Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Hope in a Manger

A little boy on the other side of the world is sleeping right now and when he wakes up, it will be Christmas morning! His last Christmas in an orphanage. He has no idea that his life will ever change. This is all he has ever known. As I prepare our home for him I can't help but be overwhelmed at the new year that lies ahead for our family! The thought of Christmas future brings a sense of anticipation and joy...and anxiety if I'm perfectly honest!

This Christmas as I  celebrate with my sweet family for the last time as a family of four I can't help but look back with nostalgia. As I ponder Christmas past, a couple particular years stand out to me above the rest.

Christmas 1988. I was nine and my brother was five. We woke up Christmas morning and went to church and passed out blue "It's a boy!!" bubble gum cigars to everyone in celebration of our brand new baby brother born late afternoon on Christmas Eve. My mom was still in the hospital so my dad managed to get my brother and I up and ready for church and out the door AND HE PREACHED after having been at the hospital all day and into the night with my mom the previous day! (As a parent of a nine and five year old this year, I am newly impressed that my dad pulled all this off by himself!!) We rushed home from church, quickly gathered up all of our presents and went to the hospital to open them with mom and the new baby.


The less obvious Christmas miracle here is that a nine year old girl and a five year old boy cared very little about their presents that year. They were enamored with this tiny creature in a big red stocking!! (As a side note...that baby is celebrating his 25th birthday today and he has grown up to be a wonderful brother and friend to me and an amazing uncle to my kids!! I'm so thankful for Christmas Eve 1988!!)

Christmas 2004. I had a six and half week old daughter and was in the midst of that exhausted joyfulness that is adjusting to first time motherhood. I remember having a renewed sense of awe for exactly what Jesus did in becoming a baby and being born in a stable. I mean WHOA. I remember pondering silly things like "I wonder if baby Jesus spit up this much...." and "I wonder when his umbilical stump fell off...." and  "I wonder when he slept through the night...." Awe. The humanity of God. He lowered himself to become the most dependent and helpless creature on the planet. I can't fathom it. (I also can't fathom what it was like to have been his mother. I really want to hear some stories from Mary when I get to heaven!)

Jasmine Grace, 2004

Christmas present 2013. As I prepare to leave my comfortable home in a few months to go to a foreign land and bring home a little boy who didn't ask me to come, I am again struck with wonder at what Christ did for me. Caleb has been in an orphanage all of his short life. He doesn't have a concept of family. He doesn't know he needs one. He doesn't know us and he doesn't love us. But we love him. Oh how we love that boy! We are preparing a place in our family and in our home for him. He has siblings and grandparents and a whole extended family who love him and are anxiously awaiting his homecoming. Someday hopefully he will love us back...but this isn't a partnership. We aren't going because we are heroes or because someday he will thank us or because we want something from him in return...we are going because we LOVE him!!! The rest is irrelevant.

While I was still mired in sin and didn't know I needed a savior and had no concept of Heaven, Christ came for me. He stepped out of a perfect home and came to this messed up planet because he LOVED me! He became human...experiencing acne and the stomach virus and ridicule and exhaustion and loss of loved ones and body odor and  misunderstandings and hurt feelings and injustice and poverty and hunger and the list goes on....because of LOVE! His first bed was a feeding trough and he spent thirty three years walking toward a torturous death so he could adopt me into his forever family.

But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.[b] Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba,[c] Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.
Galations 4:4-7

Christmas changes everything. I've been rescued. I have hope. I'm an heir to heaven. Because of a helpless baby who grew up and saved the world and reigns now and forever.

Merry Christmas!!

Saturday, November 30, 2013

Both Hands.....One for Wanda, One for Caleb

So many of you have emailed, Facebook messaged or texted us to ask about our project last Saturday! Thanks so much for your prayers and encouragement! I've been promising to blog all about it so that you could hear about it all in one place, so here goes!!



We had an incredible day! I got there later than intended due to some GPS problems combined with the fact that I have no natural sense of direction whatsoever!! Thankfully Steve had gotten there bright an early at 7:30 so that he could be the first one there. I left our house a few minutes after he did and took Joshua to our friend Lori's house for the day. (As a side note, Lori brought two precious kids home from China last year and Both Hands was a huge blessing to her, so she wanted to bless us by offering free childcare to anyone on our team. She is a beautiful example of how loving and helpful and supportive the adoption community has been to us!! ) I finally got to Wanda's at about 8:30 and was relieved to find I was not the only one who had GPS issues finding it! I had intended to start the day with a group prayer and pass out name tags and have everyone sign waivers, but that didn't happen due to my tardiness - people were already hard at work!!


Waste management had brought us the biggest dumpster I've ever seen!! My first thought was "Wow. That is one huge dumpster. They could have brought a smaller one!" But by the end of the day that thing was overflowing!!

So here is a list of what we spent our day doing:

MASSIVE de-clutter of house and shed. SIX FULL VAN LOADS to the local DAV and did I mention the overflowing gigantic dumpster??

Overhauled yard. Major trimming, cutting and clearing of overgrowth, bushes and trees.

Tilled and re-seeded yard (with special seed for cold weather seeding) and covered in straw.

Weeded and mulched flower beds.

Tore down rotted privacy fence (and cleared massive overgrowth covering it!) and built a new one.


This is a "before" picture of the rotted, overgrown fence...



And here is the "after!"

Replaced kitchen faucet.

Patched 3 holes in her ceiling from a roof leak (roof has since been replaced!) and painted ceiling.

Installed new dryer vent.

Patched a large section of wallpaper.

Created gravel path in her back yard where she had previously had a bunch of nasty rotten carpet scraps making a path.



Replaced front and back porch lights

Replaced front door lock.

Repaired rotted wood on cellar door.

Due to the very cold weather and running out of time, we did not get to paint the exterior trim as we had hoped. We also did not get to complete the construction of the hand rail for her front stoop. Steve plans to go back down after Thanksgiving and finish the handrail and we plan to go down in the spring and paint her trim. We had the supplies for those projects donated and fully intend to do those things for her! Also, as I mentioned in my previous post, we got NEW WINDOWS donated to Wanda and they will be installed sometime in the next month!!

I've spent this week processing everything that went into this and I just can't put into words the blessing that this was on so many levels! Late that evening after we were home, a dear friend who had spent the day working with us texted me and said "I feel like we need to be debriefed. My head is spinning!" I couldn't agree more!! The obvious blessing to Wanda meant so much to her and the blessing of helping her touched us all. The more I think about it the more humbled and grateful I feel to our team! We had four team members that were 60 or over, 2 that were pregnant, and several that haven't known us even a year! Our videographer was an eighteen year old friend of a friend who'd never met us but wanted to help! Every single person who worked on this was such an amazing blessing to us! The fact that they would all give up an entire Saturday to work their tails off in the freezing cold - and not only that- they actually seemed to enjoy themselves!! I mean we are talking about some AMAZING people!! Many of these people did not know each other at all or had only briefly met at our two planning meetings. New friendships were forged and some serious male bonding took place over hammers and saws. God is so good!

God continues to provide on the fundraising end of this as well. We are nearly halfway to our goal for funds raised for the project, but still have a ways to go. We will post a video this week (it is currently being finalized!) Please spread the word that IT IS NOT TOO LATE TO GIVE to this project and bless our Caleb by helping us bring him home! Thank you so very much to those of you who have already given generously! 

If you would like to give to this project (every single penny helps us bring Caleb home!!) you can mail a check to : Lifesong for Orphans, PO Box 40, Gridley, IL 61744 and be sure to write "preference Porter #3934" on the memo line. You can also give online at www.bothhands.org/steve-and-amy-porter.

This Thanksgiving was especially meaningful to us on the heels of this project and in the middle of this adoption journey. We are so very thankful for you!!

Amy

Friday, November 22, 2013

Widows and Orphans, Hardware Stores and Windows!

Tomorrow is going to be such an amazing day! We have been planning and working on our Both Hands project since we were approved for it in September. I cannot say enough good about this organization and the people that run it. They are the real deal!!

For those that aren't familiar, Both Hands is a 501c3 organization that exists to help orphans and widows. They partner with adoptive families to do service projects for widows while raising money for their adoptions. Here is how it works: We found a widow who was in need of some repairs and clean up work at her house. We gathered a fantastic team of friends and family who committed to spending one day (tomorrow!!) working all day on her house. They all sent letters to their family and friends asking them to sponsor them for the day just like they would for Race for the Cure, Light the Night Walk or a golf-a-thon. Every penny that is donated helps us bring Caleb home!! We got local merchants to donate all the supplies for the workday so the only cost we had was the postage to mail out the letters! Beautiful.

Our sweet widow is Ms Wanda Cales. She lost her husband 19 years ago and spent the last year taking care of her elderly mother who just passed away in May. Her primary help came from her nephew who tragically died in August. Ms Wanda has given so much of herself to others that we decided she needed some blessing!!



We began to dream of ways to bless her. We didn't want to get our hopes up too much, though because with it being so close to the end of the calendar year, we didn't know how much we could get in donations. Many businesses have a certain allowable amount they give to charity per year and we had been told that this was not an optimal time to ask for donations. We began to approach businesses with our Both Hands letter and ask if they could help us and we have been blown away!! We have so many donations that Steve is picking up a 16 foot box truck this afternoon to transport it all to Wanda's house!

I have to take a moment to brag on my husband here. Steve is a man of few words, but let me tell you... he is a man of action!! He has worked his tail off on this project and has done an amazing job securing donations and organizing projects. He was dreaming big...so big I feared he was setting himself up for disappointment. (Oh me of little faith!!) He saw that Wanda's windows were in some terrible shape. She hadn't been able to open them in years...maybe never. He began to call window companies to see if they had any windows in their stock rooms that were extra that would fit in Wanda's house that they could donate. (Sometimes if measurements are slightly off, windows don't fit right and have to be re-ordered, so those go into an overstock area until they can find a use for them.) Unfortunately none of the companies had any in the right sizes, so we thought it wasn't going to happen. Then, the president of Window World called Steve. She said they so much love what we are doing that they wanted to custom make all seven of Wanda's windows for her for free!!!!! They won't be ready to put in tomorrow when we do the rest of the project, but Steve and our dear friend Sean (who is on our team and used to install windows professionally!!) are going to go install them next month when they come in!!!

Here are some other merchants you may want to support: Sherwin Williams donated all the paint to paint one inside ceiling, her porch and walkway and all the trim around the outside of her house. 84 Lumber donated all the lumber to replace her privacy fence that had rotted. Franke Otte Nursery donated all the seed and hay to re-seed her entire yard. Waste Management is donating the use of a dumpster for the day.  Klein Brothers donated a new lock set for her front door. Star Drywall donated drywall to patch some damaged ceiling inside her home. Chick Fil A is providing lunch for the entire team working. Meijer gave a $100 gift card used to purchase bottled beverages and snacks for the team as well as paint supplies and a few other small items for the yard work. Walmart, Lowes and Home Depot donated supplies to build a hand rail for her front steps, replace her kitchen faucet, replace two porch lights, mulch and gravel for the landscaping and more smaller items needed for the day.

So tomorrow we serve a widow to help bring home an orphan! We are so thrilled to have this opportunity! You may have received a letter asking for a donation for this project that will help us bring Caleb home. Maybe you've already given. Thank you!! This is such a team effort!! We are honored, humbled and grateful that you would choose to partner with us in this. All donations are tax deductible and we can receive donations into this account until Caleb is home....so it is NOT TOO LATE!! If you would like to give, you may send a check payable to Lifesong for Orphans with "preference Porter #3934" on the memo line to :
Lifesong for Orphans
PO Box 40
Gridley, IL 61744
Or you may donate online here.
We hope to make enough from this project to be fully funded!! We sent out 600 letters. If only half of those people were to give us $33, we would hit our goal of $10,000! Can you help us get there??
 We will post a video of the project and before and after pictures here soon! Please pray for our project! God has done amazing things to bring us to this point and we know he will continue to do so with your prayers! Please pray especially for a warmer than predicted day tomorrow!
Digging to China,
Amy








Thursday, November 14, 2013

It's A.....

BOY!!!!!!

It is with unspeakable joy that we introduce to you our son, Caleb David Bao Porter.


Caleb is currently living in Baotou City, province of Inner Mongolia, People's Republic of China. If the process follows the typical timeline, we will bring him home sometime around May! He is currently 15 months old. These pictures are old, but they are all we have for now. We have requested updated pictures and information on him and we will definitely share them when we get them!


Look at that smile!! This mama is falling in love with a picture of a little boy on the other side of the world! "Bao" is a Chinese boy name that means "precious treasure." How perfectly it fits him....our precious treasure, born in Baotou City. We felt it was the perfect addition to his American name as we love the meaning and it also honors the city in which he was born and spent the first year and a half of his life! He currently is assigned a Chinese name by his orphanage and it will officially be changed when the adoption is finalized in China.


We received his file from our social worker on Monday, November 4th. We spent the next days praying and having his file reviewed by medical professionals. Caleb has a minor heart defect that is very common and often needs no intervention. As we knew was the case going into this process, we really won't have a firm grasp on his overall health until we get him home and evaluated by our pediatrician. By all indications from his file, this seems to be a minor issue and one that our family can easily care for. On Thursday, November 7th we submitted our letter of intent "LOI" to adopt Caleb. That had to be reviewed and evaluated by the China Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption. On Monday, November 11th we got word that we were approved to adopt him! We spent the next few days telling our families and close friends and finalizing his name!


Now that we have seen his face, the pain of the wait intensifies for us! We can't wait to hold him in our arms and kiss his precious face! We can now send him care packages (just in time to send Christmas presents!!) and will be sending him a photo album with our pictures so hopefully we may seem a tiny bit familiar to him when we show up and take him away from the only life he has ever known. Adoption is beautiful, but it always starts with something ugly and painful. This precious boy was abandoned shortly after birth by the person who was supposed to care for him. Praise God that He is in the business of redemption and making beauty from ashes!!

We have so much going on this month! November may seriously be the busiest month in Porter family history! This quick referral was an unexpected blessing amidst our current craziness and we are so very thankful!! I have so many things to share on this blog, and will over the coming weeks and months, but for now, we wanted to share this precious gift with you!

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of heavenly lights who does not change like shifting shadows. James 1:17

Amy


Saturday, October 26, 2013

China Adoption FAQs

We received exciting news yesterday! Our dossier has been "logged in" by the China Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption (CCCWA) and is now being translated!! That means that now we are able to be "matched" with a child at any time!!

 This process can be SO consuming and we make a big effort not to talk incessantly about it to everyone we come into contact with! We don't want you guys to see us coming and be like "Quick! Hide so we don't have to hear them drone on about adoption!!" However, we get asked about it a lot and we have noticed that we get asked the same questions over and over again (which we don't mind at all!!), so we thought it would be a good idea to post some answers to those FAQs!

1) Why did you choose China? Why not adopt an American baby?

Friends, there is not a simple cut and dried answer to this question. In its simplest form, the answer is simply that China is where God led us. I know some of you have no idea what I mean when I say that and some of you secretly (or not so secretly!) think we have a screw loose for doing this. I will do my best to explain.

 First, we are not adopting for reasons of infertility, so newborn domestic adoption was not something we really considered. So many couples and dear friends of ours have gone that route due to infertility and it is a beautiful thing, but as a fertile couple with two healthy biological kids, that doesn't make sense for us!

 Secondly, although growing our family is important to us, we also wanted to adopt to live out the Biblical command to care for "the fatherless" or "the orphan." There are so many precious "orphans" in the foster care system in the US. Half a million in fact - and they all need homes!! Davion Only recently made headlines when he went before a church in Florida and begged for someone to adopt him out of foster care and give him a family. My heart breaks for him and all the others like him!! Foster care and resulting adoption are so very needed in this country and it is something we definitely have a heart for and may very likely do in the future. However, when we began to research adoption we found that at this time with the children we have and the needs they have, foster care is not a good fit for us right now. If foster care is something you are interested in or have a heart for, you can read an excellent blog post about foster care FAQs here. There are orphans all over the world, and they are all God's kids. His heart breaks for every single one of them!! When we researched programs for international adoption China was the best fit. We prayed for three straight months about our decision with more fervor than we have ever prayed about anything else and we both felt very strongly that China was where we were being called.

Part of the reason for this is that China is currently mostly adopting out kids with "special needs." This term does not mean the same thing in Chinese adoptions that it means to us here in the US. It simply means that a child is not considered 100% perfectly healthy. These needs can range from "minor, correctible" category to severe. A baby born prematurely with low birth weight, a child with a minor speech delay, a child who needs glasses, minor heart defects, a missing finger...all are on the "special needs" list!! Two of the most common special needs in China are cleft lip/cleft palate and heart conditions. Steve was born with severe bilateral cleft lip and palate and has always felt a calling to help kids with facial differences. I am a cardiac intensive care nurse.  We are not guaranteed to get a child with either of these needs, but we are most definitely open to them and that is one of the ways we felt God leading us to China.

2) How old will your baby be?

We are approved for a 0-3 year old. We have requested "as young as possible." Typically children are 18 months to 2 years old at the youngest end of Chinese adoptions. This has to do with all the processing it takes on the Chinese end to get a child ready to be adopted. Once that child's file is ready to match with a family, he/she is usually at least 6-8 months old, often the child is closer to a year (this also depends on the child's age at abandonment. Sometimes kids are abandoned at birth, sometimes later.) That coupled with the 4-6 month processing time it takes for a family to complete an adoption after being matched means that kids coming home are 18-24 months at the youngest.

3) When will you go to China? When will the adoption be complete?

We don't know. On average, Chinese adoptions take 12-15 months to complete. We started the process January 2013. So far, we have taken longer than average every step of the way with the exception of being logged in so quickly after our dossier was sent to China. Once you are "matched" it takes 4-6 months to process all the paper work for you to go to China and bring your child home. Our agency estimates that we will be matched within 3 months or so. It could be sooner or it could take longer. If everything takes the maximum time frame, it could be July before we go. If it happens quicker, it could potentially be as early as April or May. We have to go with the flow and we have very little control at this point over how slowly or quickly it happens. Such is the nature of the beast of international adoption.

4) It will definitely be a girl, right?

Wrong. There are actually more waiting boys in China now than girls!! The orphan crisis in China is a very complex societal ill. Their government only allows people to have one child per family. This has led to one of the highest abortion rates in the world (13 million per year!) and a majority of them are gender-selective abortions. The sad reality is many girls aren't living long enough to be born!! Sadly, it is illegal to give a child up for adoption in China, so many children are abandoned and when found, are placed in orphanages. There are likely a wide range of reasons children are abandoned....because it is done anonymously, we don't know all the reasons. It could be due to an infant's special need; it could be simply that the parents are unable to care for the child; it could be a young unwed mom, it could be that the child's parents are dead or any number of other possibilities. The reality is that there are both boys and girls in orphanages in need of homes. We are not requesting a specific gender. We have been told that if we are willing to take a boy (which we are) it is more likely to be a boy that we are matched with.

5) What if they try to match you with a child that has a severe special need?

First, we filled out a checklist of the special needs we are open to. This was one of the hardest things for me in this entire process so far. Thankfully, our social worker and pediatrician helped us tremendously with this and continued to remind us that it is not in the best interest of the child to be taken in by a family who is not equipped to care for their needs. Secondly, we have full say in whether or not we accept a referral (or a "match"). Our social worker will call us and tell us the age, gender and special need of the child and will ask us if we want to review the file. Assuming that we do, we have a set period of time to review the file and have it reviewed by medical professionals. We can then say yes or no to that referral. We have known families who have taken their first referral and families who have said no to several before finding the right match for their family.

Obviously there are tons of unknown factors in this process. Unknowns are hard for me. I am being stretched in new ways and am learning every day what it means to "live by faith not by sight" (2 Cor 5:7).

I will answer more FAQs next week. Now I need to go tuck in the precious kids I already have! As always, your prayers and support throughout this thing mean much more than we can ever express!!



Thursday, October 17, 2013

DTC...3 BIG Letters and How They Take Me Back to College

We got official word today that our dossier has been sent to China!! (Our dossier is made up of all the official documents we have been compiling for the last nine months. DTC is adoption lingo for Dossier to China.) Sometime in the next month it will be "logged in" to the China Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption (CCCWA) and we will be officially ready to be "matched" with a child. For the next few months we will likely be waiting on the Chinese end of things and not have a whole lot to do on this end. Of course we will stay busy with our upcoming Both Hands project and then the holidays...so really we have lots to keep us from going crazy waiting!

This news today evoked a unique feeling deep within me. It's a mix of fear and anticipation. A feeling of being overwhelmed with wonder at the possibilities that await us and the responsibility we are taking on, yet a feeling of peace in knowing we are doing what God has called us to do as a family and that He is in every detail.

I have felt this feeling a few times, but one specifically comes to mind.  It was Fall, 1998, sophomore year at Milligan College. Fundamentals of Nursing I. My first real nursing class and my very first clinical. the professor assigned us each a patient that we would spend the next day caring for. We were to go to the hospital the evening before clinical and read over the patient's chart and write a care plan.  I remember sitting for what felt like hours in that hospital staring at that chart and thinking "I'm not sure I can do this." So many big words I didn't yet understand, so many unfamiliar abbreviations. I remember laboriously trying to decipher hand writing and spending inordinate amounts of time looking up pathophysiology of disease processes and making note cards for every medication listed. I was overwhelmed. But I knew I wanted to be a nurse. More than knowing I wanted to be a nurse, I couldn't imagine being anything else. Somehow I muddled through that clinical and the many that followed. Flash forward fifteen years and ironically, the bulk of my job consists of reviewing patient charts. After working as a bedside nurse in a cardiac ICU for the bulk of my career, those big words, abbreviations and medications are now second nature to me.

In many ways this point in our adoption journey feels much like that first clinical. I've done enough paperwork to kill a forest. I've learned a vast array of new words and abbreviations that make up this crazy process. I've met, and formed friendships with lots of other adoptive mamas and mamas-to-be. I've spent hours studying the attachment process in children from hard places. I've sought resources to help our family through what promises to be a huge change for all of us. But I have so much to learn. I'm overwhelmed. I'm afraid. I know I have a tremendous amount of work and adjustment in my near future. But I also know it will be worth it.

Looking back at that memory from college I am struck by all the things I didn't yet know. Not just clinical "head" kind of knowledge, but the kind that only years of experience can bring. On that evening in that hospital I did not yet know the feeling of pure fear and adrenaline that accompanied grabbing the paddles during a code and yelling "all clear!" just before shocking a patient's heart back into rhythm. I had not yet experienced the days laying awake wondering if I could have done anything differently and had a better impact on my patient the night before. I hadn't yet held a patient's hand as they left this world and entered the next. I hadn't yet attempted to feebly comfort the grieving widower who asked me "How am I ever going to make it with out her?" I hadn't yet known the joy of someone beating incredible odds and walking out of the hospital after spending weeks or months fighting for their life. I have not been a perfect nurse, but I believe I've been a good one. I've never regretted my career choice and I still can't imagine being anything else.

I can't help wondering what I will think looking back at this moment fifteen years in the future. I have not yet met my third child. I haven't seen his face. I haven't bonded with him. I haven't held him when he cried, cared for him when he's sick, learned what makes him laugh or calms his fears. I haven't had the joy of seeing my three children play together.  I haven't yet had to explain to him why he looks different than his brother and sister and mommy and daddy. I haven't yet explained to him that he did not grow in my tummy. I haven't had to look into his eyes when he asks about his biological family. I know it's coming. Laughter, tears, questions, anger, joy.... more than I can ever predict or plan for. I haven't been a perfect mama to my babies and I know I won't be perfect this time. Being a mom is such a huge part of who I am and more than anything I want to be the best I can for my kids. I pray I am worthy of the blessing of this most noble job.

This journey is a faith walk. It is not easy ...but what truly worthwhile thing in life is easy? The most rewarding things I've ever done have undoubtedly also been the most challenging.

So our family celebrates a milestone in our journey today. With pounding hearts and sweaty palms and complete confidence in the one who called us to this task!

"You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast because they trust in you."   Isaiah 26:3

Lord give me the strength and faith I need to obey you completely today.

Friday, July 5, 2013

Top 10 Things Our Home Study Taught Me

Wow, what a busy few months! End of school year, car accident that totaled our family's mini-van (yes, praise God, all were ok!) , our 11th wedding anniversary, buying a new (to us) minivan and last but not least a fundraising yard sale that made almost $3K!!!!!!!  So I'm a little (ok a LOT) behind on the blog!!

Good news! Our home study approval officially came to us July 3rd! That means that we move onto the next step in the process which is sending paperwork through US Customs and Immigration. This process will take 2-3 months and will include another round of fingerprinting for us and will ultimately approve us to bring a child from China home as a US citizen!

Our home study took a bit longer than average...the typical timeframe is 3-4 months. We had our first home study interview February 13th and got home study approval July 3rd. The process included a series of 5 interviews with our social worker, a MASSIVE paper trail....including FBI fingerprinting, lots of financial documents, physicals for all of us, letters from our doctors outlining our complete medical history, 9 letters of reference submitted, background checks on both of us for every state we have lived in since we turned 18, autobiographies each of us had to write, several pages of essay style discussion questions we had to type up and submit, and many hours of adoption education "homework" including online modules, articles and a reading "The Connected Child" book.

I thought I would share with you a few things this process has already taught me:

10) My parents did a great job teaching me manners. I am a talker. That may be an understatement. BUT...I try to know this about myself and be ever vigilant to guard against talking too much about myself. I was incredibly uncomfortable with this process of talking about myself and my family for hours on end to a social worker I barely know. She did a great job of making me feel comfortable, but still - it's awkward. During one interview I literally said "Can you please talk about yourself for a few minutes so I feel less awkward?" She did. She's nice like that.

9) I have an awesome husband. I knew this already, so I guess it is not completely accurate to say I learned this during our home study process, but it was very much reinforced. When your social worker asks you (in a private interview) what your husband does that brings you stress and the best answer you can think of is "The way he sorts the laundry"...you know you've got it good.

8) God will provide. Again...knew this, but needed reinforcement. Over and over He confirmed our decision with His providence just when we needed it. Our fundraisers have given us overwhelming encouragement and the gifts from friends have humbled us to the point of tears on more than one occasion.

7) The adoption community is COMPLETELY awesome. From helping us tremendously with our fundraisers to encouraging texts, cards and emails this community has welcomed us with open arms and a joy that is contagious. There is a support and understanding like none other in this special group of selfless families! We have also met other families currently in process through our agency's fellowship events that I already know will be dear friends for a lifetime!

6) We are ALL called to care for orphans, widows and the needy. We are NOT all called to adopt. I am humbled by so many beautiful individuals and families who have helped us so far- financially and otherwise- because they believe in what we are doing and are not able to do it themselves.

5) Adoption is SO hard. It is beautiful, but first it is broken. It is a wonderful plan B, but it still involves rejection, separation and pain. Praise God that He can redeem even the ugliness of broken families and bring beauty from ashes.

4) We could never ever do this alone. We are very aware of all the risks we are undertaking. The thought of parenting a child with medical special needs is scary. The unknowns are overwhelming. We do our best to make wise decisions and necessary preparations but our capabilities in the flesh fall very very short. What we know for sure is that God has asked us to do this. We will obey and His power will be made perfect in our weakness.

3) I have zero control. Over anything. I walked into this process thinking that this was the one area where I had a bit of control. I. WAS. WRONG. Papers get lost. Reference letters are late. This process is not nearly as urgent to anyone else as it is to me. After all this and being t-boned by a young driver who ran a red light and could have easily harmed or killed my children I have come to grips with the knowledge that every single day, every single breath is a gift and is not up to me.

2) When God asks you to do something He has many reasons. Some of which we may not know this side of Heaven. One sure bet - He wants to refine you. This can be painful. A friend who recently left behind a very comfortable life and gave away nearly all of her family's earthly possessions shared this truth with me. I can't do this (see # 4). HE can. HE did. HE gave up the comfort of Heaven to come to earth and adopt me, and it killed Him. I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.

1) To whom much is given, much is required. 'Nuff said.





Tuesday, April 23, 2013

An Update

Wow, it has been a busy few weeks! Distributing nearly 200 tubs of cookie dough, finishing our home study education, helping out with my mom's recovery from major surgery and a small out patient surgery for Steve has kept our family hopping!!

We hope to finish our home study within the next couple of weeks. We have done the majority of the work and have two remaining meetings with our social worker. The first, tomorrow morning to discuss our education (the longest leg of the home study and SUCH a relief to complete!!) and the last one to make sure all our documents are in and to discuss issues specific to international adoption (hopefully we can get this done next week!!). Then our social worker writes our home study! Once this is complete, we will begin applying for grants and other fundraising projects that require submission of a completed home study.

Praise the Lord, we have met our first short term fundraising goal of paying for our home study!! THANKS TO YOU!!!!! Through our Chick-fil-a day and our cookie sale we made nearly $1,000 and the rest has come from generous donations, so THANKS!!! You will never know how eternally grateful we are for your support and prayers! I can't stress that enough. I am SO humbled by it!!

Our next big fundraiser will be a yard sale on June 15th. Portland Christian School Eastside campus has graciously and generously allowed us to use their gymnasium for this event! That way we can have it rain or shine and have a staging area and preparation place to sort and price the donations that we hope will come pouring in!!! We are trying to make this thing BIG! We have seen several adoption fundraiser sales that have raised over a thousand dollars and we hope that this one will too. Please get in touch with either of us if you have items you wish to donate. We can make arrangements to get them from you. If possible, we'd like to wait until the week of the sale because that is when we will have access to the gym and we don't have much space in our home to store stuff, but if need be we will make it happen earlier!

Lastly, I wanted to share with you about our "Just Love Coffee Roasters" store. Just Love Coffee is a company with a mission to help orphans both through helping fund adoptions and helping to prevent children from becoming orphaned. They give funds to things like clean water projects in under developed countries. They have given us the opportunity to have an internet coffee store at absolutely ZERO cost to us. All we do is tell everyone we know to buy coffee from our store and we will get a check in the mail every month based on our sales!! How incredible is that?? They have lots of great stuff so if you are like me and are not a "coffee person" go ahead and check out some of the other great stuff they have! The best part is that we can keep the store for one year after the child is in our home to help offset the continued expense of the adoption!!  So go now!! Get some coffee justlovecoffee.com/differenceforone!! Or click on the Just Love Coffee logo up to the left!

Thanks so much for sharing this journey with us! More to come soon!!

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Loaves & Fish, Chicken & Cookie Dough

International adoption is expensive. Super duper expensive. It varies somewhat depending on the country, but in our case, we are looking at a price tag of about $30K. As I talk to people about what we are doing I get a lot of questions about this topic. Why does it cost so much? Do you pay all that at once? How in the world will you afford it?

First and foremost I must say that we are completely depending on God to provide for this cost. We certainly don't have a money tree out back. I've talked to many adoptive families and read tons of adoption blogs and the recurring theme I have seen over and over again is that God provides. In His way, in His time. It will take work and effort and commitment on our part, all of which we are willing and ready to give, but in the end we cannot do it in our own flesh. I don't know how He will do it for us, but He has asked us to do this and we will obey. He is already proving faithful.

The costs associated with adoption cover a wide variety of things. When we say $30K, that encompasses all of it. There are agency fees, home study fees, and travel expenses which make up a large portion of the cost. But there are lots of "little" costs too. So far we have paid  a $250 application fee to apply to adopt; a lump sum agency fee of around $2600 to start our home study and adoption process; for background checks (some states are free) in all the states we each have lived in since we were 18; FBI fingerprinting ($100 for both of us - $50 each); and required online training modules for parents adopting children from orphanages ($195). Up ahead in the process, we will be requesting re-issued official birth certificates (Steve's from Canada will be another $100, mine from Illinois will be around $26); we will be fingerprinted and processed for immigration; will get or update passports; will send our dossier (pronounced DOSS-ee-ay) to China; will pay immigration fees for our child; will get visas for our travel, purchase plane tickets to bring our baby home....the list goes on and on and everything has an associated cost!!

Many organizations exist to help adoptive families offset these expenses with grants. We hope and pray that we can obtain grants to cover a large portion of our expenses. However, almost all grants require the submission of a completed home study with application, and getting to the point of a completed home study requires ballpark $5500!! (We have found and applied for 2 grants that only require a home study in process.)

We hope to complete our home study in the next month or so, which will mean our next agency fee of $2600 is due. Knowing that this is imminent, has prompted our first efforts at fundraising.

Our first fundraiser, "Chicken for China" involved inviting everyone we know to eat at a specific Chick-fil-a on a specific day and the restaurant gave us 20% of the pre-tax dollars we brought in. It was a simple, easy fundraiser that was great fun and involved almost zero work on our part. We raised over $500 which astounded the owner and staff of the restaurant. We had an amazing turnout and lots of fun!!



We also just wrapped up selling tubs of cookie dough. We will have some extras when the tubs arrive in a couple weeks if anyone is still interested! We raised around $400 with this endeavor. We have also received some donations from some generous friends, but even after all this, we are needing about another $1000 for our next payment.

We are working on plans for a large yardsale and hope that you will consider donating anything you would like to get rid of that we could sell!!

I don't know how He will do it, but I know God will provide. An old friend of mine who has adopted twice from Ethiopia likes to say "God funds what He favors." We will work our tails off and He will make up the difference! The same hands that fed 5,000 men from five small loaves and two small fish will multiply our efforts. He may use grants, fundraising projects, or donations from you to transform a life from "orphan" to treasured member of our forever family!!!

Monday, March 11, 2013

I Am Coming For You

I Am Coming For You

In spite of your innocence you were cast aside
Unwanted at birth, the strings of nature untied
I know not why you were born into such stormy weather
But I am coming for you so we will brave it together

God has opened my eyes to my complacency
He has awakened my soul to the depth of your need
Now I cannot ignore the duty instilled in me
I will no longer retreat from my responsibility

You are unwanted no more, I am coming for you
I have heard your cries, I know the love you are due
I will wait no longer to bring you into my fold
I will not rest until you are all mine to hold

Though barriers abound I will hurdle them all
I will not be distracted or barred from the call
I will press on through the toughest attack
I am coming for you and I am not looking back

Doubts have been erased, the costs will be overcome
I will not be discouraged by the ignorance of some
I will put forth the effort no matter what it requires
I would swim across oceans, I would crawl through fires

You will not go hungry, you will not be a slave
You will not be destined for a premature grave
You will not be abandoned, you are one of the few
Who will have a chance, I am coming for you

I have no white horse, I have no armor to wear
If I were a hero I would already be there
But I am simply a father doing all that I can do
To make a difference for one child and that child is you

For you to be my own all would be sacrificed
Because you, too, deserve to know the love of Christ
For I am comforted when The Father says to me too
Despair not, my child, I am coming for you

By: Stephen Porter

Monday, March 4, 2013

From the Mouths of Babes

Explaining adoption to children has its challenges! Ever since we talked to our kids about it, they've been bickering about what they hope for....my daughter wants a sister and naturally, my son wants a brother. Why wouldn't they? They already have the opposite.

 My sweet almost 5 year old son adamantly told me he does NOT like little girls. I pointed out that this is completely untrue....he has lots of little girls that he loves to play with. After a little prodding, I uncovered the truth....there is one little girl in particular he doesn't like and he doesn't want to run the risk of a sister because what if she turns out like this girl?

A few days ago he came to me all excited and said "Mommy!! I have a GREAT idea!! We can adopt baby Maddie!!" (This happens to be the daughter of one of my dearest friends!)

 "Well, buddy, Maddie already has a family, silly! We can't adopt her!!"

He wrinkled up his nose and said "Ah shoot! I was trying to be nice to sis and say we could get a girl, but Maddie is the only baby girl I like!!"

So I explained to him that we would be adopting a baby from an orphanage that does not have a family. He said "Did you get me from one of those?"

"No, silly, you grew in my belly and then you lived in this house with this family ever since you were born!!"

Of course the next logical question...."How in the world did I get in your belly??"

Thankfully, he's 4.

"God knew I'd need a little boy just like you so he put you in there and made you grow till just the right time."

"Oh. Can I have a snack?"

And that was that!!

Friday, March 1, 2013

Working At It

I have a confession to make. This is hard. No, not the adoption....I mean, yes that is tremendously hard, but I fully expected that! This blogging and posting and pinning stuff is hard! Everything I read tells me that social media and blogging is absolutely invaluable to getting your story out and helping with funding your adoption. I look at lots of adoption blogs that seem so great and I just think..."wow... not sure I can live up to that." Everyone asks me..."have you set up a blog yet?" Clearly this girl needs to get with the times. Truth be told, I have almost no idea what I'm doing. I enjoy writing, but I'm pretty computer illiterate. I am just old enough to have never had the internet incorporated into my education except for maybe a tiny bit in late college!! Until now, I have not had much motivation to teach myself. I know the internet enough to do my job, google anything I have an urgent need to know, send emails and keep up with old friends on facebook. But blogging? not so much. (Thankfully I'm married to an IT guy, so I have help, but sometimes that ability to go "Babe, I need help!!" every time I try to do something online simply further enables my ignorance.) It isn't that I don't like blogging or facebook or pinterest. It's just that I am a bit uneasy putting myself out there to this degree. That and I am a working mama with limited time, so I feel a sudden pressure on top of all the mountains of work that is the adoption process that I need to be spending a bunch of time on social media. So please be patient with me. So many of you have reassured me that you are indeed interested and you are not going to hate me or avoid me because it seems that all I do is eat, sleep, breathe this stuff right now. Thank you. You have no idea how much I need to hear that right now. I am so encouraged in this process by all who have gone before us and promise me enthusiastically that it is worth it. So for now I will continue to work at this and remind myself that our journey is unlike anyone else's and that I can relax (a little) and be honest and authentic. Even if I'm not so great at the technical stuff! 

Monday, February 18, 2013

My Pregnant Heart

     We announced to the world this past week our plans to adopt an orphan from China and we were overwhelmed with the response! We started this blog so that those who want to can follow our story and walk this journey with us and also as a "journal" for our family to record our experience along the way. So many people have expressed an interest in this decision we have made and how we came to it, so I will attempt to start at the beginning and tell you how we conceived this "pregnancy of the heart." I struggle with writing this because I don't want my passion about this subject to come across as preachy.  Please hear my heart and know that the following story is unique and specific to my family at this time and the work that God has prepared for us to do.
      Looking back over the last several years, I see in hindsight so many little things leading up to this one big decision. I believe with all my heart that God has been active in this process and positioned us right where we are for such a time as this. My husband and I love being parents and our hearts' desire has always been to continue to grow our family. We have two beautiful children, a daughter and a son. Over the last year or so we have learned some things that have burdened our hearts. I don't want to overwhelm you with a bunch of statistics, but here are just a few of the things we have learned that had an impact on us:

26,000 children worldwide die preventable deaths every day due to things like lack of clean water, starvation and lack of healthcare
There are 46 million orphans worldwide
An estimated 40,000 orphans worldwide age out of their orphanages every day

The following statistics are specific to the conitnent of Asia:

An orphan "ages out" of their orphanage at the age of 16
60% of girls who age out of an orphanage turn to prostitution as their only means of supporting themselves
70% of boys who age out of an orphanage become hardened criminals
10-15% of orphans who age out of their orphanage commit suicide before their 18th birthday

These statistics, among others, gave us pause. What does it mean to follow Christ in a world so full of problems that one little family can't possibly solve? How do we reconcile all the commands in scripture to care for the "least of these" and to look after orphans and widows and reach out the poor with these seemingly insurmountable problems in the world? It is tempting to be overwhelmed and simply turn a blind eye to these issues because they seem so big. But how can we continue to live our comfortable suburban lifestyle with our nice house and mini van and privately educated children knowing that we will stand before God someday and he will hold us accountable for what we have or have not done for the "least of these"?  This restlessness took hold of both of us and wouldn't let us rest. We began months of fervent prayer for God's guidance. We read books, we sought Godly counsel and we spent some serious time on our knees. Over time it became clear that in this season, at this moment, the answer was that God was calling us to adopt. We have wanted more children for some time and He made it clear that this is how that is to happen for us.

In his powerful book, The Hole in Our Gospel, Richard Stearns paraphrases a story originally told by Loren Eisley:
      One early morning, after a fierce storm had hit the coast, I strolled to the beach for my morning walk. Horrified, I saw that tens of thousands of starfish had been washed up on the beach by the winds and waves. I was saddened by the realization that all of them would die, stranded on the shore, away from the life-giving water. Despairing that there was nothing I could do, I sat down on the sand and put my head in my hands.
      But then I heard a sound, and I lifted my eyes. There, in the distance, I saw a man bending down and then standing up, bending down and standing up. Curious, I rose and walked toward him. I saw that he was picking up the starfish, one at a time, and throwing them back into the sea.
    "What are you doing?" I yelled.
    "Saving the starfish," he replied.
    "But don't you see, man, that there are tens of thousands of them?" I asked, incredulous. "Nothing you can do will make a difference."
     He did not answer me, but instead bent down, picked up another starfish, and cast it back into the water. Then he smiled, looked me in the eye, and said, "It made a difference to that one!"
     
So here we are. Starting out on a long journey that will cost us a great deal of time, energy and money. Afraid, but passionate. Trusting the God who called us to this to provide the money and all that we will need along the way. Because one person can change the world. And one family can change the world for one.