Continuing to pray for a miracle

Hi all! It's hard to believe that we are 6 days from leaving! Yea God! I wonder when it will all sink in. :-) At any rate, we are continuing to cling to God for His provision for the remainder of our adoption. We found out on Monday that we were turned down for another grant so we've almost exhausted those resources. We have no idea how God is going to do the rest but we continue to choose to trust that God will not leave us high and dry. We're hoping that 1 or both of these last 2 grant agencies will come through and have compassion on our journey but we just don't know. Ultimately, we keep reminding ourselves that the money is God's job, not ours. Please continue to pray for provision for us and for our strength and faith as we are exhausted.

In the meantime, we're continuing to finish our packing, organizing paperwork, getting ready for our travel conference call with our agency, etc. We are continuing to pray for safe travels and health for all of us. Thanks so much for all your prayers and encouragement! Every single one is lifting us up and making a difference!

We continue to lift up the precious people in Haiti and ask for safety and protection from the looters as well as for the provisions to make it in the areas that need it most. We're continuing to pray that the State Dept. will bring more orphans home to their forever families and have celebrated those precious 54 that arrived yesterday! Yea God!

Well, that's the latest and greatest with us. Thanks again for all of your prayers on our behalf!

Encouragement

Ah, God is so good. As we were wrestling through all of this tonight, God laid a passage on Jim's heart that I want to share with you. Isaiah 40:30-31 says "Even youths will become weak and tired, and young men will fall in exhaustion. But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint." Praise God for His encouragement (& perfect timing) and may this encourage you as it has us tonight.

It's in!

Hi everyone! Well, we finally got our in-China travel totals in today....$4200 (not including food and some of the cash fees we need to pay). Ouch. So, as much as we were depending on God before, we're really clinging now! The good news is that we do have the cash to submit this amount to CCAI along w/our orphanage fee of $5100. The scary part is that we're about $7500 short and so God's gotta come through! We are both scared spit-less right now and would really appreciate your prayers for our faith and for God's provision for the $7500 that we need. We are trusting Him with every ounce of our beings for Him to come through in the next 11 days but we are tired and weary right now. It's been a long 2 weeks of not sleeping well and we're also dealing w/some acting out behaviors with Lily. We need some of this money to come in BEFORE we leave, as it's needed for some fees that we have to pay when we get to China. We need God to do a miracle and we are clinging to Him to do that. Please pray for us and pray for these remaining funds to come in in the next week! Go, God, go! I'll share more later but thanks so much for your prayers and encouragement. We appreciate you all and thank God for you.

Prayer for Haiti!

Hi everyone! Join us in praying for Haiti! What a horrible disaster to hit any country, let alone one so poverty stricken! We are donating to the Red Cross for disaster relief for Haiti and encourage all of you to give generously to the charity of your choice as well. It's times like this where we need to be the hands and feet of Jesus...I just wish we could give more!

No new updates to report on our adoption. We're still awaiting our in-China travel and hotel totals to come in. Apparently CCAI is working to try and join another family to our little family group (which will help bring down our in-China costs) so we're having to wait while they do that. We're praying that we have enough cash to cover those expenses and are trusting and clinging to God to bring in the final amounts that we need. We're hoping to have everything in place before we leave be we also recognize that God may have a different plan. Thank you all for your incredible support, love and prayers on our behalf! We are so humbled and thankful for all of you - you have each made a huge difference in our lives and we'll be forever grateful!

In the meantime, we wait and countdown! Only 13 more days until our departure! Wow, I can't believe it's almost here! Sleep has been getting more and more difficult...perhaps God's way of preparing me? I am continually trying to keep my focus on God. On Sunday, our pastor shared that "you worship what you focus on." Ouch! How true that is! So, we're both desperately trying to focus on God and not on the how's and why's and what's. I want my worship to go to Him alone and not what He can do for me.

Well, thank you all again and I'll hopefully have some more updates in the next couple of days. Thank you all for your prayers! We need them! We love you and we'll talk to you soon!

Happy Birthday Jasmine!

Hi everyone! We just wanted to wish our precious girl a Happy 1st Birthday today! We wish we were there to celebrate with you but we'll make up for lost time when we see you. :-)

We hope the new year continues to find you all doing well. We're kind of in wait mode right now. Our agency has had groups leave for China almost every day this week so we're hoping that, with most of those groups on their way, we'll be able to hear back on our in-China reservations and expenses. We have our to-China flights and hotels booked so we're set there. We have almost everything we need for our trip and have started to pack so we're doing good there. We're also continuing to wait on all 3 grant agencies to see if any will come alongside of us as we still have $5k (approx.) left to raise. We may not hear back from any until we leave so it will, once again, be an interesting and exciting faith step!

One other thing that we've put in motion is that we will be dedicating Jasmine on March 7th at the 9am service at our church. Jeff, the pastor that has been a huge source of encouragement and wisdom for us w/our old church, has agreed to pray over us and Jasmine at that service. They do baby dedications on the first Sunday of every month and sometimes will have multiple families dedicating babies at once. We can't wait to finally be able to physically lift our daughter to God before the whole church and dedicate ourselves to raising her to love Jesus! What a privilege we've been given! :-) If you're in town, come and join us! Otherwise, we'll try and post some pics and video of that time so you all can enjoy with us! :-)

In other parts of our lives, our church has had 10 prayer meetings this week - 6:30 am & pm to usher in the new year. They've asked us to try and attend 5 but we can only go to 3 (tonight being the 3rd). It has been the MOST incredible prayer & worship times I've EVER experienced! We've prayed for the church, the city, the nation, the sick, etc. It's been so incredibly powerful and I can't wait to see what God does out of all of this. We've already seen God do some powerful miracles in our lives in 2009 and can't wait to see what He does in 2010!

Lily has had a great week back to preschool. We were able to get her a spot for next year as well so we're really excited about that. This staff has been incredible and we've really seen Lily grow emotionally by leaps and bounds, especially in this last month or two. Her teachers tell us she's very smart (but, of course!) and by attending preschool for 1 more year, emotionally she'll be ready for kindergarten by the following year. She misses the cut-off for kindergarten next year by only 15 days so maybe it's a blessing in disguise. She's also been getting excited to go to China and get her sister. It's so precious to hear her talk about the things she wants to do or show her sister! God is so good!

Well, that's the latest and greatest with us. We continue to thank God and pray for all of you and can't wait to share our precious girl with you all! Talk to you soon!

Happy New Year!!!!

Happy New Year everyone! We had a great time with some wonderful friends for New Year's Eve. We continue to see God's provision as a co-worker of Jim's annonymously left $100 at his desk on Thursday and then another precious friend gave us another $100 that night. We are so humbled and amazed at how God has provided and continue to thank Him for all of you! Additionally, He's provided (from 2 different people) a ride to the airport when we depart on 1/26 and a ride home when we get back! We are thankful for every detail He has put together!

It's hard to believe in 24 days, we'll be leaving for China! We can't wait to hold our precious little girl in our arms and eventually see that precious face smile! We are continuing to trust God for the rest of the monies needed and for all of the little details that need to come together between now and when we leave. We also can't wait to see what God has in store for us this year and pray that you and your families' are blessed beyond imagination! We love you!