An Unexpected Gift

Normally I try to write blog posts that are specific to the blog, but this one time I am just going to post the exact same update we sent out to our email list. If you receive the email updates, this will be completely redundant.

Dear Friends,

Well, we finally have some exciting news to report. Please bear with me, as this is going to be a longer e-mail than many of our updates.

I realize the subject line of this e-mail might have caused you to wonder if God has given us a large financial blessing. The answer is no. Although He continues to provide for us, the unexpected gift we are referring to is a completely different kind of blessing. To explain, I need to back up a bit in the story. Some of this information might be familiar to some of you.

When Greg and I became convinced that we were supposed to adopt a second time, it was very difficult for us to choose a child. We never did have that moment when we looked at a child's picture and just knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that we were looking at our daughter. So we gathered information and prayed. And prayed. And prayed. And during that long period of seeking and praying, we had wondered if God was calling us to adopt two children instead of one, and perhaps that was why we were having so much trouble deciding on one child. We asked our contact if it would be possible for us to adopt two, and she told us that it was not. Her answer was clear and firm, so we let go of that idea and went back to seeking God's council to find out which one child he wanted us to adopt. Finally God did make it abundantly clear to us that we were supposed to adopt Isabelle, and we have pursued her adoption with confidence and joy. Then, shortly after we were granted pre-approval from China to move forward with Isabelle's adoption, our agency added a few more children to their list. One of these was a two and a half year old little girl with Down Syndrome. I saw her picture first, and then Greg saw it a few hours later. We were both struck with the same powerful impression. We knew that Isabelle was the one that God was calling us to adopt, but we couldn't forget this little girl or get her beautiful face out of our minds. We wrote our contact again to ask if there was any way we could pursue two children at the same time. Her answer was the same as before: No. Time passed and no one else inquired about this child. We were so confused about that. She is such a beautiful little girl, we didn't understand how anyone could resist her. We continued moving forward with Isabelle's adoption and prayed that this little girl would find a family. Then, three weeks ago, we got an e-mail from our contact. She told us that based on the approval that China had given to a few other families, she thought that there was a pretty good chance that we could be approved for two children. Did we want to try to adopt this little girl as well? We were floored at this possibility, and confusion, fear, and excitement all settled into our hearts at the same time. We took the next day to pray and seek God's will, even though we knew there was really no way we could turn our backs on her. The more we prayed, the clearer the decision became. We wrote our contact back and told her that we would try. The first step was to get the permission of our social worker. Now we are so thankful that our home study wasn't done weeks ago like we had hoped it would be, because it was originally written for only one child. Because it hadn’t been finished yet, the social worker could easily change that to two if she wanted. After a few e-mails back and forth, she agreed enthusiastically that we could pursue the adoptions of two children. Then we had to get permission from the executive director of our adoption agency. As you all know, we still owe them a good bit of money for Isabelle's program fee, and we were concerned that they would not allow us to add a second child until we paid them all that we owed for the first. To our very great surprise, they agreed to help us pursue this little girl right now. We completed the paperwork for her pre-approval application, and they submitted it on Friday August 31. We are hoping to hear back from China some time early next week. Please join us in praying that they will approve us to bring this little girl home as well as Isabelle. We have chosen the name "Hallie Elizabeth" which means "unexpected gift, consecrated to God." Interestingly enough after we chose the name, we found out that using different etymologies for both names would give us the meaning, "My God is bountiful, praise the Lord," which is certainly true as well.

Our story is unfolding faster than we can report it. I wrote all of the above a few nights ago, but wanted Greg to look over it before I sent it out. In the meantime, we got word from our agency that China has granted us pre-approval for Hallie, as well as Isabelle! We are shocked that the answer came so quickly! Please join us in thanking and praising God for this answer to prayer. Now, we need to compile our dossier and raise nearly $60,000. This figure is huge and daunting, but we know that God is faithful, and He will give us the means to accomplish everything He has called us to do.

Please continue to pray for us during this process. We know that in our own strength, we could never adopt one child, and certainly not two. Pray that we will find our strength in Him, and that He will continue to supply all our needs.

Crazy busy!

I don't have time for a real update right now, but we just want everyone to know that we are still here, and our adoption story is crazier than ever. I have been working on an update for days now, but the story really is unfolding faster than I can write it down right now. Just bear with us. We will have a LONG update out as soon as we can, and it will be full of details.

One step at a time...

We don't have much news to report, but we do want everyone to know that we are still working on this process and trying to take things one step at a time. We have finished everything that we need to do for our home study. All our background checks and child abuse clearances have come in. It took us longer to finish our online education than we had expected, but that too is now behind us. So now we just wait. God has continued to provide the money for the adoption, but for reasons that are unknown to us, He is providing it very slowly this time around. We are closer now than we were before, but we are still short of the funds that we need for the first half of our program fee. We are still trusting Him, and we know that He will give us everything we need in His own perfect time. It is hard to wait when we want to bring our daughter home so badly, but we do trust Him.

We will be having our first big fund raiser next month, so stay tuned for details about that. Our good friends, Dan and Sarah are adopting a little girl from Russia, and we are working together to raise some of the funds needed to bring our daughters home. We are having a big pancake breakfast and silent auction on September 29th in Mason, Ohio. Like I said, we will provide more details as it gets closer, but if that day is free for you, plan to come. (If you live in this area, of course.)

Both Gabriela and Mikaela celebrated their third birthday this month. Unfortunately, I can't post pictures yet, because they are all on my dad's camera, and I keep forgetting to get them when we are over at my parents' house. They both had a blast! Greg and I are looking forward to next summer when we will be celebrating three little girls' birthdays.

Greg and I left the kids with my parents today and went out for a date. For the first time in months, we decided that this would be a day of fun and relaxation -- no errand running allowed. It was wonderful! We went down to one of our favorite restaurants in the City called "It's Just Crepes." We both fell in love with crepes in Ukraine, and it is hard to find good ones here in the states. Not only are the crepes at this place incredibly tasty, they are also very reasonably priced. It makes for a fun and cheap date. :-) Then we walked a few blocks down to a really cool antique book store. We had never been there before, but we will certainly be going back. We both have a weakness for old buildings and old books, so a Victorian house converted to an antique bookstore is definitely our kind of place. We picked up two used books on Chinese history. One of them has great pictures, and I think it will be really good for showing the kids some of the things in Isabelle's country. We then went to Barnes and Noble to look for a travel guide to China. We used the Lonely Planet travel guide for Ukraine, so I started with that one, but I don't think it is going to work out for us. It focused mainly on Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong - three places we probably won't even see. Out of the hundreds of pages in the book, only about 10 were even about Isabelle's province. We ended up not getting anything there. It was interesting, though, because it confirmed what we had read before that Isabelle's province is the poorest in all of China. The book was divided into sections on the different provinces of China, and each section began with a reason to visit that specific province. The "Why you should visit Guizhou" section started by saying, "Oh, poor Guizhou..." Not very encouraging. The book did say that the people living in Guizhou were some of the friendliest in all of China, so that should be nice. Apparently they don't get very many visitors, so they get really excited whenever foreigners do come. I wonder if we will be the first white people that Isabelle has ever seen? Poor little girl. It is going to be quite an adjustment for her.

As always, thank you for your prayers. I means so much to us during this time to know that our brothers and sisters in Christ are continuing to ask God for his favor and provision for us. Blessings.

Kristie

Almost finished with the home study...

The process has continued to progress, and we really are almost finished with our home study. We met with our social worker twice last weekend, and both visits went very well. This social worker is a wonderful woman who truly cares about the children who are being adopted, and she couldn't have been any kinder or more encouraging. It is always a treat to see her. Greg and Matthias have already had their medical visits, and their forms are filled out. My visit is today, and the other three children have appointments for Wednesday. We replaced the fire extinguisher and took down the old smoke detector, so as soon as we can get the fire inspector back to our house, our fire inspection will be done. Our background checks and Child Abuse Clearances are in process, and we are just waiting for results on those. We even got both employment letters, so we are praising God for that. As I mentioned before, mine tends to be more complicated because I am self-employed, but we did find a CPA who was willing to write it, and that step is done now.

In our last update, we shared that our Agency Fee was due at this time, and that we owed them nearly $7000. We still do not have the money to pay that, and we are feeling a bit discouraged. The agency has been very kind, and they have agreed to break the fee into two parts. We can pay $3300 now, and the rest of it when we submit our dossier. This is helpful, but we don't have enough money for even this part of the fee. The agency will not be able to approve our home study until we pay this fee, so if we don't have the money that we need by the time our social worker is done writing our narrative, Isabelle's adoption will be completely halted while we wait for that money to come in. Our prayer from the beginning has been that God will not allow her adoption to be delayed even a single day because of lack of funds, and up until this point, He has answered that prayer. We know that He can still send the money that we need in time for her process to continue without delay, but He will have to send it quickly. That is still our prayer. We cannot proceed with immigration approval, dossier submission, or grant applications until we have the home study. That piece is key for everything that comes later in the process. Please join us in praying that God will send this money quickly so that we can continue working to bring Isabelle home. We know that we serve a mighty and loving God, and we are looking forward to watching Him work in this situation.

On a lighter note, Gabriela and Mikaela both have birthdays next month, and we are very excited about that. Mikaela came to us just before her first birthday, and it is hard to believe how much she has changed in two years. At that point, she was a sickly baby who didn't take much interest in anything. Now, she has chosen her own birthday decorations (from three choices) and picked her own birthday meal. It is such a privilege to be a part of her transformation, and we can't wait to watch Isabelle blossom in some of the same ways. Mikaela wants Hello Kitty decorations (I really expected her to pick My Little Pony, but she was emphatic that she preferred Hello Kitty) and hamburgers for dinner. We will make sure that we post some pictures of her celebration.

A quick update

Hello Everyone,

Sorry that it has been so long since our last update. Things have continued to progress, but everything moves more slowly than we would like it to. No Longer Alone, the orphan-awareness event that the Shepherd's Crook Ministries held on June 22, was a huge success, and we were very thankful to have been able to participate in that. Since that point, we have been throwing pretty much all of our time and energy into the home study for Isabelle's adoption. We are finally beginning to see the light at the end of that tunnel. We mailed a big bundle of papers for that this morning, and we had our fire inspection this afternoon. Everything looks good, except that we need a new fire extinguisher, because ours is over a year old, and we have to take down an old smoke detector that no longer works. We will fix those things this weekend, and then the inspector will come back early next week and sign off on our form. Greg and I both have our home study physicals next week as well. Our only big obstacle left with the home study is our employment letters. Greg's will be easy, because my dad writes it, but mine is much more challenging, because I am self-employed. We would appreciate prayers as we try to figure out exactly what to do about that.

Funds have continued to come in for Isabelle's adoption, and we thank and praise God for that. We now have enough money for the home study, and almost everything we need for our USCIS approval. God continues to provide things as we need it. We are hoping to see his abundant provision in this area very soon, as we now need to send around $7000 to our agency. We don't have any idea how He is going to send this money, but we trust Him, and we know that He is good. We would appreciate prayers in this area as well.

Thank you for all of your support and encouragement.

Kristie

Another gift

This will be another short post, but I wanted to let everyone know that we received another gift today, and that we now have all the money that we need for Isabelle's home study. We are thanking and praising God for this, and we will be able to start our home study as soon as we are finished with the orphan awareness event in two days. Please pray that our home study will be completed quickly, and that we will be approved to continue Isabelle's adoption. Thank you all for your support and encouragement.

Kristie

Wonderful news!

Today we found out that China has given us pre-approval to adopt Isabelle. This all by itself would have been enough to make today wonderful, but about half an hour after we got the news about the pre-approval, we found out that we are receiving a very generous financial gift that will cover a large portion of our home study. We are overjoyed and marveling at the goodness of God. Please join us in thanking and praising Him tonight.

We don't have time for a longer update right now, because we are still pretty consumed by the orphan-awareness event that Greg has mentioned here before. The event is one week from tonight, and things are really coming down to the wire. We are all tired from the work we have been putting in, but we are also thrilled with the way that it is coming together and very, very excited about the event. If you are local, or if you can make it to Cincinnati next Friday, then I strongly encourage you to come. Go to www.saynolonger.org for more information and to reserve your seat. We would to have as many of you there as possible.

Kristie