Good news/Bad news

I've been waiting all day for a call from our adoption placing agency telling us we've received Letter of Acceptance. I guess today just wasn't the day, BUT we did receive great news! This is the good news portion of this post....we received a letter stating we will be receiving a $3,500 grant from Show Hope founded by Steven Curtis Chapman! Yippeee! We are so excited and sooooo very grateful!!! That puts us that much closer to our goal.

Speaking of goals...this is the bad news portion of this post....we are going to have to up our goal to $12,000 from $10,000 for our travel expenses because the cost seems to be going up daily. If our timeline stays on track we will be traveling during a peak period and add to that higher gas prices and the increasing value of the RMB...well that makes for an increase in practically every aspect of travel. And believe me, we'll be praying for good deals and we're pretty good at making pennies stretch...so we'll do our best to keep costs down.

Please pray with us as we venture toward the next leg of this journey!

Yard Sale...Success!

One man's trash is another man's treasure.

How true that statement is! A few weeks ago we asked family and friends to donate their unwanted items to us so that we could have a garage sale to raise money for our plane tickets to China to bring Rachel home. Many people stepped out in a BIG way and our house was overflowing with items for the sale. We had things in our basement, living room, bedroom, kitchen, garage, and our front porch was TOTALLY full! I was drowning in clothes, books, and household items! We spent many hours sorting and pricing and moving things from here to there.

Finally the day came...we had table upon table full of items...so many we couldn't put them all out at once. Would we have customers? Would we sell enough to make it worth all those hours and hours of hard work? The answer is YES! The first day we brought in over $700. We were in awe! The second day started out raining with a spotty-looking radar for the day. We took a leap of faith and pulled it all out anyway. And God showed up in a big way and kept the rain at bay! We made over $300 the second day bringing our total to $1030! Ahhhhh....success....it feels good and we are praising God for it!

We are totally exhausted, but it's the good kind of exhausted...the kind that comes after hard work that pays off big time! Thanks to EVERYONE who helped in any way...your donations are very much appreciated and we couldn't have done it without you!

What is your special need?

When people hear that we are adopting from China, they automatically assume we are adopting a healthy baby girl. When we explain that she is 4 years old, they hesitate, I'm sure unasked questions run through their heads, and then they continue on with their congratulations. For those who want to know more, it usually comes out that children adopted internationally at an older age usually have a physical special need. Our daughter has post-operative congenital glaucoma. That can be scary to some. We don't really know the level of her vision. We don't know what the future holds in regards to her sight. But no matter how well she sees now or later...we are going to love her...she is our daughter, and we are going to give her the best life possible.

Why do people adopt children with special needs? Is it because they pity them, is it because it will make the adoptive parents feel good about themselves for helping someone, is it because they want to be their savior, etc.? The answer is no to all those questions. They adopt them because they see beyond the special need...to their humanness and their worth as an individual. They see them as a child that can be THEIR child.

If you were to write down all your special needs, both emotional and physical from slightest to most severe, on a piece of paper without your name and hand it to someone, even a person you know, and ask that person if they would adopt a child with those needs, their answer is probably going to be "no"...until you reveal it is YOU the paper describes. We ALL have special needs. Don't let the term "special needs" scare you, or you could be missing out on a blessing from God.