Orphans Deserve Better....

Hi everyone! It's been a little while since I've updated. We're still trying to get settled, heal, etc. but we're slowly getting there. Praise God that He is a God of restoration and healing amongst many other things.

We are continuing to wait for Jasmine and do have a slight update for you. We did ask CCAI about our timeline as we're now 12 months into the Waiting child program. According to them, they think our wait will be longer than 12 months because apparently there are a lot of people who are interested in children w/similar conditions that we are interested in. What that actually means in terms of time, remains to be seen. We still believe that it will be this year, at this point, but it's starting to look like late summer/fall time frame now. We will keep you posted, of course. We soooooo can't wait until we get that call and believe me, you will all be the first to hear about it! :-)

In the midst of unpacking, we were given an opportunity to take Lily to the Barnum & Bailey circus when it was in town. Thanks to Bethany Christian Services for the free tickets because we all had a BLAST as a family! I'm going to upload some photos for you to enjoy. We had such a great time and it brought some much needed relief and fun into our lives after all of the stress. Thank you Bethany!

Also, thank you all for your continued prayers for our former foster daughter. While DHS has chosen to do nothing, she is currently safe and we are staying in regular contact with her. Praise God that her family has even allowed her to come stay with us this weekend! We are trying to rebuild that friendship with her and as long as she allows us to stay in her life, we're praying that God will use us to touch her heart and give her the love and support that she needs. Please pray for us this weekend that we'll be able to re-connect with her in meaningful ways and pray that her heart will open to God.

I'm a member of Christian Alliance for Orphans and received an email from them this morning that I wanted to share. Apparently, Warner Brothers is coming out with a horrer/thriller film called "Orphans." I watched the trailer and I'm absolutely HORRIFIED with the messages that this film is sending about orphans and adoption! The story is about a family who adopts an older child named Esther who proceeds to terrorize the family. In one of the trailers it says that "there's something wrong with Esther." In another, Esther says "It must be hard to love an adopted child as much as your own." What a HORRIBLE message to send to both adopted children and orphans in general. They are in their situations due to NO FAULT of their own and they are not damaged goods. I'm sharing this because Christian Alliance for Orphans is asking people to sign a petition asking Warner Brothers to donate some proceeds to orphans and consider adding a message portraying the truth and beauty of adoption. Additionally, they are asking those of us who have an adoption story to share so that the truth could be heard. If you interested in either signing the petition or sharing your story, please go to www.orphansdeservebetter.org

New friend or Divine appointment?

So on Tuesday, Lily and I decided to walk to the park around the corner and play while we actually had some decent weather. It's been pretty rainy/stormy here in the last several weeks so playing outside has been a little sporadic for us. Anyway, we had such a great time swinging and playing! There were quite a few kids w/families there so we slowly made the rounds (Lily is completely fearless when it comes to meeting new people. I, on the other hand, am a complete chicken!) As I was watching her play, I noticed this precious little girl kind of playing by herself and I noticed she was watching the other kids play. I could tell that she was longing to join in and so I started to hope that Lily would run over and play with her. I also started looking around because I was extremely curious to see if I could find her parents. Being an adoptive mom, I have to say I'm always excited to meet other adoptive families. There's something so incredibly special about the journey to adoption, the victories and battles, the amazing stories of God's protection and provision, the moment we fell in love w/our child, the spiritual aspects of adoption, etc. Not to sound like I'm profiling but this precious girl was Asian and I was curious to see if her parents were Asian or if perhaps, like we will soon, she was adopted from China.

Soon, Lily found this precious little girl and the 2 of them began to run around chasing each other, laughing and having a blast together (don't you wish you could make friends like children can?) I was so caught up in watching the 2 of them have a blast together - it was truly precious. Soon, a lovely lady walked up and asked me if I was the mother of "that gorgeous little girl?" Which, of course, I am! :-) At any rate, we began chatting and come to find out that she is a Christian and they adopted their precious Naomi from China through CCAI (also our agency), she's just a few months older than Lily and her official adoption day was the day before Lily's! She even had the same caseworker that we currently have! We exchanged our stories and hopefully Cindy felt as blessed as I did. It truly felt like a divine appointment for me. God NEVER ceases to amaze me with His continual twists and turns and surprises that He seems to have at every turn. I LOVE how He is in the tiniest of details! We did exchange information and hopefully we'll be able to do a play date sometime soon. For me, what was exciting aside from all of the obvious reasons, was sharing some of Lily's story reminded me of what a precious miracle she is and what a privilege it is for me to be her mommy. I'm hoping other parents go through this as well but it's easy to forget some of the miracles when your child is constantly acting up, testing boundaries, etc. You don't wish you had made a different choice in being a parent but you definitely feel that Bill Cosby "I brought you into this world and I can take you out..." kind of an attitude from time to time when things are rough. I felt like I was given a gift on Tuesday of being reminded of the miracle of being a mom and if that's the only thing that comes out of that, I'll be forever grateful.

Digging out of the boxes...

Well we are slowly but surely digging out of all of the boxes. I have to say that I'd forgotten how utterly exhausting it is to move and I'm kinda glad I forgot otherwise I might not have obeyed God when He led us! :-) Lily & I are slowly trying to get into some new routines and figure out our new schedules. I have to say that overall, we really LOVE our new location. It's much more peaceful and the people even seem a little nicer out here. Go figure! :-)

While we wait to see if this short sale goes through, God continues to remind me that He is our protector, our healer and our restorer. I have to depend on Him daily to even get out of bed, let alone get boxes unpacked, play w/my precious daughter - all of those things take extra effort because of how wiped out I am. Praise God that He doesn't let us go through anything alone. We felt forsaken by much of our church & small group and yet God was and is still here. Praise Him for that! Praise Him for leading us to a place of peace and I believe ultimately, restoration.

Adoption-wise, we just got our extensions back from U.S Immigration which is great! Now we basically just wait for "the call!" We'll start applying again for grants now that we're getting settled but for the most part, we are now waiting. June 20th will be exactly 1 year since we entered the Waiting Child program and it still looks like we could hear something any day! What's also amazing to me is to see how God is preparing Lily to be a big sister. She prays for Jasmine every day and talks all the time about going to pick up her sister. It's so cool to see God working in your child's heart and life! What an amazing facet of parenthood that I never really thought about before.

I've also FINALLY heard back from our former foster daughter and it sounds like things have settled down at her house for now. PRAISE GOD that she's safe! I was so relieved to hear back from her - we talked for about an hour! We're going to try and have her come and stay w/us some weekend soon (if it's ok w/her dad). She's trying to get a job (hard to believe she's 15 already!) and is trying to stay out of trouble. I made it clear to her that no matter how she behaves (although she needs to own up to her part) it's NEVER EVER ok for anyone to hit her. I guess the social worker told her and her teacher that unless bruises are left, there's nothing they can do to help her. Nice! I understand that from a perspective of not wanting to un-justly punish a parent however when a family already has a history of violence, it seems to me that allegations should be taken more seriously. The good news is at least for now, she is safe. I'm planning on keeping more closely in touch with her and appreciate your prayers on her behalf as well!

I'm still planning on uploading some pics of the house, hopefully soon. Thanks so much for all of your prayers for us! Please continue to pray for our healing and restoration as well as provision for our upcoming adoption. Pray for me as I work daily on forgiving and letting go. I'll try and update you all soon!