Tonight, as I was rocking Asher before I put him to bed, I was signing him a Mary Rice Hopkins song that I used to sing Tyler when he was little. It was when Jay came to know the Lord, I rededicated my life to the Lord after living many years for myself instead of Him alone. So we began our faith walk of truly learning what it means to live for Christ. That was almost 19 years ago and what an amazing walk it has been. I truly thank the Lord from the bottom of my heart, for where he has brought us from. I know He is not finished with me yet. He still have much refining to do I can be very stubborn still, and some days it is just plain tiresome and painful. However, I am so thankful and full of joy that He does complete the work He begins in each of us. What a gracious, merciful, loving and gentle God we have. And yet at the same time all knowing, powerful, just and fearful. He does have a righteous wrath and we should not forget His holiness demands us to be righteous and clean before Him.
Lord, today I sing this for all my children from the oldest to the baby, even the ones I haven't met yet. Today, I sing this for myself.
Create In Me
by Mary Rice Hopkins
Create in me a clean heart, oh God
So, I might serve you.
Create in me a clean heart, oh God
That I might be renewed .
So fill me, and heal me, and bring me back to you..
Create in me a clean heart, oh God that I might serve you.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Pre APPROVAL!!!!
Today we got an email that "YES" CCCWA gave us pre-approval, called PA in adoption lingo to adopt "Lucy", which is the name our agency gave her.
Last Friday Lifeline sent in our Letter of Intent to CCCWA (China) asking permission for them hold "Lucy", while we finish our paperwork and get it all to China for an official review. We have six months to do all of that, which should be plenty of time. It took 4 1/2 months to do Asher's and right now Immigration is about a month shorter for approvals than it was with Asher's adoption.
So here is the most adorable little Chinese girl you have ever seen, Elliana "Ellie". I can't wait to hold this little sweetie and hopefully get her to show her beautiful smile.
Thank you for your prayers and support. Tomorrow is another homestudy meeting. Please pray for that to go well too, it is a bit nerve wracking inviting in a stranger to evaluate you as an entire family.
Last Friday Lifeline sent in our Letter of Intent to CCCWA (China) asking permission for them hold "Lucy", while we finish our paperwork and get it all to China for an official review. We have six months to do all of that, which should be plenty of time. It took 4 1/2 months to do Asher's and right now Immigration is about a month shorter for approvals than it was with Asher's adoption.
So here is the most adorable little Chinese girl you have ever seen, Elliana "Ellie". I can't wait to hold this little sweetie and hopefully get her to show her beautiful smile.
Thank you for your prayers and support. Tomorrow is another homestudy meeting. Please pray for that to go well too, it is a bit nerve wracking inviting in a stranger to evaluate you as an entire family.
Monday, August 20, 2012
Graduated Twice?
The last nine weeks Makenna has been attending Ellerslie. This school is like no other Bible school I have ever heard of. It is one that emphasizes the importance of surrendering your full life to your God and Savior. It challenges all the students (which range for school-aged children to grandparents), to be willing to die to themselves and pursue the holiness of God, serving the needs through prayer and ministry to orphans, widows and the weak.
Originally, we thought Makenna would only attend for the summer, Basic Training, but she has decided to continue for the next school year and do the Advanced Training. She starts today and will finish sometime in June 2013.
Last night was the graduation for the summer 2012 students. There were over 80 students this summer, from all over the world (US, Canada, Indonesia, Philippines and more). These students are being awakened to the spiritual needs of our world and the battles that need to be pursued. God is equipping them to be His hands and feet. It has been an amazing summer watching Makenna and the other students have changed hearts, some of them very bitter and hard to the core, but all in the end excited and joyful, ready to be sent off for God's glory.
We have been also attending the Church at Ellerslie with Makenna and will continue during the school year likely. As a family we too have been challenged as Pastor Eric's sermons on Sunday are a continuation from the week's teachings for the students and church body.
Praise God for all the obedience from the students the last semester. Praise God that He is working and will not stop until His work on this earth is complete. Praise God that He uses the lowly, weaker ones to accomplish His work, only to bring Himself glory. Praise God that Satan has not won, and while it appears he is winning today, we CAN know God's word to be fact and true and trust the Satan is NOT winning, God is allowing this all still for HIS glory. Jesus, King of all Kings, Ruler of all Nations, is sitting at the right hand of the Father, and will return and make His Victory known.
This was her Game Team. The RED team..
Makenna has been baptized once in her life, several years ago, but she felt it wasn't by her choice. So this day, she was baptized again proclaiming in front of 150 people that she was dead to herself and alive in Christ.
Congratulations!! May God's blessings be poured out over each student's life.
Originally, we thought Makenna would only attend for the summer, Basic Training, but she has decided to continue for the next school year and do the Advanced Training. She starts today and will finish sometime in June 2013.
Last night was the graduation for the summer 2012 students. There were over 80 students this summer, from all over the world (US, Canada, Indonesia, Philippines and more). These students are being awakened to the spiritual needs of our world and the battles that need to be pursued. God is equipping them to be His hands and feet. It has been an amazing summer watching Makenna and the other students have changed hearts, some of them very bitter and hard to the core, but all in the end excited and joyful, ready to be sent off for God's glory.
We have been also attending the Church at Ellerslie with Makenna and will continue during the school year likely. As a family we too have been challenged as Pastor Eric's sermons on Sunday are a continuation from the week's teachings for the students and church body.
Praise God for all the obedience from the students the last semester. Praise God that He is working and will not stop until His work on this earth is complete. Praise God that He uses the lowly, weaker ones to accomplish His work, only to bring Himself glory. Praise God that Satan has not won, and while it appears he is winning today, we CAN know God's word to be fact and true and trust the Satan is NOT winning, God is allowing this all still for HIS glory. Jesus, King of all Kings, Ruler of all Nations, is sitting at the right hand of the Father, and will return and make His Victory known.
This was her Game Team. The RED team..
Congratulations!! May God's blessings be poured out over each student's life.
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Red Thread Sessions
We had the recent privilege of being a part of Red Thread Sessions for our family photos. We had never gotten our family pictures taken since Asher had been home in the Chinese clothing I had bought everyone. So this was an opportune time to do it, as well as we needed new family photos for the dossier we are working on once again for China. I am happy to share with anyone who our photographer was, send me your email in a comment if you are interested and I will email you the name. She was great and very sweet.
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
On The Road Again...
God has impressed on us to begin another journey. The journey that leads us to the greatest blessings. This journey will challenge us, keep us on our knees, stretch us in ways we never were, cause Satan to attack us, keep our bank accounts dry, give us tears of frustration, make our hearts grow bigger than they were before, bring joy that exudes from our soul, have us praising God from the mountain tops, give us a precious gift greater than any gold, store up treasures in heaven. I am excited and so privileged to start this journey.
If you haven't guessed already what the journey is, it is one that will take us to China again and bring us a new child or two. Yes, I said two. We are hoping to bring home two precious Chinese children home to our family by this time next year.
There are over 145 million orphans in the world. God commands us as believers to care for the widows and orphans. We believe God has called Jay and I to take some into our family, to give them a mother and father that is devoted to them. We know WE are not the ones who will save them. That is God's doing. But we are willing vessels to give up all we have, to love these precious gifts of His.
After 2 weeks of praying and studying agencies, we have finally picked one that has a little girl we are interested in pursuing. She is only 3 months younger than Asher, which makes her birthday in June 2010. However, she is quite developmentally delayed, that from her pictures and short videos she looks like a 12 month old. She has a leg deformity that we still aren't quite sure all the details of. Her medical report is quite vague. We have already fallen in love with her. We plan to name her Elliana (Ellie) which means "God is Yahweh". We will put part of her Chinese name for her middle name as well.
As far as the second child, we aren't sure yet how that will work out. We just believe we are to follow God's leading. We desire to keep birth order in our family and that will mean the second child will likely be close to age 1 when we get matched with him or her.
For now, we are getting our paperwork in to begin the homestudy process again and for the placing agency we are using, which is Lifeline. Then we will ask China to give us a Preapproval for the little girl we love already. Once that is approved, I imagine we will begin looking at files for a second child.
Your prayers are appreciated. Our bank accounts are empty after paying the first fees and while we do think we can pay a good amount each month as we save and scrimp, prayers are always helpful in that area. Honestly, I must admit I am not looking forward to all the waiting.. the waiting on homestudy meetings, homestudy approval, immigration approval, China's approval, immigration approval AGAIN, travel approval and more..That was so trying on my patience last time. I hope I can have more faith and patience this time around.
We know God will bring home our babies and we are grateful He has brought us on this journey again. We truly are the ones that have been blessed with Asher's adoption. All of our children were so excited when we told them and had been asking us for months when we were going to bring home a sibling for Asher? When we told them we were going to bring home two siblings they were thrilled.
We also need prayers for all the major adjustments we will be dealing with. Jay and I will be traveling together and needing to leave Asher behind. It will have been almost two years since he came when we actually go, and he is bonding so well. It really has been easy with him. He fits into our family so well and truly is a happy boy. But, he is a Mommy AND Daddy boy. It will be hard for him not having either of us for two weeks and then when he has us again he will have two siblings to share us with. The good news is that he LOVES all of his older siblings and they truly love Him. He is going to have lots of distractions and a huge amount of attention.
I will keep you updated as I have more news. I am hoping my next bit of news will be pre-approval from China. We can't submit that until Jay and I have our doctor physicals. I have mine in a week and Jay is the week after mine, so it might be a good month until we have that PA from China. Again, I need my patience with this process. It all comes together, but it is slow.
If you haven't guessed already what the journey is, it is one that will take us to China again and bring us a new child or two. Yes, I said two. We are hoping to bring home two precious Chinese children home to our family by this time next year.
There are over 145 million orphans in the world. God commands us as believers to care for the widows and orphans. We believe God has called Jay and I to take some into our family, to give them a mother and father that is devoted to them. We know WE are not the ones who will save them. That is God's doing. But we are willing vessels to give up all we have, to love these precious gifts of His.
After 2 weeks of praying and studying agencies, we have finally picked one that has a little girl we are interested in pursuing. She is only 3 months younger than Asher, which makes her birthday in June 2010. However, she is quite developmentally delayed, that from her pictures and short videos she looks like a 12 month old. She has a leg deformity that we still aren't quite sure all the details of. Her medical report is quite vague. We have already fallen in love with her. We plan to name her Elliana (Ellie) which means "God is Yahweh". We will put part of her Chinese name for her middle name as well.
As far as the second child, we aren't sure yet how that will work out. We just believe we are to follow God's leading. We desire to keep birth order in our family and that will mean the second child will likely be close to age 1 when we get matched with him or her.
For now, we are getting our paperwork in to begin the homestudy process again and for the placing agency we are using, which is Lifeline. Then we will ask China to give us a Preapproval for the little girl we love already. Once that is approved, I imagine we will begin looking at files for a second child.
Your prayers are appreciated. Our bank accounts are empty after paying the first fees and while we do think we can pay a good amount each month as we save and scrimp, prayers are always helpful in that area. Honestly, I must admit I am not looking forward to all the waiting.. the waiting on homestudy meetings, homestudy approval, immigration approval, China's approval, immigration approval AGAIN, travel approval and more..That was so trying on my patience last time. I hope I can have more faith and patience this time around.
We know God will bring home our babies and we are grateful He has brought us on this journey again. We truly are the ones that have been blessed with Asher's adoption. All of our children were so excited when we told them and had been asking us for months when we were going to bring home a sibling for Asher? When we told them we were going to bring home two siblings they were thrilled.
We also need prayers for all the major adjustments we will be dealing with. Jay and I will be traveling together and needing to leave Asher behind. It will have been almost two years since he came when we actually go, and he is bonding so well. It really has been easy with him. He fits into our family so well and truly is a happy boy. But, he is a Mommy AND Daddy boy. It will be hard for him not having either of us for two weeks and then when he has us again he will have two siblings to share us with. The good news is that he LOVES all of his older siblings and they truly love Him. He is going to have lots of distractions and a huge amount of attention.
I will keep you updated as I have more news. I am hoping my next bit of news will be pre-approval from China. We can't submit that until Jay and I have our doctor physicals. I have mine in a week and Jay is the week after mine, so it might be a good month until we have that PA from China. Again, I need my patience with this process. It all comes together, but it is slow.
Finally... Wedding Photos
Tyler and Emily's wedding was in May and it was breathtaking! God was evident and so was their love for each other. I was very blessed to be there. I am proud of the young woman my son chose for his wife.
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