step by step

We are getting there day by day!! Along with playing with my blogsite, I have been diligent in working on paperwork! I finally finished my autobiograpy (6 pages long!!) and Tim is currently working on his. The financial statements are completed, the criminal checks done, and my employment letter is done (we have to wait on Tims obviously) I know that several of our reference letters have been returned so we will get there soon!! The homestudy is looming as well as the psych evaluation. Not so much fun I am sure! We are hopefully waiting for a response from an agency that has requested information and recent pictures of baby dini (samuel???) Still working on the name thing obviously. I had a bunch of fun picking out a really soft blankie and a soft racecar for our first care package. I am waiting for the size update before buying some outfits for him. We have had some issues this weekend as well. Our refrigerator went out (not really what we needed at this time) and we are trying to find a way to use up Tims Healthcare savings account so we dont lose the $$$$ (too bad they wont let us use it for our adoption!) I guess if worse comes to worse we will have more tylenol and bandaids for the entire state! I am still playing with the formating of this blog so dont be surprised if you log on and find it looking different. I have a guestbook now and an old chinese proverb...so make sure you go ahead and scroll down. All in all it has been a crazy week. I am having a hard time believing that it hasnt even been a week since I signed the papers stating that we want him to belong to us! God has so definately blessed us more than imaginable! Please just continue to pray for us and our little one.

drowning in paperwork!!

Well we are well on our way to completing all of our paperwork. Birth certificates were sent for, marriage certificates obtained and criminal historys checked in 2 states!! Reference letters, financial reports, pysch testing and physicals for EVERYONE is up next on my to do list along with autobiographies that are really really personal! You certainly cant be a private person and adopt a child from china! God has blessed us so very much this week! Not only did we get to sign the papers to start the process of bringing home our new son, Tim recieved a job offer that we had been praying for for many months now. Tim was able to find a job that would allow him to be home more (NO MORE TRAVELING!!) as well as have more time for his family and his need to do more in ministry. It was an income cut for us, but we feel secure that this is the direction God is leading us. We also were very thankful to find out that the Hand In Hand office in Arizona has 4 families traveling to Nanjing SWI and we can send a package there for one of them to take to Baby Dini (still undecided....jonathon maybe)
hopefully close to his 2nd birthday. I did utilize a website today that will make orphanage phone calls and ask 10 questions for us as well as request some current pictures so I can get his size now since I am sure that he has grown since January! I will let you all know when I get some updates again!! It has been an exciting week all in all with lots of changes. Please keep praying for us, for our patience and for our little guy all the way across the world.

Its official!!

Ok,
So as of today, July 21st...we are officially matched with our new son!!! I went to the adoption agency this morning to officially fill out our paperwork...UGHHH and was totally surprised to get some new pictures IN COLOR!! They were all taken on the same day as the blurry black and white ones, but these were more and in color!! I just started crying! What an unexpected blessing to get. Tim was in Michigan when I got out of the meeting so I took a picture of the picture and texted it to him!! Of course he was saying what a cutie he was but "does he have on a pink shirt?????" I am certain that he will be getting a care package soon from us that will be including some very blue clothing!! It is going to be a long and bumpy road to get there but we have faith that all will be well and baby Dini will be home with us soon! Tim is still working on the name (I only get veto power) but we will update that as soon as we can too.

The email came back in one hour...that is unheard of, however instead of getting a little girl with a heart defect, the referral was for a little boy with a totally different defect that has already been repaired!!! We recieved his social and medical report as well as a pretty grainy picture that had been copied or faxed one too many times! Wow what a shock that was for us! It took Tim and I a little while to adjust to the idea of a boy vs a girl and we did lots of research on an entirely new birth defect but just looking at that picture and reading his "story" he has already become such a vital member of this family who is missing to us! Hau Yong Yang was born on August 11, 2006 and is currently living in Nanjing Social Childrens Welfare Institute. Our whole family feels that God lead us to this sweet adorable little guy. We are currently finishing up our application and sending off for our certified copies of birth certificates. The first steps in a very long, detailed and expensive process. Please pray for us that we can easily go through the process of bringing our son home quickly.

July 17th 2008

We have begun an amazing and terrifying journey. Tim and I have felt that we are being called to adopt another child into our home. We have discussed adoption many times in the past with our desire to have a larger family however it was always something that we put into the back of our minds. God had a different plan for us there. On Fathers Day of this year we ran into a family we had not seen in a while who had adopted a special little girl from China recently. We visited for quite a while and their 2 daughters were just beautiful. Tim and I asked them a lot of questions about their own adoption and the experience. We parted then and promised to keep in touch and our family went about our celebration of fathers day. We all talked at lunch that day how we would all like to do that someday and that was that or so we thought. Somehow neither Tim or I could get the idea of adopting out of our minds. God was working in both of our hearts and we started discussing it more and more. We thought that we would like to adopt a little girl from China who had special needs that we could help her with. As you know our middle daughter Emily has multiple congenital heart defects and has had many open heart surgeries and that was what we were planning on, but with only being 1 year past Em's last surgery it still was a way off. Obviously God had different plans for us because less than 1 month later we could not stop thinking about it, had prayed about it and started to research all it entailed. We decided to go to an informational meeting presented by an agency here in Indiana Hand In Hand. They specialize in international adoptions and have a wonderful program called United in Hope for special needs children in Nanjing Orphanage. We went to the meeting on Tuesday and filled out our paperwork for the special needs we would be willing to accept on Thursday. I faxed it in from work at 2:00 in the afternoon and by 3 Pm I had an email titled I was Just Wondering from Vickie at the adoption agency. This is how God's plan became very clear to us both.