LOA!!

Lena sees her new family!

We recently sent Lena a photo album of our family so that she can become familiar with us.  I got these pics this morning of her seeing us for the first time.  I guess it's good she doesn't look too scared and isn't crying!

Waiting and counting our blessings....

I just thought I'd write an update even though we don't really have any new news to share.  We are really just in a waiting stage at this point.  Today is day 39 in our wait for our LOA (Letter of Acceptance) from China.  The average wait time for this LOA has been 90-100 days at this time.  We are praying for a paperwork miracle to speed this up!  Meanwhile, we have been working on our travel documents.  The time frame from LOA received until travel is usually around 3 months.  According to this time framework, we hope to travel around October.  Fortunately, we know she is being well taken care of until we get there.

We have experienced many blessings during this process so far.  First of all, we have been so blessed by the support of our friends and family.  Our agency has been amazing to work with!  Secondly, we received a grant from them which reduced our adoption program fee.  They also lowered our agency fee, which was a big surprise!  Because of these blessings, the majority of our overall remaining adoption fees consist of the mandatory China orphanage "donation" of $5000!  Pretty awesome!  We also, of course, have to pay for our travel expenses and 2 weeks of in-country expenses.  As it turns out, our international adoption costs consist mainly of travel / and overseas expenses.  This has been a pleasant surprise to us!  God has indeed been making this possible once we stepped out in faith and said "yes."  We are still waiting to hear from another grant we applied for and praying that it will come through. 

Therefore, our only "fund-raiser" we are doing to help off-set the costs is our puzzle fundraiser.  If you haven't read about it, I'll summarize:  We have a puzzle that we are going to have hanging in Lena's room (pictured below).  We are asking that our friends and family "purchase" a piece for $10 dollars.  Each donor's name will be written on the back of the puzzle piece.  We will preserve the puzzle with the names visible on the back to be a reminder of how so many people helped to bring Lena home to our family.  Already, it has been such a blessing to us.  Honestly, we are not extremely comfortable with "asking for money" from friends and family.  Therefore, all the money we raise, will go directly to the China orphanage donation.  Therefore, it not only is helping our family, but it is a way to help support many orphans who remain in China.  If you would like to help, you can donate through the Paypal "Donate" button at the top of our page.

We have a couple recent pictures from China of our sweet girl.  We are so blessed by the director of the children's home that is responsible for Lena, who sends me pictures periodically.  She has been wonderful and we are so thankful for her!  As our journey to Lena continues, we appreciate all your prayers and support.

Prayer requests:  For our paperwork to be processed in a timely manner, for Lena's care and development while we are waiting, for Lena's foster parents, for Lena' birthmother, for the caregivers and children at the children's home where she spent her first year of life, for our travel arrangements to go smoothly, for Lena to adjust to our family and bond with us, and that our family will adjust well and embrace our "new normal."

Until next time...

New Pictures!

Yesterday morning I was blessed in my e-mail inbox with new pictures of our Lena.  I love seeing how happy and full of life she is! I am so thankful for her caregivers.  These were taken last week at the park.

Why adoption?

I kind of wanted to back up now and explain what led us to this choice of adopting. Here it is...

        I have always felt drawn to adoption and felt it was such a beautiful expression of unconditional love.  Early in our marriage I would casually talk about it with Josh but he would dismiss it as an option for us.  One year I attended a Steven Curtis Chapman concert shortly after they adopted their first child from China.  I was so moved by what he spoke of and by the plight of the orphan that I felt that one day I truly wanted to adopt from China.  Several years, and 3 kids later, in November of 2009, I was listening to a radio program that was discussing adoption and orphans.  It was that day that I was overwhelmed by an undeniable, unshakable knowledge that we were definitely supposed to adopt.  After praying about it, I approached Josh with what I believed God had planned for our family.  For the first time, he actually said he would think about it and pray about it.  It was then that I knew we were beginning a new chapter in our lives.  For the next two years, we prayed, researched, and discussed adoption.  We concluded that caring for orphans is mandated by God in one way or another.  For us, we feel that adoption resembles how God has adopted us to be his children.  We decided to step out in faith and trust Him completely in this journey.  In September of 2011, a new door was opened for us to officially begin the process.  We know now that it was all in God’s perfect timing and plan for us to become united with our sweet daughter in China.

Good News - 1st Grant received!

Yay!  Our first grant was approved for bringing Lena home!  Our wonderful agency, just notified me that they approved our request for a grant from their Special Needs Adoption Fund.  I am so excited seeing how God is working in this process!  So, we are now $2000 closer than we were yesterday!  We are still working on our puzzle fundraiser as well.  If you would like to be a part of the puzzle to bring Lena home, please consider buying a piece of our Panda puzzle for $10 each (see our Puzzle post if you are confused).  You can use our PayPal "Donate" button on the right side of the page.  We have currently sold 36 pieces and are very grateful to those who have given.  It is such a blessing to see others joining in on our journey.  Have a wonderful, blessed day!

We have a little girl!

Lena Fen-Rose Holland

                                            
 "No eye has seen,
      no ear has heard,
  no mind has conceived
      what God has prepared for those who love Him"  1 Cor 2:9

We are so thrilled to announce that we have been matched with a sweet little girl, Bai Hai Fen!  She is 2 years old and living in the Guangdong province in China.  We have named her Lena Fen-Rose.   Currently, she is called "Fen Fen" by her foster family.  We wanted to preserve part of her name, so we decided on Fen-Rose as her middle name.  "Fen" means "fragrant" so we thought "fragrant rose" would be nice.  We are hoping that we can go to China to bring her home at the end of the summer, but it will most likely be in the fall.  Everything just takes a long time.  Meanwhile, we are so grateful for her children's home and then her foster family who have provided wonderful love and care for her from the beginning of her sweet life.  We are so very thankful for her mother who chose to give her life and place her where she would be found and taken care of.  As tragic as it is that her own mother could not keep her and provide for her, we are humbled by the selfless act of love that it was to give her life.  For that, we are so grateful.  When we first decided that we were to grow our family through adoption, in November 2009, our little Lena was being knit together in her mother's womb.  God knew the plan that was unfolding for her and for our family!  Pretty awesome and mind-boggling!

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord,
"Plans to prosper you and not to harm you,
 plans to give you a hope and a future.    Jer 29:11
 
I will now back up a little bit.  We received her as a referral on March 26th, just 3 days after our dossier was shipped to China.  We were blown away that it was so fast!  Due to confidentiality reasons and the rules of international adoption, we could not say anything until we were officially locked in with her file.  We had two international adoption pediatricians and some local physicians review her file.  We prayed, prayed, researched, prayed, asked questions, and prayed some more.  Bottom line, anytime we, as parents, choose to have children, we are taking a leap of faith.  There are no guarantees, but there are plenty of blessings!  Through this process, our faith muscle is being stretched for sure.  We are choosing to trust God with whom He has entrusted to us.  We accepted the referral and were officially "locked in" with her on April 10th.

We have already seen the fingerprints of God all over this.  For example, our little Lena was initially referred to another family just 1 week prior to us.  At that time, we were not yet eligible for her as a referral because our dossier (collection of completed paperwork) had not yet been shipped to China.  Her special conditions were minor enough that she was a "Log in Date Only" referral.  Well, we did not have a log in date yet (in China).   So.... this family that received her as a referral, never even opened her file!  They told the referral coordinator at our agency that because she had an orthopedic issue (her small arm) they were not interested at all and would not even consider her.  Because of their decision, her file was "held" with that family for the one week until we were eligible for her.  I truly believe that was the sovereignty of God, beautifully orchestrating the plan to unite her to our family.  I believe that if that family would have opened her file at all and seen her face, and the sparkle of life so evident in her eyes, things would have been very different.  Thank you God for being so present in the details of our lives!  There are many other evidences we've experienced that confirm, not only our decision to adopt, but in the perfect timing of receiving Lena as our match and daughter.  To God be the glory!

Enough of my rambling.  Thank you for reading and sharing in our joy!  More to come.  Now, for some pictures: