Newest picture of our sweetie

Here is the latest picture of our Sophia Yilin. Seeing her sweet face makes us want to take the next plan to Ch*na and bring her home!

The day after for Philip

This is Philip a day later and playing at home.

I wanted to post this picture to show you the results already!

We are thrilled! Even though he is swollen and a little bloody, we can easily see the results.

His lip is in line right now and straight across, not at all pulled up with a ropey scar. His one nostril has been moved out a little to help it be more like the other side.

As you can see, he has clear plastic stints in his nose to help keep the scarring at bay there. The doctor said that the inside of his nose was horrible scarred. He may have to wear these stints more than one month. They are held in place by a big blue stitch.

We so appreciate your prayers for our little son yesterday. They played a huge part in the success of his day. We ask for continued prayers for his healing, that God will heal his wounds without the large, ropey scarring. Then all of the beautiful work He allowed our doctor to do yesterday will stay in place!

Praying for Philip today

Hi everyone,

Could you lift our Philip in prayer today?

He has his lip and nose revision in a couple of hours, and we could use prayers for:

A calm and non-frightening time for him. . .

God's handiwork through our doctor's hands. . .

That the surgery does what it needs to do . . .

That is - to open up his nostril and to remove the large scarring that is pulling up his lip and collapsing his nose.

Will you pray for a wonderful outcome for our precious middle son?

We know he will need to deal with other surgeries along the way and a bit of disfigurement because of his cleft lip and palate, but we are praying for a beautiful and wonderful outcome for Philip. He is just so handsome anyway you look at it, and we want him to have the best chance for that possible! We also want him to be able to breathe better and speak easier than he does now.

Thank you all . . .

OUR BOTH HANDS PROJECT - Lifesong for Orphans

James 1:27

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the word.

This is not a post I ever thought I would need to write when we began our first adoption journey and even our second.

And admittedly, we have struggled with needing to do this. . .

But then all I have to do is take a look at the picture of our beautiful little girl needing to come home to the arms of her loving family . . .

and remember the STAGGERING number of orphans worldwide

(anywhere from 146,000,000 to 186,000,000)

That's millions, not hundreds, not thousands,

and that is a conservative number because will we really ever know the EXACT number of children around the world living without a family?

AND SUDDENLY I CAN WRITE THIS POST!

We are doing a fundraiser to help our beautiful Sophia Yilin come home . . .

And the money raised will first help go towards paying her orphanage donation (which everyone who adopts from Ch*na must pay) which goes straight to her orphanage and benefits those children left behind.

You can read all about it at the Both Hands site which is

http://www.lifesongfororphans.org/bhProj.html

and click by our photo - the exact one at the top of this post.

Our project for Both Hands entails helping a lady (in our case it will be three ladies) who are widows with some needed projects around their homes while collecting sponsorship money to help bring Sophia home!

It is like a 5 K run, but instead of running, we will be working!

To help a widow

To help an orphan come home

Both Hands

One for the widow

One for the orphan.

This and That

Here are just a few pictures of what has been going on at our home.

Helping Papa put Sophia Yilin's bed together . . .

Better than watching "This Old House" which, by the way,

Philip loves to watch!

It's midnight and he is still up after having helped Papa with her bed.

He was so excited, and he just couldn't get to sleep!

Wonder if he will be that excited when she comes home! LOL!

We LOVE this man! We don't know anything more about him other than he works for Fed Ex and has delivered each and every one of our China treasures' Letter of Acceptance.

He seems part of our family now! When I see that it is Darryl delivering them, I run to get the camera and fly out the door. I probably scare him. Poor guy!!








New twist to "The Little Drummer Boy!"

Who could ever get mad at a sweet face like that?

More BIG News From Our House

Letter of Acceptence!

Ch*na has officially approved us to adopt our Sophia Yilin!

We could travel in as little as twelve weeks!

Thanking our God for such a quick turnaround time. Our LID was 4/12/12, and our LOA was dated 5/6/12!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Big News at Our House!

This is really big news at our house . . .

After a year-long-search for a full-time teaching position . . .

Ted has found a great one!

The story is quite remarkable and really makes for a Memorial Box Monday, but the news is too good to wait until Monday to share!

When we traveled to Ch*na to bring home Philip, we met another couple (Christine and Steve) who was bringing home their daughter. We had a lot in common with this couple because they were both teachers and were also bringing home their second child.

We have kept in contact with Philip's travel group, and we even shared our blog and facebook each other.

Well, last August when Ted was deeply discouraged about not finding a full-time job yet, he was at a small church service on Sunday night where his friends were praying for his job situation for a long time.

That same night, Christine happened upon my blog post about Ted's lack of a job.

Christine called the next day and said that even though she knew the last thing that Ted probably wanted was to work in preschool (he is licensed to teach English in secondary education and has a Theatre directing major as well), she was in desperate need of a teaching assistant for the coming year. Would he be interested?

Oh, yes, and she mentioned she had seen our blog the night before.

Right when Ted's friends had been praying!

The timing was too perfect, too Godly, to ignore.

He took the job and has loved every minute of it! Working with little kids (the ages of his brothers) has been a joy to Ted this past year. He has learned so much from Christine and built strong friendships with Christine and her family and many staff members. He also taught a puppet class once a week to little ones and co-taught a theatre class to middlle school students with another teacher he once worked with at Ball State! In fact, the middle school students are putting on a play in a couple of weeks with Ted helping to direct them.

For the last couple of months there has been a hint of a job prospect at this school, but nothing substantial, so Ted has been job searching big time! He has sent out so many resumes and followed up and even gone to job fairs, spending almost every free moment job searching. It has been exhausting for him.

That all has come to a halt because yesterday he was offered a full-time teaching position for next year at the school he has come to dearly love!

Only God could have orchastrated such a year for our oldest son. It has been a year full of not only learning from the teachers at the school, but mostly learning from our God. Ted has learned obedience to God from fasting and praying and waiting to see where His leading takes Ted, even when the way did not look clear. He has learned that trusting in our Lord trumps everything and is the only way to go!

When he took the assistant position last August, it was not a full-time job with benefits or even in Ted's field of study,

But God . . .

What a great year! What a great God we serve!

Hooking up again with Linny's call to pray and fast

Our dear friend Linny, of A Place Called Simplicity, is calling people to fast and pray for many who are in need of prayers. Click here to read her post about it.

We are honored to pray for the many families who will post on her blog today.

The network of adoptive families around the world is such a close-knit bunch, and we are so touched to be a part of that bunch.

We love the orphan and the children who are orphans no more!

Won't you join in prayer on May 4th with us?

This is a picture of our daughter who is waiting for us in Ch*na.

She is 7-years-old and needs to come home.

We have been very delayed in getting our adoption tax credit refund this year and have had to send in all kinds of documentation. Each time I have phoned, I have gotten someone very nice but no response as to when the refund might be coming. This has gone on a long time. Finally, some kind lady today had me call the taxpayer advocate office.

They took our case and said they would help us speed things up.

Could you pray with us that we receive that refund soon? It will help in this adoption so very much.

Could you also pray for our friend's husband who is currently in Ch*na right now receiving their two new sons, ages 4 and 12. You can visit Lori's website here. Please pray that God will give her husband an extra ounce of strength and stamina to do this solo. He is very tired but happy.

Wonderful, marvelous, amazing things happen when God's people join together in prayer.

Won't you join with us today?

Awww - another birthday at our house - guess who?

Guess who had a birthday a couple of days ago at our house?

I'll give you a hint.

He loves The Andy Griffith Show,hence the reason we went to The Mayberry Cafe for his birthday.

Another hint -

he loves to hang out with his family and he takes

such good care of all of us . . .

Still another hint -

he shows such a wonderful example of what following Christ is all about

by the way he lives his life

Still another hint -

we all are crazy about him and love him dearly

If you guessed Kevin, you would be right!

Happy Birthday Kevin (also known as Dad and Papa)

You are the greatest!