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!