Naming our son

I got out of bed Thursday morning and for some reason had him on my mind…. heavy on my heart as well.  Everyday he is heavy on our minds and hearts as you can probably imagine, but for some reason this past Thursday he was especially.  I went to the old calendar we have hanging on the refrigerator.  I took it down and counted the days.  The days since we found out he was in the hospital. It has been a long 28 days.  I remember one of the cardiology surgeons we met with in Orlando telling me that in America his heart surgery would probably keep him in the hospital for about 10-15 days.  When I talked to our agency they said China usually keeps their heart patients or any hospital patient for about double the amount of time whatever it is in America.  I am still not sure why this is and I have my theories but I will try not to digress.  So here we are at 28 days.  I felt like we should get the call any day and hopefully by Christmas.  Didn’t want my baby boy to be alone in a hospital bed on Christmas day.  It just broke my heart. 

Around 11:30 that morning, Nora was sitting at the counter “shoving” PB&J in her mouth, no surprise, at a very rapid pace. I heard my phone ding with the signal of a new email.  With both kids busy for the moment, I checked it and all it said was “we have a status update on your child...” my heart raced a little faster and I screamed “yes”! If you know me you can probably imagine it was pretty LOUD, which made Nora drop her PB&J.  I scrambled for the computer and found that Bethany they had sent us a video and a few broken translated lines.  Basically he is doing well post surgery.  That is about all we got.

At that point we hadn’t seen any discharge paperwork and we really still don’t even know what exact surgery he had, just that it was heart surgery. BUT I WILL TAKE IT!!  PRAISING GOD and SO thankful!  He might not be in his forever home, yet, but I think God has him in a pretty great place. And surrounded by some pretty great people.  At the end of their small note the orphanage did say he was quite the introvert and very shy. Oh my. This poor boy doesn’t know what he has coming by moving in with the Baumeister Gang in a few months! Here is the video.

https://video.bethany.org/api_v3/international/view_media.php?entry=0_7yqi23tl

We think he is pretty perfect… and pretty big.  At 9 Months old, he only weighs 3 lbs less than our 21-month-old Nora!  John and I have watched the video probably 80 times.  It never gets old!

I am VERY excited that we no longer call him “Baby China” around the house J Although Everett does slip and pray for “Baby China” sometimes.  While this was somewhat endearing I found it to be kind of annoying and stereotypical, we now try to encourage Everett when he says “Baby China” to remember his new brother and all of the other “Baby China’s” without a family. 

We are so thankful he finally has a NAME!  So, many have asked if we are going to keep his Chinese name? Will we change it?  His orphanage given name is JiaHui Sun. Thanks to Laura’s friend Nancy, we were able to do a little research and figure out that Jia-Hui means “Home & Light (like brightness)”. It is written in Chinese as the following:  家辉

In fact, in the video, you can hear his caretakers calling him “Hui, Hui” over and over. We think it is some sort of shortened nickname. “Hui, Hui”. It’s pretty neat to think that in several years, our son will have an opportunity to look back at this video and reflect. We still are unsure of how that conversation will go, but this is one of the many challenges of adoption. 

Since getting our referral, John and I have always known that we would change his name.  It was pretty simple for us.  Our child was abandoned in a market without any note from his birth family.  Therefore we are confident that his Chinese name was given to him by the orphanage and not by his birth mother.  We may have had a different opinion if there was evidence that his birth family had named him. But with us, he is beginning a NEW life.  In the bible, God renames people he has chosen for a specific purpose. 

For example: Abraham.

Genesis 17:5

“No longer shall your name be called Abram, But your name shall be Abraham; For I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.” 

We believe this little boy was chosen while in his mother’s womb.  We do not fully understand all the circumstances around why she left him in that market but we know God does and He has great plans for our son.  We know that he was specifically chosen for our family and he is a gift from God. We will also be so bold to say that our family was specifically chosen for him, to be his parents, and his guardians, and his joy.  This is why we have named him Theodore.  Theodore means “Gift from God” and what a gift he is! His full name will be Theodore Walker Baumeister, and we plan on keeping his first name shortened at “Theo”.

This journey has been incredibly exciting for us over the past year. There has been and still is a lot of faith involved in this process. Thanks again for everyone’s support, prayers and love! We hope that over the coming months we can keep updating you on our progress.  We are now working on getting Theo’s immigration paper work complete and our Visas back so we can travel to pick him up!!  We are hoping to travel this coming Spring. 

Until next time,

Laura

This Thanksgiving 2014

Thanksgiving has always been one of our favorite holidays. The air is getting crisp throughout the country everywhere but Florida… and it’s always great to see family. This year we made a trip to South Carolina to spend some time with my family and play some golf. Wow, we are definitely not ready to face the cold!

If you’ve been following our blog for a while, you know we have many things this year to be thankful for. So many people have supported us through our adoption, we have been relatively healthy, and God has blessed us with a renewed faith in his provisions for us. It is hard some days to remember that the very same God who spins the universe into order knows each of us by name, and loves us deeply.

A few weeks ago, we had an amazing turnout for our yard sale fundraiser, which you can read more about and see some photos on our previous posts. What we didn’t reveal at that time was some very exciting news. The Thursday before our yard sale… we were matched.

Our referral came in the form of an email and a phone call from our adoption agency. I was in the car on my way to a dinner in Orlando, and Laura was out and about with the kids. Laura answered the call and a voice on the other line said “Laura… we have some news for your family. He’s a little boy and he’s 8 months old.” She nearly dropped the phone from the wave of emotions that came over her. We imagined several scenarios where we would get the news if I was out of town on business, or if Laura was in North Carolina, but we didn’t figure we would both be away from the house. “He is one of the youngest we have seen come through the system, but I have to tell you that his condition is a little outside your openness range. We almost passed you with him, but something told us we should let you see his file.” “Ok” Laura said, “ok”.

Our Referral Pics

For the next several hours, we both frantically tried to open files on our phones and read more about him, and his heart condition. When I got back from Orlando, Laura and I looked through the photos and prayed for wisdom in making this decision. We had already lined up a doctor from the University of Washington, who specializes in adoptions from China, to review our referral file.

Laura and I had been preparing ourselves to be matched with a child with some sort of orthopedic special need, so receiving a little boy with a congenial heart defect (CHD) was a bit surprising. His condition is called teratology of fallot. You can find out more about this condition here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetralogy_of_Fallot. It basically means that his heart has a hole in it and pushes un-oxygenated blood back through his body causing blue spells. He will eventually need open heart surgery to repair the hole and open the main pulmonary artery traveling to his lungs. It is heartbreaking imagining his mother/father giving this little boy up knowing that they could not provide him the care he needs. Without abandoning him, he would have no chance at survival. In God’s perfect timing, someone brought him to an orphanage partnered with our agency, and ultimately into a match with us. How could we say “No”?

 

Look at that smile!

Again God’s timing is so purposeful.  The next Friday after the call we received another call informing us that he was in the hospital having heart surgery (in China).  As you can imagine Laura was hysterical and we wanted to be by his side.  The orphanage was unable to give us any more information and we will not hear any status update until after he has been brought back to the orphanage. We believe God brought us this little boy for many reasons and we believe His timing was specifically so we could lift him up in prayer during his major surgery.  We don’t expect to hear anything for a while.  Please pray with us.  Pray that the open heart surgery would fully repair his heart defect, pray that baby boy would not be alone but would feel God’s hand holding his during recovery, pray for the continued legal paperwork to bring baby boy home, pray for the hands that care for him as they would love him as their own.  And please pray for us and that we would continue to follow God’s will.   

We are thankful for you!  Thankful that you continue to pray for us and continue to follow our story.  We hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

John and the Baumeister Gang!

A Hoarders paradise and one VERY grateful family

It came and it went, and what a weekend it was! Thank you to everyone who played a part in helping us pull together our adoption yard sale fundraiser last week. We cannot tell you how much it means to us to know we have friends and family who are willing to drop everything for a weekend to help bring baby China home.

Let’s start with the donors… your generosity and kindness for donating enough items to fill our garage and entire house was shocking. Our greatest fear was that we wouldn’t have enough items to sell to make an impact, but all of you exceeded our expectations. Super hero capes, hair bows, hand-made backpacks were among some of the local crafts available during the sale. Our local Chick-fil-A was kind enough to support us with coffee and even Krispy Kreme sent over some donuts. All volunteers were also blessed with a pizza lunch from one of John’s co-workers.

Next the volunteers… the 5:30am set-up crew worked magic. It felt like we were never going to empty the house completely. John’s parents were in town and helped set-up and organize, and our neighbors helped out wherever they could.  Everett’s preschool teacher Ms. Cindy and her husband helped out for both days and several of John’s co-workers and their wives spent all day Saturday with us restocking items, organizing and providing much needed support. It’s amazing how God provides when you least expect it.

The weather… Saturday was beautiful. We had over 200 customers and sold over half our items. However, later Saturday evening it started raining… Sunday was a different story with rain all day. Our volunteers pushed through though. We even updated our signs to read “Still open in the rain” to try and attract more customers. And they kept coming. Our biggest fear was not knowing what to do with all the extra stuff. The slightly “damp” items we had left.

We learned a lot through the process about each other and about our community. A small blog posting does not do anyone justice who helped out, but know that you were a gift from God that weekend. Lending us tables and tents, helping set-up, running the checkout counter, overseeing the craft table, “moving the merchandise”, delivering the larger items, restocking tables, organizing the clothing, watching our children for the day, dropping off items at Goodwill, etc. All would have been lost without you.

The weekend was a true display of God’s grace for us and we need to remember to give God the glory for all of our sales… all $6,500 of it. His Grace truly is Amazing.

Please continue to pray for Baby China!

John

A child worth waiting for

Many of our friends have recently asked us “so, how is the adoption going?”  And while this question evokes many different emotions including gratitude, frustration, excitement, and fear, I try to continually remind myself of what a virtue patience really is.  We were logged into China on 8/13/14.  This is technically our start date, even though we started this process about 1 year ago. We have only been waiting 2 months, but I find myself every day hoping and thinking about seeing the blue line (see our previous blog post- matching night is like taking a pregnancy test).  I can’t help but think of my friends and family members who have or are going through infertility.  Let me prefaces this by saying I can’t begin to imagine what it must be like and I am in no way trying to minimize the seriousness of infertility!  John and I have never had to wait very long for a blue line.  It has always come freely and quickly.  Waiting sucks!  It is hard and I must say it makes me sin.  This once prayed for thing can quickly become an idol.  Our old pastor in Raleigh-Durham used to say, when “a good thing becomes a god thing (making it your god), it becomes a bad thing.” Because lets be honest all you think about is that thing.  While I try to wait patiently to see our precious child’s face, I grow weary, become distracted and take my focus away from why God called us to this in the first place.

 I am reminded in Isaiah 40:28-31

The Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable. He gives strength to the weary and to him who lacks might He increases powers.... Yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength. 

I was talking to friend the other night on the phone.  She and her husband struggled with infertility for years and now have a precious child.  But what struck with me was when she said “Laura, if we had gotten pregnant any sooner, we would never have THIS child”.  She is right God’s timing is perfect and though sometimes painful His plan for that ONE specific child for you is so much sweeter than you can imagine.  I also think about another friend who has had 5 failed adoptions and now has the most perfect adopted newborn baby boy at home.  I think about if one of the other previous adoptions had gone through than she wouldn’t have this baby. 

So we will press on!  We know God has clearly told us that we will be a mother and father to an orphan so we will continue to trust His plan and trust His timing.   And I will continue to keep my eyes on Jesus because my patience is already growing weary.

5 years together

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October 3^rd. It’s been 5 years since this!

It is hard to believe that since then we: walked down the aisle, completed graduate school, rescued the “perfect” dog, had 2 children, lived in 3 states with 4 different homes, switched jobs a few times, bought a van, turned 30, lost some of our loved ones and had others born into our extended family, and all along keeping our eyes ahead on God’s greater plan.  Oh and let’s not forget our current adoption. It does seem to fly by and as much as I hate when people say “oh hunny, treasure these moments” (in an old grandma voice), the old grandma voice is definitely right.  These first 5 years have gone by so fast that we have trouble even remembering life BC (Before Children). 

Now… John has talked about our 5th year anniversary for, oh about the past 5 years, hoping we would go on an elaborate vacation for 2 weeks. In his opinion, we should celebrate life’s milestones to the fullest.  Little did he know back then that we would be in the middle of an adoption from China in our 5^th year and on a very tight budget!  But we did have a little fun this year by deciding to go on an airboat ride last week when John had Friday off.  We have talked about taking a ride on one of the swamps since moving to Florida and this was the perfect excuse. And very affordable!

 After looking around for a week, we got a great recommendation from Leah Merritt about a guy (Ray’s Airboat Rides) in Titusville. It was amazing and he was the perfect guide for just the two of us. In fact, we are making sure my parents go out with him next time they are in town. Capitan Ray knew all about the area of the Banana River we were on, and even had the scars to show for the years he spent “catching” alligators here when he was a kid.  

This past Friday night on our actual anniversary, October 3, we took the family to eat pizza and listen to some live music in town.  The music is FREE every Friday night at an outdoor mall and the kids LOVE it.  For some reason we decided not to get a sitter this year and we were so glad we didn’t.  These two have made celebrating our 5 years together so much sweeter.  I am glad we were all together for it. The skies opened up just as we were leaving, and we all ran to the car! Perfect.

It is hard to imagine what the next 5 years will look like.  We hope to be at least a family of 5….or maybe more! After all, children are a blessing!

Laura 

God's greater plan & appointments

First, we just want to say……Thank you!  John and I were blown away by our t-shirt sale and are so grateful to everyone who purchased one and/or gave a donation to help support bringing home Baby China. You will forever be a part of our child's story, and how he/she found a forever home. 

We sent many of you facebook private messages to thank you personally but I know not everyone has messanger.  All told, through the website,  we ended up selling 140 t-shirts including 10 shirts to people we have never met before. What an act of faith supporting our adoption when you don’t know us personally.  The southern roots side of us is dying knowing we can’t send you a proper thank you note (because we don’t know your name let alone your address), so please forgive us and accept this as our formal thank you!!  

God continues to amaze us by His continued provision throughout this adoption.  We first began this adoption journey for the sole purpose of bringing an orphan into our family because God called us to do so, with hopes of sharing the Gospel of Grace along the way.  What has been amazing to us is to see that God’s plans are much bigger than that.  Today was a good example.

Today is Wednesday.  On Wednesdays, I typically go to a 9:30am women’s bible study at our church (Church at Viera).  This morning I planned to leave early so I could run by Office Depot and pick up some fliers we made for our upcoming garage sale (more on that later).  I had ordered and paid for the fliers online so it would be easy to just run in and pick them up before bible study.  What I always hope is going to be a 5 min run-in and pick-up always takes longer!  Story of my life... While I have your attention, a little tangent/ rant for my husband:

I used to think the drive-through was for lazy people, and not using the drive-through was for real moms!  Let me just say that I wish there was a  drive-through EVERYwhere... And I mean everywhere.  Office Depot, Old Navy, the Bank, Hobby Lobby, Publix, Home Depot, Post Office, Pets Mart, Walmart...  I mean seriously, would that not be the best thing ever?!  It takes an act of Congress to get our family in and out of the car at every errand stop. Besides, the fact that one of the sliding doors on our van is broken currently, I have to crawl over the seats to buckle the kids in (who never keep their shoes on for more than 2 seconds), with both of them demanding to do everything their self... which for an 18month old could take about an hour to get out of the car. Then it never fails once we get in the store one of them has to go potty… Can I get an amen from the moms?

The best thing about the entire story above is that once I got into Office Depot this morning they informed me that I was at the wrong location and my fliers had been printed at the store 30 minutes away. Uhhhhhh! The "nice man" at  my current Office Depot location offered to print them for me, but it would take about 20 minutes.  So if I didn’t have children I totally would have waited but entertaining Nora for 20 minutes can be a bit challenging, so I accepted my loss and left the store, no fliers in hand.  On the bright side, this meant I got to church about 30 minutes earlier than I anticipated!  Happy DANCE!  I get to sit in quiet and have a cup of joe!

As I was sitting there, 2 Asian women came up and sat next to me.  We began the regular chit-chat that one makes when meeting someone new. One of the women was older (in her 70's) and spoke very clear English.  The younger woman spoke a bit of broken English and you could tell she was having trouble understanding me.  In an effort to help the communication gap, the older woman began to translate what I was saying to the younger woman.  I asked her where she was from... and she said CHINA!  Of course my heart started beating a little faster, I couldn’t believe it.  She told me that she had just moved here in January from China with her 15 year old son.  We talked more and the room that was once empty had now filled with around 100 women, although I was completely unaware because this woman had captured my limited attention.  I told her about our adoption from China and she seemed fascinated.  She asked “why are you adopting if you have your own children?”  I explained to her that we believe God has called us to adopt and we believe we were once orphans - separated form God - until Christ adopted us back into relationship with him. At that moment the older woman leaned over and said “She doesn’t know Jesus and that is why I have brought her here.” I was stunned.  A divine appointment I thought! What are the chances that my fliers would be sent to the wrong store, I would get to church 30 min early, and this woman (just recently moved from China) who doesn’t know the Lord would sit down next to me and strike up a conversation so relative to our situation... I don’t know how this story will end, but I have her email and I pray an authentic friendship will develop.  I pray that through our friendship she can learn about Jesus and I can learn a little more about China.  Although to quote her, "you teach me English, and I teach you Chinese cooking!" John will be happy about that!

Today has made me think about 1Timothy 1:12 "I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given my strength, that he considered me faithful, appointing me to his service."

You can’t tell me this meeting today was random.  It was a divine appointment that God planned before the beginning.  I, who am never 30 minutes early, happened to print the flyers at the wrong store, decided not to wait around and was therefore early enough to sit and have a cup of coffee, and have this experience. It is an amazing feeling to know that God is at work in our lives. Have you had a divine appointment recently that left you left you a little speechless? I believe we all have a lot more divine appointments than we realize. It just takes a little faith to see the reason for some of life's circumstances.

What if God uses our adoption to bring this woman to Christ? What about her son who has never heard the name Jesus? His purpose is always good.

What are your thoughts?

Laura

how much does adoption cost? and how you can help!

Many times over the past year we’ve been asked about the financial side of adoption… How much does it cost?!! This is the 50 million dollar question that is difficult to answer. On one hand it’s a simple dollar figure but on the other, how do you explain to a coworker, acquaintance, or friend of a friend that the money is not just a one time, lump sum, hand it over and get a kid in return kind of exchange. We are not going to Wal-Mart and picking out a pair of shoes. We are rescuing an orphan. A child with no mother or father, who’s life will be dramatically different the second a judge slams his/her gavel down and they instantly becomes ours. The money is nothing compared to a child’s life.

However, adoption is expensive, regardless if it is domestic or international.  Adoption can range from $28,000 to upwards of $50,000.  While different adoption agencies have various fees, most of what we are paying for does not go to the agency itself.  Thankfully, these fees are not a onetime payment. In fact, the money is usually due slowly over time and gives us a chance to save for each payment.  With each step of the adoption process we incur more fees and costs.  Below we break down what our adoption is expected to cost according where all the money does too. 

*KEY: GREEN is money due to Bethany, BLUE is due to US Government, RED is due to China, Black is expected travel expenses and shipping expenses.

China Fee Summary:

$550       -Application fee- PAID
$2,400   -Home Study Service fee- PAID
$4,650   -Program fee I- PAID
$432      -Copy, and shipping expenses- PAID
$170      -Fingerprinting for both parents- PAID
$720      -US immigration form I800A- PAID
$1,760   -Fee for Dossier Submission to China- PAID

$2,350   -Program Fee II- due at referral acceptance- NOT PAID

$1,050   -China fee due at referral acceptance- NOT PAID
$5,700   -Orphanage Donation- cash due when picking up child- NOT PAID
$2,000   -Legal fees- cash due in China- NOT PAID
$200      -Child’s visa and medical exam- NOT PAID
$280      -US consulate Child’s Visa and courier fee- NOT PAID
$330      -China travel Visa for 2 adults traveling- NOT PAID
$194      -Passport Fee for 2 adults- NOT PAID
$6,000   -Airfare for 2 Adults to China- NOT PAID
$1,000   -Airfare for adopted Child coming home- NOT PAID
$4,500   -In county lodging, flights and food for 18 days- NOT PAID
$2000    -Post adoption report fee- NOT PAID

OUR TOTAL ESTIMATED COST is $36,286

We have already PAID $10,682

A little math and you can see that we have about $25,000 to go (NOT PAID) and we have been told to be ready for some unexpected costs in China that not included above.

So, you might be saying “WOW… I had no idea how much it cost to adopt”, or “WOW… how in the world are they going to come up with that money?”  It’s scary to us as well, but we have to believe that God is going to provide in incredible ways!  We already live on a pretty tight budget, as many of you know, but we are going to need more than a tight budget to come up with $25,604.  We do have a plan. We continue to save monthly and, as you can see from our previous post, are selling a lot of unnecessary stuff around our house. We recently SOLD the Mazda ($3800) and have applied for several adoption grants.

We are also planning to have a few fundraisers... And guess what? Today we want to invite you to partner with us!

Fundraising:

1.  As a first step to bridge the adoption fee gap several of our friends designed and sold support t-shirts. So, in keeping with the going trend, we have designed our own adoption T-shirts!  After getting a lot of opinions from friends and family, we have finally decided on this! Click on the shirt for the link to get yours.

We chose Amazing Grace because, as believers, it has been the corner stone to our adoption in Christ.  We are adopted by God, only because of his Amazing Grace. 

Ephesians 2:8 says “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God”.  We love Phil Wickham’s song “This is Amazing Grace”

"This is amazing grace
This is unfailing love
That You would take my place
That You would bear my cross
You lay down Your life
That I would be set free
Oh, Jesus, I sing for
All that You've done for me
Who brings our chaos back into order  
Who makes the orphan a son and daughter
The King of Glory, the King of Glory"

WE ONLY HAVE 15 DAYS to sell at least 50 shirts!! If you would like to support us by purchasing one of the available sizes and styles this is a great way to help. Follow this link if you are interested in our shirt: https://www.bonfirefunds.com/the-baumeister-family-adoption-fundraiser

2.  So… what if you say “I have a million shirts, I don’t want ANOTHER grey shirt, or I hate the design”. It will NOT offend us!  Instead of buying a shirt, would you be willing to donate the price of a shirt to our adoption fund? What you would have spent could be given as a DONATION to our TAX DEDUCTIBLE adoption account provided by Lifesong.** Caution, this is different than the t-shirt site (see link below)!!

If this interests you there are two ways to give, and we would be extremely grateful.

-Give by Check

Please make checks payable to Lifesong for Orphans. If you would like to remain anonymous please make a note on your check with this request. 

In the memo please note your gift preference with Family Account Number and Family Name. (#4655 Baumeister)

Please mail checks to:

Lifesong for Orphans
PO Box 40
Gridley, IL 61744

-Give Online by Credit Card

1. Go to www.lifesongfororphans.org/give/donate or use the "paypal" donate button in the upper right corner of our blog.

2. Select Give to an Adoptive Family

3. Complete online form and fill in Family Account Number & Family Name Field. (#4655 Baumeister)

*Please note that PayPal will charge an administrative fee (2.9% + $.30 USD per transaction). Your donation will be decreased by the amount of this fee.

3. Pray for us.  Pray that God would provide the financial resources to bring our sweet baby home!  Pray for our agency as they continue to look for a match for us.  Pray for our baby, who we do not know yet, but God has been preparing for us for all of our lives! 

4. Share our story. Maybe you wont give, or can’t give right now. That’s ok! Social media, your friends, family, businesses that don’t know us, but want to help (and want a tax deduction) could all be the help that we’re looking for. The more people that hear about our story means the more people that will hear about God’s Amazing Grace! 

5. Garage Sale- Date sometime this Fall.  More details to come, but we will be having a huge garage sale with items donated from friends and family.

If for any reason you have questions, the t-shirt link is gone, the donate button is not working or any concerns please feel free to email us at klbaumeister@gmail.com.  We thank you so much for taking the time to read our blog and consider helping us along the way.

How amazing it will be for you to meet this baby girl/boy that you helped bring home from China.

We are forever thankful.

John and Laura

providing for us even when...

 
Maybe you know by now that we were not matched to one of the waiting children on the shared list the other night. Although Laura and I are bummed about it, being matched on our first night of eligibility would have been a miracle by many standards. Moving forward, we will trust in our God’s perfect timing while we patiently wait for our son or daughter.  At these times, its always good to reflect on His blessings for us.

Some updates in our family… 

 

 Our serious boy, Everett.

Everett has become quite the ladies man and sports star (taking after his father of course). During his first meet-and-greet with his preschool teacher, Ms. Cindy, he brought her a picture he had drawn and the letter (O). Literally, Laura told me he pulled one of the alphabet letters from the fridge and brought it to his teacher. What a man! Even better, guess what letter they were learning about for their first week? The letter (O)! He’s also attending a program called “Lil Sports” once a week, and has already learned all about Baseball, Football, and Basketball. My heart aches as a dad that I’m not there, but he does look like he’s having a blast.

 

 

Our silly girl, Nora.

Nora. What can we say about Nora. As she gets older she is becoming quite a handful! She is learning to point to her ears, eyes, nose and hair when prompted, and loves to swim in the pool with mommy & daddy. Nora is quick to tell you “no no” when she doesn’t want to participate in an activity, but always has a smile on her face and is definitely our silly child. 

John's new work truck. HOA is not too happy...

 

As we wait Laura has become quite the businesswoman, selling some of our old trinkets on craigslist and an online consignment group here in Viera, FL to help build up our adoption fund. While most of her sales are small, we did just have a big one… The Mazda is sold! Goodbye little car, hello company truck! I have been very fortunate over the past two weeks to be given a company vehicle, which has allowed us to sell a car and put a big chunk towards the adoption.  The Mazda is definitely not a Ferrari… but it was a zippy little thing for an ’05. I was most shocked at the calls we got from our craigslist ad… No we do not want half the asking price and some guns. No we do not want you to make payments for the next six months. And no we do not want to trade it for a cow named Mayble who is guaranteed to provide 2 gallons of milk a week... I made that last one up, but some people are very persistent. She was a great car, but it was time for us to part ways.

 Bye Bye Mazda...

We ended up selling it to a guy who flew down to Orlando from New York, saw our ad, had his father drive him an hour out of the way to our house and purchased it after some heated negotiation. Little did he know that I married one of the best negotiators this side of the Mississippi River (that would be Laura). And his plan is to drive it back to NY… Like I said, some people are very persistent. One fact about this guy stirred our hearts that God was at work in selling or car. He was fluent in Mandarin Chinese… He had been to China many times and spent the better part of 20 minutes going over some common names for big brother and mama.  Very cool.

A side note on something that is not that cool. Last week Laura was handed a fake $10 bill when she sold some trinkets. We didn’t realize it at the time, but later got a call from a woman who Laura gave the $10 to as change.  Apparently, McDonalds doesn’t accept fake cash… Mortified, Laura is getting the woman another $10 to replace the fake and we are taking it to the Viera police station. Now, I don’t think there is some secret underground cash printing operation here in Viera, but it’s crazy to think how many business and hands the $10 went through before being discovered.

Family pic at Jacksonville Beach with our friends the Herrins

All that said, we are so thankful God has put us in the position to sell the Mazda and provide for us yet again. He is very good. We hope to keep our persistence up as we wait and pray for our child.  Please keep praying for us.

John

Matching Night is like taking a pregnancy test

We were originally going to talk about cars tonight but our plan for the blog this week got booted when we received an email this morning telling us it is MATCHING NIGHT!  My heart started beating a little harder and I thought holy cow, we could get a call in the morning that Bethany has matched us with a child! Of course… this is only our first matching night since being LID (see previous blog on the LID process). The only feeling I can put it to is (for women) when you think you might be pregnant. But don’t think so… But convince yourself to take a test anyway.  Remember those 3 minutes of waiting for the line, or circle, or smiley face to change and your heart is racing and you don’t know if you are going to cry or jump for joy... Those few minutes are what I have been feeling all day.  What I know is that we will most likely NOT be matched tonight, but something inside is also saying it could be possible…   

So now that my focus is completely changed for the evening, what I want to do this week is clarify exactly what MATCHING NIGHT is and where referrals come from.  If you haven’t been reading our blog let me also go back and enlighten you what the word referral means. 

What is a referral? This is an orphaned child, who has been matched with your family by Bethany (our agency). 

Where do referrals come from (specifically for the Waiting Child Program in China)? The Waiting child program is a program for children with special needs, healthy children are NOT in this program. Children come from all over China after being placed on a list by the CCCWA.

There are only 2 avenues that our referral can come from:

1.     MATCHING NIGHT- this occurs every 2-3 weeks.  The CCCWA releases new children’s profiles to an online database sometimes called the Shared List.  This list is only accessed by licensed adoption agencies as profiles are released. To put this into perspective, there are thousands of adoption agencies around the world preparing for matching night, making this night very stressful for agencies who are trying to find a profile match for their adoptive families. The whole process occurs at night in our time zone. Files are uploaded and within seconds agencies must “lock in” the files that best fit one of their many families’ requests.  Usually only a few files are locked in at a time and sometimes agencies are unable to make even a single match. Children’s files that are locked in the quickest are usually those with the most reversible disabilities and tend to be on the younger side, while older children and children with downs and cerebral palsy may be on the list for years without ever being locked in for a family.  The children on the list are from orphanages all over China.  Sometimes the ability to get more information on the child can be difficult because there is no direct relationship between the orphanage and the agency.   Some agencies only use this method of matching.

2.     ONE TO ONE Partnerships- This is a partnership between a specific orphanage and a specific agency.  In this partnership the orphanage sends the agency several profiles without any other agency having access to those children.   This type of partnership is more common with larger agencies and is helpful in bringing in a greater number of referrals at one time, more than the 1-2 children they typically get on the shared list.  The orphanages partner with only certain agencies and have a signed contract.  Every contract is different and some agree to send referrals monthly while others less often.  Some agreements also specify that the agency must find a family for every child before they will release any more files.  This can be challenging.  For example, imagine if an orphanage sends the agency 30 referrals at one time.  If 10 children will have minor correctable needs (cleft lip/palate, minor heart defect) and 20 may have more major needs (missing limbs, down syndrome, CP), the first 10 will most likely get placed very quickly.  The 20 with more major needs might take much longer to place.  Not until all 30 children are placed in families will the orphanage release more referrals.  The huge benefit of getting a referral from a one to one partnership is that you frequently will be able to get more pictures and more information than you would if they came from the shared list. 

So as we sit here and stare at what we will call our “blue line”.  We will pray for God’s divine plan, and specifically for the Child that we believe He has already picked out for us before the beginning of time.  John has informed me that we will NOT be staying up all night… oh this is going to be hard for me… and that in the morning we will check the Bethany online portal to see if we have been matched. 

Again, I don’t expect to see a blue line but crazier things have happened! 

Please pray for the Bethany social workers tonight, all of the children who the CCCWA releases to find loving families, and please pray that I don’t lose my mind waiting for the “blue line”.

Laura