A time of challenges

As the title indicates, these last few weeks have been really challenging for us as a family. God is providing blessings and encouragement in the midst of those challenges, and we thank Him for that, but we both feel pretty tired and worn down.

One of the biggest sources of encouragement has been that Jonathan's process has continued to move forward. We hit so many unexpected difficulties during the first few steps of his process, that it is a bit of a surprise that everything is moving so well now. We did sign and return the LSC, so he is now officially matched with us in the eyes of the Chinese officials. We just submitted our next set of forms to immigration. Also, donations have continued to come in for his adoption. We know that some funds have been donated to our matching grant, but we aren't sure exactly how much. Greg just wrote to ask for an update on our account, but we don't have that yet. We will update you when we do. A few more donations have also come in to his Shepherd's Crook account. We are still far short of the amount we need to bring him home, but God has faithfully provided this far, and we know we can trust him to provide the rest of what we need. We should be traveling to bring our son home in about two months now. That is an exciting and terrifying thought! :-)

Many of you know that my father was diagnosed with cancer right after the beginning of the year. This has been very difficult for our whole family. His long-term prognosis is very, very good, but the logistics of getting him the treatment that he needs are pretty complicated. Both of my parents will be moving to Knoxville, TN for the month of April, and they will be taking 19 special-needs children and teens with them. I have spent a great deal of my time trying to help my mother put the pieces in place to make this move possible, and Greg and I have been keeping their kids for them so that they can go to the appointments that my dad needs. We will be keeping their kids for five nights starting on Easter Sunday, so we would appreciate your prayers during that time. We are unbelievable thankful that my father is not any sicker, and that he should make a full recovery, but we are also tired and drained from the extra challenges that this has brought.

Greg has been working very long hours over the past few weeks, because he has to rebuild the Shepherd's Crook Website completely before we leave for China. He is not getting nearly enough sleep, but continues to have a good attitude about everything. I have learned quite a bit from him in this area.

About two weeks ago, I was driving on the interstate in the rain when the truck in front of me dropped something. By the time I saw it, it was too late to avoid it, and it shredded my front passenger tire. 

Thankfully, I was not hurt, and none of the children were in the car with me. We found out after we replaced the tire that it had also torn up the catalytic converter, so that had to be replaced as well.

Then, the kids were playing outside yesterday, and one of the other children dropped a rock on Hallie's hand. As soon as we saw it, we could tell that it was really bad, so we took her the doctor.

Another sign of God's grace is that Hallie's primary doctor was in the office and had an opening exactly when we needed it. We were concerned that if Hallie had to see a doctor that didn't know her very well, he or she might not realize how serious the situation was. Like many former orpans, Hallie does not cry when she is in pain, and her doctor has learned to read her pretty well. He agreed with us that it looked pretty bad, so sent us to Children's Hosptial to have it X-rayed. X-rays confirmed that it was broken in two places, and one of the breaks is bad enough that she will need surgery.

They sent us to the Emergency Department to have a splint put on her hand until we can make an appointment with orthopedics. Greg and I kept reminding each other that nothing happens outside of God's control, and that this was somehow part of his plan for our family. Neither of us can imagine how we can fit a surgery into our over-filled life, and we don't know how we are going to pay these medical bills. We are thankful for our insurance, and this means that two of our children will have met their deductibles in the first quarter of the year. That might be a record, even for us.

We appreciate the support of our community and friends during this time. They have been a constant source of encouragement to us. They continue to remind us of God's love and provision during this difficult time, and we can't wait to celebrate with all of you once Jonathan comes home. Please continue praying for us. Thank you all.

Two Bits of Good News

It's been a long time—much too long—since I've posted here, and I hope it won't be this long before I post again. We have two pieces of good news to share today:

1. Our LSC (Letter Seeking Confirmation) has been issued from China and is on our way to us! This means that our process is still moving forward. Even though China has already pre-approved us to adopt Jonathan, we will be officially matched with Jonathan once we sign and return the LSC. Our agency had been hoping it would be issued before Chinese New Year, and we barely squeaked in before that deadline, as that holiday is this coming Monday. Praise God for this!

2. We got word last week that we were approved for a $2,500 matching grant through God's Grace Adoption Ministry! That was a HUGE encouragement to us, as we still need a lot of money to bring Jonathan home. If you'd like to help us reach that $2,500 goal (with GGAM's matching portion, this could result in a total of $5,000 for our son's adoption), you can go to their support page. Just be sure to select our names in the Who would you like to help? field. (We're listed as Greg & Kristie Godwin- Ohio.)

Kristie has continued to research items (books, stress-relief objects, etc.) that might help Jonathan with his transition to our admittedly crazy family. She might have more to say about that sometime later. For now, we're thanking God for the LSC and the matching grant. We're still working on other grant applications, and we'll keep you posted on those as we hear back.

Greg

DTC!!

I meant to post this a few days ago, but with the craziness of the holidays, I didn't get a chance to update everyone. Our dossier is finally on its way to China!! After so many weeks of fighting for the papers that we needed, our completed dossier was mailed out on Tuesday. That was two days past our deadline, but the Chinese officials agreed to grant us a few days grace, so everything is fine. We are thanking and praising God that he moved all of the obstacles and allowed us to continue Jonathan's adoption. The hardest part of the adoption is now behind us (except for continued fund-raising), and now we wait for China. As we celebrate Christmas this year, it is hard to know that Jonathan is so far away, but this will be the last Christmas that he ever has to spend alone. As always, thank you all for your support.

Immigration Approval

Wonderful news! Our agency contact called us tonight to tell us that we got our Immigration Approval! We are so excited. Thank you all for your prayers! We had a bit of a scare when our agency contact told us that we had forgotten two forms when we mailed our papers to China. We dropped everything we were doing, ran home and found them on Greg's desk, and overnighted them to our agency in Hawaii. We still aren't quite sure how we missed those when we sent everything else, but the important thing is that we are back on track with that now. Please keep praying that we do not hit any delays in the Authentication process. As long as we don't run into any problems, we should meet our deadline to send our papers to China!! Again, thank you so much for your prayers, and please don't stop praying!

We got it!

I want to share a huge item of praise from today. We got the letter from my doctor!! Greg picked it up and sent it off to our agency. Now please keep praying that we get immigration approval soon. Thanks for all the prayers and support.

More Drama

We are still having a terrible time getting those last few documents for our dossier. Greg's birth certificate arrived this morning, and now it is on its way to our agency. But we still need the letter from my doctor. A midwife in the same practice had said she was willing to help us with this, but then had a family emergency and had to leave the state! I can't believe how many obstacles we are hitting with this one letter. We have been trying to get this since June! Please pray that we will be getting this soon. We need to have this tomorrow! We are running out of options.

A brief update

We have a little bit of news about Jonathan's adoption, so I want to give everyone and update and ask for more prayer. Many of the pieces have come together since our last update. We did (finally) get the new version of our home study and send that on to USCIS. Our agency had their ability to notarize and authenicate documents reinstated, so we do not have to go to Columbus or mail things to D.C. We have managed to recollect most of our documents (even though they didn't have to be notarized, most of them were considered "expired" from China's perspective since the process is taking so long). And God has provided all of the money that we need for this step. We recieved a very generous donation and a grant, and that covers the entire fee required to submit our dossier, plus a littl bit left over for our next step. We are thanking and praising God for all of these things.

But there are still a few huge obstacles in our way, and we need your prayers as we work to overcome these. We still need three documents in order to submit our dossier, and we need them very soon. The first is our immigration approval. We have submitted everything for that and are just waiting for USCIS. The second is Greg's birth certificate. Greg's father is picking that up for us tomorrow and will send it to us. The third is the letter from my doctor. No matter how hard we try, we do not seem to be able to get this letter. I don't understand why this is so difficult right now, but we have to have this letter. Please join us in praying that we will get this in time to get our documents to China. 

Sometimes this seems impossible to us, but we know that all things are possible with God. We are praying that He will bring our son home to us.