Travel Approval!!!!!

We have been officially invited to travel to China to get our son. Now they will assign us appointment dates and then we will book our tickets. Time to buy a car seat and plan a big freezer meal making day!!!!!! We are coming as soon as we are able, baby boy!

And can I just say that this seems very surreal at times. Some days I can't handle the two boys I have now and think we are crazy. Then I remember who calls us and has grown us and our hearts every step of the way so far...

My first completed quilt....

...that I did all by myself. (Thank you Sandi for finishing the binding on the quilt I made for you!

I attempted a machine binding and it wasn't too bad. Lots of room for improvement, though. More pins next time maybe.










Given away to my beautiful sister in law. Thanks for appreciating my novice work, Sarah!!!! Love you!

Big News!

We have now received official word from Immigration that we can adopt Simon QianYang Thompson. We have one document to wait on, one more form to fill out (besides a whole packet of renewal papers to keep our homestudy current and getting our visas), two approvals to receive, and then we will be traveling to go get him!!! Maybe March?!?! So here he is...



He is three and will turn four on the same day his cousin turns three in July. There seem to be a lot of birthday buddies in our family, so that is pretty special. He is from Taiyuan, one of the cities my older sister lived in when she lived in China teaching English, so that is pretty special to us as well. Last August we found out his foster sister whom he grew up with was also up for adoption. We started praying. Do we need to pursue adopting her as well? It didn't fit with a promise God gave me 6 years ago when I was in a season of prayer about adoption for our family, but we knew that we needed to make sure she was loved and had a safe home. We also wanted to keep intact as much of YangYang's history and relationships as we could. Our adoption agency has been helping us search for her file. Yesterday I got word that she has been matched with a family from a different adoption agency. I contacted them with our information yesterday, and by last night I was on the phone with YangYang's sister's adoptive family. We were able to exchange photos and videos and give them information about their daughter that they did not know. They even invited us to stay with them so we can reconnect our kiddos! Our little guy looks at his sister the same way Gavin looks up at Seth. What a gift! AND we are so blessed that they live in Colorado, halfway between my two sisters. With moving around and having limited time to spend with family there are hardly words to express how happy I am that they are so close to where we already visit regularly. To see God's great faithfulness in being in the details has had me in tears all day today. He is so good. He loves these little children so very much! We are blessed to be a part of His story and their story! I am so thankful for such clear answers to our prayers. I am linking this post up with Memorial Box Monday on Linny's blog at aplacecalledsimplicity.blogspot.com so thanks for visiting if you come from there. :o)

It is here!!!!

I called this morning, and found out we had been approved last Friday, so I ran to the mailtruck when I saw it (we are out gardening) and our document is here!!! Now it needs to make a quick trip to DC and we will be semdimg our Dossier to China!!!

I am so thankful for all the helpful people I know! We have had a rough week, and I have had people help me figure out my doorknob, watch my bys while I was in class, and solve computer problems for me. We sure miss Andrew, but in some ways it makes us more connected and dependant upon our community, and that isn't a bad thing!


Thanks for praying for us!!!!

Would you pray about a paper?

We have been waiting for a document for months. We were told to expect it 2-3 weeks after being fingerprinted. It has been more than 2 months. I am feeling pretty discouraged about getting it, getting it processed, and then finally getting our entire dossier sent to China so we can be officially matched with our son. We were hoping to have that all done by August before Andrew's latest deployment...

Thanks for caring! :o)

Beccy

We have a son!

This week we were matched with a little boy who will turn 3 this summer. If all goes well with our paperwork we will be traveling in about 6 months. We are very very excited to meet our little guy in person and to encounter his country of birth firsthand!!!

Wanting Jesus

This week we finally got to visit the nursing home again. It had been a LONG time because of illness, there and here. We visit the Alzheimer's unit because that is where my friend's dad lives. Most often we go on Thursdays when a pastor comes and we sing hymns with all the residents, and then the pastor does communion and a short devotional with everyone. There were a lot of new faces this time, and some familiar ones as well. A woman came and played piano beautifully. It overwhelms me every time I go, that some of these people have lost everything...even their minds, but they still have Jesus. My friend's dad can no longer speak, but he can still sing those old hymns. This week something precious and beautiful happened. As the pastor was going around sharing communion with each person there was one lady on the outside circle. She started to get anxious and wave her hand to make sure the pastor saw her. She got more and more intense about it, till he finally spoke to her and promised he was coming. She just wanted communion so badly. It was such a beautiful reminder. If only we all wanted Jesus so much. I was so clearly reminded this week that Jesus is enough. His body, his blood. It is enough. I was moved to tears in that moment. Gig to the nursing home is such a good reminder of what really matters in life. Love. Relationships. Jesus most of all.

I haven't posted much because of the security breach on my kids' photos. I started thinking, too, that it is not fair to them to have their entire lives available online for anyone to look at that wants to. When they get grown, they may have real regrets about that. So I have pulled back. But they are well. And today we meet with our social worker in the last stage to complete our homestudy before applying to immigration to bring a child home... I am tense. I have made it my life's work to make a home for my family, and someone is going to be coming here to evaluate that home and marriage. Lets just say I have had weird dreams three nights running! :o)