...and

It is hard to concentrate on anything
and
It is kind of hard to sleep
and
It's sometimes hard not to cry

Sending A Package To Faith

A Wonderful Day

We had a wonderful family day today. Just spent the whole day together and left all the cell phones behind...ahhh :)


I've been thinking alot about Hebrews 11:1 "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for..." and how Faith is the substance of what we've hoped for. Beautiful analogy isn't it.

My New Favorite Quote

I read the most beautiful quote today. I pray that God will allow us to live such a life:

"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and proclaiming, "Wow, what a ride!"

And of Course the Need for Fundraising

Well, our adoption fundraiser kicks off today...with the arrival of the FedEx truck once again. The FedEx guy laughed and told me he never knows whether to come to the laundry room door or the front door...he obviously comes too often :)

Three hundred fifty coupon booklets to sell and only a few weeks to do it. I told the kids to hop to it !!

Travel Visas

Our travel visas came today. I ran to the door when I saw the FedEx truck coming up the road. For some strange reason I thought it was our Travel Letter (my mind is a little ahead of the game). Oh well, one more stepping stone on the long path.

Here's an adorable pix of Gracie's lemonade stand she had yesterday with 2 friends. The girls put all the money in our adoption fund (all Gracie's idea). They had a picture of Faith in their money jar on the stand. They raised fifty dollars...pretty good for a lemonade stand!! I said it was the cause that brought in the money, but my neighbor said surely it was the entertainment as the girls stood along the road hoola-hooping and pointing to their sign !!

Our Referral !!

After three and a half years of waiting, early on the morning of May 4, 2009, we received all the referral paperwork for our dear little girl, Xiu Ru (Faith Danielle). She is 2 and a half years old and was abandoned beside the orphanage at one day old. We have since sent our Letter of Acceptance, appplied for our visas and now we are waiting for our Travel Approval to come. We are hoping to travel on August 27th!!

The Paper Chase and the Waiting Game

Wow! What a long road. This road began in our hearts many, many years ago. The paperwork began at God's prompting in February 2005 when we sent our application for adoption to A Helping Hand Adoption Agency in Lexington, KY. The next 6 months were a flurry of paperwork, documents, notarizations, authentications, exams, homestudy, clearances....and finally our dossier was complete! Our dossier was logged in to the China Center for Adoption Affairs in September of 2006...and then the waiting......