God is Good!

We had another neat encounter with the Lord today.  :-)  As much as we are looking forward to traveling to pick up our little peanuts, there are a few details that are a bit tricky.  One is that Travis is in school, and this summer will most likely be one of his more difficult semesters (pharmacology).  He only goes to school on Thursdays, and as we've looked at the "typical" trip, it looks like we'll be gone just over two weeks, but missing three Thursdays which equals three full days of class.   We committed to praying that God would somehow work out this minor detail, as he is on a three year track with a set group of people that take all their classes together.  In other words, there is no opportunity to take the class later.

Today at school, they had a meeting regarding the upcoming summer semester.  As it turns out, for the first two weeks (in May) they will be meeting for two days each week.  After that (when we should be traveling) the rest of the class will ALL be ONLINE!!!!  Only God could orchestrate something like that.  :-)

These two are the same age for 5 days each year 
and they love it!!

In other news, we celebrated Caleb and Mason's birthdays at the end of January and told them that they are going to get to travel with us to China.  They are thrilled!  We gave them each a new camera and a backpack with some snacks, a travel bible, hand sanitizer, and a book for the plane.

With their "boarding passes" :-)

We also settled on names!  Reed Daniel Hao and Grace Katherine Mei.  

Reed means "blessed", which we are praying that God will bless his little life, Daniel is after Daniel in the Bible (and all of our boys are named after a great man in the Bible), and Hao is his current Chinese middle name.  It means "precious".  :-)  

This adoption journey and our adoption into God's family is all a result of His grace, and so Grace seemed like the perfect name for our little girl.  Katherine is my middle name, and Mei means "beautiful"; Mei Mei is little sister.  Mae happens to be my Grandmother's (also a Laura) middle name.

Packing up the boxes together!

We had a great time last week putting together care packages for them, and we had to prayerfully consider what to send!  They had to fit into a shoebox sized box and could not weigh more than 4 pounds. 

I wound up making little tabby blankets that my friend Heather taught me how to do, and we sprayed each with my perfume and Travis' cologne.  We also made little photo albums of our family and included a picture of our house.  Our agency had sent us the chinese characters for "Mama" "Dada" "Big Brother" and so on.

We put in a disposable camera for each, candies for the nannies, a little alligator for Reed, and a little Asian blanket doll for Grace that I had picked up on clearance months ago at Kohls.  We also sprayed both of those with our perfume and cologne!  We had one recordable story book I had gotten at a garage sale brand new (thanks Sam Alvarado!) that we recorded for Grace.  Because of the facility she is in, we are quite confident that it will be played for her.  We considered buying one for Reed, but they are quite pricy and we weren't sure he would ever see it.  Instead we sent a little hanging giraffe, with the hopes that someone will hang it on his crib.

Off to China they went on Monday, and we were told it would take about two weeks for them to arrive.  Praying they make it into our little ones precious hands quickly!

Introducing....

Wu Miao Shan

Birthday 11/6/12

Zheng Shan Hao

Birthday 9/14/12

English names coming soon!  :-)

A Quick Update

On Friday we received news that our "Letter of Intent" went in for our little boy, and we were essentially granted Pre-approval since our paperwork had already been filed for our little girl.  This means that we can send him a care package whenever we'd like!  We've been having fun discussing what to send over.  We'll have to wait and send hers once we've been granted Pre-approval for her.

On Monday I called back our agency to see if the "clock had begun ticking" (as one social worker put it) for our countdown to travel.  It seems there has been a bit of confusion on how the process goes to adopt two children at the same time, as the CCCWA (Chinese Government) recently changed some of their regulations.

We need to renew, as well file some NEW paperwork for our little girl, then a copy of our dossier can be sent to China.  Once their it will be reviewed and translated, and then we will receive our "Letter of Acceptance" for her.   At that point our countdown to travel will begin.

When I took the averages from our agency, it looks like the earliest we could travel would be the end of May and the latest end of August, although we are hoping it won't be that long!

The Second Call We've Been Waiting For!

After all of the initial excitement, we had a flurry of a weekend.  Our agency had told us that we could travel as early as 11 weeks after we were matched with our little boy, which (in my mind) was vastly different from the average of 4-7 months. My mind was spinning as I made lists of all we would need to do.  There was getting the house and our lives ready for two babies, and then there was everything that needed to happen (and gather :-)) in order to travel internationally for two weeks!

While my mind was racing ahead in full throttle, my husband got us going..... We started with cleaning out the medicine closet for the first time since Caleb and Mason were babies.

 Eight nose suckers were among the many treasures we found.  Liam thought they made great maraccas!

Now we can actually find things, and nothing falls out when you open the door! If our cleaning trend continues at the same rate, we won't do this again until children are leaving the home....


We also tackled clothes.  Oh my.  Clearly I need to do this more often.  Between the clothes we threw away, packed away, and gave away, we weeded out over 200 pieces of clothing.  Yes, it's embaressing.  Apparently we had more in the closet than in the storage buckets.  We let each boy pick out 6 short sleeve shirts, 6 long sleeve, and six pairs of pants to keep out.  Hopefully this will help us in conquering the mountains of laundry!

Then on Tuesday evening we were getting ready to host our small group when we got an email from our agency.  Our social worker explained that she had mistakenly given us some wrong information about filing some paperwork, asking that we call tomorrow.

Wednesday morning, the 8th, we got up and did our quiet time as a family, breakfast, and then Travis left for work.  I decided to quickly call our agency before we got our school day started.

After assuring our social worker that we were not upset, and found out how to proceed, I asked if she thought it was likely they would be able to find a little boy for us from the same province as our little girl.  She responded, "Well, I may just have a little guy for you today."  "How exciting!" I thought!  "They must have just gotten a batch of new files!"  She then went on to say, "I have a cute little guy here, with a cleft lip and palate from Henan.  (Our little girls province!) Would you like to see his file?"  I was shell shocked!  "We would love to see his file!" I responded.

The children and I pulled up the computer and compulsively hit refresh until it came through.  We saw how adorable he was and then called the ER to tell Travis, who was as shocked as I was!  

We were doubaly thrilled to find out that he had been cared for at Maria's Big House of Hope and had his lip surgery done there.  (We had received a grant from Show Hope and thought it would be so sweet if we were able to get one of their babies!)  They also placed tubes in his ears, which was a wonderful bonus, as this is not a practice done in China.

We all floated through the rest of the day, attempting to get school, music lessons, and everything else done. :-)

It turns out we cannot send our Letters of Intent for both children at the same time as we originally thought, (Hence the Wednesday morning phone call) but need to send in for our daughter first.  (As a side note, our Letter of Intent for her was sent today.)  Once we've been pre-approved to adopt her, we can then send in our letter for our little guy, and THEN I think we are allowed to share pictures!

The Call We've Been Waiting For!

For the past 15 months I've walked around feeling like I'm holding a winning lottery ticket - only better - and just waiting for my number to be called, which I was sure could happen ANY day.  I had read blogs by people who had been matched the day after they'd begun the process.  Many people were matched around the one month mark.  After almost 15 month, I must admit, there were times when my hope was beginning to wane a bit. :-( 

I typically called our agency about every 6 weeks or so, just to check in and make sure they remembered who I was. ;-) I usually waited until I had a legitimate question, but some questions didn't quite pass the test.  On one of those calls, I asked our sweet social worker “Has there ever been anyone who did not get a baby?!?” She laughed, and I attempted to muster up a laugh in return.... 

In my heart, I knew that God was sovereign, that He had a good plan, and that our adoption would proceed in His timing, and yet there were times when I wondered “What if God decides to say no?”  "Did we misinterpret where we felt He was leading?".  There had definitely been other times in our lives where we felt God was leading in a certain direction, only to do something different later on.

Then Christmas came and we had a wonderful time celebrating the birth of Jesus as a family. It was a joyous month filled with many precious moments, and yet there was a tinge of sadness to it all as well. As I looked around at all of our blessings, and thought about the pictures of orphans I'd seen lying alone in beds for days on end, it made me teary. It still makes me teary. I am so thankful for ALL of the ways God has blessed us, and yet to think there is no one to hold those sweet children and rock them, while we live such an abundant life is hard.

Anyway, the week of Christmas Travis suggested that we should begin praying about bringing home two boys rather than a boy and girl. Our agency had just sent out (another) letter explaining their predicament – hundreds of families waiting for a girl, and hundreds of boys waiting for a family. Would we consider?

To be honest, it was a wrestle for me. I've been praying for our little girl for two and a half years. I had bought a little girl's First Christmas ornament. A soft Chinese baby doll. And a blanket. Pink. And yet, I knew all of these orphans were God's precious children. Was it selfish to want a girl? Was I making this process about me, or what God wanted? Finally, on Thursday (the day after Christmas), I mustered up the courage to call our agency.

Friday, our sweet social worker, Judy, returned my call. We chatted about what things would look like if we changed our preference to two boys. She told me we were getting closer on a girl, but that it could be another 3-6 months.

I continued to pray over the weekend, and on Monday the 30th, I layed down for a short nap with my little ones. When I got up, I looked at the paper and then answered a phone call. When I hung up I noticed the machine was blinking. It was Judy. “Hi Travis and Laura! If you could give me a call, it's about 3:30 now.”  That was it.

I fumbled with phone, shaking and getting teary as I dialed her number. Could she possibly have a baby? Or had she forgotten that she had returned my call last week?  She asked for both of us, so maybe she had some news?  Unfortunately I got her voicemail. 4:15pm. I left a message, knowing they closed at 4:30.  I ran outside (with both phones just in case ;-)) to the family crew hanging the Christmas zipline and gave them an update.

By 4:24pm I couldn't stand it. (I know.  I shouldn't even admit it publicly. This is one neurotic mommy-to-be.  I really have tried to stay rational through this process!) I attempted to call the lady I know at the front desk.  Off for the week.  Someone else did answer, said she'd check to see if Judy was still there. When she came back on the line, she explained that Judy was not answering the page, but that she would stop by her desk on her way out and let her know I was trying to reach her.

Finally, shortly before 5:00pm, our phone rang and it was indeed the call! After I apologized for hounding her, Judy said “Well, as the world turns..... we received a file of a little girl that you may be interested in.” She then proceeded to tell us about a precious little girl and asked if we'd like to review her file. Strangely enough, (We are confident it is the Lord) she explained the little girl had what was considered a fairly minor condition in China – Cleft Lip and Palate – and yet there was an additional diagnosis that bumped her into the “Special Focus” or severe needs category – Ametropia. Judy wasn't sure exactly what that was (and neither did we), but we knew it had something to do with her eyesight and that she could see - we could rule out blindness.

By the time I got off the phone I was really crying – I couldn't believe we'd been matched with a little girl! I raced outside and grabbed Caleb who then took off at top speed down the hill yelling “we got a match! We got a match!” Zipline dropped and forgotten, everyone raced in the house to hear more.

We all gathered around the computer to see her for the first time together, and as we pulled up her file, Addie was the first to speak “I will hold her!” she said. ;-) We all thought she was adorable and chubby, with little cheeks like Jackson had as a baby.

After quickly texting a few friends and calling Grandma, our next call was to a dear friend who is an Opthomologist. We explained what was happening and asked her what Ametropia was? “Farsightedness.” She replied. I wasn't sure I had heard correctly. “Farsightedness?” “Yes, it just means that she has different degrees of farsightedness in each eye.” At this point I had to repent of my lack of faith...

We had been praying since the spring that God would allow us to bring home two babies, and while Travis was confident God would work it all out, I tried to guard my heart, as I felt it was a bit of a long shot. To bring home two from China, one had to be classified in the “severe needs” group. Quite honestly, our medical checklist did not really lend itself to things China classifies as severe needs. In 15 months no severe needs child had popped up that matched our checklist. 

 Since the spring, we had been praying for two things that we knew God would have to do in order for us to bring home two. The first, was to provide a “severe needs” child that maatched our checklist. The second was that both kids would be from the same province in China, or we would have to extend our trip an extra week, which we knew was not a feasible option.

I spent most of the evening in disbelief that God had answered the first prayer, and the rest of the evening scanning the internet for pictures of out little one and researching out the foster home she is residing in. We were all THRILLED to be matched and can't wait to see if God has a little guy for us. We also can't wait to share her picture!

Trying to Wait Well

"God's sense of timing will confound ours, no matter what culture we're from.  It's not, "I will not be hurried even though I love you"; it's "I will not be hurried because I love you.  I know what I am doing.  And if you try to impose your understanding of schedules and timing on me, you will struggle to feel loved by me."

                                                                                                   - Timothy Keller

When asked how adoption is going, I know it can be hard for some people to answer "we're just waiting" - no news to share.  Not for me - I love it!  I'm touched that people care about my life and are interested in what is going on.  I'm blessed that they would take the time to ask.  It encourages me to think about what God has for our future, and knowing it is GOOD!

With all that said, people are right..... waiting is hard!  Harder than I thought it might be!  :-)

For the most part, I am peaceful, and busy.  BUSY.  That helps!  Trying to meet the needs of six precious little ones, in addition to teaching them and training them is a full time job three times over.  We have ministry commitments we are trying to be faithful with, and Travis started school this week to become a Nurse Practicioner.  We've begun our school year at home (hoping to get a good jump start before a possible trip to China this school year!).  We've painted, cleaned, and shown our house in town to re-rent, and are now on a hunt for a new car for Travis.  (Our beloved 20 year Honda with 216,000 miles went up in smoke while Jackson and I were headed to get his shots for kindergarten.)  Travis and I are excited to have an oppportunity to take a marriage class at one of our sister churches for the next month, we're taking care of farm animals (pigs go to butcher next week, cows in November!), trying to keep a half way orderly house, thinking about the 95 tomatoes in the garden ready to be picked and put into something, and LAUNDRY.  Lots of laundry.  I'm dreaming of a second washer and dryer....

During our great house "fix up" in town, we were able to connect with old neighbors, and our dear friends from behind us have started coming to church!  I also discovered another sweet neighbor has been in the psychiatric hospital for over 125 days.  I was able to take her a Bible and share the gospel.  I'm headed back today for a follow up visit and to take her a copy of Victory Over the Darkness - one of my favorite books.  But that is all a story in itself.  The point is, God has given us PLENTY to be faithful with TODAY!

And yet, I can sometimes wonder - "Is our adoption really going to happen?!?".  Last week during one of my Quiet Times, I read about Abraham in Romans 4:20 -

"He did not waver in unbelief at God's promise but was strengthend in his faith and gave glory to God..."

While God has not given us any promises in regards to our adoption,  the point is that while Abraham was waiting, his faith was strengthend and he gave glory to God!  Waiting can so good if I yeild to God's plan!  It gives me the chance to trust God in and appreciate God's PERFECT timing, grow in my understanding of His love for me.  And through all of that, like Abraham, I want to be strenghthened in my faith.

To God be the Glory!

In his heart a man plans his course....

But the Lord determines his steps.  Proverbs 16:9

I've been wanting to put into writing our adoption journey thus far, but just haven't taken the time to do it.  We recently applied for a grant, which required us write it out and what a blessing it was to look back!  It's a little lengthy, but I wanted to have a record, for our family, of how the Lord has led us so far.

 Our Adoption Story began many years ago as a young family.  At the time, Travis and I had only two little ones - Caleb (2) and Mason (1).  God began to stir my heart after a gal from church returned from a mission trip, and shared some of her experiences in orphanages she visited.  When we got home that evening, I shared with Travis what I was thinking.  “I’ve always thought we would adopt!” was his reply.  This is typically how we roll - he usually has the great ideas first and it always takes me a little longer to catch up.  :-)  Having just gone through a miscarriage, I committed to praying about the possibility, as I wanted to make sure I wasn’t just responding emotionally.

     The years passed, and our family rapidly grew.   We both still had a desire to adopt, and we prayed that God would lead us if it was His desire.  Each time we welcomed a new little one to our family, I wondered if God would have adoption for us one day, or if he was closing that door.

     After our sixth child was born I experienced some complications and we decided it would be too risky to try and have more children biologically.  Quite honestly, that was a hard thing for me to accept.  My plate was full, and I was so thankful for the blessings we had been given, and yet I grieved at the thought of never again experiencing the miracle of pregnancy and a new baby.  As I wrestled with God over it, I wasn’t ready to think through adoption, but through a series of events God began to stir my heart once again.....

     Each summer Travis and I are able to attend our State’s Homeschool Conference in Denver, which has been a pivotal event for us in developing and refining our vision for our family.  During the summer of 2011, one of the speakers was R.C. Sproul Jr, an adoptive Father who spoke on adoption.  The Lord began to stir Travis’ heart, but I was still busy sorting through my grief about childbearing with the Lord.

     Several weeks later, one of Travis’ co-workers lost her 11 month old baby in a tragic crib accident at daycare.  It was the second daughter they had lost, the first had died at a week old of a rare blood disorder.  To our knowledge, neither of the parents knew the Lord and the funeral was one of the saddest events I have ever experienced.  It brought me to a crossroad in my relationship with God.  The following days I cried many tears as I tried to make sense out of such tragedy.  I didn’t know how someone without the Lord could possibly survive such heartache.

     During this time I picked up Mary Beth Chapman’s book at the library.  I had previously avoided reading it, as I thought I couldn’t handle it, but now I was desperate!  I wanted to know how she had processed the loss of their daughter.

     As it turned out, about two thirds of her book detailed their adoption experience and I was hooked.  God used her life, and began to turn my heart, once again, towards the ministry of adoption.

     As we began to pray and research what this might look like for our family, we laid out all of our options before the Lord and asked him to direct us.  Domestic or International?  Open or Closed? What agency should be use?  Due to our family size and income, it appeared that we were not eligible for most international countries.  The countries that we were eligible for required several trips, which did not seem feasible for our family.

     It appeared that domestic was our only option, and we were peaceful with that.  We have always taken a strong pro-life stand, and helped to support our local pregnancy resource center, so we began to pray that God would use our family to prevent an abortion from happening, even if we never knew.  We decided on our tenth wedding anniversary that we were going to step out in faith, trusting that God did indeed have adoption for our family!

      We found a wonderful Christian agency in Florida, and a fantastic agency in Colorado to do our homestudy.  Our values and parenting styles lined up well with each one, and we were thrilled to be working with both.  At Colorado Adoption Center, we met with the director who explained that they did no advertising and didn’t even have a website; they relied solely on word of mouth and prayer.  (We couldn’t even find a phone number for them, we had learned of them from our Florida agency!)  Julie (the director) then proceeded to share story after story of how God had brought them babies and wonderful Christian families.  I felt like we had just met a modern day George Mueller!  After our first homestudy visit was complete, Travis turned to me and said “I feel like we just had a great visit with an old friend.”  That’s a gifted social worker!  

     We began our process in the summer and were done with things by Christmas.  While it was fun to wonder if we might one day get a little girl that looked like us, we also weren't completely peaceful (or confident) that God was going to have that.  As we began to pray about opening ourselves to other options (but still thinking domestically), God began to do the unexpected.  He began to stir our hearts towards China, specifically children with special needs who might be deemed “unlovely” in the world’s eyes.  

     As a little girl I can remember seeing pictures in Redbook magazine of families who had adopted many children, all with special needs.  At the time, I can remember thinking “why would anyone want to do that?”.  It was a perspective that only God could change!

     I only had one friend who had adopted from China, but the last time I had seen her had been almost 15 years ago at a fundraiser for her adoption.  I wished I could ask her some questions, but I had since moved to another city and we had lost touch shortly after that.  I would have loved to have found her again, but had no idea where she was.

     Our reasons for wanting to adopt were simple - we loved the idea of adding another girl to our family, but more importantly we felt strongly that adoption was at the heart of the gospel.  We wanted to adopt because amidst our “unloveliness”, our selfishness, and our sin, we had been chosen!  We had been redeemed, given a new life, a new identity, and a new glorious, perfect father!  How could we not want to offer an orphan this opportunity, to become a child of God, who the world would most likely overlook?!? 

     To be honest, I was a little resistant at first towards the idea of special needs - like most parents we were praying for a “healthy” daughter.  And yet, once again, God turned my heart.  As God was drawing our hearts towards China, He began to show us the medical needs of many of the waiting children.  We learned that in China, medical services must be payed for before a procedure can be done.  Often, mothers who do not have the resources to have treatment done, will abandon their child out of sheer necessity - it may be their only hope for their child to survive.  I cannot fathom the grief that would come from making such a selfless decision.  How different from the United States.  And how different from our family’s situation.  

  

     Travis works at a hospital.  We have benefits that would make most people green with envy.  The bill for my last c-section was $25,000.  We paid $125.  $15 for 10 months of pre-natal care.  We have excellent medical care in Greeley, and Denver Children’s Hospital is 45 minutes from our front door.  People travel from other states to bring their children there.  We have always desired to be good stewards of the resources God has given us, but we had never before thought about how we could be good stewards of our medical benefits.

     God was clearly doing something in our hearts, and yet we had several major obstacles.  The agencies we were working with weren’t Hague accredited (necessary for China).  We didn’t have $30,000, and the biggest one of all - we didn’t qualify.  Not only did we have too many children for China’s requirements (they want no more than 4 in the home), we didn’t even come close to their income requirement - $90,000 for a family our size.  We began to pray that God would some how open that door - maybe for a future adoption down the road.

     Meanwhile, as we waited for a birthmother to pick us, we began to pray for some specific children in a Foster Home in China.  We held a “Family Birthday Party” for all six kids and invited over 100 people.  Instead of gifts, we asked them to bring supplies for an orphanage in China and we had a great time packing them up and shipping them!  We began getting emails about precious little children who needed families.  Occasionally I would call, but the answer was always the same - “we’re sorry, but you don’t qualify”.  At the same time, our hearts were being drawn more and more to the children of China needing families.

     Eventually, we were led to CCAI in Denver.  I spoke with a wonderful lady named Hillary, who explained that China will make exceptions on family size if the family is willing to adopt a special needs child.  Exactly what we desired!  She also thought we might qualify financially.  Because we rent out our home in town, (and we rent a farm where we live) we can count all of the rental income as “income”.  We don’t see it that way, because we just use the money to pay the mortgage company, but China sees it differently. Hmmmmm.  Additionally, she said we could include some things that Travis is compensated for at work, such as mileage, benefits, paid time off, etc.  I wanted to jump through the phone and hug her!  Our only hesitation was that we would have to switch agencies, losing several thousand dollars in the process.  Was that being good stewards?  We decided to pray and wait for God to give clarity before making any hasty decisions.  

     We were nearing our eleventh wedding anniversary, and made plans to go stay at a Bed and Breakfast in Fort Collins and go to dinner at our favorite Asian restaurant.  The morning beforehand, I prayed that God would give us a clear sign in regards to if we should pursue China or not.  While we were at dinner, the subject of our adoption came up.  Travis shared that he felt a peace and confidence that the Lord was leading us to switch agencies, and pursue a daughter from China.  I was thrilled!  I shared my prayer with him, and told him that if he was confident and peaceful, I could be confident and peaceful too!

     After dinner we headed to Old Town to walk around.  As a worship leader and music lover, Travis wanted to stop and listen to a band that was playing.  While we listened to the first song, I thought the lead singer looked a lot like my friend Jill’s husband.  In my head I could hear Travis teasing me - “You always think you see people that you know!”.  As the song was concluding, I looked to my right, and there was Jill; my friend I hadn’t seen in 15 years, and her daughter whom I had never met!  “Jill!”  I yelled!  I threw my arms around her, “You’re my sign!  I prayed for a sign!”  Having no idea what I was talking about and not having seen me for 15 years, I’m sure she thought I was a bit crazy.  However, I felt like God had clearly brought us together as a confirmation.

     After working with both of our agencies to be released with their blessing, we began to pursue our China adoption last fall.  The past year and a half has been an absolutely exhilarating journey; neither Travis nor I can think of any other time in our lives when God has provided and directed us so clearly.  We have experienced Jesus in a whole new way - I feel like I’ve been having a personal revival.  We’ve had encounter after encounter with the Lord, which always deepens our intimacy with Him.  

Some of the other encouraging blessings have been that God has been growing us as parents and changing us (for the better I think! :-)), and we have come to understand our own adoption as God’s children in a fresh new way.  It has even given us a new fire for the Great Commission, as we’ve realized that international adoption has a distinct aspect of fulfilling the Great Commission.  It’s given us an excitement about how God might want to use our children and family in the future to reach other nations.

     More recently, Travis brought up the idea of bringing home both a little boy and a little girl from China.  I had been thinking the same thing, but on two separate trips.  ;-) In usual fashion, I was initially quite resistant to the idea of doing it all at once.  However, God has once again changed my heart of stone ;-), and given me a true excitement about bringing home two this time.  We are now eagerly awaiting “the call” to say we’ve been matched, and even more eagerly looking forward to seeing how God leads us through the rest of this journey.