Ready to be a Big Brother

At nearly 2 years old, J has grown into such a sweet, little boy.

We're so grateful for our amazing son! He makes every day bright.

"Where There Seems To Be No Way"

At this moment, you may be experiencing a drought in your life. It may appear that the losses are mounting. There's a good chance that discouragement knows your name. If so, please take heart...


“God, you were here all along, and I never knew it” says Jacob on awakening from his stone pillow.


"Such prayer, such seeing, takes away your anxiety about figuring it all out fully for yourself, or needing to be right about your formulations. God becomes more a verb than a noun, more a process than a conclusion, more an experience than a dogma, more a personal relationship than an idea. There is Someone dancing with you, and you are not so afraid of making mistakes. You know even those will be used in your favor. At that point you also have awakened from your stone pillow, and you know with a new clarity what you partly knew all along!" - Richard Rohr


May our eyes be opened to see the fountains in the Rock. May we wake up to see the ever-present Way.

Gracias,
Jeremy

5 Simple Ways You Can Help Our Adoption...and Wrap Up Your Christmas Shopping Too!

Amigos,

As National Adoption Month ends and December gets into full swing, I wanted to share 5 ideas with you. If you'd like to take part in our adoption while we work to quickly raise grant money (see Libby's post below), then one of these options might be right up your ally!

1) Donate through the PayPal button on the left-hand side of this blog.

2) Order a copy of one of our books or 100% of the profits will go to our adoption fees.

3) Buy some amazing creative gifts and clothing from the NO MORE FOUNDATION and select the cause "No More Orphans".

4) Buy some tasty JUST LOVE COFFEE. Mmm... I'm going to brew some now.

5) Please, pray that we will find favor with grant-giving organizations.

Gracias,
Jeremy

The Gift of a Detour

We have HUGE, amazing, life-altering news.

God has done a lot of dramatic stuff in our lives over the past 90 days, including designing a detour on our journey to China. My husband put it this way, "We are still going to China for our daughter, it's just that the road looked a lot shorter on the map, and now we are picking up another kid along the way."

Our son's birthmother is pregnant again and she asked us to parent this child as well. We already decided that we could not turn down a biological sibling, if that possibility ever existed. So, when we received the phone call from the agency who worked with us on our son's adoption, there was no hesitation.

I exclaimed a very excited and sure, "Yes!"

So in about 2 & 1/2 months, we will be blessed with a new bundle of joy. There are no words to express how grateful we are for the family God is weaving together. We are undeserving and humbled; blessed to be entrusted again by our birthmom. We love and admire her greatly. I'm so thankful for the gift she has given me.

The gender is still unknown. Little Sibling was not very cooperative with the ultrasound. But, they think this baby is a girl! We are exceedingly happy that J gets the chance to grow up with a biological sibling. I can't believe I will be a mother of two in two months!!!

We need a LOT of prayer as we prepare. Please, pray for our birthmom as she walks through this process and especially after the birth and beyond. We want her to have the amazing and happy life God designed for her. She is a blessing.

Of course, it is intimidating to be faced with new adoption fees and nearly no time to come up with them. Sooo much went into our China adoption (which that agency is keeping on hold.) We need favor with foundations and organizations who give adoption grants, especially those who give to keep siblings together.

We know God is in control of all of this. This baby is His. Thankfully, so is all of the funds necessary to bring this baby home. We're going to run in faith, knowing that He provides generously as we keep our hearts and hands open and obedient. As we're trusting Him, we're living in a state of calm and peace (for the moment anyway, ha ha).

Thank you to everyone who has been with us so far on this journey. Life is so unpredictable. It's moments like this when we get to be grateful that God will walk with us on the path we didn't see coming!



P.S. As you shop for Christmas presents, please consider picking up some gifts from our "Coffee", "Store" and "Books" links. The No More Foundation, Ordinary Hero and Just Love Coffee are helping us get the funds needed for this adoption. Blessings!

Humbled and celebrating

When we needed help quickly, in order to cross the next threshold in our China adoption, so many friends rushed to spread the word. Old and new friends along with people we had never met sent in money. In fact, the person who won the iPad was a complete stranger to us, until now.

The support we received was overwhelming. It wasn't just the donations that put us so much closer to our little ladybug. It was also the endless words of encouragement and belief. It was as if God just wrapped us up in this enormous hug. The love that has been shown to us has been so amazing and incredible.

Thank you for every prayer and kind thought you've expressed. Thank you for telling others about our journey. Thank you for every dollar you sacrificed to bring our daughter home.

Shortly after sending our immigration paperwork to the U.S. government, we were able to celebrate friends who are about to bring home their son from Ethiopia...we were able to celebrate the news of family and friends who are now expecting biological children...we were able to celebrate God's sovereignty over all of our lives.

No matter how many starts and stops, no matter the long periods in the "waiting room", no matter the doubt and worry that threatens to steal our joy, we're humbled by the community of loving people who surround us. We're all in this together, and He's placed us in the good care of one another.

The winner is...

Words can't express our gratitude to every person who has encouraged, contributed and told friends about this fundraiser for our little ladybug. Yet, we'll still attempt to put those words together, on our next post...

Gracias,

Jeremy

We're giving away a brand-new iPad 2! For realz!

We're excited and blessed with the news that our adoption agency has approved our home-study. This brings us one leap closer to our daughter in China. Now, we're faced with a new challenge: raising over $3,500 in the next couple of weeks in order to file our immigration paperwork and lock in our dossier. (We are now at 72% towards this goal!)

With this gulp-tastic deadline standing in our way, we were stunned with gratitude yesterday when some generous friends handed us a brand-new Apple iPad 2, 16 GB WiFi edition. Would you like to take it home? That's right. We're giving it away!

Here's how it works: We have a PayPal Donate button on the left-hand side of our blog. Beginning 8/6 if you:

Donate $10 then you get one chance.

Donate $25 then you get three chances.

After you've donated to our China adoption journey, you can take these actions for one additional chance.

1. Repost this on your blog or on your Facebook.

2. Tweet or email a link to this blog post to your friends.

(Don't forget to let us know you've earned the extra chance!)

The fine print disclaimer: In order for this FUNdraiser to happen we must raise at least $1,000 for the giveaway to be ON! (We reached this threshold on Tuesday night, 8/10!)

We will tally chances for donations received until 12:00 a.m. EST on Sunday 8/14 and we'll announce the winner here on the blog at 6:00 p.m. EST. Stay tuned!

This is NOT a r-a-f-f-l-e, please do not mention anywhere that it is.

Thank you for helping us beat this deadline, getting us that much closer to our daughter.