We've booked our tickets!

Yea God! We have FINALLY booked our tickets! We are leaving on January 26th and coming back on February 15th. It's a longer stay, but because of all of the flights being booked for Chinese New Year, we had to stay an extra 2 days to get out on Singapore Air. I sure hope they're worth it! :-)

At any rate, we're continuing to trust God to provide as our expenses will include a total of 4 extra days of hotels and meals. I guess He'll just sell off an extra cow or two. :-) We'll continue to keep you posted and thanks again for your prayers and support!

Another unexpected miracle

Hi everyone! Thanks so much for all of your prayers and encouraging notes on my FB page! We are so excited to be finally in count-down mode and it's so great to be able to share this with all of you.

To quickly update you, we are still waiting to hear on our airline tickets w/Singapore Air. Our travel agency had followed up yesterday and were asked by Singapore Air to follow up today. Today is when we need to book our tickets so we're really hoping that one way or another, we'll be able to stay on Singapore Air but ultimately are trusting God to work out His plan and not ours. Yes, even w/tickets, God has a plan!

Our current miracle that we are praising God for is we found out yesterday that we will be able to wire our orphanage fee to our orphanage. Why is this a big deal to us? Well, our province wasn't originally one of the few that we could wire that fee to. The fee is a little over $5000 CASH that we would have to carry on our persons with us to China PLUS the other cash that we would need. Jim, especially, has been nervous about carrying all of that cash while we travel so this is a HUGE load off of both of our minds to be able to wire that ahead of time and not stress so much! Yea God! And the other cool thing is that we didn't even ask our agency to ask the orphanage - they did it on their own and surprised us yesterday! I LOVE it when God takes care of things without us even having to ask!!! SOOOOOOOO AMAZING! We are so incredibly humbled and thankful for all of the details that God has taken care of on our behalf! We don't deserve any of this and yet God has gone above and beyond to care for our every need! Praise God for His incredible faithfulness and grace!

So today, we continue to wait and see how God will work out our travel and see how He'll continue to provide the rest of the monies we need to adopt our little girl. We hope that one of these grant agencies will come through so all of our funds will be taken care of but ultimately, we trust God to work all things out.

I wanted to ask you all to also pray for our former church situation. We're continuing to have people come to us with a variety of questions and would ask for your prayers over what we say and how we handle things. We don't want to dishonor God in this process....He's been dishonored enough. His church is hurting and desperately needs the healing it's being denied. Pray for God's will to prevail and for healing over the many who are hurting but don't know why. Pray that we would honor God with our words and our actions and for healing for our hearts also.

Thank you all so much for all of your encouragement and support! You have all played a MAJOR role in bringing Jasmine home and helping us keep our arms raised and we are so thankful for all of you! We continue to PRAISE God for His AMAZING provision, encouragement, love and grace! Yea God!

Consulate appointment arrived today!

Well, we continue to Praise God and laugh aloud at His incredible timing! I LOVE His sense of humor! We got our consulate appointment today for Feb 9th which means that we will be looking to depart for China on 1/26 or 1/27 depending on how the airfare arrangements work out. We've been in touch with all 3 travel agents that were recommended by CCAI and all 3 have made tentative reservations for us to review. As I look things over, I am, once again, reminded of God's incredible attention to detail. We were talking things through last night to figure out what would be the easiest & simplest for Lily & Jasmine and came up with a "wishlist", if you will, of how we'd like to travel. We are hoping to travel out of Colorado Springs as it will be closer to our house and be easier to get transportation to and from the airport. We are hoping for direct flights on each leg, red eye flights as it will work better w/both girls' schedules and finally we're really hoping to find flights on Singapore Air as we're told they're #1 as far as family-friendly. The only problem, we're finding out, is that most airlines are booked to the hilt because of Chinese New Year so flights have been hard to find. Well, 1 of our travel agents has come up w/an itinerary that accomplishes all of those things and prices out at around $3600 for all of us (GREAT DEAL)! The only hiccup is that we're currently waitlisted on the Hong Kong flight coming home and should find out tomorrow if we'll be able to get that flight. We'd greatly appreciate your prayers that, if this itinerary is God's plan for us, He'll work it out for us to get onto that last flight home. Either way, we're trusting Him to work all of these things out for what's best for our girls and are so thankful that He's taking care of us!

We should hear tomorrow about that flight so we'll keep you posted. In the meantime, we continue to Praise God for His faithfulness and His provision...even in the tiniest of details! We are so excited to go get our little girl and can hardly believe that in about 29 days, we'll be going to bring her home! Thank so much for all of your encouragement, prayers and celebration on our behalf! We are truly humbled and so incredibly thankful for all of you. And we are so thankful that our God takes care of our every need! We can't wait to see how He finishes this process!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year from our family to yours! We had a wonderful time hanging out with my family this year. Christmas Eve, we went to 1 of the earlier services at our church and then came home and had some family time reading the Christmas story and then opened gifts. Christmas Day, we opened our stockings and eventually headed to my sister's house for a beautiful Christmas dinner. The thankfulness that we have felt throughout these past weeks continued to touch us on Christmas Day. We feel so incredibly thankful for God sending His son for us so that we can have a relationship with Him! We feel so thankful for family and friends and really enjoyed spending time with my family as well as my brother, who was able to fly out. The day after Christmas, my family came over to my house and we feasted on homemade chili, cornbread, salsa dip & fruit....yummi! That night, my sister agreed to spend the night so we were able to spend some wonderful time together and then attend church together yesterday. What a wonderful time we all had!

Needless to say, this has been one of the best Christmases the Young family has ever experienced! As we've reflected back over the year, we've been blown away by God's incredible faithfulness to us and His amazing provision. While this has been an incredibly tough year, it has been one of the best because of all that God has done for us and how He's grown us. We are so humbled that the God of the universe loves us so much to be such a huge part of our lives! Yesterday at church, the Pastor asked us all to think about how God had intervened in our lives in 2009. We were so humbled and touched to think of time and time and time and TIME again, of God's intervention over this past year.

We continue to Praise God for all that He has done and for all of you! Since I last blogged, God brought in another $3100 for our adoption! We are estimating that we only need between $4000-$5000, depending on the travel costs, to finalize our adoption! Praise God for His provision and thank you, family, for your generous hearts! We still have 2 outstanding grants that may provide so please continue to pray for that final money to come in however God chooses. We should hear back from the US consulate this week about our appointment date and then be able to make our travel arrangements. Wow! Hard to believe that we're leaving in approximately 30 days!

Well, we'll continue to keep you posted and thanks again for all of your prayers and encouragement! We love you and we'll update again soon! :-)

Travel approval is in!

Hi everyone! So we continue to Praise God for His incredible timing and His provision. We had another person send us a check for $150 so that's almost $2200 raised so far!

Additionally, we got word late yesterday that our travel approval had been mailed and today it arrived! Yaaaaaaaaaa! I found out that we have 90 days from when the travel approval is issued by the Chinese Gov. to travel. The only little hitch in all of this is that right smack dab in the middle of our time frame is the Chinese New Year in which everything shuts down for a week or so. That's on Feb. 14 of this year so we'll either need to go before or in the middle of the Chinese New Year in order to go and get back before 90 days. Chinese New year would be more expensive so we're leaning towards before. We've had to make some very quick decisions but our tentative travel date IS....January 27-Feb. 12th or 13th! Despite the fact that we're still quite a bit short, money-wise, we're going to take a step of faith here and go w/what we feel God laying on our hearts.

What happens from here? Well, I'm glad you asked! What happens from here is that CCAI (our agency) has emailed the US consulate for an appointment time for us. We're thinking we could get that any time next week. Once we have that appt. scheduled, they will then begin making all of the in-China accomodations and we will start to make our travel arrangements and trust that God will provide the rest of the monies needed to bring Jasmine home.

I KNOW! Never a dull moment around here! :-) We're so excited to see how God pulls this all off and can't wait to hold Jasmine in our arms. We appreciate all of your prayers and ask for continued prayers over the 2 outstanding grants as well as the remainder of funds needed to go. We'd also ask for prayers for our health, especially Lily's, during the trip.

Before I go, I wanted to share one more thing. We were at the Doctor's today and on our way out we noticed a TON of pennies scattered all over the floor and parking lot. No one was around that seemed to be looking for them or missing them so we picked them up and counted a total of 97 pennies. Ok, 97 pennies are a lot to just scatter along the ground so we began to "wonder what it means" to each other. Maybe we'll be 97 cents short and this is God's way of providing for our adoption. Who knows? At any rate, I was sharing this with my sister and she said "In God we trust." What? She said that she's heard a number of people who, when they pick up pennies, think of how it says "In God We Trust" on 1 side. Wouldn't that be so like God to let us know 97 times, the day that we get our travel approval, that we can trust Him?! Hmmmmmmmmmmm.

And provides...

God is so good and we continue to praise and thank Him for His provision for our adoption! We had another check come in yesterday for $150 towards our adoption. That's about $2090 raised! Praise God for His faithfulness and grace towards us! We are incredibly humbled that friends and family would give to help bring Jasmine home. It was an incredible week of unexpected provision and encouragement. We continue to trust and pray for the rest of the monies needed and can't wait to see how God brings everything all together.

We had another incredible morning of worship at our new church. Not as intense as last week but some amazing moments once again. One of the songs called "Here in Your Presence", had some powerful lyrics that I wanted to share.

Found in Your hands, fullness of joy
Every fear suddenly wiped away here in Your presence
All of my gains now fade away
Every crown no longer on display, here in Your presence
Heaven in trembling in awe of Your wonders
the kings and their kingdoms are standing amazed

Chorus:
Here in Your presence, we are undone
Here in Your presence, Heaven and Earth become one
Here in Your presence, all things are new
Here in Your presence, everything bows before You

Bridge:
Wonderful, beautiful, glorious, matchless in every way
Wonderful, beautiful, glorious, matchless in every way
Wonderful, beautiful, glorious, matchless in every way
Wonderful, beautiful, glorious, matchless in every way

We can sing these praises because Jesus came to earth, fully God and fully man. It is because of His life and death and resurrection, that we can have this kind of relationship with the God of the universe. How amazing and humbling! The God of the universe wanted to have a relationship with us and so He sent His precious son. Why? Because a baby isn't scary. We love because He first loved us.

And in Him, all things are made new. Praise God! We hope this Christmas season is one of the most special times you've ever had because of the REAL meaning.

And more provision!

Yea God! He continues to provide! We received 2 more checks today totaling $1075! God is SO GOOD!

God continues to provide!

Ok, so sorry about the long last post but....no, I'm really not sorry. :-) God did so much on Sunday alone, that I just had to share. But wait, there's more! Since, Sunday, God has been up to His creative ways again and has sent us some money for our adoption. On Monday, we received 2 checks in the mail from some friends, totaling $515 to go towards our adoption. Totally awesome!

Then, yesterday, the doorbell rang 3 times and the phone rang. As I was trying to juggle finding the phone and answering the door, I saw a little flash of someone running out of the corner of my eye. I giggled to myself as I was figuring our cute neighbor boys were ding dong ditching and thought I'd catch them in the act. I peaked out the window and to my surprise, no one was there. I did see an envelope on our doorstep w/our names on it so I opened the door. I again looked around and could find no one lurking about so I picked up the envelope and went inside. Inside the envelope was a card congratulating us on our adoption and $300 cash! No signature. I was completely shocked and yet laughing at God for bringing us money for our adoption via a ding-dong ditcher!

So far today, God's brought us another $50 through another precious friend! I am truly overwhelmed by God's amazing grace and provision and by precious family and friends who have wanted to partner with us in bringing Jasmine home. God is providing, just like He said He would! God is so good! We continue to praise and trust Him and can't wait to continue to see the creative ways He works everything out. Thank you all for your encouragement and prayers and support! We love you!

Awesome worship or encouragement assault? You be the judge!

Ok, so once again, God totally rocks! I've been meaning to blog since Sunday but it's taken me part of the week to get some of the info. I wanted to share. So, I think I shared with you that from time to time, we still have waves of grief that hit us about our old church, feelings of anger and bitterness that come up that need to be forgiven again, sadness over the loss of friendships & the lies, etc. Well, on the way to church on Sunday, I was sharing w/ Jim how, I understand that it takes a while to get over things like that but how much I long to be on the other side, completely healed, completely forgiving of all that was done. I was sharing about what a weird combo it is to, on the one hand, feel so much joy and celebration and thankfulness and yet have these waves hit from time to time. I understand the necessity of grieving & re-forgiving as things come up as that's healthy but I'm feeling a little impatient 'cause I really want to fully celebrate right now too. At any rate, we continued to chat about that and then moved on to our adoption, wondering aloud how God was going pull it off, sharing our excitement and fear at the same time.

So, we get to church and once the worship started, it was ALL over for me! I have had God encourage me before but NEVER like He did at this service. The first song was called "Savior" by Ross Parsley and the words go like this....

"I have seen with my own eyes your faithfulness, oh, God.
I refuse to believe the lies that war against my soul.
You rescued me from all my fears, and loosed the chains of
wasted years.

You're my Savior, restorer, rebuilder, rewarder.
My refuge, redeemer, defender, my healer, Savior

Now my heart is overwhelmed by all sufficient grace.
For I have found my weaknesses become your perfect strength.
You rescued me from all my fears, and loosed the chains of
was - ted years.

You're my Savior, restorer, rebuilder, rewarder.
My refuge, redeemer, defender, my healer, Savior

Behold the One who holds me in His hands.
The God who comes and turns my morning
into dance.

You're my Savior, restorer, rebuilder, rewarder.
My refuge, redeemer, defender, my healer, Savior"

Oh, but no, God is not finished yet. The next song was "You Hold it All" by Desperation Band and the lyrics are...

"You breathed and the stars arrived, maching in perfect time into the night.
You spoke and the light appeared, marking the days and years of our lives.

You hold it all together, You hold it all forev - er.
You hold it all, You started it all, You are my all in all.

You loved in the greatest way, giving Your life away for all that was lost.
You conquered the enemy, darkness is trembling, You are alive.

You hold it all together, You hold it all forev - er.
You hold it all, You started it all, You are my all in all.

The Lord is my light and my salvation in life, I will not fear, no, I will not fear.

You hold it all together, You hold it all forev - er.
You hold it all, You started it all, You are my all in all.

I will not fear, I will not fear, ’cause You hold it all."

Oh, but now God's just getting warmed up 'cause the next song is "When I Speak Your Name"

"Jesus, the most beautiful name of all names
Jesus, the only name that brings healing and strength
When I speak your name, mountains move and chains are loosed
When I speak your name, darkness flees, it has no hold on me

Jesus, the most beautiful name that I know, you're the exalted one
And Jesus, you have the power alone. You lift the lowly one, Jesus

Jesus, the most wonderful name of all names
Jesus, the only name that brings freedom and hope
When I speak your name, mountains move, chains are loosed
When I speak your name, darkness flees, it has no hold on me

And Jesus, the most beautiful name that I know, you're the exalted one
And Jesus, you have the power alone. You lift the lowly one, Jesus

Be exalted, Be exalted, Be exalted higher and higher
Be exalted, Be exalted, Be exalted higher and higher

And Jesus, the most beautiful name that I know, you're the exalted one
And Jesus, you have the power alone. You lift the lowly one, Jesus"

Mmmmm-hmmmm. You're feeling it now, aren't you?! Oh, but He still kept going with "Jesus, Name Above All Names"

"Jesus, name above all names
Beautiful Savior, Glorious Lord
Emmanuel, God is with us
Blessed redeemer, Living Word"

And just when I thought my heart would explode, a guy came up to lead us into the offering time and talked about how God has made all things new again. The old is taken away....THEN, they ended the worship and offering with "Amazing Love"

"I’m forgiven because You were forsaken
I’m accepted, You were condemned
I’m alive and well, Your Spirit lives within me
Because You died and rose again

I’m forgiven because You were forsaken
I’m accepted, You were condemned
I’m alive and well, Your Spirit lives within me
Because You died and rose again

Amazing love, how can it be
That You, my King, should die for me?
Amazing love, I know it’s true
It’s my joy to honor You
In all I do, I honor You

I’m forgiven because You were forsaken
I’m accepted, You were condemned
I’m alive and well, Your Spirit lives within me
Because You died and rose again

Amazing love, how can it be
That You, my King, should die for me?
Amazing love, I know it’s true
It’s my joy to honor You
In all I do, I honor You
In all I do, I honor You

You are my King
You are my King
Jesus, You are my King
You are my King

Amazing love, how can it be
That You, my King, should die for me?
Amazing love, I know it’s true
It’s my joy to honor You

Amazing love, how can it be
That You, my King, should die for me?
Amazing love, I know it’s true
It’s my joy to honor You
In all I do, to honor You

In all I do, to honor You,
In all I do, Let me honor You."

Oh, but God STILL WASN'T DONE! THEN, they had a children's choir come up and sing a song that talked about if you do it to the least of these, then you've done it for me. AND then, now that we were BIG SOPPY MESSES, they brought up a family that had been the first in the church to adopt from Foster Care. This family was adopting another little one from foster care and a 3rd one coming in a few months. They spoke about how God knit this family together and had the congregation pray over them.

So, not only did God reassure us over and over that He would be our healer, our rebuilder & restorer but that He had it all, that there's power in His name and that the lowly are lifted up, that He knit our family together w/Jasmine and that if we do it to her, it's as if we're doing it to Jesus Himself. Is there ANY doubt that we are doing what we're meant to do?! You tell me, just awesome worship or total encouragement assault?!

My head is spinning!

Ok - I'm totally cracking up right now, 'cause that God is such a kidder! :-) So, we actually got a .pdf of our revised I171-h emailed to us...already! We're assuming that they'll be sending us a hard copy that we'll need but we also assume that this means everything's moving forward. Yea and yikes at the same time! :-) Yea, 'cause of course, we can't wait to get our arms around Jasmine and tell her how much we love her! Yikes, only 'cause we're still a ways away from having the rest of the adoption funds needed. But again, God KNOWS! My mom and I were talking today about the "ride" that we're on and I commented that I just hope I don't throw up. Tee-hee!

At any rate, Praise God for HIS PERFECT TIMING!!! One way or another, He WILL come through for us and one way or another, on the other end of this, we'll be holding our precious girl in our arms! Praise God!

So, as our whirlwind begins, I'll leave you with the words to the song below by Third Day. It was sent to me by a very precious friend and I thought the words totally reflect our hearts going into this Christmas Season.

"There’s a little girl trembling on a cold December morn
Crying for momma’s arms
At an orphanage just outside a little China town
There the forgotten are

But half a world away I hang the stockings by the fire
And dream about the day when I can finally call you mine

It’s Christmas time again but you’re not home
Your family is here and yet you’re somewhere else alone
And so tonight I pray that God will come and hold you in his arms
And tell you from my heart I wish you Merry Christmas

As I hang the tinsel on the tree and watch the twinkling lights
I’m warmed by the fire’s glow
Outside the children tumble in a wonderland of white,
Make angels in the snow

But half a world away you try your best to fight the tears
And hope that heaven’s angels come to carry you here

It’s Christmas time again but you’re not home
Your family is here and yet you’re somewhere else alone
And so tonight I pray that God will come and hold you in his arms
And tell you from my heart I wish you Merry Christmas

Christmas is a time to celebrate the holy child
and we celebrate his perfect gift of love
He came to earth to give his life
and prepare a place for us
so we could have a home with him above

It’s Christmas time again and now you’re home
Your family is here so you will never be alone
So tonight before you go to sleep, I’ll hold you in my arms
And I’ll tell you from my heart, and I’ll you from my heart
I wish you Merry Christmas"

I171-h update

Hi all! So we got confirmation from our agency today that US immigration (USCIS) will have to revise the form we just received to include our new address...again. The good news is that we should have it within the week!

Thanks so much for your continued prayers and support!

We got it... I think?

We got our revised I171-h in the mail today however our new address wasn't corrected. I don't know if this is a problem or not so I've got a call into our adoption agency to find out if they think this matters or not. I originally understood that the reasons we needed to revise our 171-h were primarily due to adopting special needs but also due to our move, it would need to be revised. That could have just been the home study but I'll wait to find out before I jump up and down. :-)

Stay tuned. I'll keep you all posted and thanks for the continued prayers!

Against All Odds

Have you ever been in a situation where you believed God was in your circumstances, yet it seemed like barriers kept rising in your path? When I've gone through those times, it feels like God is forcing me to trust Him by putting me in a situation where I have no choice but to depend on Him.

Tonight, I (Jim) was reading a bible story to Lily before she went to bed. We read about Gideon, who had a remarkable encounter with God. Gideon was asked to lead the Israelites in defeating a superior army. Gideon wasn't a war hero and, in his own strength, was ill equipped for the task. But God's call was clear. After putting God to the test (twice), Gideon was ready to obey. Even though the odds were against him, he believed that God would allow the Israelites to prevail.

God wanted to teach Gideon and the Israelites a lesson they would never forget. He reduced the size of Gideon's army to 300 men, asking them to fight and defeat an enemy probably numbering in the tens of thousands, or more. You've got to appreciate God's sense of humor. However, He was very clear about His reason for asking Gideon to lead the Israelites in a battle where victory could only be achieved against all odds. God wanted to make it clear that victory was in His hands, and not dependent on human efforts.

That was quite a blessing for me. If you've been following our blog, you know that we've been a bit worried about how we were going to raise the money needed to complete our adoption. We were very discouraged to learn that, of the 3 grants we had recently applied for, the one we felt was most likely to help us ended up turning us down. I felt just like Gideon must have felt when he was asked to do a seemingly impossible task, and then God took away some of the human resources Gideon assumed he would need. The truth is, God doesn't need our efforts. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills, and can provide for our needs in any way He chooses. By applying for grants, we are not assuming that is the only way God can provide, but we are engaging in our own circumstance and choosing to participate in the process. Whether God chooses to provide through that channel is up to Him and remains to be seen. Our job is to stay the course, trusting in Him, and not our efforts, to bear fruit.

With each day that passes, I am growing even more excited, and nervous. Excited because I know God is in this and confident that He will come through; yet, nervous because of my human limitations that can't yet see God's hand, or the method and timing of His provision. I can't wait to join Gideon on the other side of this situation. I long to spend the same amount of time praising God as I have praying for His provision. I can't wait to be able to share my Gideon story about how God came through and met our need against all odds. After all, nothing is impossible for God. The limiting factor is our faith, not God's ability. Please join us in continued prayer for provision to complete this journey. We look forward to celebrating with you when we're on the other side. Thanks for listening, and for your prayers.

Shaking it off

So, now that the initial shock and disappointment has worn off from getting turned down by the one agency we thought would help, we're trying to shake that off and remind ourselves of all God's been showing us these past several weeks. The bottom line is that providing the rest of the monies needed for our adoption is God's job, not ours. We've been faithful to do everything we can on our end but providing is His job and He's NEVER failed to do His job.

One thing I've noticed that God does in my life when He's about to lead me through a BIG trial is, He spends a TON of time reassuring me right and left right before. I've been noticing that pattern with this situation but really hoping that this would not be one of those trials. :-) I have to say that due to all of the stress over the last year or so, my body doesn't handle stress well. I exercise regularly to help manage that but whenever my stress level goes up, my blood pressure will either shoot up or down, depending, and I'll end up w/dizzy spells and/or a bloody nose. Go figure! But God knows what I can handle and what I can't and this is in His hands. At any rate, I've been concerned about going through a big trial like this 'cause this one potentially costs something. The fear of not being able to bring home Jasmine brings me to my knees and yet this too, is something that needs to be given over.

I can't tell you how badly I want to be able to go through this whole thing completely trusting and yes, even celebrating like everything's paid for and it's done! I HATE that I struggle off and on w/doubts and yet I suppose that's human, otherwise, why would we need God?

I HAVE to remember that God is fully present in this adoption and this adoption is fully present in God. That means that as far as God is concerned, this adoption is done and paid for. I only have to worry about my part and trust God to do His. It's easier said than done when there's a time limit on things but how like God to reassure us over and over, knowing we'd have doubts! And He's done that. Every week, sometimes multiple times a week, He's reassured us through a prayer at church, a worship song, an excerpt from a book, an "a-ha" moment, a verse. Praise God that He provides for our needs even before we realize we have them!

We still haven't received our revised I171-h back yet so we'll keep you posted on that. We're still anticipating to get that back any day. We also still have 2 more grant agencies that are considering us so please pray for that!

Other than that, we're all doing fairly well. We've had unusually cold weather here. We woke up to -35 with windchill this morning! Yea baby! Lily had a slight bout w/the flu last week and a little cold this week but is doing amazingly well. We've been all taking a ton of vitamin C, D & probiotics and I think it's helped us all to stay pretty healthy so far. We are very thankful!

Speaking of Lily, she's still doing really well at school. She loves her teachers and her classmates. She's learned to write her name and has been really getting more into drawing and painting. We've reorganized her playroom so we have an easier time playing together...things are more accessible and the space is a little more roomy w/out our old hutch being in there. We've also pulled out all of the old baby toys and clothes and organized and cleaned everything.

Back to the subject of China. So, I'll put some faith into action and say that when we go to China, we'll be in 3 major cities while we're there. We'll most likely fly into Hong Kong and stay there for 2-3 days and then fly to Cheng Du in the Sichuan Province. They'll bring Jasmine to us w/in 1 day of us arriving there and we'll stay in that province for a total of 6-7 days before flying on to Guangzhou. That's where the US Embassy is located and that's where we'll likely be having numerous visits to the embassy to get Jasmine's visa and immigration docs in order. We'll probably be there for another 4-5 days-ish and then either fly home from there or fly to Hong Kong and fly home from there. We're only now slowly checking out information about those cities so that we can try and plan a couple of "fun" excursions while we're in China. For the most part, we'll keep things really low key but we thought it would be fun to try and see a tiny bit of the huge country that our daughter was born into and get some pictures, mini movies & souvenirs to show her when she's older. It really is one-in-a-life-time kind of trip.

Well, that's about it on the Young front. Thanks so much for all of your prayers and encouragement. We really cherish them both, especially right now! We'll continue to keep you posted and hope that you're all doing well!

grant update

Well, I just heard from one of the grant agencies that has kept us in the loop for the last year and they have turned us down. We're devastated but clinging to God to help us. Please pray for us and for provision for our adoption.

Jesus and Skype

Hi everyone! So we've spent this past week getting together references and filling out paperwork for a third grant agency that we've found. As I was reading through the other grant applications that we've filled out (why do things twice and re-invent the wheel?), I realized that I missed something God did in the midst of our match day that I'd like to share with you. I was re-reading one of the testimonies that I had written for one of the grant agencies and in that I shared with them, not only my testimony but my dream for my children. I shared with them how, besides hearing "Well done, my good and faithful servant" from Jesus, to have my children love and serve Him would be the other thing that I would most like to accomplish as a mom. Well, that God in His attention to the tiniest of details! What floored me as I wrote that was the fact that, later on our match day with Jasmine, Lily accepted Jesus into her heart. I thought to myself and was so touched to realize that not only did God match us with Jasmine on October 21 but He matched Lily with Jesus, forever! She has a long ways towards loving and serving Him but she's on her way and she's in God's forever family! It's so like God to give us 2 matches in 1 day and answer some of the deepest desires of our hearts, isn't it?! I just had to share that with you as I was struck again this morning in worship by those amazing events happening on the same day. We are counting on God in so many ways and He is so faithful to answer our prayers. :-)

So, Jesus and skype are not related whatsoever but I wanted to share about skype with you as well. It's a free way for us to communicate w/family and friends while we are in China. You can get more info. on their website but I wanted to encourage all of our family and friends who want to talk w/us while we're in China to check into it. You'll be able to physically see us and vice versa via the computer for free! If you do get it, please let us know and we'll add you into our contacts and make sure that we get in touch with you while we're in China (and after!).

We'll also be updating this blog every day or close to it while we're in China so please stay tuned as we'll let you know when we're going and all of the details while we're there.

Well, I hope this finds you all well and hope that you have a wonderful week! We should be getting our revised I171-h back this week so I'm sure it will be an exciting week for us. We'll be sure to keep you posted! Please continue to pray for these 3 grant agencies that they'll choose us and for God's total provision for our adoption. We love you all and we'll talk to you soon!

Thanksgiving and new pics

Hi everyone! I've posted 2 new pics of Jasmine from 11/20. We were so surprised to get any new pictures so this is such a treat for us. She's standing and sitting up all by herself! Yea God! We can't wait until we get to meet our precious girl and put a smile on her precious face. We still don't know the extent of her needs and are also eager to get her home so that we can have her thoroughly checked out by our pediatrician and therapists and get her whatever help she needs to get caught up.

In the meantime, we're continuing to do our part in bringing her home. We've been working hard on continuing to get organized and baby-proofed at home. We've been unpacking and continuing to try and sell items that aren't needed so as to help w/our adoption expenses. We've identified a 3rd grant agency that will also be selecting families in the month of Dec. to give grants to. We're praying that somehow, some way, between the 3 agencies, we'll get the money that we need to complete our adoption. We're anticipating getting our I171-h back sometime in the next 1 1/2 weeks! We're continuing to try and promote our coffee fundraiser to family and friends. As to the rest, we are continuing to trust God to do His part and raise the money to bring Jasmine home.

It's funny how God, when He's teaching us something, will continually put that lesson in front of our faces. This past Sunday, the message at church had to do with not missing Jesus in the season. But instead of talking about how busy-ness robs us of Him, they talked about how the need to be on the throne and in control robs us of Him. They spoke about Herod the great and how he missed Jesus because He didn't want to lose his throne and was so busy trying to control everything in his life to keep that throne. As he was speaking, it occurred to me that the things I've been trying to control are the adoption expenses and parenting Lily. I've not even realized that I've been missing what God's been doing and the miracle of adoption and being a parent because I've been trying to control and be on the throne of those areas. I don't want to miss these miracles because I'm worrying. I want to be in a place of fully celebrating this adoption because, in God's presence, it's done and paid for. I want to fully celebrate Lily and do my part to parent but trust God to guide her in her own spiritual journey with Him, instead of worrying about the little things. And in both of these areas, I want to fully celebrate this Holiday season in these amazing blessings that He's given us and trust God to work out all of the details. I want my faith to be something that I live and go deep in and not just give lip service to.

Well, I hope you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving! We've so appreciated all of the prayers and encouragement and support. Despite all of the tough things we've gone through this year, it's actually been one of the best for us because of all of the blessings and things that we've learned. The things that were taken away were returned back ten-fold. We have a community that we love w/wonderful friends & family. We have a new church that challenges us and supports us and encourages us to go deeper. And we're about to have a new precious baby. God is so good! Thanks for your continued prayers over our adoption and we'll definitely keep you all posted!