“For this Child we have prayed…”

As of Wednesday May 14th we have been matched with a sweet little 4 year old girl in China. We cannot begin to tell you how much we believe God completely orchestrated this match, as he did with Ellie. He has been instrumental in both of our adoptions and we are so very thankful for His presence in these journeys. They can be long and tedious, emotional and costly and filled with both brokenness and joy.

Prior to about a two weeks ago we did not know who this little girl was and as we were working towards a completed and approved home study and knowing the “matching” process would be a logical next step we were a little anxious, both in wanting to find our child and wanting to follow God’s lead. And then there she was! The same week our home study was completd and approved we saw her face and knew she was who God intended us to run after. The story surrounding this was no accident. God placed opportunities and moments in our path so we would find her. Brian has become invovled with an organization called RODS, where the mission is to bring orphans with Down syndrome home to their forever families. They work to raise money to help ease the costs of bringing these kids home. Through his invovlment we became aware and began inquiring about a little girl and in that found out she was actually through our current placement agency. If you have not adopted before or are uncertain as to how it all works, you need a placement agency to work with you during the matching and all the documents to allow the match leading up to travel. We had chosen to go with Agape several months ago due to a file they had on a child that we felt very drawn too. However, we were not the only family seeking that child out and she was matched with another family a few months ago that had an approved home study (we were still in the midst of ours). In that moment, despite it feeling hard, we felt assured that God had led us to use Agape through this child because another child would be presented to us, and she was, 3 months later, through our connection with RODS.

So, what’s next? We submitted our Letter of Interest (LOI) for this specific child. This has been submitted to China and they will likely provide us with Pre Approval (PA). Typically they would also give something called a Letter of Acceptance (LOA) but they are currently not giving those due to the hault in some of their adoption processees at this time. But we will still push on, beginning work on collecting all documents necessary to submit our Dossier, waiting on our finger printing appointment and applying for some much needed adoption grants for the expenses to come. The timeline is unpredictable. With Ellie it took 12 months from start to finish. We know this is very unlikely given the closed borders and little movement towards reopening. But we remain faithful in God’s timing for this and there are things going on behind the scenes to get things moving again. Families are advocating with government officials and moving them towards finding ways that may potentially allow families to travel again to bring their children home. We are not giving up! China has been closed for over a year and we know there are hundreds of families ahead of us that have been waiting that entire time, some who were prapared to travel in March of 2020 when the world shut down. They had already completed all necessary steps and were simple waiting on their travel dates, they had known their child for almost a year in pictures, videos and updates and suddenly their ability to get them and bring them home was delayed. It has been excruciating for these families and all of those that have come after them. This is the reality we knew we were stepping into but we truly feel our hearts are in China and after seeing this sweet little girls face we know we will continue to move forward and pray daily for China’s borders to open, not just for us but for all those other families waiting.

We have already begun to raise funds to pay for fees as they come and have been blessed by friends, family and complete strangers. This past weekend Paul Paschal ran 94 miles on the White Pine Trail to raise money for our family’s adoption and to bring awareness to adoption. In one day we were able to raise close to $6500! It was absolutely amazing and Brian and I have both said that even if we thanked everyone who donated and/or prayed those words would seem insufficient to describe how we actullly felt in regards to this. A thank you just does not do it justice. So, if you donated and/or prayed please know that our basic “thank you” was coming from a place deep down in our hearts that were overjoyed and so grateful for everything, a place where words just do not do the job. And the sacrifice that Paul and his family made that day, spending their entire day running/supporting his running, was amazing. We had never met them until this past Saturday when Brian met Paul at 3:30am to join him for a couple miles at the start. But Paul has a heart for this, he was an orphan himself and his family is now seeking to adopt a child from South Korea. They wanted to pay it forward, as they have been blessed with others generosity. So they put an offer out to Rebecca (Clara’s Cookies–a fundraiser we did the last time) and she pointed them to us and that was it!

And now we are on to the next fundraiser, one thought of and planned for by our children when we were in the process of adopting Ellie. A Memorial Day weekend Lemonade stand. The last time they sat outside at the end of our driveway for 3 days and raised just over $800. It was so impactful and powerful for them to see the generosity of so many and to feel their work being a part of bringing their sister home. So they intend to do it again and are so excited! So, if you are around that weekend come out and see them! We will share exact days and times as we get closer.

We also continue to have our sock fundraiser! I know it’s getting warmer and most of us are gladly putting those socks away but you can always stock up for fall! And Michigan is super unpredictable so you might need them out at some point this summer:) We have a goal to sale 600 packs of socks. We sold 500 the last time and believe we can do that again plus some! You can use the link below to shop for some fun funky socks: https://go.wehelptwo.com/campaign/?campaignid=11144

Thank you again for continuing to follow our journey and pray for our family. We could not do this without our village and we appreciate each of you!