Walk of Faith pt. 2

Back in February when I first saw a picture of our daughter, not knowing what was to come, my heart flittered. I knew when I saw her that God had a special plan. Not being financially ready, my response was, next year. But that feeling never went away. I thought about Tammy (her name on the MAA WC list) every day and every night before I went to bed. I prayed about her every day, sometimes 2 or 3 times. So this went on for 7 months. I would ask God "but how?." She also has CP which scared the daylights out of me. And she's 10 years old. But after some research, I felt at total peace with her need. During that time, I found a very special blog where they put their adoption of 2 little girls in God's hands. They trusted that He would provide, and He did. I kept praying and knew that we had to do the same thing, "trust in God", it's His plan afterall. In September I wrote our agency that we wanted to be Tammy's family. So here we are fundraising to bring her home. This is our second fundraiser. It's a giveaway for a $100 Best Buy gift card. With each donation, your name is entered into the drawing which will be held December 11th. I hope you will help us on our journey to our daughter Faith (the name we will call her if she is o.k. with it).

"Are you a goer or a sender"?

I have a couple of bloggy friends that I love to check in on and read their posts. On one of the blogs, I watched a short utube video today about their adoption journey. There was a clip about older children aging out. I didn't relize how many older children age out, and how quickly it happens. These children will never have a family to love them, hold them, give sweet hugs, sit at the dinner table with a mamma and daddy. Can you just imagine? It's just simply not right. There needs to be more families. Where are their families?

Did you know there are over 140 million orphans in the world?

Every 2.2 seconds another orphan child ages out without a family to belong to.

It simply breaks my heart that there are so many orphans just waiting to find a family. Could you be there family? Would you go? A friend of mine wrote a post on her blog "Are you a goer or a sender"? Please visit her blog at http://www.morekids4me.blogspot.com/ to read it.

And please don't forget about our fundraiser. This is our second fundraiser & we only have 2 contributors so far. We are hoping to raise $2300 for our homestudy and USCIS fees. When you donate, your name is entered into a drawing for the $100 Best Buy gift card.

Others fundraising too!

One thing is for sure, I have met some really wonderful people while trying to fundraise! I saw a link to a "Christmas Frenzy" sight and ventured over to check it out. This family is amazing by helping others with their fundraisers by posting the families links on their blog. All families are in the process of fundraising and have some great gifts just in time for Christmas. I wrote Stacy and she immediately
replied and welcomed me to her blog. What a sweet blessing to us fundraising families. As I am currently offering a fundraiser giveaway, $100 BEST BUY GIFT CARD, please feel free to check out the Christmas Frenzy link to the right. We are all desperately trying to bring our children home. My fundraisers so far have been tough! You must realize it's really hard to ask of others for help. I simply don't like it and it's hard for me to do. I know God has a plan for us, and our daughter waiting for us in Tianjin, China is part of His plan. We just have to get her home!!!

Don't forget, you are entered into our $100 Best Buy Gift Card giveaway each time you donate to the right. This fundraiser ends Dec. 11th.


Anita

Another Fundraiser!!!

Oh my!! Why does fundraising have to be so hard? Did I think it would be easy?
No!!! But wouldn't it be amazing if it was? So many more families would be formed and there would be less orphans in this world. I know with all my heart that God has called us to bring this sweet child home to become our daughter. We still have a long way to go, but my goal now is to simply finish raising the needed money for the first phase of our adoption expenses. We have currently raised $500, so onward we go.

To enter our Fundraiser Giveaway to help bring Faith home just click on the donate button. Each donation gives you a chance to win this awesome gift, $100 Best Buy gift card, just in time for the Holidays. Enter as many times as you like as each donation will give you additional chances to win.






This fundraiser giveaway ends on Saturday Dec. 11th. I will announce the winner on Sunday, December 12th. Thank you so much for helping us bring our daughter home!!

Journey to Jacob!

I wanted to share our journey in finding our "little man" Jacob 5 years ago. I never imagined that God would bless us with a son. In fact, I thought about adopting again after Emmi and Maggie, but honestly thought it would be another girl. Jacob was 3 3/4 when he ventured through the hotel room door in Xianyang in February 2006. What a brave little boy he was to see for the first time his momma and big sister, Emmi. Oh how time has flown. Jacob turned 8 this past June. I just can't believe how fast these past 4 years have gone. I had written a letter to announce Jacob, then named "Zander" on our waiting kids list and wanted to post it here. It's very special and came right from my heart. God works in wonderous ways. We just have to "listen" and "be patient". I try my hardest to listen but still need to work on patience. Here is what I wrote:

"It is with upmost excitment that we would like to announce we are the very proud
parents of our "little man" Zander. I couldn't figure out why I kept getting drawn to his
file. I was seriously advocating for this little boy and wanted him to have his own
forever family. Two weeks ago, I decided to print a copy of his picture and some information
regarding his hand and take it to our local orthopedic office in hopes that I could post "something"
to this wonderful group. I laid the picture on my desk as it would be a couple
of days until I could get by there. And then I thought, hmmm, wonder if my dh, Mike would
notice the picture. I even posted to Amy if Max and Zander were in the same swi. I thought well maybe
Amy's dh could check in on our little Zander man and give the group an update on him. Would that
be for the group or for "me"? I really started getting some mixed emotions.
Then after going back and reviewing his file again, I noticed his birthday. How
could I have overlooked that it was 6/18, the same as my dad's who is now deceased. That day
I looked at Zander in a totally different way. I had never really noticed which swi he was in, I just knew
he was in Xi'an, the same city as our Maggie. He is residing in the Xianyang swi and Emmi's middle
name is Yangxuan (very different meanings, but very close in spelling). As I was continually examining
his information, big old smiles came over my face. You know, I just can't explain the feeling, except that
it's very warm and fuzzy and feels right. All during this time I have prayed for Zander to find his forever family.
So I started praying a little differently. I prayed that if this child is suppose to be in our family please
give me some more signs.
This last Sunday me and the girls attended our regular church and I had already decided to move my
membership. We had been going there for years and it was something that I knew I needed to do. As
the service began and the congregation sang the opening song, we then watched a short video. Granted
we don't watch a video during every service. This video was about a man and his son. There was an accident
when the son was born and he could not walk or talk. The family enrolled
their son in school and even bought a device to help him communicate. He wanted to be in marathon's so
the dad pushed him in his wheelchair. The attitude and togetherness this family had was just remarkable. Today
the dad and his son have competed in many, many marathons, bi-athalons, etc. There were many teary eyes
including mine. I thought about Zander and his minor, minor need compared to this fellow. How could we not
scoop up this adorable little fellow, our "little Zander man"?
After church a friend of mine, who lurks on this list, and her daughter along with Em and Mag were off to
Nashville to the fcc Easter egg hunt. When my friend got in the van, and you know who you are, she asked
what we were going to do about Zander. I said "if we go to this egg hunt and someone hollers Zander you get
back over here", then that will be a sure sign that he's our son, jokingly of course. Well we went to the hunt, had a
great time and returned home. My husband was cooking and he asked how the hunt was. I said it was great,
however, there weren't any boys there. He said "can you not get boys"? I said "yeesss" in
fact there's a child on our waiting list now that just has something wrong with his hand. Let me back up a little.
I had not said anything yet to Mike about Zander, but I was getting ready to. I'm the type of person that has to
figure it out and then talk about it with my spouse. Mike is in no way a reluctant husband. I knew he would be
all for being Zander's dad. Back to the story. I told him I had a picture on my desk. He said Emmi showed me
his picture. Emmi and Maggie were o.k. with him being their little brother and of course the hand was no big
deal with them either. We talked about it a little more and I e-mailed Stefani that we wanted to "officially" review
his file.
On Tuesday, I received my e-mail from Chinasprout and decided to visit the sale page. There are these cute
little chops with animals of the zodiac on top. I thought the girls would love to stamp with them. Hmm, wonder
what Zander's zodiac is? I looked it up and found it to be the horse. That night I went back to work. I was
talking with a lady I did't know and she had this interesting necklace on. Can you guess? Yep, a horse. Then
the next morning on the way to work I heard an advertisement on the radio, "Zanderman's" law firm, something or
another. O.K. I hear you loud and clear God. This is our boy, our "little man" as I had been calling him. I just
wanted to be sure He wanted this little fellow in our family, and it certainly looks like that's His plan. So it is
with great pleasure to announce "WE ARE ZANDER'S FAMILY!! Yahoooooo!!!! Sorry to keep everyone in suspense
but I wanted to tell my mom first and in person. We're on our way to her house so I'm going to go ahead and
post our exciting news. Thank you so much for everyone who wrote about Zander's need and shared you're own
personal experiences with your children. I just love this group and can't wait to share our journey to our "little
Zander man".


Here's our "little man" Jacob today. This was taken at school a couple of weeks ago when he received a reading award. I just loooove that he will let me take a picture of him in front of his classmates. Oh how I dread that day when he decides he's too big to have his picture taken in front of his friends. I can just hear it now, "MA-A-A-M"! I know because his big sister Emmi does that now.