He has a name!

First of all, we want to ask that you bear with us a little bit, because we haven't gotten the "look" of this blog updated yet. It still has the very feminine theme that we were using for the girls' adoption. Updating this so that it is more appropriate for our son is on our list of things to do. It just hasn't happened yet.

Now, for the really exciting part of this post - we have chosen a name for our new little boy. Greg and I spent several days discussing options, and in the end, it was Josiah who suggested the first name that we chose. We have decided to name him Jonathan Zechariah. Jonathan means "Gift from the LORD," or "The LORD gives," and Zechariah means "The LORD remembers." We know that there are some aspects of his diagnosis that are uncertain and a little bit scary. Caring for an autistic child might be the most difficult thing we have ever done. In light of this, we wanted to chose a name that made it very clear that we consider our son a valuable treasure and not a burden. No matter what lies ahead for us, he is a gift. It also seems to us that he is very sad and that he feels all alone. We imagine that he feels forgotten, and we want him to know that God has never forgotten him, and has had a plan for his life from the very beginning.

We have been working hard on the adoption process, and we have made pretty good progress. We finished the packet of documents to send to our agency in order to request provisional approval from the Chinese Adoption Authorities, and are hoping to hear back from them any day now. We have also finished the initial application to our home study agency. Once they process that paperwork, they will send us the longer formal application packet. There is still a lot of work ahead of us, but we are thankful for how much we have accomplished already

We also got our first donation! Someone left an anonymous gift for us at church last Sunday. We don't have any idea who you are, but thank you very much! It was nearly the exact amount needed for our application fee to our agency, and it was a huge encouragement to us. We are praying for more donations, because we will need nearly $3000 soon to pay the first of our large agency fees, and then almost $2000 shortly after that to pay for our home study. We don't have any idea where this money is going to come from, but we are trusting God to provide it in His perfect time. In some ways, these early fees are the most difficult, because we will not be allowed to apply for most grants until after our home study is completed, and we have not had any time to pull together elaborate fund-raising events.

We do have our very first fund-raising opportunity running, though. Many of you may remember that we had a store front set up with JustLove coffee during the girls' adoption. It did not bring in a ton of money, but every little bit helps. We contacted the company, and they have given us permission to raise funds through them again. The link to our store front is in the side bar of this blog. Right now it probably still says that the proceeds will benefit Isabelle and Hallie. We will get that updated with Jonathan's name soon. We are also hoping to set up and Amazon affiliate link soon. Stay tuned for more details about that.