We have a match!

We are so excited to introduce you to FuMei! She's a 7 year old from Shanxi Province in northern China. She's introverted, shy and timid and loves to dance and color. She has a repaired cleft lip and palate. She's very little by American growth charts! Only the 3rd percentile. So she will look like a 5 year old. She has spent all 7 of her years in the orphanage as she was abandoned soon after birth at a nearby hospital.

We got the call on Friday from CCAI and because she was a little older than we had said we were willing to take they gave us a few days to look at her file, talk with our social worker and our pediatrician, dentist and the Cleft Lip/Palate Clinic down at Children's Hospital. We spent a lot of time on the phone and in prayer over her and this decision. After praying and considering all the pros and cons of adopting an older child, we really feel that this was the girl the Lord has for us. One huge blessing is that her orphanage is in the north where Mandarin Chinese is the main dialect, which is what David and I speak fluently.

So, what is the next step? We are waiting to find out! I know that soon we will be able to put together a little care package filled with pictures of her new family and little gifts for her. We should also receive more information from the orphanage and hopefully some more pictures of her. We have a lot of preparations before we are able to travel and they still say that we won't be traveling to get her for 3-5 months!

We would appreciate your continued prayers for all of this. Pray that the orphanage would really start preparing her for this transition, which will probably be the hardest thing she has done. The more they talk to her about us and show her our pictures the better it will be. They have said that she will start school on Sept. 1st. Pray that the other kids around her will treat her well and not tease her about the cleft lip. Pray for us as we wait patiently now. I especially will need more time to complete the preparations. Pray that I will be able to prioritize my activities this fall. And please cover our family in prayers! The kids are all excited and have completely come to love her already. Each of us feel that she is the one for us, even after hoping for an infant. We have unity amongst us and a sense of peace. But it will be a big change for our family and we value your continued prayers.

We are still really hoping to bring our 4 children with us when we go get her. They are old enough to really enjoy the trip and want to be a part of bringing her home. Because of the grant from Shoahannah's Hope, we have enough to pay for 4 tickets. Please continue to pray for God's provision for the rest.

We will keep you posted more frequently now since we have a face to go with the hope! Blessings, Lynn

Waiting for a match

Just a few thoughts to update you all on where we are in the process. Our dossier has been sent to China and is logged in. That gives us a log-in-date of March, 2009. If we were in the traditional program, waiting for a healthy infant, that would mean a 3 year wait from that date! Since we are looking for a girl up to the age of 5 with some minor physical disability we are told the average wait is one year from when our medical checklist went in. We filed our medical checklist August of 2008. So this August marks one year that we have been waiting. We are told that we could get a call any day! And every day I wake wondering if today will be the day. We know God is in control of timing. But that doesn't make it easier to wait. Knowing that there is a little girl in China who doesn't have a home and family and we wait with loving arms, can be difficult. Please continue to pray for His timing, for His protection on her and loving people around her.

About a month ago we did have an opportunity to view a file of a little 4 and a half year old girl. She had cleft lip and palate, but also had other significant problems that we hadn't said we felt able to take, such as near complete deafness. It was very difficult to look at her medical file, with numerous pictures and lots of information and then say no. As you can imagine from a mother's heart, refusing any child is hard. We really had to fall back on the fact that we had prayed over our medical checklist last August and felt God had helped us choose what we feel able to deal with. Please pray for her to find a family as I noticed she is still on the waiting child website.

We had some good news this week. Our application for a grant from Shaohannah's Hope was accepted. They granted us $4000.00 toward the adoption. We felt honored to be chosen as they had told us that they receive 100 applications a month and only 30 can be filled. It really is a blessing. Please thank the Lord for this blessing and continue to pray with us for the remainder of the funds.

Where are we in the process?

We praise God we have finished with our application for adoption with Chinese Children's Adoption International (CCAI). Our dossier is being reviewed and translated by the agency and will then be sent on to China to be reviewed and "OK"ed. We are in the process of taking the State-required 24 hours of adoption classes and finding this a good step in helping us prepare our hearts for our new addition. Please pray for her, where ever she is--that God will place loving persons around her who will care for, nurture and protect her. In talking with other adoptive parents, we realize that the process is very unpredictable. Some couples were contacted with a potential match before they even finished their paperwork. So it really could be any time that we get news. It also could be many months. Pray for the right timing and for us to be patient. Thanks for your concern for us and for your precious prayers. We will keep you posted on developments and drop you a note when we post an update if you request us to do so.

Blessings,

David & Lynn, Mary, Amy, Andrew and James