Thursday, November 29, 2012

Trust in God but write your Congressman

We have been busy with Thanksgiving and fun family gatherings.  We are so thankful for this time to celebrate and thank God for the blessings he has heaped upon us. 

Several folks have asked how they can help us with the adoption.  We deeply appreciate your thoughtfulness!  Here are some ways to be part of our journey:

Congressional leaders are in the process of tense negotiations with the White House to avoid the “Fiscal Cliff.”  One of the items set to expire at the end of the year is the Adoption Tax Credit.  Several leaders on both sides of the aisle have proposed legislation that would not only extend it in 2013 but make it permanent!  The tax credit encourages couples to adopt either internationally, domestically, or through the Foster Care system by granting up to $13,000 in tax credits the year the adoption is finalized.  This would be a huge help for our finances, but more importantly, it would encourage other families to take the leap that we have and decide to open their home to a child that needs the love of a family and hope.  Join with us in contacting your US Senators and Representatives.  Let them know that this is an important issue and you support the continuation of the tax credit.  Find out how at www.house.gov and www.senate.gov.  For more info on the Adoption Tax Credit visit www.adoptiontaxcredit.org.

Give the gift of Scentsy!  Our friend Emily Turner is donating ALL of her commission from now until the end of the year towards our adoption.  If you don’t know about Scentsy you should.  It’s kinda like a candle that won’t burn your house down.  Find out more and place your orders (ready by Christmas!) at www.scentsy.com\emilyturner. 

PRAY!  We have seen the power of prayer at work already.  God has put so many wonderful people in our path and given us so many financial blessings since we decided to adopt.  We are saving everything we can and praising God for every bit of extra income and decrease in expense along the way!  Please join us in praying for our children who have probably already been born and are living in a less than optimal environment.  Pray for their birth parents who have made a difficult decision, but ultimately chose life.  We love them and know that only dire circumstances would cause a mother to give her child up to the unknown.  Pray for us as we continue to gather paperwork and take our online adoptive parenting classes.  Although it can be daunting, we’ve been encouraged by a Chinese Proverb discovered recently:  Be not afraid of going slow, be afraid only of standing still. 

Thanks for continuing to be part of our journey.  You all mean so much to us.

Sunday, November 18, 2012

A Small Update

Well, I certainly haven't posted as much this month as I had originally intended!
I've had a few people ask me how far along we are in the adoption process recently, and I wish I knew sometimes.  I do feel that we are moving forward so much more slowly than I ever anticipated, but we are moving forward, which is GREAT!  We are still in the paper chasing stage for our homestudy.  Many of the documents we gather for the hs can also be used for our dossier, but the requirements are a little different for each. 
My assignment for this week was to get my letter of good standing (or bad standing!) from my employer and have a physical exam completed.  Neither assignment went smoothly, but my doctor and employer have both gone above and beyond what they had to do - and for that I am SO thankful!!! (Thank you!  Thank you!  Thank you, Erik and Dianne!!!!)  Sam hopes to have both his employer letter and physical wrapped up by the end of this week.  Our next project will be to complete the essays that we have to write for our homestudy.  I have never been one for writing essays (I get caught up in my perfectionism), so pray for me in this area!
We also recieved more good news financially.  God has blessed me with another little project to make a few dollars this week as well as another huge blessing that I cannot disclose on the blog for privacy reasons (but you can ask me in person if you like!).  All I can say is PRAISE GOD!
Its been a good week here!
Now, I have to admit that I often get frustrated with myself for how little we seem to be getting done with the adoption paperwork, but I have to remind myself that we are both working full time, I have a part time job  and we are running our little farm and caring for our horses! 
This weekend we wrapped up a fence repair project that we've been working on for the past month or so.  Once that was complete, we were able to move the horses to the back pasture and close up the front pasture for the Fall/Winter season.  Sounds easy, but it was a lot of good, hard work!  Thankfully, I have a wonderful husband that I enjoy doing projects with!  We were both so pleased with the work we did and the horses are very happy to be in the back where there is still a lot of good grass.  We should be able to put off "haying " the horses for a while, which saves time and money!
I'll close with a few pictures from our weekend.
Thanks for reading and praying for our children and our family.  We are thankful for YOU!




Thursday, November 8, 2012

Praise God from whom all blessings flow

When we decided to adopt we knew that financially it would be a struggle.  It has been the biggest leap of faith in both of our lives.  We trusted that God would provide and so far He has been faithful.  As of today we have between 1/3 and 1/4 of the funds needed!  We are thankful for the generous friends and family who have given to our children.  We are thankful for the jobs we have and that we are able to save a good bit each month.  We are thankful  for the many unexpected blessings.

Psalm 100
  Worship the LORD with gladness; 2 come before him with joyful songs. Know that the LORD is God. 3 It is he who made us, and we are his [a] ; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving 4 and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.
5
For the LORD is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Thankful for My Co-workers!

Let me tell you a little bit about where I work.  It is a precious little pharmacy/gift shop/print shop!  For privacy reasons I can't disclose the name, but take my word for it - it is a very unique place that you won't visit just once.  Everyone really cares about the clients and each other.  I enjoy working there.
I haven't been there very long, but my coworkers do know that we are adopting. 
I was taking my lunch break and checking my e mail one afternoon when I saw the email from our agency accepting our application!!!!  I was officially going to be a mommy!!!  Of course, I couldn't keep the news to myself, so after calling Sam,  I went downstairs and told the first person available - Anna!  I then told a few others.
I later heard Anna and Beth giggling in a corner by the print shop.  I asked them what they were doing, but they just laughed and said they were eating cake.
They came over later and presented me with a sweet little present - the first present for our daughter(s)...

I later went home and let Sam open it.  We received two tiny silver keepsake boxes - one for each child!
I am so thankful for their gift, but especially for their kindness, interest in our journey and their listening ears.
THANK YOU!


Monday, October 29, 2012

A Season of Thankfulness

As November approaches, I like to reflect on the many things that my family and I have been blessed with in the past, present and hope for the future.
Over the next few posts, I'd like to take the time to thank some wonderful friends and family members for their support during this adoption journey.  God has blessed us with these special people and their prayers, gifts, listening ears and support.  We will continue to lean on them and thank God that they are a part of our lives.

Stay tuned! ;0)

Thank my God every time I remember you.  In all of my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now...
Philippians 1:3-5


Thursday, October 18, 2012

Paper Pregnant!

On September 20th we recieved the confirmation that our application to adopt had been accepted by our agency!  We were officially paper pregnant!!!! 
We wanted to celebrate, but not spend any money (putting it all towards the adoption).  We decided the best way to do that was to go home and eat a dinner of ramen noodles... not very exciting, but ramen noodles never tasted better!
We are celebrating and full of excitement here in the States, but somewhere in China, a little girl (or maybe two), our child, is living a very different life.  We pray for her/them.  We pray for their birthmothers, who chose life.  We pray for their caregivers, that they may show them love when they can.  We pray they have their basic needs met, if not more.  We pray that God will help us to be the best parents we can to this precious child/children.  Won't you join us? :0)



How to pray for us

We want to regularly share our prayer requests along with praises for answered prayer and unexpected blessings.

PRAISES
We had a great meeting last week with the agency that will do our home study.  We feel good about working with them and we were encouraged to learn more about the process.

Our first yard sale was great! We made almost $300 and met several new neighbors.

We have started to chip away at the paperwork!  I have also sketched out all the items needed and it is less daunting when we can see it on one piece of paper.  It is still a lot of work (see below)

PRAYER REQUESTS

Patience is something we are having to learn. The paperwork is complex and hard to navigate at times.  And there is a lot of it.

Discernment.  We are having to make a lot of important decisions and sometimes quicker than we thought. 

Fund raising.  We have a long way to go but we are making progress.  Our friend Emily is donating her commission on Scentsy for the rest of the year.  We will announce another fund raiser soon.  We are also trying to sell a bike and lawn mower on craigslist.

Please pray for our children that have probably already been born and in need of nutrition, healthcare, and love. 


Sunday, September 30, 2012

Our first post

Greetings!  Our blog will serve as a way to keep our friends, family, and community up to date with our efforts to adopt a child from China. 

Why are we adopting?  God tells us to be "a father to the fatherless" (Psalm 68:5).  There are 147 Million orphans in the world who need parents, nutrition, education, love, and hope.  God has blessed us in so many ways and we want to share our home and our lives with a child that needs us.  Jesus said to whom much is given, much is required. 

Our blog name comes from Psalm 40:5 our family verse. 

Check back often for updates!  Please remember us in your prayers.