God is Good

(posted by Mark)

So many of you have been praying and involved with us in the process by which we are seeking to expand our family.  It has been so very encouraging and overwhelming in some ways, as you’ve shown your love for us.  You have been a manifestation of God’s love and care and we desire to give Him the glory as we share some very fun news.  The Lord has heard your prayers.  Your prayers have moved His hand.  The opportunity to foster a child and then adopt her came about as you moved God in prayer.  Your prayers helped give us wisdom to seek counsel from many people including doctors and gave us caution in moving forward .  As well, it gave us confidence when we finally made the decision to…

FOSTER THIS LITTLE ONE! 

Please praise God with us as we celebrate His provision through this opportunity.  Praise Him as we see His hand through the last ten years of marriage and infertility.  Praise Him as He has prepared a five month old girl to us!  Praise Him for these ways in which He has specifically answered prayer:

- Mark asked some friends to pray we’d bring home a daughter by June 15^th.  It could happen by June 1^st! 

-We had many details in the Foster-to-Adopt process that needed positive answers… from our US agency (they said it can and has been done regularly), the orphanage (they are more than willing to write a letter of recommendation) and from doctors (we received a second opinion within two hours of our e-mail!).  Each one was a confirmation to move forward.

-Erika has been hoping and praying that she would be able to mother an infant.  We did not think this possible as most children are adopted at one year or later.  We were preparing for a two year old.  God has other plans.  

-We asked you to pray for the adoption process.  Our dossier made it to China last week and we could be matched with our second child any day!

     

     He is so faithful and we are so thankful.  We’d love to share more details with you as to how we’ve come to this decision, our next steps and how you can continue to pray for us.  We’ll do that here throughout the week, so keep checking our blog.  For now, praise God with us…we’re going to bring home a baby girl really soon.

Could it be...

that this is my last Mother's Day to spend childless?

That's a happy thought.

The emotional rollercoaster continues...

The meeting Monday morning went so well.  The director was kind and willing to work with us and our agency to make fostering and then adopting work.  We spent about an hour or so gathering all the information we could on this four month old…and then they took us to meet her!  We spent about a half hour with her, talking to her, smiling at her, holding her and feeding her.  Oh my!  She’s beautiful.

We came home so encouraged and excited.  And then we sent all the info we had on her to a doctor who has offered his advice on our referrals.  His reply is that there is reason to be extremely cautious.  Her special needs could mean major issues.  This is rather disheartening.  Our hearts want to hear, “Move forward.  This is a great fit.”  After meeting her, I am finding it really difficult to think logically instead of with my heart.

Friends, please keep praying for us.  This “referral, matching, choosing your daughter” step of the process is so hard!  We need to be wise.  We need God’s discernment.  Because the info we have now on this little one is inconclusive and maybe a little too early to know, we’re not closing the door on her just yet.  It is possible her conditions could turn out to be minor issues.  We’re trying to figure out ways to get more information.  Keep praying.  Pray that somehow we will be able to get a foreign doctor to assess her medical condition.

What a difference a day makes

After this awful week, we had 24 hours of some pretty big news.  Here’s a snippet of what’s happened…

1.  Our dossier was finally sent to China!  We have had so many hurdles and setbacks with this step that we cried when we got this news.  

2.     We have the opportunity to foster and then adopt.  This means two really big things…we could get our daughter much sooner than expected, and we could start caring for her at a much younger age than we had thought.

Here’s the longer story, for those interested.  My good friend and neighbor goes to the orphanage with her daughters once a week to do an art class.  She’d been praying for an opportunity to do more, to help advocate for these little ones that are tugging on her heart strings.  She didn’t know how to do that, so she asked God to have someone approach her…and a couple weeks ago someone did—the director of foster care. 

On Thursday we met with this woman to understand more.  We now know that the orphanage has over 100 children living there and another 50 or so in foster care with local families.  They’re getting more children all the time and they don’t have room for them.  She knows that these children will get such better care if they are in homes, with families, and she wants to get the foreigners involved too.  She’s asking us (I’ve jumped at the opportunity to help my friend figure all this out) to help her do this. 

So, we’ve asked if the possibility exists to foster and then adopt.  (Right now there is no way I could have a child in my home for a short time and then have her be adopted by someone else.)  She says, yes, and explains how she thinks it’s done.  However, checking with our adoption agency and making sure they think it can be done is another key factor. 

That evening we call our agency.  After months of delayed communication, we expect to leave a message and try to talk with him at another time, but he answered the phone!  He said yes, people have been trying this for years.  There used to be a huge risk involved because there was no guarantee that you could be the first to get to the child’s file after it goes to the shared list.  But they’ve since changed the method to make it work and the child never goes to the shared list.  As long as you’re in the system, and the orphanage and the civil affairs office are willing to write letters of support for you, you are automatically matched with this child.  Our agency has seen it done successfully.

So, I’m on cloud nine when I get this news, and my sweet husband is trying to keep my feet on the ground.  Please be praying.  We’re thrilled at this opportunity, yet there are still some things that need to fall into place.

I will meet with the director of adoption at the orphanage on Monday.  He needs to be willing to write these letters.  We also need the woman to be willing to release specific medical information about these children, so that we can make an informed decision.   She’s already told us about one little girl, four months old, with minor special needs that we are very interested in.  This is all happening really fast, pray for our hearts and the decisions along the way.   

Groaning

We asked you to specifically pray for us and our adoption last week.  And we’re so thankful for those of you who were able, and for those who are continuing to pray. 

This past week has been really, REALLY hard.  We’ve heard nothing from our adoption agency telling us that things are moving forward.  Our computer crashed, again.  Our landlord has threatened to end our lease two years early and charge us a huge fine because he thinks that we’re teaching English out of our home for profit.  (Obviously, we are not teaching English for profit!)  And our work here continues to feel like one big uphill battle.   

We never thought that a week of focused prayer for us would turn out like this.  We had high hopes and expectations that your prayers would move the hand of God this week.  We were hoping to report that our paperwork is now on its way to China and that we were matched with our first little girl…but that just hasn’t happened yet.  I wish I could tell you that your prayers brought a supernatural peace and joy to our hearts this week…but that’s just not true.  I wish I could tell you that we’re feeling less discouraged in this process…but I can’t.  The truth is that it’s been one. hard. week.

Still, we cling to a mustard seed of faith and hope that God is answering prayers, but in a very different way than we expected.  This week He’s chosen to work on our character to make us better parents.  How will we respond when life gets really hard?  By turning to chocolate and movies?  Quite honestly, yes.  But also but also by turning to friends who love us dearly and are in this with us.  And by turning to our faithful Father who loves us even more and carries us through the hardest times.  And by opening our Bibles and letting His eternal words mean more to us than they ever have before.

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.  For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God…And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”  (Romans 8: 18-19, 23)

Groan with us in hope.  God’s glory is a sure thing. 

Adoption Prayer Challenge

(If you receive our monthly newsletters, you've likely already seen this.)

“How’s the adoption going?” is a question we are asked all the time, and honestly we haven’t had much to report for a long time.  We’re feeling rather discouraged.  It’s been one and a half years since we began this “paper pregnancy”.  However, getting the right papers in the right hands at the right time is proving more difficult than we ever imagined.  We firmly believe that every step of this process is guided by our Father’s loving hand and we also believe that our prayers have power to move His hand.  We desperately desire two little girls to join our family, to walk through our doors and into our arms as our children. 

So... we want to mobilize as many people as possible to join us in a special time of prayer.

Here are the next main steps in our adoption process:

1) Dossier to China—This means that all our paperwork with all the proper authentications needs to get into the hands of the Chinese government to prove that we are fit to parent children.

2) Referral of a child—Our adoption agency will send us a picture and medical information about a specific little girl.  We then have 36 hours to pray, contact doctors about her conditions and make a decision to accept or decline this child.

3) Match—When we tell our agency, “yes, we want this child,” more paperwork and official permissions follow.  This process takes 6 to 8 months.  Prayerfully the referral and matching process will happen twice, for two different girls at about the same time.

4) Travel in China—Once all the documents are in the right places, we will receive permission to travel to pick up our children.

5) Travel to US—In order to become US citizens, to address our children’s medical needs, and to introduce them to family and friends who have been waiting to meet them, finally, we will travel to the States with our daughters.

Here’s what we’re asking you to do… please consider how you might join us in moving the Father’s hand to bring our little ones home.  

 

A Challenge to Pray

 

1.  On Monday April 23, during lunch, pray through all five of these steps.

2.  April 23^rd- 27^th during lunch take time to pray for each of these five steps.

3.  Join Mark and I as we fast and pray Mondays at lunch each week until our daughters come home.

Asian Glamor Shots!

These two can't wait to be parents to two Chinese beauties!