LID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Let the Count Down Begin!

Well we are officially LID! (Sorry I'm a little late in posting about this :)) Lock in Date means we are locked into China's system-they now know we mean business! We are now in the LOOOONG wait period. LOA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOA mean Letter of Approval-I believe it's the final approval from our Pre-approval that we got that Nina is ours :)!!! It has been reported to being from 13 days to 100+ days so there really is NO way of knowing when it will come! But once you have crossed the LOA hurtle, most people are super excited because most waits after that point are weeks or even days instead of months! So now we wait-and REALLY start some major fundraising!!!
Speaking of.......................this Wednesday the 17th of April, Chick-fil-A is hosting a Spirit night from 5-8p to help us raise money! 10% or more, based on the turn out, of everyone's order goes to our adoption. You have to present the flier for it to count. There will also be a wheel there to spin and with every spin you WILL get a prize! 100% of the money for every spin goes to US!!! So come on out to a great company eat GREAT food and help a GREAT cause!!!

Here's the link to the flyer:

(*yes I know it's upside down...that's how I roll...)

AND May 17th is our BIG Ice Cream Social!! We will be having a raffle, Chinese Auction, LIVE music and  of course ICE CREAM!!!!! There will be Vanilla ICE CREAM with toppings, toppings and MORE toppings!!! Also a sweet friend offered to make some home made ice cream as another choice...mmmmmmm.
Many companies and friends have already given us some pretty nice things to raffle off and for that we say THANK YOU!!!! We are blown away by the hearts of friends and strangers who have been willing to give to us!!! But there is still plenty of time if you want to give to the auction!!! WE would LOVE if you could all have a part of bringing home our sweet sweet baby girl!

Ice Cream will start being served at 6:30p
20255 Denny Dr Brooksville, Fl 34601

Here' the invite for the Ice Cream social on Facebook-if you would RSVP that would
 be great so we know how much ICE CREAM to have! DO NOT WANT TO RUN OUT OF THAT!!!!

https://www.facebook.com/events/630069237009319/

Have a great night EVERYONE!!! AND THANKS AGAIN FOR YOUR LOVE AND PRAYERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Sad Reality of Truth

Hello ALL!!! If you haven't seen our update on our FB invite-we are moving the ice cream social back a month to give us a little more time to plan. My sister is stepping up in a BIG way to help us do what she does best, PLAN!!! Which is such a HUGE help because, while I can plan for my family, I am not an event planner at all! So thank you Carrie!!! Things are going to be BIG! So pray we can get everything planned and together and that we can get donations for our Chinese auction.
 In other news, I thought I would write today on orphanages. While some of us think we have an idea of what you think you would see, the reality of it breaks my heart! I read the other day of a woman who went to get her little baby and was checking in on a friends baby and was heart broken over the realities of what she saw. The realities of cribs upon cribs of 2 sometimes 3 babies in a crib, starring off in the distance, with no one to comfort or share a smile with. Some rocking back and forth, a sad sign of not having any stimulation in institution life. Some of them being wet or soiled for hours because the lack of help of nannies. Toys being untouched sitting in a corner because no one is available to show them how to use them. Older children just BEGGING for attention from anyone who would give it to them. I will admit, at one time I felt anger towards the nannies that cared for these children. Where were they? Why did these kids have to lay there so long in wet clothes, in freezing temperatures, in some places of China. But the reality is, there are SO many children in one room! Imagine having just one child with special needs. Can you imagine, or do you know the demand that just one child can take? Imagine 100's, all ages of children, and being one of the few nannies to be there. I had a friend say the other day, in her son's orphanage there was 4 nannies that worked there. Two were out sick for a week, leaving 2 to manage the place on their own! Thankfully this particular place doesn't have hundreds of children under their care, but I think you get the picture.

 * You can read the blog here: http://www.chantelleg.blogspot.com/2013/03/orphanage-visit.html?m=1

  I can not wait to hold my sweet girl and let her know how special she is. How LOVED she is! And to be there when she has a cold, or is cold and to fight away the world for her. We are coming sweet girl! With all that we are, and with all that we got, WE ARE FIGHTING FOR YOU!!! In church this morning I prayed that I would be filled. This long process can definitely take the fight out of you if you let it. And we sang a song called All Things Possible by Marc Schultz. I know I've talked about this song before, but I LOVE IT! And I love how God brought it before me this morning, reminding me that "even when I feel like my light is fading, and I have lost my way, still I'm holding on to the one who is making all things possible."

Only A Season

HEEEELLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! How have you all been? Pull up a chair and grab a cup of Joe as I fill you in on the ride I have been on, don't worry, I'll wait...Ready? Where do I begin. Well I know I probably set you up for a wild couple of weeks but the only ride that has been going on is the ride I sat myself down on and took off with. I have just really been a roller-coaster of up and down. You would might think I was actually pregnant the way I have been acting...but I PROMISE, I am not. I have been starting my day by getting out of bed and praying, having time with God, and saying, "okay God, we got this! I can make it through the day without checking my email every five minutes (okay so maybe in less time, but that's our little secret), seeing nothing, *deep-breath in, reminding myself it's only 6am, my social worker doesn't even get in her office til 12pm my time, find something to occupy myself (did I tell you i have four kids under 8 all that are home schooled with me all day-yeah finding things to occupy myself aren't that hard),think about our BIG fundraiser and what I need to do to plan it, get over-whelmed and FREAK OUT, calm down, check my email, cry (literally) because it is 6:05a AND STILL NO EMAIL!, will this email ever come?!?!?!, and end the day sad that I got nothing, and dissapointed in my lack of patience and faith that it will happen in God's time. This email that I was waiting for was an update that we were DTC. What does this mean, that our paperwork would finally be going off to China and thus START our process. YES I SAID START!!! Ugh. This step isn't necessarily suppose to take so long, DC offices were closed due to bad weather, holding up my papers from getting back to my agency. OR it could have been God waiting for me to grow up and get a handle of myself. One day I had had enough. I have never ever been the "angry at God type". I mean, (and I think I've said it before), but a lot of the times bad things happen, if we really examine them, we somewhere a long the line, did it to ourselves, not all of the time, but some of the time. And Josh and I 100% jumped into this process feeling like it was God and ONLY GOD asking us to leap forward with HIS plan. SO as I sat in my living room with all my kiddos asleep, folding TONS and I mean TONS of laundry, I cried. Big ugly cry. Why would God call people to this. I have now fallen in love with this little girl all the way around the world, who I could not comfort, feed, clothe or protect! And on top of it all, I'm at the MERCY of all those who are working on our papers, from the mailman, to the lady in the government office to the people in China! How fair is that, on a mom of four other children I need to put my attention on. I cried, I begged, I pleaded and I asked why me, who am I to do this? I do not plan big fundraisers, I don't understand looong grant and adoption applications, I AM NOT patient...yeah you would think I was dying of cancer (I told you I could be dramatic), but honestly my heart was breaking. I felt like Jacob in Genesis 32:24 when he wrestled God and met Him face to face. But through all of the questions, I heard a still small voice again, God telling me, "why not you? Did I not make you to be the one who I would ask to step out? I choose you because I trusted you to step forward. And I choose you because you CAN'T do it on your own, only through and with Me. Something changed in me after I got all of that out. Like a peace staring me in the face, and written on my heart, that I am not alone in this. Somewhere a long the way, I had started making this my idea, and was getting frustrated with the fact that other people controlled my timeline, my answers and my adoption, when really, it was His idea, and HE controls and has always controlled all of those things. From the weather to the lady in charge of my case who is out because of the flu, I DON'T CONTROL ANY OF IT! And you know what, the next day in my email I got an email from my lovely and wonderful social worker asking, "how would you feel being DTC today?!" Ohhhh don't mind at all if I do! :) To end my great, or not so great week, depending on how you look at it, in church this morning the message was on realizing that all of our minutes, all of our hours, allll of our days, both good and bad, are numbered. There is not ONE bad or good situation that we go through in life that will last forever. But we ARE accountable to how we live in those moments. So I will try my very best to remember in those hard times, "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:" Ecclesiastes 3:1 Wait! Don't go yet! I want to tell you about our up coming fundraiser on April 13th! I Scream for Nina; Ice Cream Social to Bring Nina home!!! :) Doors open at 6p and we will have the group FourFifths playing! If you missed it last time I posted it, here is a sample of them. They are fantastic! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IB-lKLMAnKk
We will also be doing a Chinese auction!!! If you or anyone you know makes anything that can be made in a little basket, or has gift-card, or connections to something we may be able to auction off, PLEASE let me know! :) Okay-now you can go take that nap :) Have a great week you all!!! LOVE

A Time to Grow...

              Well I have no updates. Nothing very new to share about our adoption journey that will excite you...but while we wait I thought I would put our there what God is doing in our lives.
               First off it is AMAZING to see where and how God brings you to a place to do what it is that He had planned for you to do. A year ago my hubby and I felt God calling us to leave our church. Now this is a church that I have gone to since I was 12 and my hubby and I got married in and where we were both very faithfully serving in. Doing things we LOVED!!! I loved knowing everyone there and having such great friendships with the people there that I had known for years. And I LOVED leading the worship band in our youth group and I have to say, as much as I loved singing before, leading it was a whole-nother step of faith I never thought I'd have the guts to take on, and in front of teens none the less!!! So leaving was something we did not see in "our" plans. But we strongly felt God telling us to. We at the time had no idea why, and it was probably one of the saddest things we've had to do in our married life. And we are NOT a couple who likes change. We questioned it a lot. But the longer we were away and the steps we saw God leading us to-reassured us we were right where He wanted us...whatever the reason He was leading us away. After visiting a lot of different places God lead us to the church we are at now. We have become increasingly sure of why He led us there. God wanted us to GROW! To say this is sad, couldn't God have grown us where we were? Sure, He is God after all. But we were taken out of our comfort zone, made to take our eyes off of the people directly surrounding our bubble of friends and familiar faces. And put into a church of people who we hadn't known for years. We had to make this our home. This last month our Pastor was preaching on being Greater! To take everything in our lives a step further to be even greater. Just this last Saturday we went to a day conference at our church called Momentum. We both really were kicked and picked up again, learning to stay focused on the goals God has set up for us. It is great to get up after you fall-but it is so much better to keep that momentum if you don't let yourself get knocked down! And this new series we are learning right now is called Grow. In Jeremiah 29:2-7 God told Israel to fluoresce in captivity. To grow and multiply and stretch themselves right where they were!  One thing he said was "you can be bitter about where you are or you can make where you are better." That really hit me this morning. I really thought 2 Fridays ago that we would have been DTC (paper work goes to China). So I basically have been sitting refreshing my email hourly, and growing continually bitter and frustrated about everything around me. I mean literally I was such a mess last week. But when Pastor Paul said that this morning-I felt like God was tapping me on the shoulder saying, I brought you to this place, you have stepped out this far and have seen what I can do for you and where you can go in this life, why are you doubting it all now? The waiting is hard but what blessing am I missing by being as low as I have made myself. Something else Pastor said this morning was, "sometimes for God to grow us bigger there has to be pain. Just like the growing pains we get when were a child." Yeah....I felt like shaking my head. I know this isn't easy. The process is hard, change is hard, WAITING, is hard-but it is in these moments God wants to give us more. He wants us to be so much more! A child has to feel the pain of growing, it is just part of the growing process.  I can look back on this last year and just feel and SEE how much God has grown Josh and I, and still I let the growing pains get me down. I know I know we are human, we make mistakes-, but I hope and pray I can keep the momentum going this week, this year and through all of my life, so I don't miss the blessing in the process.

                       "He uses the situations we're in to get us to where He wants us to be." Pastor Paul


                     And true to my ever loving addiction to music I leave you with this song that inspired me to get back up and give it a go at trusting in GOD'S perfect timing and not my own...

                                           I'm Ready Now Jared Anderson

                               

Come like You promised You would

I want to surrender for good

Know that I need You

And I don't want to keep living life alone

So take my heart make it new

Make it true, make it like You

Take my hands, I lift them high

They're Yours not mine to do

Do what You will

Do what You will

Do what You will

I feel like a blind man in Your sight

I know that I'm wicked in Your eyes

So wash me and make me shine like Your Son

I want to tell everyone that You're the only one

So take my heart make it new

Make it true, make it like You

Take my hands

(My hands)

I lift them high

(So high)

They're Yours not mine to do

Do what You will

Another note to add: A friend of mine from college is 

selling Mary Kay and all of the profit goes to our 

ADOPTION!!!! Thank you so much Amber for being willing to 

give to our family!!!! Go to this link or copy and paste it and 

BUY BUY BUY!!! :) TIA

https://www.facebook.com/events/506623689375677/?fref=ts

The Why...

In the very short (or NOT so short) time that we have been on this adoption journey I have been asked many, many, mannny questions about our story. "When are you going", "how much does it cost", "are you crazy" (yes everyone just loves being asked that :)), and last but not least, "Why international when there are so many children here who need to be adopted? Why not help out your own?" Yesterday that last one was even followed up by, "just make sure you don't get one that has issues that's just horrible for the parents!" That last one felt like a slap in the face and I wasn't sure I was going to be able to pick my jaw up off the floor! Aside for the last comment, I have no problem answering questions. I actually enjoy it because I feel like people are genuinely interested in not only our life, but the process. But I must say I've always had a hard time answering the why international. I mean I know why I chose international. It's where we felt God was leading us to go. Plain and simple. Now trying to explain that fact is not as plain and simple to others. I am by no means saying I have great faith, because I lack that more times than I can count, but I just knew. Like the day you said yes to your husband. Yes you were nervous still of the unknowns, and you weren't sure where the journey might take you, and you for SURE had no clue what you were REALLY saying yes to, but you just put your faith into saying yes. When we said yes to China a peace washed over me that I was right where I was suppose to be. Right where He wanted me to be. Now to explain that to someone who doesn't believe in God...that is another story.
                 The longer I have been walking this road the more assurance I have that we are doing His will. I was reading this great article by a man named Sam Mclure and he said that:

"First, there are around 100,000 orphans in the United States compared to 167 million orphans worldwide. According to The Washington Post, there were over 600,000 women in America waiting to adopt in August of 2008. In other words, if every woman in America adopted one child domestically, there would still be over 500,000 women willing to adopt. However, even if these 500,000 women adopted internationally, there would still be a over 11 million international orphans needing care. Now, think for moment. In 2007, 78.4% of the United States’ population of 302 million considered themselves Christian. James 1:27 commands the Church to care for the widow and the orphan. If less than half of these 236,768,000 American Church members took this command to heart and cared for the child that God had placed in their hearts, there wouldn’t be an orphan problem, in the United States or anywhere else."

600,000 waiting to adopt in America!!! does that tell you how easy it is to adopt in America??? Sad isn't it? Another sad fact, adoption has gone down 50% in 2012! There are so many kids just waiting for us. SOOO MANY!!! If we as Americans who have so much more privilege don't reach out to them, who will? 

Please PLEASE hear me and do not misread what I'm writing. There are many children here in America who need people to bring them into their homes, whether it is to adopt or foster. Right now, where we are in our lives, we don't feel called to do that. Josh and I have always said when our kids are older and out of the house we hope to be foster parents. And being to be called to adopt from America is an amazing opportunity as well!!! I write this only to share where we are coming from in our journey in the here and now. 
Please know we both love love love it when we can share with anyone where we are in our journey...unless your telling me I'm crazy...that I can do without :). 
Hope you all have a blessed day!!!!

To read the rest of this amazing article go to:

http://www.theadoptionfirm.com/2013/02/21/ill-tell-you-why-reflections-on-domestic-and-international-adoption-by-anne-louise-pass/

Be That Someone

Another mommy waiting to go get her girl posted this video on facebook tonight and it broke my heart. So many babies, so few people, and then to make the problem worse-bureaucracy standing in the way of those who are still trying to go get their child. But who will stand up and be the voice! Who will heed the call! Who will stand in the gap and fight for these little babies who have no fight in themselves. Watch this video...watch the faces of these kids and their eyes crying out for love. You will never hear me tell you YOU need to adopt. Adoption is a calling, I know that, but we ALL need to help, to stand in the gap, to FIGHT for these babies! It doesn't have to be Josh or I's adoption. Find someone, ANYONE who needs help to bring their babies home. $5 can go a long way if many are willing to give. But many of those faces, will go unloved-if good people with wonderful intentions, never do anything...

STUCK TRAILER from Both Ends Burning Campaign on Vimeo.

Please be willing to be that someone... Love you all...

Greater Things

Bare with me guys and gals, it's another song post. But I was driving in the car and thinking about my sweet Nina and wondering what she was doing on the other side of the world, when I heard this song. 



Plum--I Need You Now

Well, everybody's got a story to tell
And everybody's got a wound to be healed
I want to believe there's beauty here
So, I guess you're tired of holding on
I can't let go, I can't move on
I want to believe there's meaning here

Chorus:
How many times have you heard me cry out
"God please take this"?-take away my sadness for her, my impatients in the wait and the unknowns of getting the funds
How many times have you given me strength to
Just keep breathing?-I've been here, but keep falling back into fear
Oh I need you
God, I need you now.

Standing on a road I didn't plan-Huh, umm yea
Wondering how I got to where I am-whose idea was this any way (retorical question-I know this is what God called us here)
I'm trying to hear that still small voice
I'm trying to hear above the noise-You are there! You are there

Chorus

Though I walk, though I walk through the shadows
And I, I am so afraid
Please stay, please stay right beside me
With every single step I take

Lord-I know you are right beside me, please help me to keep my eyes on you! Thank you for being my Rock-my All , my everything! Thank you for not only being the God who is here with me in Florida, USA but also the same God who is with my baby in China Yulin City Shaanxi.
In church this morning the Pastor was preaching on John 14:12 I tell you the truth, ANYONE who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. He said a higher calling means deeper surrender, which leads to Greater things. I do believe adopting is our calling from God, allowing us-US of all people, to do Greater things!!