30th Birthday Eve

So, I've been reflecting a lot about this "big" birthday coming up. I have so much to be thankful for in my 30 years of existence and I'm not going to let the fact that I feel like my body is falling apart take me down!! We had such a crazy past two weeks that we're all getting a little run down... I even had to cancel and reschedule my party. I guess learning that I can't do it all is a good lesson, it's just hard on my stressed out neck!!

I have to say, though, there is one HUGE reason I am more than happy to be turning 30. This week, we spoke with our agency to tell them we were done with the Taiwan program. And while this makes me sad, in retrospect, I feel like we weren't REALLY listening to where God was calling us. I personally (and now Steve!) have always felt a little pull toward China Special Needs, but I think we got distracted by the Taiwan program. Adoption is scary and any program that makes things seem a little less scary can be attractive. Taiwan held promise of adopting a little younger and (in the beginning) a little sooner than China. Now that we see there are truly no guarantees in international adoption, we really need to go where we have always felt the pull-- China. Now, that's not to say that we are not freaked out, but knowing that God is telling us to do this is reassuring and peace-giving. We are also very excited about the fact that this could happen a lot sooner than we have been calculating with Taiwan (really it just depends on when we identify a child). And back to my original point, turning 30 means we finally qualify to adopt from China!!

So, there you have it. We actually feel a little relieved about this new prospect. We just need to keep the prayers coming-- prayers for discernment of which SN's we can take on, prayers for our little girl and her heart's preparation for coming home, prayers for our current family and keeping strong and cohesive. We'd appreciate you all joining in!!

Be blessed!

I Will Follow Him

My dad sent this to me in an email and I just thought it was so cute that I wanted to share...

We can all relate

brothers

Our computer contracted a virus so we've been unplugged for a bit. I think we have it licked but, I plan to install some new anti-virus software soon. Listen closely to the dialogue between the boys. This is Samuel and Timothy at their finest!

We're out.

Well, it sounds fairly certain that Chung Yi will be implementing a new rule about family size-- no more than 1 child already in the family-- that will officially kick us out of our program, since we have Samuel and Timothy. Since we still haven't heard from our agency on it yet, we don't know how this will affect any kind of refund, so we're still a bit in limbo about leaving the agency. We're just tired of CY pulling us this way and that, making hope rise and then fall. We just want to adopt. Period. But we're desparately trying to do God's will. More and more, we are looking toward China special needs and we were told by our agency that all fees collected would transfer right over. As for how long it would take? It could be a year, it could be sooner. Those of you who know us, though, also know that we would like to have four kids. So, in order to let the water settle a little and give us a better focus, we may go ahead and *attempt* for a third biological child. This seems to be the direction that we have the most peace about, but we need your prayers!! Please help us over the next weeks and months to pray about this and find the right path so we can stand firm in His marvelous light.