Wild, wild ride

Oh my! My last post was June 17th!? WOW! I guess blogging just is not at the top of my list! And my to-do list is always long. Adding a baby and now having number 4 has been keeping me busy. Especially when the baby is into everything!! But we are now going to add to that a little girl from China who is only 6 weeks older than Joshua. NEVER thought we would get a referral so young. But we are thrilled. I had been joking that it would be like having twins, but had no idea it would really happen! She has been in our hearts a long time. We actually thought last Christmas she would be here this Christmas, so it is a little bitter/sweet. But of course I wouldn't change God's plan in blessing us with sweet Joshua! Aand little girl wasn't even ready yet! Ok, so, after we got Joshua we put our China adoption on hold. We restarted earlier this Fall, but then our SW was injured so we couldn't get our phone interview with main office until Nov. So we had our phone interview on Nov. 6th. We were at the bottom of a list of 15 families. We thought we would be waiting at least 2 mos. to get matched. Then, 3 days later on a Friday night we get a call asking if we want to look at a little girl. We say yes. We take a week or so to really pray and seek God if she is supposed to be our daughter. I had felt all along she was. We were very exciteed but totally shocked!! So I get all the paperwork in. Then only 2 weeks after we were matched we got our LOA (letter of acceptance from China). Which was another HUGE shocker. I quickly became buried in paperwork!! I had just been hoping for it by Feb. so that we could still travel this summer. But we had been logged-in in China since last Feb., so our paperwork was somehow on top of the pile. All paperwork in China adoptions is literally just in piles stacked all over the floor. So now we will be going in March or April. That will be 3 kids in two years! WOW! Never thought that would happen!! DISCLAIMER: (Please do not publicly share info. or pics of our little girl! I love to connect with other adoptive families but ask me first before sharing any info.) So about little girl. We will name her Noelle Faith Rongluo. She just turned one. She is in foster care. She was born premature and they thought she had a club foot, but it has resolved. She is from Fuzhou city, Fujian province, on the coast of the East China Sea. We are very excited to be going back to China and to be taking our 10 year old daughter with us. She is so excited to be getting a sister and to go to China. So now our paperwork will go to US immigration for them to approve of her coming to this country. Hopefully we will get approval in 6 weeks, then paperwork goes to China. Chinese New Year is Feb. 10th this year and everything shuts down in China for a week or so. So it just depends on where our paperwork is at that point as to when we will travel. Please pray that everything will continue to go quickly and smoothly, that God will provide finances, as its hard to do fundraisers since I'm busier and we don't have much time left, and God would prepare us as we get ready to travel, those of us going and those staying. Its going to be REALLY hard for me to leave Joshua, but if we took him we would have to have 2 hotel rooms and the risk of him getting sick.

still here!

Just posted my first online photo book of our trip to China to get Caleb.  Yes, we have been back over a year and I started the book in Feb. but just now finished it, been a little busy, also had been putting it off!  We took a 3 week "vacation", challenging with all the kids, so now on to summer projects.  So one checked off my list. 
God sure has everything worked out and maybe has a sense of humor.  We were notified of our log-in date for China on March 19th, the day Joshua came to us!  Our log-in date was actually Feb. 27th.  Of course God had it all worked out all along!
Caleb is 3 now.  Still full of energy, an absolute "live wire" and improving his speech.  Loves to figure things out and put things together.  Going to work harder on potty training this summer.
Joshua is doing great.  He is still a very happy and good baby.  We are so blessed to have him. 
So our paperwork is just sitting in China.  We will let our SW know when we are ready to move on.  We still know there is a little girl for us in China.
The first two weeks of July we will be hosting a 16 year old girl from China.  We are excited and a bit nervous since we have never done this before.  Please pray that it goes smoothly and that we can show her Christ's love and her need for Him.  We have already been e-mailing back and forth and it is fun to be talking to someone in China.

Photo Book

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HUGE surprise!

It has been a month since I last posted. We still havn't been told our log-in date for China even though we are probably logged-in. But a lot has happened in the last month, really in the in last couple of weeks. If you don't want your life to change, don't ever read "Radical" or "Fields of the Fatherless", or attend a Perspectives class! In the begining of Feb. our SW called us to ask us if we might be open to a special needs baby girl born here in the area. That very morning before she called I had been praying again about an infant. Anyone who knows me knows that I have always wanted another infant. Rod and I discussed it in depth when we started the adoption process. We felt God was leading us to China for at least one boy then to turn around and adopt one girl, then possibly look into adopting an infant. So I quickly called Rod and he almost immediately said no because of her needs and because he was so anxious to get our little girl from China, he didn't want anything to stop that or slow it down. The next day a SW brought us the medical records of the baby girl because Rod still wanted to look at them. She talked to us for awhile and talked to Rod a lot about work. Then she asked us if we might be open to another baby they might need to place, a boy, whom our close friends had been fostering since his birth in Jan. She only asked us because he too had special needs and there wasn't anyone else open to him. He has a genetic disorder. So we researched his needs and felt it was something we might be open to. We continued to wait. I really wanted to say yes, but Rod wan't sure. He again didn't want to post-pone our China adoption and just felt that God probably wasn't calling us to this baby. I continued to pray and pray and cry out to God. I had to fully give myself to God and even though I wanted it so bad I wanted God's perfect will for our family and for this baby and I needed to submit to my husband. We couldn't tell anyone because all his info. was confidential because he wasn't available yet. So my close friend who was fostering him, she and I were on this silent, incredible journey. Sometimes she knew things I didn't, but couldn't tell me, but most of the time she didn't know much either. We had no idea what would happen with him. One day he was even taken from her home ans social workers were trying to figure out what to do. My friend and I cried and cried. For me, I didn't understand why God would have put me on this hard journey to have it end badly. But that is what God wants, full surrender, no matter the outcome. My husband came home form work that night and I was devastated. He got the older two kids out of bed and we prayed for God to work a miracle, whatever that might be. So the next day he was taken, then brought back later in the afternoon. God was working out this situatioon in a mighty way. The weeks continued to drag, he was still "unavailable" and my husband still was saying no. On the evening of March 3rd my husband went running. It had been exactly one month since we were asked about him. God spoke to him when he ran that night and then the next morning in Sunday school and during church. But he didn't tell me anything until Sunday afternoon. I was sitting on the love seat for Sunday afternoon quiet time. He is just standing there looking at me and then tells me that God had spoken to him and that his answer was YES! I cried and couldn't believe it. He told me about the process he had been through. He really thought God was only calling us to adopt Chinese children and I pretty much thought that also. But God opened our eyes to an orphan right in front of our faces. There was so much more peace now that we were on the smae page, but we still has to wait, we still didn't know what would happen. My husband had now said siad yes, but thought in his heart we would be told no. Thursday afternoon March 8th we get a call from our agency. She said the baby is going to be available, can we show your family picture. I said sure. I was in total shock I cried and screamed, just couldn't believe it! Rod and Caleb were at speech, I couldn't wait until he got back, it seemed like forever! I told him and he couldn't believe it. So we would have to wait for one more paper from the state before we could bring him home. We are still waiting on that paper. We are praying to get him on Monday. Please pray for that! Rod and I had already made reservations weeks earlier to go to a bed and breakfast with a gift certificate my parents had gotten us for Christmas. So we would love to take him with us. It will be so hard to go without him. We are so humbled as EVERY single detail of this story is just mind-blowing. Our whole church and homeschool community have been praying for this baby. It is a story of redemption. So his name is Joshua because it means salvation or redeemed. And his middle name is Christopher because that is what a nurse named him. And Christopher means Christ=bearer. There you have it! The short version of this incredible story. In a couple of days we are going form 3-4 kids in less than a year! We would appreciate prayers for our transition. And for his foster parents, our dear friends as they will have to adjust back to life and will miss him. But he isn't going away! They prayed to get to see him grow up. God is so awesome! How awesome that my dearest friend has so lovingly cared for him and I've gotten to witness her journey. What about China? We are still waiting to hear of our log-in date. We feel there is still a little girl for us there, so we will just wait awhile to be matched and hopefully travel next Spring or Summer. Thank you for your prayers!

Wow, its been almost exactly a month. Chines New Year was at the end of Jan. so I'm sure our paperwork sat at the Chinese consulate for awhile. But today I got an e-mail that our paperwork went to China. Still a couple months "ahead" of where we were time frame wise with Caleb's adoption. So sometime we wil have an interview with our agency's home office to talk about what special needs we are open to , then we will be ready and waiting for a match. With Caleb we got matched the first month because there are just so many boys waiting. But I'm glad to see each month in our agency's matchings, more and more boys. But we are ready for another girl in our family, so we may have to wait awhile to get matched. Thank you for your prayers!

Immigration approval!

Yesterday, after 5 weeks of waiting since our fingerprints we received our immigration approval letter! Now we need to have a few more documents notarized on Monday, get everything to our SW, hopefully on Monday also. Then we need to have several documents authenticated in Sacramento, hoping Rod may be able to go as early as Tues. Then we send all documents to head office in Grand Rapids, then they ship it off to China. Still hoping our paperwork can be there by the end of the month and be logged in quickly after Chinese New Year.
Please continue to pray for paperwork to go quickly and smoothly and for God's provision of finances.

Waiting for immigration approval

OK, getting tired of waiting! We could get our immigration approval any day or it could even drag out for anothe rcouple of weeks. Praying not! Praying we can still get our paperwork to China before Chinese New Year Jan. 23rd. But that means we need that approval letter in the next few days. ALL of our other paperwork is done! Praise God! Really, we were already approved by our government just over a year ago!
We are also praying to get matched quickly and to travel by no later than next Fall. We are getting anxious to meet our little girl.
It was hard to sing "The First Noel" at Christmas as we are naming her Noelle Faith. We know she is born by now and want to go get her.
We had a wonderful time the day after Christmas with some friends from Michigan who were in SO. Ca for Christmas. We got our kids together in China. Their daughter also had CL/CP and we spent the most time with them since our kids were from the same Province. We will always have a special bond with them Naomi just loved their two little Chinese girls and the youngest one also really took to her. I can't remember if I've mentioned Naomi is going to go to China with us this time. She is very excited!
Thank you for your prayers!