To Die is Gain...

When you are forgotten, or neglected, or purposely set at naught, and you don't sting and hurt with the insult or the oversight, but your heart is happy, being counted worthy to suffer for Christ.

~THAT IS DYING TO SELF~

When your good is spoken evil of, when your wishes are crossed, your advice disregarded, your opinions ridiculed, and you refuse to let anger rise in your heart, or even defemd yourself, but take it all in patient, loving silence.

~THAT IS DYING TO SELF~

When you lovingly and patiently bear any discomfort, any irregularity, any unpunctuality or any annoyance; when you stand face-to-face with waste, folly, extravagance, spiritual insensibility and endure it as Jesus endured.

~THAT IS DYING TO SELF~

When you are content with any food, any offering, any climate, any society, any raiment, any interruption by the will of God.

~THAT IS DYING TO SELF~

When you never care to refer to yourself in conversation, or to record your own good works or itch after commendations, when you can truly love to be unknown.

~THAT IS DYING TO SELF~

When you can see your brother prosper and have his needs met and can honestly rejoice with him in spirit and feel no envy, nor question God, while your own needs are far greater and in desperate circumstances.

~THAT IS DYING TO SELF~

When you can receive correction and reproof from one of less stature than yourself and can humbly submit inwardly as well as outwardly, finding no rebellion or resentment rising up within your heart.

~THAT IS DYING TO SELF~

Are you dead yet?

In these last days, that the Spirit would bring us to the cross.

~Author unknown

Sanctity of Human Life Sunday

sanctity~godliness, holiness, sacredness

"For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be." ~Psalm 139:13-16

I pray that you will take time to reflect today on the preciousness of life and thank our loving Creator for His love extended to you.

In His Grip,

The Gift of Life

We have a beautiful 14 month old son named Asa. He is super cuddly, with a smile that will win your heart and blue eyes that pierce your soul. He is the sweetest little man you could ever meet. We soak up his kisses and delight in his giggles. Life before Asa was nowhere near as sweet as it is now.

Since Ace joined our family we have had the pleasure of answering the many questions that come with being the parents of a child with special needs. Rather than feel put out by these inquiries, we look at them as opportunities to share what a joy it has been to have a child with Down syndrome. By far the question we get asked the most is "Did you know he was going to be born with Down syndrome?" Often times this question is asked with an undertone of sympathy. There are those that will then go on to express grief for us and some have even apologized to us when they remark on Asa's condition. I think most are surprised when we assure them that we have never shared in that grief and have no need for sympathy.

In fact, we strongly feel that we are the ones that carry a heavy burden of sympathy. Sympathy for a world that fails to see the value in each and every life that God has deemed worthy of creation. We grieve and mourn the loss of the 90 percent of babies that are aborted every year when their mothers discover that they have Down syndrome. Our hearts break for a society that views children born with special needs as a burden. And as we look into the sapphire eyes of our precious son, it is us that grieve the reality that he will likely face ridicule and rejection many times over because of his condition.

But deeply intertwined with our grief is love. A consuming love for our son that drives us to pray for this fallen world and fills our hearts with the hope that there will come a day when ALL human life is viewed as sacred. Oh, how God must grieve when He looks upon His creation and sees how little we cherish the gift of life that He so lovingly bestowed on us!
This coming Sunday is Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. Will you please take time on that day to celebrate the intrinsic value of all human life?

He was sent to us on November 20, 2009, born with an extra chromosome and our lives are richer for it...

In His Grip,

The Cost

Since starting our adoption journey we have been asked quite a few times about the cost of adoption. Most people are shocked when we tell them how much it will cost to bring both boys home. To tell you the truth, Tim and I were also taken aback when we first discovered the cost of adoption. We agree that it is a large amount of money. I think most people would also agree that there is NO cost too high to spare when you consider that this is the life of two children that we are talking about. For those that are curious, here is the breakdown of our expected costs, minus airfare, lodging and other expenses for our trip to China:

$4,ooo Adoption agency fees
$3,900 International processing fee
$400-700 Dossier documenting fees
$1,500 Overseas processing fee
$10,180 (2 children/orphanages) Required orphanage donation
$1,500 In-country legal expenses
________________________

approximately $21,480 with travel, lodging, etc added to that.

Sadly, these incredible costs often deter many from even considering adding to their family by this means. We certainly are not wealthy and our personal finances are limited, but we know that God is bigger than finances! We also know that He has a special place in His heart for orphans. James 1:27 tells us that "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." Keeping this in mind, we are confident that He has put us on THIS path, championing the cause of THESE particular orphans, and that He will be faithful to provide the resources to get our sweet boys home. How exactly? We aren't sure, but we are excited to see how He is going to work out His plan.

All that to say, we are not going to take a passive stance and wait for others to act while we do nothing on our own behalf. We have already been working hard to raise funds and are actively looking for ways to pay for the adoption. One thing we have done so far is a garage sale that we had in December. Friends and family donated items for us to sale and we were able to raise $700. It was so fun for Tim and I to share that experience with our children and for them to witness God's provision through the hearts of those that donated and those that purchased items. We have also been blessed to receive a couple of generous donations from friends and family and plan to apply for grants once our home study is completed. We have a few ideas for fundraisers that we would like to try and are looking for more ideas if anyone has any that they would like to share. Of course, above all we are trusting God to provide for His children to find their way home. After all, He loves them even more than we do and His plan for them is a good one.

"For I know the plans I have for you ," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future."~ Jeremiah 29:11


In His Grip,

Here We Grow Again!!

I know, I know , I am a huge blog flunky! My last post was almost a month ago, but I promise I have a good excuse for neglecting my poor blog. In addition to the hurry and scurry of the holiday season, we have been busy working hard on bringing our boys home from China.

BOYS??!! Yes, I said boys! With an "s" ! Like more than one!! Yes, I'm officially announcing that this time next year, our family will have two more sweet blessings to share the holidays with. We are so excited!!

So, how did we go from adding one more kidlet to the crew to adding two? Well, I guess a little back story is in order here. We had let our agency know from the very beginning of our journey that we were interested in trying to bring home two little ones in the same trip. Our agency agreed to work with us on our efforts and we began discussing with them the type of special needs we would consider. We committed to Min Wu very quickly and then began to look at the files of a couple of little girls that we hoped would fit into our family. One of the little girls, Fu Mei, absolutely melted my heart and we requested her medical file so that we could determine whether or not we could adequately meet all of her needs. After receiving her file I began to research her condition on the web and realized very quickly that her needs were beyond our means of provision. My heart was broken. I cried as I called and told our case worker that we could not commit to Fu Mei. She asked if we would be interested in seeing more files. I really had to pause and consider her offer. I can't fully explain it, but there was a part of me that felt a real connection to this sweet little one that we had to say no to. I was not in a hurry to "replace" her spot in my heart. I declined the offer to view more files and hung up grieving over the reality that we just weren't the mommy and daddy that this precious little one needed. We were overjoyed to hear about a week later that she had been placed with another family and I rejoiced knowing that God had given her the gift of a forever family.

After some time I began to recover from the sadness and we began to talk again about looking at the files of some other little girls. At this point, something changed on our agencies side of things. They let us know that it was in their opinion that trying to bring home another child in addition to our Wu who has DS, was going to be too much when we already had two toddlers at home. We were disappointed at their decision, our social worker was disappointed, our children were disappointed, but we had no choice to accept it. That was early November.

We began to start putting the paperwork together for our impending home study. I have to say that I really had NO idea how much paperwork was involved with an adoption before we started our own. It really is an unbelievable amount and we haven't even started putting our dossier together yet!! CRAZY is the only word I can think of to explain how I felt trying to balance all of it with our already very full schedule. And even though busy can't even begin to explain the pace I was keeping with husband, children, home school, house and holidays, the idea that God still wanted us to try and bring home TWO children from China would not stop invading my thoughts.

So, although our agency had said no, I began to keep my eyes and heart open when visiting adoption advocacy sites. After reading many stories and seeing the beautiful faces of TOO many sweet children that were just waiting for their chance to belong to a family, I was determined to show our agency that we were capable of bringing home more than one child. While visiting our agencies website one day, I saw the picture of an adorable six year old boy with a beautiful smile and sparkling brown eyes. I was smitten and quickly clicked to view his bio. It described him as helpful, thoughtful, articulate and bright. It also stated that his favorite subject in school was English, that he loved super heroes and that when he grew up he wanted to be a police officer (hey, I happen to have on of those! :). He reminded me so much of my Adam and I instantly recalled the numerous times that he had asked us to "please adopt a brother my age to play with". I was so excited about this little boy and the thought that maybe he was meant to be our son. I could barely contain my excitement! But, I still needed to tell Tim about him and then there was the whole agency issue to overcome. Well, of course, Tim was on board right away. Knowing that he was committed and confident about adding this sweet boy to our family gave me the courage that I needed to make the call to our case worker.

I nervously dialed the number to our agency. I can't remember our exact conversation, but I can tell you that she did not in anyway communicate anything at all positive in regards to our chances of her director approving us to adopt this boy. As I listened to her try to find "good and logical" reasons for why we probably wouldn't be approved to adopt two at once, a bit of doubt began to creep into my mind. "It's over", I thought. "They are for sure gonna say no." She let me know that she would get back with me later that day. I hung up sad and dejected. To tell you the truth, I wasn't just sad I was also mad! I went to find Tim and tell him about the frustrating conversation that I had with the agency and of course to cry on his shoulder a little bit. "How could they say no?" I thought. "How could they let this child possibly miss out on the opportunity to have a family?" "Everyone in the adoption world knows how hard it is to place boys, especially older boys, for no other reason other than they are boys!" It just didn't seem fair! Before I could throw a huge fit, God reminded me that if He was for us, then who could be against us? I sat on the couch with My Love to try and think of how to pass the rest of the day while patiently waiting for the agency to call us back with their decision. Not even five minutes had gone by when we got the call from our caseworker letting us know that they had decided to approve our family to adopt another boy in addition to our sweet little Min Wu!! We were sent the file of the little boy I had seen online and learned that his name was Ke Xin, born June 15, 2004. We immediatly began the paperwork to start the process to bring him home. Within a couple of days we had submitted our pre-approval paperwork to our agency and they in turn sent our paperwork off to China. We were delighted to receive a call two days before Christmas letting us know that we had received pre-approval from China to adopt Ke Xin!!

So, here we grow again!!! I'm tellin' ya, our God is SO good!!!!

Ke Xin

In His Grip,