Pictures from David & Morgan's China trip

Morgan and Jesse

The Great Wall

These are the two kids they were with all week

David & Stephan

HOW IT ALL STARTED...

I started this blog to keep family & friends updated on our adoption process. However, I never started from the beginning, and shared how the decision to adopt came about. So today, that is what I want to do. So bare with me, I will try to share the short version.


It all started this summer when David & Morgan went on a mission trip to China. They spent 10 days working at a camp with orphans, special needs orphans. God began to do a work in BOTH their hearts that week. Meanwhile back home, I was giving God a list of all the reasons why we couldn't adopt which kind of went something like this: I'm content with our family of four, we don't have the money to adopt, we don't have another bedroom etc, etc, etc.  When I looked, really looked, at my long list of reasons why we could not adopt, all I found was SELFISHNESS!  So I began to pray & ask God to change my heart and if indeed, He wanted us to adopt. Over the next few weeks God did just that, I couldn't get the orphans I saw in the pictures & videos off of my mind. I keep hearing this little voice saying " Now that you know about the needs of these orphans what are you going to do about it?" 


Over the next 2 months God put adoption in my path almost daily. Sometimes it was in a very subtle way, and other times it was very "in my face". From people coming up to me who just started sharing their adoption story, to radio stations talking about adoption, and even opening up the Osprey Observer one day & low and behold the first page I turned to, yep you guessed it, an article on how God chooses certain families to adopt!!! I could share so many other instances of how the Lord really made it clear to me that this was something that He was calling our family to do, but for the sake of time I will move on :)


After 2 months of praying, I couldn't continue to be disobedient any longer.  We then called Great Wall Adoption Agency and got the process started.  Since we began God has continued to show Himself through this process & although some days I do feel overwhelmed by the journey we are on, we are looking forward to seeing God reveal Himself to us in ways that we would have missed otherwise.  So, what has God been asking you to do?  




Blessings, 
Melissa

Adoption Update

Today we got our paperwork back from D.C., it is all Authenticated by the Chinese Consulate WooHoo!

We are still waiting on one more piece of paper, the Immigration approval(we are on day 49 of the wait)

Hopefully, It will be here in the next 2 weeks and we can send it off to be Authenticated and we will then be finished with our Dossier!!!! Thank you all for praying for us as we are on this very scary but EXCITING journey.

Blessings, 

Melissa

Happy Birthday JESUS!!

The day you were born changed everything. I pray that we would all stop & remember why we are celebrating this day. I want more than anything for my girls to truly grasp the real meaning of Christmas, and  the reason that we get/give at Christmas, is because of the amazing gift you gave us! Thank you Jesus, for dying for my sins so that I could one day spend eternity with you in heaven.

Well, the girls woke up at 6:50 this morning (I'm sure it would have been a lot earlier, however, I threatened their life if they woke up any earlier ;)
And then the fun began. But let me first give this disclaimer....In a moment of panic, while I was trying to take pictures & video at the same time, I gave the camera to David and gave him the all important task of taking pics on CHRISTMAS MORNING..... What was I thinking???  Anyway, what's done is done, and therefore, none of our Christmas morning pictures turned out great :(  But, alas, here are the highlights from our morning.

the girls both got adoption t-shirts!

against my better judgement, she finally got a phone!

Morgan loves to cook, so she got her own apron & hat! in her
two favorite things...zebra & blue!

cotton candy maker!!

Santa's cookies & milk. and this year, he even left a picture of
himself standing in our living room!

opening her first gift!





I hope you all have a great and relaxing Christmas day, enjoying your family and worshiping our Lord and Savior.






Merry Christmas!


Melissa

Praying before the gifts were opened.

Week in Review

We have spent the last week in Alabama visiting family. The girls LOVE going to Alabama and playing with their cousins.

At my parent's house

It's very hard to get a good picture with a 22month old! :) 

We had a great time getting to see all our family, here are a few pics from the week...

McKinley with her Nana & Pawpaw

                                               

I even got to meet my new little cousin from China, She was SO adorable!

Here are a few more pics from the last night that we were there. We all just hung out at my parents house and let the kids play and had a nice dinner together.  I miss being able to all get together and have dinner.  It's really those simple things that I miss the most.

Merry Christmas!

I have decided to....

Well I've decided to try my hat at "blogging" but let me first confess that I am not a writer. I can do a run on sentence like it's nobody's business so please show me some grace.


As many of you know we have started the process of adopting a child from China and I  want to document our journey for our family, friends and for us.


How far in the process are we, you ask? Well at this moment we are waiting on Immigration to approve us to adopt Internationally. Once approved, all the mounds of paperwork we have completed will then be sent to the Chinese consulate here in the States for authentication, and then over to the Chinese Government for authentication.  After those two groups approve all our paperwork, praise the Lord, our Dossier will be complete and we will be that much closer to being "logged in".  Logged in means that we can then be matched with the boy or girl God has in store for us, which hopefully, will happen by the end of January.


So in closing, we would appreciate everyone's prayers as we continue on this journey.


Blessings,
Melissa