Tomorrow is Gotcha Day!!!

I can't begin to describe the emotions in my own heart about tomorrow. I just keep getting overwhelmed with gratitude and amazement that our great Father is letting us adopt a son tomorrow. It kind of blows my mind!!

Our whole group will be getting their babies tomorrow, so as you can imagine, all of us moms (dad and siblings too) are full of anticipation, and emotion. We've made some great friends already. It will be amazing to meet back up with all of them in about 5 days to have a show-and-tell with all of our new sweethearts!

We'll be leaving our hotel at 5:30 am for the airport. Our flight is about an hour long, and we've been told that we will be going directly to the Civil Affairs office to get Joshua. So, by about 8 or 9 pm on Sunday night for you guys we'll be getting our precious boy.

We hope to have a lot more free time, and plan to post more pictures as soon as we get our boy. Please be praying for us, especially for Joshua!

Love you all!

Lesli

Done with Day Two

After a crazy day of sightseeing, we are finally at the end of day two in Beijing!! We started by attending the Beijing International church, then saw a jade factory, had lunch and hiked the Great Wall. The guides have been intentionally keeping us on the go so that we can hopefully get over our jet lag. It's almost impossible to get over jet lag this trip though.... it's like the night before Christmas times ten...everytime I wake up in the night my mind starts racing with excitement. Tonight I'm using artificial means to help me sleep. Even though I'm exhausted, I'm afraid I'll be too excited.

Most of you have all seen pics of the Great Wall, so we thought we'd take this opportunity to do a little blog campaigning for all of you back in Wichita!! Vote for Bruce Brown on August 5th!!!!

Day one draws to a close

Well, we made it through day one...visits to Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and Summer Palace. Our first two days here are mostly touring. It has been fun and is giving us a chance to recover from jet lag before they hand us our son!!! There are 13 other families here in our travel group. We have really enjoyed getting to know them...some really neat families. All of them are adopting and have been in the long paperwork process just like us. So far there is no shortage of things to talk about with them and we are already looking forward to seeing them again in Guangzhou with their new children. Tomorrow we will attend the international church here in Beijing then go to visit the Great Wall.

Though the touring and making new friends has been fun, there is definitely a part of us that is restless. We are longing to be WITH JOSHUA! It still seems a bit surreal. At the same time, it feels very real. In two days we will be parents of 3 children instead of 2.

Excited and somewhat nervous,

Rusty and Lesli

Beijing International Christian Fellowship

Beijing

We're here!!! We arrived in Beijing late last night around 10pm. Let me just say that Beijing is all dressed up! The Olympics have done wonders for the place!! After a fairly good night sleep on a bed that might not have been as comfortable as the floor, we're off to meet our travel group and do some touring. Today we'll see Tienanmen Square, Summer Palace and Forbidden City. We really just want to go get our boy, but this should be fun!!!

One surprise is that a family is traveling with us that knows Rusty. He and the wife went to junior high and college together.

We are so excited and amazed by God's provision, grace and providence to be here for such a time as this!

Tiananmen Square

Summer Palace

Forbidden City

On that Jet Plane

And we're off! As you read this note, we are on one of these -

most likely somewhere between the Wichita airport -

and the Minneapolis airport -

or the Tokyo airport -

or the Beijing airport.


Phew! That's enough airports for one lifetime. Please pray for Hud & Han while we're gone. More to come after we settle into Beijing and find an internet connection!

Last Date Night (for awhile!)

Russ and I enjoyed a fun night on Monday. Now we're furiously packing and getting everything ready for us to leave TOMORROW!!!

Build a Bear for our new brother

I have picked out a present for Joshua to give Hud and Han when we get home from China. A good friend from work gave me the idea to have them build a bear to give him when he gets home. This is the first toy we've gotten him, and hopefully it will be pretty special since it was made by his brother and sister.

Hud was pretty insistent that he needed to have a music sound for the bear.


Here they're kissing the heart and making a wish before they put it in the bear.

Full throttle, both feet on the petal.... the kids help stuff the bear.

Brushing and bathing him.

Oh, all the options.... the clothes cost more than I spend on the kids' outfits!!

In the end, we chose a panda bear because of it's significance to China. We also got him a USA Olympic team shirt and some pants. We've decided that instead of the athletes, we'll be the ones bringing home the real gold this summer!!

We're Leaving on a Jet Plane!!

Well, our tickets have been purchased and all that stands between us and our little guy is a few days and a really long plane ride.... actually the Great Wall and a few sites will have to be conquered as well.

We will be leaving Wichita on July 17th and flying into Beijing. At some point we will be meeting up with a few other families who are also adopting through our agency.

After a few days in Beijing to recover from jet leg and see the sites, we'll head to our boy's home town on Monday morning July 21st. We're told we'll have a couple of hours to settle in, and then we'll get him!!

Mark your calendars! Please keep us in your prayers, and check our blog for updates.

O.K. .... I'll give you one more!!

I found these wonderful pictures of him on a yahoo group I joined. The group is made up of families who have either already adopted or are in the process of adopting from his orphanage. I keep reading very good reports from the other parents that he's at a nice orphanage and has good care. They also say he's quite a sweetie!

I just can't resist....

I have to post another pic of our little guy.

We're expecting........

It's a boy!!!!

And we think he's quite possibly the cutest little boy from China we've ever seen!!!

(Guess we need to change our blog from pink to blue!)

Our adoption agency called us today to tell us that China has approved our request to adopt him. We're hoping to go get him in July!

We've been encouraged to be reserved about how much information we share about him on the internet. If you want to know all the wonderful details, call or email us, we'd be more than happy to oblige!

This has truly been a God-directed change in our plans to be getting a boy instead of a girl. We've seen His divine hand moving lately... a Father to the fatherless is God in his holy dwelling!

To Him be the Praise!

Hope deferred......

is making our hearts sick!

All four of us are feeling the pain of having to continue to wait for our baby girl. Personally the wait for me would be more bearable if I didn't have days like yesterday when I went to my mail box to find another large package of paperwork. Our home study is due to expire, and needs to be updated. This is the second time we've had to update, and not only does it take a lot of work, it also requires money. Yuck!!!

Today Hud came up to me with a handful of pennies, "Mom, look at all my money!!! Is this enough for me to go get my baby sister?" How I wish it had been enough!!

There have been many speculations about why the wait time to adopt from China is continuing to get longer by the month. China says it's because the supply (of babies - an estimated 1.3 million orphans) is not meeting the demand (of adoptive parents). Most of us find that extremely hard to believe.

The likely explanation is that China is making changes to somehow improve their image, or "save face." They've become known as the largest exporter of human life... in an effort to be seen as a world power instead of a third world country who allows it's children to be adopted internationally, they're decreasing the number of adoptions.

Rumor has it (from a believable source) that China might be putting an end to adoptions all together. Instead of doing this outright, and raising human rights eyebrows, they're going to make the wait time so long that people won't adopt from there. It is speculated (again a reliable rumor) that people submitting paperwork to China now will not receive their children until 2015.

Where does that put us? Well... still waiting!! The good news is that we are slowly but surely moving up in line. We're keeping our hopes up, and praying for our referral to come this year. I know that someday I will look at my little Asian beauty and say, "You were worth the wait, you were worth the work, you were worth the money, and thank you Jesus that You rescued her from an orphaned life and a bleak future before China closed it's doors!"

Prayers for our little sweetie.

About every night we pray as a family for the baby sister we're getting. The other night Han prayed this for her...

"GOD.... pwease help ah baby sistuh to not be too fussy when we get huh, and pwease do a muhacle and help us to have pwenty of bweastmilk fo huh when she comes!"

Now that would definately be a miracle!!

Hud usually likes to ask God to change her if she has a poopy diaper.

Steven Curtis Chapman Concert

A couple of weeks ago, our adoption agency contacted us about volunteering at the Steven Curtis Chapman concert. Some of you know that he and his wife have adopted three daughters from China, and have started Shaohannah's Hope an organization that helps defray adoption expenses by granting money to families. If you've read previous posts, we were very blessed to receive a generous grant from them.

We got T-shirts, and basically "manned" the table to answer questions about Shaohannah's Hope, and adoption.

It's so exciting to have someone like SCC have such a strong passion for orphans and adoption!! I really feel like the Lord is starting a movement of awareness, and a growing recognition of His heart for the fatherless.

Much of the concert focused on orphans and what people could do to help. The slogan, "Change your world for orphans," was a theme of the night. There was an intermission to collect peoples' change, bills, checks.... to go toward a grant for a local family.

Here we are counting the money. Most concerts have been collecting $3-5,500. Our concert collected over $7,700!!!

At the end of the concert, SCC introduced a family from Wichita who are in the process of adopting a daughter from S. Korea. He gave them a grant from the money we had raised. It was truly exciting for the people to be a part of changing this little girl's life in such a tangible way.

Our unexpected surprise was that we got to meet Steven after the concert and thank him for blessing our family by helping us bring our daughter home (someday)!!

If you want to know more about this organization, check out their website at www.shaohannahshope.org.

Blessings to Shaohannah's Hope and so many generous friends!

We have been blessed by an enormous outpouring of monetary gifts towards our adoption!! Most of you, if you are reading this blog have probably already invested in our daughter's life by giving toward our expenses. We are sooooo very grateful!
We were also thrilled to receive a letter from Shaohannah's Hope, the foundation started by Steven Curtis Chapman and his wife, Mary Beth. Months before, we had filled out their application for a possible grant. As you would expect from any responsible charitable organization, they wanted to know every penny we had in the bank, every penny we owed to anyone, and what we were doing to cover the adoption expenses. We weren't sure if we would receive anything from them, because we felt like our friends and family had already blessed us so much. Well, we were shocked to read that they had awarded us a large grant of $3000.
Shaohannah's Hope recently awarded its 1,000th grant. They have over 150 applications monthly and are able to award grants to only about 40 of those applicants. Their highest grant awarded is $4000. We were truly grateful to receive such a nice gift!
If you would like to read more about this organization, you can visit their web-site at www.shaohannahshope.org.

I didn't think fingerprints had an expiration date!

One of our frustrations with this extended wait period is having some of our important documents expire. Our home study will expire next month, and will not have to be re-done, only "updated." We're not sure what "updated" means, only that it will cost us about $400. Ugh! We'll also have to have new FBI and KS background checks done, as well as be "re-fingerprinted." These processes all have price tags too and are time consuming, but will be worth it when we get to bring our little sweetie home!

Waiting, Waiting, Waiting

Many people ask us regularly, "Have you heard anything about your baby?" Unfortunately, the answer is, "no," and will probably be, "no" until next fall. When we started the adoption process in October 2005, the wait time for China to process our paperwork was about 6-8 months. As China has been making decisions and changes, their wait time has increased, and is now about 15 months. Our paperwork was logged into China's system mid-June of 2006, so we're hoping that we hear back sometime this fall. Our prayer is that we get to go get her no later than November. This long wait time is definitely difficult, but the Lord recently reminded us that even though it appears that China is in control, He is still Lord, and ultimately the timing is in His hands!

All I really want for Christmas.... is a family.

November is national adoption awareness month, and if we could, we'd fill our home with orpans. With the latest UN estimate of 143 million orphans in the world, we're going to need some friends to fill their homes too. We're praying that the Lord would begin to lay a mother's and father's love on some of your hearts for an orphan like He's laid on ours. Loving and caring for orphans is very close to the heart of God. "A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in His holy habitation. God sets the solitary in families;" (Psalm 68:5-6)

Steven Curtis Chapman and his wife, Mary Beth, have adopted three daughters from China. Adoption is huge on their hearts. Click on the following link, and watch his music video featuring children in need of adoption. You just might be tempted to parent one!

http://media.emicmg.com/SPD11231/video/real/AllIReallyWant.ram

(the cinematography is such that the faces blur in and out of focus, so don't worry, that's how it's supposed to look... it's not your computer. Also, if you have a slower computer or internet, you might have to let it play through first, and then watch it so that it doesn't skip)

We Already Miss Her!!

It's hard not to have a face to put with the daughter we have in China. It's really hard not to know if she has been born yet. I didn't anticipate that Han would be the one to miss her the most. She has started to say several times a day, "I wan my baby sistuh." Me: "Me too, Han, but we can't go get her until China says we can." Han: "Buh she naw have MommyDaddy!" (big concern in her voice) Me: "Someone is taking care of her for us. Why don't we pray for her."
Since we are hoping that we get to go get her in June of 2007, it's going to be a really long wait for the Big Sister! The poem below expresses our hearts right now.

Kisses in the Wind

We hold you in our hearts and touch you with our dreams.

You are here each day with us, at least that how it seems.

We know you wonder where we are... what's taking us so long.

But remember child, we love you so, and God will keep you strong.

Now go outside and feel the breeze, and let it touch your skin...

Because tonight, just as always, we blow you kisses in the wind.

May God hold you in his hand, until we can be with you.

We promise you, our darling, we're doing all that we can do.

Very soon, you'll have a family for real, not just pretend.

But for tonight, just as always, we blow you kisses in the wind.

May God wrap you in his arms and hold you very tight.

And let the angels bring you kisses we send to you each night.

-author unknown-

(picture is of Jade, a jewel plucked from China by our good friends)

Adoption1

Adoption1
Video sent by ludo

We're praying for our baby girl as she is probably being born any day now. This is a short video of what her days in China will be like. Please pray that she will be cared for, loved, and that she will bond with her caretakers.