Exciting news!!!

Our family felt led to ask if we could adopt another child at the same time we adopt Adam. THere is a girl from the same orphanage that we felt led to ask about. We just found out today that she is available for adoption. We cannot give out any information on her but I will ask you to pray for her. God know who she is and if she will be a member of our family someday.

Unfortunately another child also means added cost. Our adoption agency has estimated another $12,000 dollars will be needed for us to adopt her. Obviously we do not have that money laying around the house. We know that God can provide this money for us, we know that if God wants us to adopt this young girl that he will have to be the one to provide this money, we cannot do this on our own. Please keep us in your prayers. I will also ask that if you have a blog that you will either link to our website or post something to let others know about our need. Thank you all.

Beth

Please pray for my daughters...

I wanted to write a cherry, joyful Christmas post but today we gave away my daughters' puppies. In Sept we adopted two black lab puppies and our daughters were thrilled. We went through the normal puppy stuff but recently our 5 month old pups started fighting and drawing blood. They never showed agression towards the kids or our older dogs but, with no provocation they would start fighting and end up bloddy by the end. We thought we had figured out the problem but this morning they attacked each other and the boy had his sister on the floor with his teeth inches from her jugular. The time had come. I cannot rationalize having puppies who are this unpredicable with each other, especially when my kids are in the "baby gate" area with the puppies all day. Emily's puppy has already been adopted and someone should be here any minute to look at Abby's puppy. My daughters are sobbing and my heart breaks for them. Thank you for taking the time to pray for my daughters and the puppies that they love.

Beth

So thankful!

A family that we met through our adoption agency just got back with their son. We got a Christmas card from them yesterday and there was a surpise inside. They sent us a donation for Adam's adoption, right after they got back from China! We are so blessed! Thank you all! By the way, we put your card next to the pictures of Adam!

Beth

Waiting, waiting, waiting....

Right now we are waiting...we are waiting to find out when our dossier was/will be logged in at China. (From what I've heard a dossier can be logged in for two weeks before you find out your login date) It seems to take about 1-2 weeks for the dossier to be logged in after it is sent to China...hopefully our dossier was logged in sometime last week. We're also waiting for our LOA (letter of approval) from China which will allow us to be OFICIALLY matched with Adam. Once we have our LOA we can post pictures of Adam on our blog and we can send Adam a CARE PACKAGE! He will know we are coming for him at this point. I keep looking at the websites that send adoptive care packages and trying to decide which to send him. We definately want to send him a letter about our family, a photo album of our family/house/pets and a toy/art supplies for him. We recently sent out applications for more adoption grants and so we wait for the decision on those.

A friend from church has volunteered to do the puzzle for us...Mark and I are NOT puzzle people! So far Bonnie has put 450 pieces together (we had only gotten about 250 and that was after months of working on it!) So far we have had 763 pieces sponsored. As soon as Bonnie has the puzzle up to date on pieces she will take a photo and email it to me. Bonnie, thank you so much for doing this!!

We did have one family donate money as a Christmas gift for family members. I printed up cards for them to present to their family and I think they turned out very well. I printed " A donation has been made in your name toward the adoption of Adam Smith. Adam is an 11 year old boy living in Yueyang China. The Smith family is grateful for the donation and wishes you a Merry Christmas." If anyone else wishes to do this for a Christmas gift, please let me know.

Well, I think that covers all of our adoption news for the moment. I hope everyone has a good day.

Beth

Trying to trust...

We found out that we were not approved for one of the adoption grants that we have applied for. They told us we can apply again but right now they do not have any funds available. I am trying to trust in the Lord but, in my human-ness, I keep worrying about it.

We have two more grant organizations that we will be applying to this weekend.

I just need to keep remembering that we have all the money we have needed so far.

We are still waiting for the Letter of Acceptance from China and for our dossier to be logged in at China.

Thanks for all of your prayers.

Beth