Who is Bella's forever family?

They are a wonderful Christian family living close to Dallas, Texas.  Matt and Bridgett and two big brothers, Bailey and Cooper.  Bailey is 15 and Cooper is 13.  Their new daughter and little sister is Matison Ling Tylee…you know her as Bella.  They have been preparing and waiting for this little girl to join their family for over six and half years!!!!  Talk about patience!  One of the things that blew me away was when I saw that they had a little girl’s room prepared for her for over six years.  Even through various moves, they kept setting it up!  She has family and friends galore that have been praying for her for a very long time.

Most of Matt’s family lives together in this small town and they have a family pot luck dinner every Sunday night.  They’re always doing things with family.  Bridgett is a pre-K teacher, which is most likely the profession I would have if I wasn’t living in East Asia.  Bailey and Cooper are both into sports including select soccer, which was a huge part of Mark’s life growing up as well. 

Since finding them online at the end of February, we’ve sent numerous emails back and forth and have had hour or so online video chats about every other week.  Every time we hang up from those chats, I think, or tell Mark, “I just like them a lot.”  We are quickly becoming  good friends. 

We cannot express how eternally grateful we are that God has chosen this family for Bella.  He has shown Himself SO incredibly gracious in this choice. 

The day it all turned around

From September 2012 to February 2013 we lived with anguish, confusion, anger, fear…lots of negative emotions.  We knew we would not be able to adopt Bella and we had no idea what that meant for her future.  We prayed constantly that God would bless her with Christian parents that know and love Him and would teach her His ways.  We prayed that the family she would go to would be Americans who would want continued contact with us.  But we had NO guarantees that He would answer these prayers.  In a season of lots of unanswered prayers, we held on to a mere thread of hope and faith.  This family could in all reality, be from anywhere in the world and it was entirely possible that after her adoption we would never see or hear from her again.  It was possible we might have to return to the States before she was adopted, forever closing to us any knowledge of where she’d gone or by whom she had been adopted.  It was possible that this family would not know Jesus at all and would not want anything to do with us.  These possibilities seemed so cruel and living with these unknowns was like torture to our souls.

Ultimately we knew we needed to submit to Him and whatever He had planned for us. 

 

At the end of February, we were given a clearer picture of what He had chosen for Bella.  I showed up for a meeting at the orphanage and the foster director told me that Bella was matched with her family.  They had sent her a package.  In the package was a letter and at the end of the letter was printed her parent’s names.  I called Mark in between finding out this news and the meeting.  He began an online search for them.

When I came home I immediately began, in a rant of tears, venting how I was feeling so sad and even angry at someone else calling our daughter theirs.  Mark was nodding and then said, “Erika, I found them and I think they are believers.”  What?  Really?  How could he know?  He said he found them on Facebook and he knew it was them because they had posted pictures of Bella that we had taken.  Shortly after that, we found their blog.  We wrote them a letter and introduced ourselves and explained that we were caring for their daughter.  We told them we had wanted to adopt her and that the government wouldn’t allow it.  We told them we hoped we could be in touch, both before her adoption and especially afterwards.  And then we waited.

About five hours later, we got their response.  They had been praying for their daughter’s foster family and the possibility of meeting them when they were here adopting her.  They had no idea that God would be so gracious to place their Chinese daughter in a loving, Christian home with American parents!  Their words brought healing to thirsty souls… “You will always be a part of Bella’s story and we want her to know that”… “We definitely want to stay in touch.  We want Bella to know Emma and Elsie”… “We really just want to be your friends.”  They acknowledged how heart breaking it must be for us not to be able to adopt her.  They were gracious to read our blog, feel our pain, and understand our suffering… even as they rejoiced in their own exciting news.  In God’s amazing love and gracious gift of choosing this family for Bella, He wiped away all of the fear and dread and so much of the anger and frustration we had felt.  In a sea of unanswered prayers and months of hardship, when we felt at times like we were drowning, we had just been thrown a life saver.

A Beautiful Ending…

Over the course of the next few days we are going to unfold a beautiful story that God is telling.  In the end, our hearts are still broken because of losing Bella.  But there has been tremendous healing through this story.  We don’t want to write a book, so we’ll post a new chapter every day.  Trust me, you’re going to want to read this story.  And be encouraged.  And wonder at a glorious God.  But first we must make a disclaimer.  Due to cultural differences, the type of relationship we have had with the orphanage and a desire to protect Bella and our adoptions of Emma and Elsie, we have had to hold back a huge part of our story.  We did not want much of what we will share in the next few days to be public until the finalization of her adoption and the certainty of ours.  We did not want the possibility of the information being public to in any way compromise the process of these three beautiful girls finding their homes in forever families like ours.  We pray you understand…

Tomorrow all this will change.  Bella will officially be adopted by her forever family.  She will be in process to go home.  And sharing this story can begin!

PS.  Even though we have TA for Emma, we're still waiting for our appointments to be scheduled.  We're packing bags and getting ready.  Pray we're leaving to get her in the next few days!

Sadness and Happiness and Sadness and Happiness…

If you’ve been following Erika and I on here, Facebook, prayer letters or other, you know our lives have been FULL of drama… for the last… 2 years.  We really are not this exciting.  Really.  However, in the last week we have prepared to say goodbye to our foster daughter just as we receive word our adoptive daughter is ready to be picked up!  More details will follow in the days to come, but I want to thank so many of you for your love and encouragement, prayers and thoughts, comments and notes.  You have helped to sustain us in a very difficult time, as well, the Father has used you to constantly support and encourage us in some very discouraging and dark days.  Before these next few weeks of more drama and tears, I just wanted to thank you and to give glory to Him.  He has answered your prayers in more ways than you will know.  It has been amazing to get answer after answer after so long in waiting.  Not all the answers have been yes.  But we continue to trust His perfect plan and timing. 

We received Travel Approval for Emma last night at 11:30pm.  We are waiting on our agency to inform us when our appointment has been set up. WE HOPE to then purchase tickets to go and get Emma.  We’ll have her for 24 hours and then sign official adoption papers the next morning.  Our plan is then to return to our home for a few days to meet Bella’s family, pack up the last few things for the year and fly to Guangzhou where Emma will be given a US visa.  We may even be going through this process with Bella and her family… “What a coincidence” (note sarcasm).  Then we’ll fly back to the US and when Emma steps foot on US soil she’ll be an American Girl (insert upbeat country song here).   Of course this all hinges on things going quickly and smoothly.

Continue to pray for Emma and Bella’s next few weeks as this will be  a HUGE transition… Bella to her new family and Emma from an orphanage to ours.  There will be tears.  There will be drama.  I guess I just have to get used to this as a new normal for a while.  GULP.

Here are some more thoughts on the coming transition for these two princesses from Erika.

What’s about to happen to these two sweet little girls is… I don’t know.  I don’t have words to describe it.  They will both be taken from what they know and are used to.  What they have come to know is safe will be no more and they will need to adjust to a new safety.  Emma has never known the love and care of a mommy and a daddy.  In fact she may not have had much interaction with male adults at all.  And this week, prayerfully Monday, Mark and I will show up and say, “We love you and we will always care for you.  You thought you were safe and comfortable, but we want you to know and experience love and care like you’ve never seen it before.  We want you to be safe in our love and to ultimately know the eternal security of your Heavenly Father’s love through Jesus.  Oh Emma, I pray you will quickly and easily accept and embrace the love that is about to rock your little world.”

Soaking it up

Bella will be leaving us in just over three days.  (gulp)  The orphanage workers will come get her Friday morning and she'll be placed in the arms of her forever family on Monday morning.  So we are trying to drink in every moment, and share some more of her cuteness with you!

She loves reading her "Ba-ble" and does so everyday.

Last week we took her to this beautiful park for a photo shoot.

She enjoyed playing around and we could not keep her clean!

 By the way...May 7, 2012 is the first day we met her.  Can't believe it's been a whole year!  Wow!

Mother of Three

You may be noticing two separate themes going on within our blog posts.  Either it’s about Bella or it’s about Emma and Elsie and our adoption process.  The reality is…these things are simultaneous.  For these brief weeks, I’m technically a mother of three.

A few weeks ago, actually before we accepted Elsie’s referral, a friend asked me how my heart was doing, preparing to say goodbye to one child and to welcome another.  I told her that was a good question.  I often don’t sit down to think about how my heart is doing.   I’m more of a do-er, and it’s been a rather painful thing to do in this past season.  I told her that I was much more focused on the child that’s right in front of me.  Of course we are excited to welcome Emma and Elsie into our home and our life, but we don’t know them yet.  We have some information, a few pictures and thankfully, a video of each of them.  But that’s it.  Bella charms us with her adorable-ness every minute of every day. 

Yesterday I took some time during Bella’s nap to journal and pray for Emma and Elsie and that was so good for me.  I told God that I really can’t wait to meet them and begin loving on them and to see them grow and flourish before our eyes.  In Emma’s video she seems very shy and I want to see her laughing and giggling and coming out of her shell.  In Elsie’s video she’s extremely active, but she can’t walk on her own yet.  I can’t wait to see her take her first steps.

We have been graced with nearly a year of seeing Bella grow and change and blossom.  What changes will we see in Emma and Elsie in this coming year?  I can’t wait to find out.