Grants

Just wanted to show you this picture before I mail these off...

These are grant applications to various adoption organizations. We're sending these out with hopes that we can continue to close the gap financially on our adoption. Now that we have identified our kids, the waiting is even harder. 

Will you take a moment to pray for these applications to be approved? Because of our daughter's medical condition, we're so anxious to move as quickly as we can.

Our Newest Partnership

We wanted to take a moment to introduce you to our newest partner on our blog. You may recall a few months ago that we did a fundraiser with Delicate Fortress Creations. You can read about it here. We believe in the mission of Delicate Fortress Creations, which is to bring hope and healing to women who are trapped in the poverty cycle. Purchases that you make through Delicate Fortress go to rescue women from trafficking and forced prostitution. Now, you can shop Delicate Fortress anytime, and not only will your purchase accomplish these things noted above, but we also will receive 10% from every order placed. Special note to men: there are lots of great Valentine's gift options here. Just click on this link to do your shopping:

http://bit.ly/VV6QTu

Our other partnerships are still on going. The easiest one to take advantage of is our Amazon partnership. If you use this link to do all your shopping on Amazon, we get a portion of the proceeds:

http://amzn.to/P8gKmM

Lots of folks have asked questions about this one, but here are all the answers: No, your Amazon page will not look any different. No, you will not get any confirmation when you check out. No, the prices will not be any higher. Just click on the link, and shop Amazon just like normal. The best thing to do is to bookmark it in place of your Amazon link. That way, you just click on it and shop like you normally would. Couldn’t be easier.

Our third partnership is with Just Love Coffee Roasters. If you are like me and you love good coffee, this one’s for you. Just shop for fair trade organic coffee through this link, and 1) you’ll be helping local farmers earn a fair wage, 2) you'll get delicious coffee, and 3) we'll get $5.00 from every pound of coffee you buy:

http://bit.ly/WZebki

We appreciate all your support, and your prayers. You are making a permanent difference in the lives of our children!

Expedited Adoption

Because of the pressing medical needs of our adopted kids, we've been in the process of expediting our adoption. It can be a pretty long process, because you basically have to get two different governments to sort through your paperwork and green light it all. But, we've had some encouragement.

On the US side of things, they're expediting us pretty rapidly, all things considered. They told us that the whole process from their end would take about two weeks! This is a process that normally takes a couple of months. 

For part of this process, we had to drive to Yakima to get "biometric" fingerprints. They basically stuck our hands on a scanner and then scanned our prints and sent them on to Homeland Security.  Assuming that we are not hardened criminals, then they'll approve us and we'll be able to scratch off one more step to getting our kids home safely.

We got some major encouragement after returning from Yakima. The very next day, our paperwork was emailed to us, completed. We thought two weeks would be fast, how about two days! That was a real answer to prayer.

At this point, the biggest barrier we have is still finances. We've been encouraged by how God has met our needs up to this point, and we look forward to how He'll keep doing it.

Will you continue to pray that 1) our process moves quickly and 2) our financial needs are met. Specifically, we're still looking at travel costs and orphanage fees.

Chinese New Year

I know for most of you, today is just another day. But, today marks the Chinese New Year. And this year, we have a special request:

Would you take a moment--maybe over dinner or whenever you've got your family gathered together--take a moment just to say a prayer for our kids? 

We're looking forward to celebrating with them in person this time next year, but in the meantime, we just wait...

Thanks...You're Awesome!

 
We just wanted to say thanks for the great response to our cookbook. It is going to press this week, and we'll be sending it out as soon as we get it. If you didn't get a chance to order one, you can do it here.

Several of you donated, which is awesome, and several of you shared our blog post on Facebook, which is awesome. And we even had some folks share the info about our kids and our cookbook on their own blogs--awesome! Just today, a friend shared with us that her women's Bible study group has "adopted" our family as their prayer focus. What an awesome encouragement.

The result is that almost 1,000 people viewed our blog. That's pretty awesome.

That's awesome because that means almost 1,000 people have had the opportunity to pray for our family, and especially for our kids. We know that God hears prayers, and that he is working.

That's awesome because almost 1,000 people have now thought about adoption and their role in it. God is working.

We're thankful that you have shown such love and care for our family. We are still anxious to get our kids home, and get our daughter home quickly so she can have surgery. We appreciate your continued support.