Community of Hope

***This is an article I wrote for the newsletter of Jeeah's Hope, a local adoption and foster care ministry which has been a tremendous help for us along the way. The article is sort of a summary of our adoption journey so far. We're almost there!***

International adoption has been a dream of ours for many years. For me, the call began when I was in college, babysitting a little girl adopted from China. I used to stare at her, silently praising God for rescuing her from the streets and bringing her into the safety of her loving home. Since that time, when I dreamed about my future family, I prayed that God would give me adopted children, even if that meant not having biological children.

After only two years of marriage, we felt ready to adopt, but we weren’t sure where to start. Thankfully, God led us to a church community where adoption is celebrated. Some friends at church had already adopted two precious children from India, and God had provided most of their adoption expenses, so we started asking questions. We knew we couldn’t fund an adoption ourselves, but surely God would provide for us as He had for them. We just had to take a leap of faith.

Our first home study visit with Lifeline was in October 2011. As we explored our options, it became clear that an adoption from India would be the best fit for our family. We signed on with Island Coast International Adoptions, and received a referral in December.

We didn’t know what to do with the referral! Here was this file and photograph of a beautiful, four-year-old girl. We had a choice. Did we want her? Of course we did! Did we have faith that God would provide the means to bring her home? Sort of. We needed some encouragement.

We found the encouragement we needed through fellowship with other adoptive and foster care families within the Jeeah’s Hope community. Many of these families have already adopted one or more children. They all have unique stories. They have completed the piles of paperwork. They have waited, with their hearts in their throats, to hear news of their adoptive children. They have been through the disappointments. They weren’t surprised or discouraged by delays in the process. They understood the significance of each step of the process, and wanted to celebrate with us. Jeeah’s Hope has been a safe place for us throughout this adoption process.

When we heard that Jeeah’s Hope could offer financial assistance through matching grants or no-interest loans, we had little faith that we could match $4,000, so we considered applying for the loan. Thankfully, we were urged to apply for the matching grant instead, so we did. We strove to raise the funds we needed. We shamelessly asked friends and family for donations, and we participated in fundraisers galore. But you know what? It turns out we were right about not being able to match that $4,000 grant on our own strength. Only God could do it, and He did. The funds came in through unbelievable, amazing, and humbling channels. Our faith has grown so much through this process, and our passion for adoption is stronger than ever.

God has shown us, through providing the support we needed to adopt our daughter, that adoption really is His perfect plan for our lives. "Anna" really is our daughter, and He will do everything to bring her home into His family.

Adoption is a picture of God’s love for us. We fully believe that God has allowed us to go through this process in order to give us a glimpse of His never failing love for us. He really did seek us when we were strangers. He really will love us no matter what. As believers in Him, we really are forgiven our sins and made perfect in His sight. When God looks at us, He sees our brokenness and loves us anyway. Without Him, we would all be orphans.

Praise be to God, who promises:

“Do not fear, for I am with you;
    I will bring your offspring from the east,
    and from the west I will gather you.
⁶ I will say to the north, Give up,
    and to the south, Do not withhold;
bring my sons from afar
    and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name,
    whom I created for my glory,
    whom I formed and made.”

Isaiah 43:5-7

No Objection!

These are photos of our daughter's room. My sister helped me finish some projects last week, just in time, because...

My husband came home early from his deployment to Kuwait! Yay! He was allowed to come home early because his active duty Army contract will be finished in February, and it will take a few months for the military to out-process him.  So, it looks like our prayers have been answered and he will be able to travel with me to India when it comes time to adopt our daughter!

We received our No Objection Certificate (NOC) from India last week, which means the Indian government has deemed us eligible to apply for adoption in their country. Whoohoo! We’ve been waiting and waiting for this! Now, our case will go to court, and we think there will be three court dates. Our legal representatives in India will handle the first two court dates for us, but since the last court date is to grant us custody of our daughter, we will need to be there ourselves! 

We should have an estimated travel date soon!

Two of the other families adopting from India are in the same stage of the process, so it looks like we may all be able to travel together. That would be such a blessing for all of us! The children could support each other through the trauma of being taken from the orphanage to live with strangers in an unfamiliar place. We would get to see them all interacting together, speaking their native language! Can you imagine? And we could celebrate our children's “gotcha days” together for years to come!

Our adoption agent says there’s only a slim chance that we will be able to bring our daughter home before December 31^st, which is disappointing, but it will still be soon! Maybe in January? And we can still pray that we will have our daughter home in time for Christmas! All things are possible, right? There is always hope. 

 

It’s been a year now since our first home study visit. Our daughter has been growing in our hearts for more than a year. This is what we estimated…14-15 months to complete the whole process. It’s longer than a pregnancy. I got paper cuts instead of stretch marks. And we're getting a kindergartener instead of an infant. Kindergarteners are my favorite!

This adoption is going to be a dream come true. 

p.s. One of the families in our India Adoption group was able to raise $30,000 in one week through the Both Hands/Homes for Heroes fundraiser! And they raised even more through other routes! Their adoption is now fully funded! Isn't God amazing in His provision for His children?!

Happy Dance Part 2!

My heart skips a beat when I open my mailbox to find correspondence from US immigration.

Today, it was good news! Our application for our daughter's immigration from India has been approved on the next level! Happy dance!

Now, we wait for an email asking for her visa application and photo. When that comes, you had better believe that immigration office will have what they need from us right away!

We are so thankful to have her visa photo on hand, sent from the orphanage via our adoption agency. Her hair is a little longer now! Hope she's ready for some ribbons and bows!

My parents came to visit and bought her a swing set. They worked hard to get that thing put together! It's all set up in the backyard now, and she even has her own patio chair!

Please pray that she will come home before Christmas!

"How Good and Pleasant..."

"How good and pleasant it is  when God’s people live together in unity!"     - Psalm 133:1
    My husband called me on Skype just as I was leaving for church this morning, so I was late entering the sanctuary for service. I found a seat in the back of the church, beside my friend and her two children. When the children had been dismissed for children's church, another friend came and sat on the other side of me. 
    So there we were, three Army wives, believers, whose husbands were not able to come to church with us today. Seeing the smiles of my friends brought tears of joy to my eyes. I thought to myself how thankful I am to be surrounded by friends, especially when my husband is away and my daughter is still in the orphanage.
    And then, the sermon was on community, how important it is to dive in and build relationships, how much we need each other. And so it was even harder to hold back thankful tears.
   Another friend invited me to lunch, and we were able to sit and talk together while her older children sat at a nearby table on their own. Fellowship is so sweet!
   Not a day goes by that I am not reminded of the loving, supportive, helpful community all around me.
   I am thankful to know that we will bringing our daughter home to such a caring community. 
   Praise God from Whom all blessings flow.

Immigration Happy Dance....God does provide!

When we walked in the door at the immigration office, (for the second time because the first time they made us return my purse and our cell phones to the car), we handed our IDs and appointment letters to the guard, and I quickly explained that while this was not our appointment date, we knew that we would be allowed in because my Soldier was wearing his uniform. The guy looked at me and asked, “So you’re just going to use him like that?” And I said, “yes.” Luckily, the guy laughed instead of arresting me, or kicking us out, or something silly like that.

I was going to tell you that we did a happy dance while standing in line waiting to be given another form to fill out, but my husband wants me to make it clear that it was me who danced, and he just stood there in uniform and supported me, which is good, because a few minutes later some very official looking federal officers walked in the door, and if they had seen a Soldier dancing in uniform, who knows what would have happened?

After a lovely conversation with a friendly British immigrant, our numbers were called and our fingerprints taken on a fancy, computerized, biometric fingerprint-taker, and when we had left the building, escaped the rainstorm outside and closed our car doors, we both squealed in delight...both of us, uniform or not, and that’s the truth, because we’re sooooo excited and thankful! Finally, we’ve jumped through the hoop of having our third set of fingerprints completed for our adoption application! And now, we wait for India and the U.S. to decide that we’re allowed to adopt our daughter, which we will be, because God is all about adoption, and this whole thing was His idea, but maybe it just makes the authorities feel better if they get to have a say.

God has been faithful to provide!

• We have received two grants, one a matched $4,000 from Jeeah’s Hope/Lifesong for Orphans, the other $8,000 from The JCS Foundation.

• Lifesong for Orphans has been helpful, caring and easy to work with. All checks made out to Lifesong with our name and number (2600) in the memo line are tax-deductible and go directly toward paying our adoption fees! In the past few months, Lifesong has managed all of the funds from donations, sending checks directly to the adoption agency as fees were due.

• Generous donations of time and money from family and friends, combined with proceeds from various fundraisers such as Quilting for Orphans, Flowers for Families, Ergon handmade Indian stationary and Amazima handmade Ugandan necklaces from 147 Million Orphans. 

• Last month’s Project 5x7 silent art auction was a huge success, bringing in almost $7,000 to be shared among the four adoptive families who are raising funds to adopt from India as part of Project 5x7. 

• Through God’s provision of these grants, donations and fundraisers, we now only owe our adoption agency about $3,000 more! After that, we will need about $6,000 for travel. Isn’t that amazing?!?

Just look what God has done! He promises that He will provide for our needs, and He has! And He will continue to do so!

In addition to our ongoing Amazima and Ergon fundraisers, there are two more fundraising projects in the works:

• An adoptive family who owns a local pick-your-own-blueberries patch has generously offered to donate all proceeds from this summer’s harvest to benefit Project 5x7, the adoptions of the four families (including us) in our area who are adopting from India!

• A local Chick-fil-A is sponsoring a Spirit night this week to raise money for these four adoptions! Twenty percent of sales from patrons who mention the Project 5x7 cause at the counter will go toward the adoptions!

• We plan to apply for more grants as necessary, and we know that God will provide every penny we need to bring our daughter home, just as He has been doing already.

• A local newspaper is publishing our story this week, along with the stories of the three other adoptive families involved in our adoption fundraising. I can’t wait to see how God continues to work!

God is good. Thank you for supporting us and loving our daughter. Thank you for your prayers!

Glory to God in the Highest! 

no preference

I've been painting our daughter's dresser and bookshelves. So far, I've done three coats of white primer. My vision is to recreate Sleepy Beauty's forest on that furniture, with trees, flowers, squirrels, birds, chipmunks, you get the idea. But there will be no Disney princesses decorating her room, because I don't want her to ever think that beauty means being skinny, busty, blonde or fair-skinned.

Not that I have a problem with Disney. It's magical. Our daughter will have the movies and sing the songs, and we will let her play with Disney princess toys if she likes. But that image won't be presented as the ideal, I hope. At this point in her life, I'm pretty sure she doesn't have a favorite Disney princess, or a favorite color, or a favorite animal. She hasn't been given the privilege of developing such preferences. She's never had a lot of choices. But she will.

If you've ever been outside the US for an extended period of time and freaked out when you returned to be confronted with the many choices available at any given US store, you might sort of understand how our daughter will feel when she hits the US. She's already going to be traumatized by the fact that she's just been removed from everything she's ever known, even if everything she's ever known is nothing that any of us would ever want to experience.

She probably has some understanding that her life in the orphanage, consistently having something to eat, clothes to wear and a school to attend, has made her so much more fortunate than many other children who have nowhere to sleep, nothing to eat and no chance of education.

Soon though, our daughter will be even richer! She will be among the richest people in the world, simply because she will have health insurance, a roof over her head, nutritious food at least three times a day, plenty of clothing, her own bedroom and family and friends who love her dearly and will protect her always. That is how God has chosen to love us, and by His grace, that is how we will choose to love our daughter. God wants to give us all that is good and pure and true, and that is what we want for our girl. All will be done to bring her safely home to blessing and peace. And for now, she has no choice in the matter. :)

Thank you for praying. Thank you for supporting our cause. Because of God's grace in giving us the support of friends like you, our daughter will know that she is loved.

faithful care

Under different circumstances, our daughter might not be in an orphanage right now. It could have been much worse. Had God not seen to it that she was cared for, that someone was merciful enough to leave her in capable hands, she might be on the streets fending for herself. But she's not. She's safe. Jesus rescued her.

Sure, I worry that she might be malnourished and unhappy in the orphanage, sharing her living space with so many other children, but compared to most orphans around the world, she's hit the jackpot.

These were some of my thoughts as I lay awake last night: Where was she born? In a shack? On the floor? In a crowded hospital? In an alley? Praise God for the orphanage. Praise Jesus that our daughter is being fed, clothed and educated.

God is providing for our daughter's needs, just as He has always provided for us...comforting for a mama whose baby is with strangers half a world away, and whose husband will soon be deployed in that direction.

Praise God for His faithful care.

As an update, we're waiting for US immigration to approve our application so we can go get our biometric fingerprints taken. Always waiting. Please pray for us.
Praise God for providing the funds we need, when we need them.
Please pray that the funds continue to come in. We're waiting to hear from a grant organization, and our silent art auction is next weekend! Can't wait to see how His will is accomplished!