are $20 each. You can use the Paypal "Donate" link in the top right corner to buy one. Leave your information and what color scarf you prefer in the comments section.

We are excited and so thankful for all your prayers and support as we work through the mountain of paperwork and fees to bring our daughter home! Please continue to pray for our new daughter and her life in China! We pray by this time next year she will be home with us! 

When God gives you an opportunity, you'd better take it!

I must say, I could never imagine the day when I would see an orphan and say "that is my daughter!". It is unreal! It is of God! 
My husband and I have had on our hearts to adopt older children as opposed to babies and toddlers. Our own children are currently 14 and 13 years old. So we are not looking to "start over" with babies. There are so many children who want their forever families and are seeing more and more of the younger children be adopted and still they wait. The older they get, usually the less chance they have at being adopted.
We have tried multiple times to contact the foster care agency in our state with no return calls or ability to get in touch with a person, so we felt that that avenue was closed to us at the time. 

One of the couples from our "Considering Adoption" class (who were the least ready to adopt 5 years ago and have since adopted a little girl from China and are in the middle of their second!!) have a blog where they advocate for children who are needing forever homes. We tend to just glance over the blog and most times don't even read it most times because they are babies and smaller children. But this last Friday, she posted about a young lady whose picture and story called to us and her need for her forever family to find her. I was mesmerized and had to read about her. I knew. I knew she needed to be in our family if God would allow us to adopt her. I couldn't let it go.
I asked Joel, "Where are you in wanting to adopt if we wanted to start the process?" He said he was all for getting things started. I asked what he thought about China, and he said there are plenty of kids needing homes even here in the US, and do we need to look that far to adopt? Well, then I sent him the information on this young lady. 

We prayed, we talked and we agreed to get more info. 

We've gotten more info - please pray for us as we consider this huge, amazing and overwhelming process to bring home an amazing little girl! 

Please pray as we continue to explore this with the kids (who are excited thus far) and pray ourselves. We will be needing to jump into all the requirements, paperwork, home study, fund raising and then travel to China once everything is finalized.

She has a beautiful smile and a friendly personality. She has an inner beauty that just shines from her face. She likes singing and dancing and drawing. She wants to be adopted by a foreign family.

We know that the possible (planned) transition to our family will be long, fraught with difficulty, and (not to be overlooked) expensive. We are praying that each day we will just do what we can to love and cherish the joy that God has revealed to us in this beautiful girl.

Currently we are awaiting our pre-approval from China to go ahead with the adoption process! Praying that we will be able to get the approval before the Chinese New Year holiday begins at the end of January! We are praying that we can get all of our paperwork completed as quickly as possible! Our daughter has been waiting 11 years already to come home! I don't want her to have to wait any longer!

Please pray as you are led. Donate as you are able. (link in the top right corner) Right now we are making fashion scarves to sell and all proceeds are going to the adoption costs to bring our daughter home! Message me if you like one of these scarves and you can order one through the donation link. Leave your information in the comments box and I can send your scarf to you or give it to you when I see you! 

We have various colors available:

Colors may vary, but these are the easiest to get!

     

Please join us on this exciting journey with prayer and support!