Celebrate

This past weekend was Easter and we had some family over to celebrate. We had ham, an easter egg hunt and everyone had on spring colored outfits. It was Easter, so very similiar to last year and probably alot like next year but there was a few new thoughts that crossed my mind this year. I did alot of thinking about how almost everyone celebrates Easter, Christian or not and that people all over the world celebrate this holiday as many all over the world celebrate Chrsitmas. It's different than 4th of July or Thanksgiving Day as these holidays are specific to Americans, with Easter the world can celebrate. This led me to my next thought, is the family that is fostering our child Christians? Of course this was not the first time I had thought about this, Ron and I have prayed alot for them and specifically that they would be a Christian home but it did make me wonder anew. I certainly hope they are for so many reasons, so that they are saved, so that they are seeking God on how to deal with raising somone else's child for a short period of time, so that they will have God to lean on when the child they have cared for and bonded with is gone, and so my child is being raised in an atmosphere where God is reconized. I hope so and continue to pray for them.

This Easter was fun and I just love reflecting on Jesus and what he did for us, I love that we can set aside time to focus on the perfect man who became sin for us. I love having family over and eating too much food and finding fun eggs, I love teaching Greyson the true reason of the holiday. Next year I hope to celebrate with another little family member and I cant wait to share the Easter story with them. I hope you had a wonderful Easter and that Jesus was glorified.

Greyson finding his easter basket

Easter Egg Hunt

Our silly boy

Ron, Greyson and I

Prayer

I have written about Experiencing God, the Bible study, before and I find myself going back to the work book and reviewing things. This study was just so good and I love so many things in it but probably one of my favorite things is that in the back of the book it has a list of the names and characteristics of God. A few months ago I went through and put initials next to some of them that to me really pertain to the adoption or for our adopted child in general. I did this for myself, our family and for Greyson but since this blog is about the adoption I wanted to share those certain ones. The other night I went over them again because we have been waiting almost 3 months now and I would be lying if I said I'm anything but anxious about receiving "the call" but everytime I open myself up to God and His word, His perfect peace comes. I love that! After reviewing them I thought I would blog about the list becasue I think that praying Names, Titles and Descriptions of God into my life experience is powerful. So here they are...

The Father, Son and Holy Spirit Are/Is concerning this process and our child...

The faithful God - Deut 32:4
A source of strength - Isa 25:4
Father- Isa 9:6, 63:16, Matt 5:16
Father to the fatherless - Ps 68:5
God my maker - Job 25:10
God of Glory - Ps 29:3
Great and Powerful God - Jer 32:18
Helper of the fatherless - Ps 10:14
I AM WHO I AM - Ex 3:14
Lord of all the earth - Mic 4:13
Lord will provide - Gen22:4
My Advocate - Job 16:19
My Hope - Ps 25:5,21
My strong deliverer - Ps 140:7
Author of life - Acts 3:15
Head over every power and authority - Col2:10

It's amazing how you can apply the Word to every situation in your life. I love all of these but my top picks are Faithful God, My Advocate and Head over every power and authority. I loves those three becasue of what they speak to me when I am anxious. He is faithful and he will get that child home,He is that childs advocate, no matter what adoption agency or foster home is involved the Lord Most High is advocating for my child, and He is the Head over every power and authority. That means the U.S. government,the Koren government, the adoption agency, the social workers, the judges and I could go on and on.... ALL of those authorities He is over. Oh, what peace! Praying his Name and attributes into any area of my life always results in peace, how could it not?  What a powerful tool we all have readily available to us. Thanks for your prayers and please continue to lift up our family and child.

Lessons Learned

This past weekend Ron and I went to a traning seminar (mandatory) on adoption, more specifically we had classes on having a multi cultural family and also some classes about raising a child who is adopted. We did not go there with bad attitudes but we were not expecting much either. I can't say we were wowed by alot but we did learn some a few very valuable lessons. The main teacher was a Korean Adoptee herself and was able to relate alot of information on what is feels like to grow up adopted.
 We were not the only couple there, four other couples took this course with us and like us they are all anticipating adding to their family. All of the families that were there besides us were adopting from China and two of the families already had children set and were just waiting to go and get them. We were able to see pictures of both a little girl and a little boy who were absolutely adorable. That was so fun!!!
 One of the main things that really struck us througout the two days was an exercise we did. Our instructor pulled one of the men from the group up to the front and then gave the remainder of the people in their seats sticky notes. The man then told us a little about himself and we wrote down key words on our sticky not es regarding things that were important to him or that basically made him who he was. We then put the sticky notes on him and then the instructor made up a series of events that caused him to lose all his "sticky notes", the final sticky note she took off of him was his name. The instructor then said this is what the beginning of the process is like for your child, everything that they know will be taken from them and they will have to start over (yes I got choked up). How hard would that be? Not that we hadnt considered all of this before but we never really thought about the name part. We were planning on changing the name and that was that but after hearing this seminar I think we have decided to keep the first name as a second middle name. Meaning we will still use our name that we picked out but also the name that the birth parents picked out. We thought that this child will have no connection with it's birthparents but one of the only things the mother was involved in with her child's life was to give them a name. We want to honor that.

We also learned some other things that I think help you think outside the box, I think the most enjoyable part for me was when we were on a break form the class and I just looked around the room and thought " we are really doing this, we are really adopting a baby." Even though our wait is still long these classes made the process seem even more real.  I am so thankful for the lessons I learned this past week and I am so thankful for the baby that God has picked out for us!

Some good and bad

For any women who has been pregnant you understand that when your pregnant it seems that people's filters turn off and that they tell you whatever they want. Alot of times it is nice and they ask nice questions about your future child. Other times the things that come out of peoples mouth's makes you want to hit them. I remember being pregnant and hearing stories about terrible labors or how big I was getting...Really, who says that? In any case this does not change when people find out you are adopting. Mostly, I have received positive feedback and people always tell me of their friend,cousin, neighbor etc who has adopted and what a joy the child is but there has been a few people who have decided to tell me the horror stories. Yesterday at work I had someone ask me if we were ever going to have more children. I told her yes and that we were actually in the adoption process for South Korea. Well she had a story for me, people at her church had adopted from Haiti and the child had been with them for over a year and now they just received word that the child would have to go back (Im not sure how this is happening as you sign hundreds of documents and go to court to make the child officially yours and an american citizen)but in any case she went on and on about how they are fighting this and this is their worse nightmare and blah blah blah... Not really what I wanted to hear and if that is really happening my heart breaks for that family!

But then there are the people who tell you a story and when they do their face lights up and that type of story makes your own face light up. We had this happen to us last week. While at a open house for Greyson's preschool (yes my baby is old enough to go to preschool) we ran into a family friend and she has a cousin who is adopting from South Korea as well. She had told us about her cousin last May and at that time they had just been told their wait time was increased. In May her cousin's family was pretty bummed. Anyway,the other night, she asked how the adoption was going and then went on to tell us that her cousin who was not expecting to get her baby for a few more months received great news in September.They received their referral and they got a little girl who they brought home a few weeks ago. The baby was 11 months old. Amazing and Wonderful news. It made me so happy. I want to cut and paste their experience into my own life!

  In any account everyone has their story and it makes them unique and good or bad it is their story. I am just thrilled to have an adoption story even if I dont know the ending yet. He who began a good work is faithful to complete it. Can't wait till my story is complete!

A Little about us

With this year quickly coming to a close I thought I would recap it. It has been an amazing year and I can't believe how fast it has gone. We have added a nephew on one side of the family and a niece on the other. We have watched our 2 year old toddler turn into a 3 year old little boy. We finally figured out Greyson's coughing issue and while he was diagnosed with asthma we are so thankful that we have access to great care and he is doing much better. We have seen God's faithfulness in all areas of our life but especially with the adoption. We continue to work on the house and  after 3 years of living here I can finally say that the main floor is done, alhtough I will still continue to shop for house stuff. :) Ron has taken over alot more responsability at Cook's and QPP is thriving and really picking up steam. I continue to work 1 1/2 day a week and love it. We got to travel a little and take our first "mini family vacation" to the Detroit Zoo. Ron and I celebrated 7 years of marriage. We have made some new friends through the Kiwanis group Ron has joined and enjoy building relationships with them. All and all it has been a great year!

 Last year at this time was when I was really struggling with having another baby and feeling like adoption was the way to go,  Ron got me this book: An adoption Story. That book got the ball really rolling and it was less than one year ago that we decided to adopt. In that respect I think everything has gone smoothly. All of our paperwork is done and sent to Korea and we just wait for that phone call. What a difference 12 little months make! I am so curious to see what God has in store for us this coming year!

Psalm 100:5 For the Lord is good,His steadfast love endures forever,and His faithfulness to all generations.

Here are a few pics from  2011:

A little unsettled

Well Kim Jong Il has paseed away. Everytime I turn on the t.v. or open my computer there is some story about him. The news says that his death could cause uproar and unrest in that part of the world. We now have to worry about China and how they will respond to this, will America show support and send a represenative if invited to the funeral? Will South Korea and North Korea meet and talk or will the division between the two countries worsen? Its unsettling to think about these things and not just because I have a little person on that side of the world that I am dying to meet. It is times like these that I think about people who do not have Jesus as their Hope - A confident expectation of good. This world has got a lot of yuck in it and yet daily I find things that amaze me and make me give praise and adoration to God. I'm not going to say that Im not a little nervous about all of these things going on in Korea, I am but I do have hope in Jesus. He sent his Son to save the world, a thought at the fore front of my mind this time of year. So I will do what I always do, pray. I will pray for my mind to have peace and rest because He truly does "Have the whole world in His hand." I will pray for N Korea's next leader and that he will not make the mistakes his father did. And as always I will pray for my sweet baby.

Thankful

At church this past Sunday our Pastor asked us to email him a list of  things we were thankful for and he was going to put them up on the screen at church during our Thanksgiving service. I put that I am thankful for my healthy family, Greyson really struggled with a terrible cough for 5 weeks and after a few doctors visit, an antibiotic and 43 scratches on his back at the allergist it was determined he has asthma. It is nothing severe and is easily controlled by his new inhaler. I am so thankful that the doctors figured this out as I was informed that 65% of asthma cases in kids under 5 go misdiagnosed. That whole "coughing all the time, no one in our house is sleeping" period was going on right when we received word  that our homestudy would need to change. It was somewhat stressful but it all worked out and life is back to normal. So I am thankful that my family is healthy once again and doing well. The second thing I put that I was thankful for was a child that I never meant but call my own. Two weeks ago we received our approval!!! HOORAY! This was the last piece of paperwork that we needed for our dossier. Everything is complete now and our paperwork is being sent to Korea. We are actually just waiting now for the phone call about our child. I am so thankful for this and that the process continues to move ahead.  Wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!!!