One Less

Gotcha Day. It's such a weird word for me. It doesn't settle right for some reason, but it's the word that we use. That day when all of your waiting and all of the paperwork and all of the mystery comes together and you get to meet your child and he or she officially becomes a member of your family, even though their picture has been plastered all over your house for months now. But now, it's official. On paper, not only with your signature, but with your thumbprints too. It's a big deal.

There is not a single time that I look at pictures of Gotcha days that I don't wipe away tears. Today was one of those days. I am sitting in the living room of a friends apartment, literally just a few meters away from a family that welcomed a precious little girl into their family today. I'm looking at her pictures on Facebook and just praising the Lord through tears of gratitude.

One less.

It's so easy during this process to get caught up in the paper chase, the money, the waiting, the uncertainties, and the insecurities. All of that is necessary, but all of that aside, this is what it's about. One less child spending another day without a family. One less child who will never know the love of a mother. One less human being who doesn't understand what it feels like to belong to something, to be loved or to be wanted.

One less. Hallelujah, today, there is one less orphan.

T SHIRT FUNDRAISER

By popular demand, we have decided to re-open our Tshirt orders!!

We pray it will be a huge success because who doesn't like a new T-shirt? 

Especially a Super Soft one like this one! 

AND especially when the purchase of this shirt is 

helping to unite a sweet little boy with his family!

But the cool thing is that this is so much more than an adoption T-shirt.

This is one that you can apply to any area of our lives.
It's about LOVE.

"This is real love--not that we loved God, 
but that He loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins." 1 John 4:10

Let that be what fuels you. Let LOVE be your guide.

YOU KNOW YOU WANT ONE!!!

Adult Sizes: XS-4XL

Click to Enlarge

 Our shirts come in 3 different styles with lots of color choices!!

Prices:
Super soft ADULT T's: $20 each  
 (add $2 for 2XL/3XL).

Super soft KIDS T's are $18 each
Super soft WOMEN'S TANKS are $24 each

Click to Enlarge

Special Thanks to our stellar brother in law, JD, who created the design.

Check out his work at www.jdreeves.com

Kids Sizes:  M(10/12), L(14/16)
Click to Enlarge

Women's Tank Sizes: S, M, L, XL, 2XL(+$2)
Click to Enlarge

You can order as many as you want and shipping is one flat rate of $5 per order.

(Or if you are local to the Williamson/Maury County area, you can choose free pick up)

To place a Tshirt Order, please click on the Tshirt order form tab at the top of the page or
click here.

If you would rather make a donation in lieu of purchasing a Tshirt,
please read HERE! to find out how your generosity will
have an impact on Qi Long for years to come!

Happy Birthday!

We always try to live our life being joyful in the present. No matter the situation, our family verse is “Be joyful always, pray continually and give thanks in all circumstances.” 1 Thes. 5:16-18. But for today, let me just say that we are ready for next year. Normally birthdays are fun and exciting times. We love birthdays around here. We love cake, we love doing special things for the birthday boy or girl and we love celebrating together the good things that God has done for us. But this year, birthdays, especially these two, are so much more difficult than what is on the surface.

Justin’s 30th birthday is Friday. We have prayed so hard that we will be able to send in our Dossier on his birthday. We were worried that we were going to be sitting around just waiting for his birthday to come around so that we could officially meet all of the requirements to adopt from China. But we haven’t been sitting around. We have been working day and literally all night, praying, applying for grants and doing what we need to do to push this paperwork along. Unfortunately, our Dossier won’t be ready to send Friday. And that makes us very sad. A day that we anticipated would allow us to rejoice, is actually breaking our hearts. But as we have learned so well in the past, if your heart is never broken, joy wouldn’t taste as sweet. There is so much to be thankful for. Most importantly, we know that Qi Long is well cared for. He is surrounded by friends and caregivers that, it seems like, genuinely care for him. The orphanage director has gone out of her way to serve our family by communicating with us. That is a priceless blessing that we are beyond grateful to know, as so many people don’t have that privilege. 

When we began this journey, we put everything about this process at the feet of Jesus and asked him to lead and guide us. While a man plans his way, the Lord determines his steps. We know the direction we want to go and we know the things we need to do, and the rest is up to Him.

Qi Long’s birthday was on March 15. He turned 6 years old. You know how hard it is to watch your kids grow up? It’s really hard when you are watching him grow up and you haven’t been there for any of his birthdays. When you realize that he has had 6 birthdays now, without a mom and a dad to love on him and tell him how special he is and do something special JUST for him, it is a brand new level of sadness.

But once again, there is still room to rejoice. Hallelujah that the story doesn’t end there. There is such good news. Just like Jesus didn’t leave us in our lostness, God has not left Qi Long in his lonliness. God’s promise to Qi Long is being fulfilled even as I type this message. “I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you,” Jn. 14:18. This verse is a beautiful promise that many claim for the orphans of the world, who desperately need forever families. But in reality, it is a promise to every believer, who sometimes looks up at the sky wondering if Jesus is ever really going to come back. He promised, friends. And even though we may not see what’s going on behind the scenes, much like Qi Long can’t see how hard we are working to bring him home, Christ is working on our behalf to bring us home; to redeem us. To bind up our broken hearts, to give us freedom, to bestow on us a crown of beauty instead of ashes and a garment of praise instead of despair, to plant us as oaks of righteousness for the display of HIS splendor! (Is. 61) By God’s grace, this will be the last birthday that Qi Long will spend without a family. And only by His grace. And when it is time, when all of the details that we don’t know about come together and fall into place, in His perfect timing, He will come back for us and he will bring us all home. Amen!

Happy Birthday Justin and Qi Long! Lord willing, next year, we will all celebrate together! And oh what a celebration it will be!  

Looks like he enjoyed his cake!

We were allowed to send him a birthday cake and he was able to have a birthday party with his friends. We also sent him a video of our family singing to him and he was able to watch that on his birthday while he was at the doctor. We pray for God to prepare his precious little heart to be with us, and our hearts too.

Fingerprints

We had our fingerprint appointment today! Because we live overseas, we had to travel to the closest US consulate to do this. Our closest consulate is normally a 3 hour bus ride and a 4 hour train ride away. Well, this time we were able to ride in a van, instead of a bus, and shaved 1/2 an hour off of that leg. AND the train station just opened up a second fast train that leaves in the afternoon making that train ride only 3 hours and 18 minutes! (Normally, the only non stop train leaves early in the morning and we can never make it.) Yay! We love it when things work out in our favor.

It just so happens that the consulate is in one of our favorite cities here, and also the city that Qi Long lives in. While we didn't get to see him, there is just something nice about knowing that he is near....you know, just in case. (I may or may not have tried to shamefully weasel our way in by posting fun pictures of us in the city so that the orphanage director would see we were there and maybe invite us over. She "liked" our pictures, but no invitation. She likes her rules. lol)

It rained almost the whole time we were there, but it was a great trip. We got our fingerprints done, although the machine did NOT like my fingers. After about 4 or 5 tries and it beeping it's angry beep, it finally gave us the happy beep and accepted my little prints. :) We were also able to go ahead and get our documents notarized that will go in our Dossier. Once they travel to America to be authenticated and then back to China. We were a little shocked to find out that getting 6 documents notarized at the Consulate cost us $300 USD! We didn't have to pay for the fingerprints, which normally cost $380 per adult, and we were excited about being an expat actually working in our favor for once. But then that savings was slashed in half by the notary. BUT it could have been worse.

After all of the paperwork matters, we took Little S to see his pediatrician and gave him two big ol shots. He took them like a champ! The nurse called both Justin and I in to hold him down, but he didn't even whimper. The sweet little nurse just kept saying "Amazing!" haha.

Of course, no trip to the big city would be complete without a trip to Papa Johns and it was delicious. This time we had the privilege of meeting up with a family that attends our home church, who happened to be here finalizing their adoption that week. It was so amazing to watch our paths cross and get to spend some time together. Big S totally hit it off with their boys and they had so much fun together. The adults were pretty awesome too, and of course their new princess stole the show!

I realized when all this was over, that I should totally be taking pictures of this process! You know we always take a picture every step of the way of pregnancy. Adoption should be no different! Our little guy deserves pictures of his family preparing for his arrival too! I will do a better job of that from now on! (Even if it is only a picture of me sitting in front of the computer at 1 am with blood shot eyes as I type up yet another paragraph answering "What makes you want to adopt" for our grant applications! :/ )

One more check off the list, one more step closer to Qi Long being in our arms! It's worth every last bit of craziness to get there!

USCIS

Our I-800A packet was mailed off today! So excited to have this next ball rolling!

It's going to be a busy next few weeks, but this is one business matter that I welcome with open arms!!

Here are a couple of pictures that were sent to us by our guide that took us to visit Qi Long for the first time back in December. She was there with another family and she thought enough of us to take a picture and send it to us. I was blown away. What a sweet thing to do!!!














He gives me butterflies!! (Daddy is so ready to dress our boy for himself! haha)

Mountains and Valleys

Mountains and valleys are both beautiful places.

On the mountaintop you can see what seems like the whole world laid out before you and the possibilities are endless. If you are on a mountaintop, you most likely have just climbed that mountain and the adrenaline is making you feel like you can conquer anything that comes your way. Nothing can shake you. The sun is shining on your face and for a moment you can almost reach out and touch heaven. Nothing is impossible on a mountaintop.

In a valley, however, you have a very limited view. You can only see the mountain in front of you and without the right perspective, it can feel isolated in a valley. When the sun goes down behind a mountain, it gets cold in a valley. And you might even begin to wonder and hope for what lies over that mountain in front of you. 

But if you take a step back, you will see the beauty, the awe and the grandeur of that mountain. You will feel how small you are against a mighty Creator and find yourself in the perfect place of humility to truly receive His grace and joy. With the right perspective.

We are blessed to live in a place where we get to experience these differences between mountains and valleys in a very real way. And it brings new insight to the circumstances in our lives that we classify as mountain or valley circumstances. I am reminded of the familiar passage in Ps. 23 where David sings to us about our Shepherd who makes us lay down in green pastures and leads us beside still waters. That sounds so peaceful and refreshing, right? But let's think about it. We often separate the part of this same passage that talks about walking through the valley of death from this first part of peaceful still waters and green pastures. But it's actually the same place. You will never find still waters on a mountaintop. Water on a mountain will always be moving. Will you find green pastures on a mountaintop? This beautiful place with green pastures and still waters that refreshes our souls, is in the valley of death!

Perspective.

When we began this process, we hit the ground running. We received our home study packet on Oct. 8 and we got to work, sending in paperwork the very next day. By November 24, we had all of our paperwork turned in, minus our health checks and we had approval to wait for a little while to do those so they didn't expire. We were feeling really good about things and even though we have to wait until Justin's 30th birthday on April 1 to turn in our paperwork to China, we knew we needed that extra time to apply for grants and get our account with the adoption agency in good standing before we can submit those papers anyway. We had heard of so many people with so many bumps in the road in a never-ending paper chase, but we had also heard of people that just zipped and flew right through the process with little to no snags at all. We were really praying for the second option. 

But once we turned the paperwork in, the waiting started. The first wait was really out of anyone's control because it was the holidays and things slow down drastically around the holidays anyway. Our sweet case worker actually traveled to our house on New Years Day and did our home study in two days. But then somewhere between the time of her sending in her first draft and today, time seemed to stop. We have been waiting for a long time to see a final copy of our home study, and our case worker has been emailing every day trying to find out why it has taken so long. And we are excited to say that the final hard copy was placed in the mail yesterday and should be on it's way to the next step very soon.

Before I go further I want to say that things could be WAY worse. The other day we read about a lady whose paperwork had been destroyed in the mail. Like completely destroyed, illegible, couldn't even tell which document was which. It could be way worse. And we still have many opportunities for it to get worse. So I am very grateful. But still a little frustrated.

We are still waiting to actually receive a copy of the home study in our inbox, so that we can begin applying for grants. We received our next bill last week and we need to have $9,000 in about one month, so that we can hopefully meet our goal of sending our papers off around April 1, so we don't have to make this sweet little boy wait any longer than he has to. We are ready for him to come home!! Most grant agencies take longer than that to process applications, with many of them only awarding grants every quarter. So we are praying hard for God to lead us to the exact grants that He wants us to apply for. If you would like to donate to our adoption fund, you can click  HERE  to find out how. Please pray with us for these next few steps.

1. Mailing application for US Immigration approval for us to adopt.

2. Fingerprint appointment at US Consulate.

3. $6,000 due to continue to the next step of compiling our Dossier documents.

4. $3,100 due to authenticate and process those documents and send them to China.

In all of this, we are praying for the grace to see the beauty in the valleys of life and allow our Shepherd to refresh our souls in the way that only He can. Thank you Lord for still waters.

70 days!

We have 70 days to go until April 1, when we will hopefully be submitting our Dossier to China!! 

Please pray with us as we wait for Father to provide the finances needed for that next big step in the process. 

In the meantime, here are some pictures we received a couple of weeks ago. Wednesday, January 13, to be exact. We had woken up feeling pretty chilly and aggravated because our power had been off since dinner the night before and it was still not back on when we got up. But as I was checking my messages on my phone, it started to ding. A lot. And as I looked, my frustration melted away with the joy I saw on this little face.

Joy is what we have been praying for him. We sent a package to him and in it we included a hat for him and all of his friends in his class. I was in bed cuddling with all of my boys and we were able to look at these pictures together and pray that we are already making a difference in Qi Long's life.

We also sent a picture album that contained a few pictures of our family, including all 4 of us wearing a hat like we sent and a note and a few other things for him in the package. We don't know if they gave it to him. We don't know if they even told him that the hats were from us, but either way, he knows that someone cares for him enough to let him have a new hat and for that we are thankful. We can't wait until we get to snuggle him up in the bed with us.

Just 70 days until we are one giant step closer to that day!

Thank you for your love, support and prayers!