One hand for the widow, one hand for the orphan

We had a blast June 18th painting Pauline's basement and washing her windows.

We love, love, love our Both Hands project (through Lifesongfor Orphans)!

And we love, love, love the widow and the orphan even more!! :)

How very wonderful to get a chance to help a widow while earning funds for our journey to Sophia Yilin!

One hand for the widow. One hand for the orphan!!

Check out the pictures below to see the harding working, smiling faces of dear people living out James 1:27.

Oh, happy day!!

This was Part One of our project. Part Two will take place on July 9th. Won't you pray with us that it goes as well?

So far our Both Hands total reaches above $2,000! Yippee Jesus! Thanking God for all of the people who have donated thus far! Each and every one of them is helping our daughter come home!

We are well on our way to reaching our $6,000 goal! The first $6,000 will go for our orphanage donation and our humanitarian fee to our agency. So when you donate, you are also helping those precious children left behind.

If you would like to contribute to our adoption fund, you can go to:

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

Click on our picture, and you can read our family letter, and then click the donate button to donate to our fund!

James l:27 says, "Religion that God our Father accepts is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

Happy Gotcha Day Philip!

Three years ago today we were in Ch*na meeting Dong Bao for the first time.

He was not so sure he wanted a forever family, and he was really sure he did not want to leave his Ch*na home, Shepherd's Field!

Three years later, Philip is really sure he belongs to his forever family and we belong to him!

This is how we spent his Gotcha Day today.

Hanging out at McCormick's Creek State Park, enjoying the day, and later having cake with big brother Ted - it doesn't get any better than that!!

Happy Gotcha Day our much loved Philip Bao! We cannot imagine life without you. You make us rich beyond compare!

Oh how we love you so.

Finished product!

Some pictures of the finished product . . .

My, oh my. . .

We can hardly wait to have her home!

This room has been a labor of love.

The comforter was made by Janet's mom, the Sophia picture was given to us by a sweet bloggy friend, and the "It's a Girl" picture is from some of our dear friends from Philip's travel group.

We bought the pretty little lamp the summer before we received Philip in a wonderful little shop in Michigan (back when we thought we were only adopting a girl and had no idea about our little boys!). The dress hanging on the closet door was given to us by more of our dear friends from Philip's travel group, and the "Daddy's Little Girl" frame is from one of Kevin's student's family.

So many people helping to welcome our little girl home, so much love to give her.

Nesting

We are "nesting" at our house big time!

First of all, our big boy had to move out to our family room! We are calling him "Cinderfella" because he now has to sleep by our hearth. He is ok with being out there though because he has a bathroom all to himself, and he is farther away from all of us at night! :)

We also painted Sophia's room . . .







It is a very "pink" room now for our little girl.

All we need is to add our little daughter.

Hopefully that will be soon.

The growing up of our daughter

As any waiting adoptive parent knows, the children we haven't met yet but hold dear in our hearts continue to grow up before our eyes as we wait, and wait, and wait.

Some pictures make our hearts leap to see such a smile.

Some pictures make us chuckle seeing the playfulness of our someday-to-be-home children.




And others make us long to hold these precious children in our arms and help them begin their transition to healing, to belonging to our family.

Dedication Sunday

Last Sunday was Baby Dedication Sunday at our church.

Somehow we had missed the first two Dedication Sundays for Elijah and just now were able to do it. God's timing was perfect, as always.

That was the same day our dear friends Tim and Anna chose to have their new son Aaron dedicated.

In fact, we were the only two families first service.

You may remember that back in the winter Tim and Anna traveled to China to bring home Aaron.

So two little Chinese treasures were dedicated to our Lord this past Sunday.

Standing on the altar with our boys, looking out at all those smiling, loving faces of the congregation, made us teary!

How amazing that our two little boys and our older Philip could be standing up in a Christian church half way around the world from where they had been born while their families who love them and an entire congregation could promise to raise them to know Jesus!

Eating lunch afterwards at Cracker Barrel with Aaron and his family.