Someone to Fight for You

We have spent much of this summer urging, pleading, cajoling, nagging, encouraging Will to work on his Eagle project for Boy Scouts.  He has 3 MAJOR merit badges to finish and his project to do in order to obtain his Eagle ranking.  It's been a family effort.  His attitude has been really good.  No, seriously it has.  While he has needed daily reminders of what needs to be done he has done it.  Bless his heart, I haven't seen him in nearly a week and the first thing I said to him this morning (after Good Morning and I made you bacon) was, "You need to call your Daddy about THE project."

Why are we doing this? Because we are his parents.  Obtaining Eagle is a goal he set 5 years ago and a goal we as his parents feel is important.  And it's time.  He's 15.  He has show choir next year.  It's now or never.  So we are doing what we have to do to get it done and have him learn the lessons intended during the process. Because we are his parents.

Will turned 15 in April.  Parenting a teenager is intense.  The physical work of parenting little ones is so very hard and the emotional work of parenting a teenager is equal to that.  It is intentional parenting at it's height.  And he's only 15, we have a ways to go.  And Jenny is 12 so it's just starting on that end.  Regardless of what they may think my teen and preteen children need parents more now than ever. Guidance, prayer and someone to be proud when right choices are made and someone to cry with when bad choices are made are just some of the things they need.

In China orphans age out at 14.  There are some rules in Chinese adoption that are "flexible", but not this one.  Once you reach 14 - No parents.  Ever.  The amount of parenting my 14 year old needed last year was huge.  Constant.  Can you imagine being 14 and the hope of mother and father being gone.  Never.  No home to come home to.  No grandparents for your future children.  No aunts and uncles and cousins. Ever.

The calling to adopt aging out children is just that.  A Calling.  The people who adopt these children are heroes to me.  And the children are beyond courageous.  Think about your 14 year old self.  Now imagine being 14 and not really understanding what a family is. Having only lived in an orphanage.  Imagine people coming to get you who don't look like you.  Who don't speak your language.  Who are taking you to a new country.  I would have been scared to death.

What happens to them when they aren't adopted?  They are allowed to stay in the orphanage for awhile. Some until they are 16, some until 18.  Then they must fend for themselves. These are children who have spent their whole lives in an institution. Some will have had schooling, some not.  Some will have a trade, some not.  Many of them will fall victim very quickly to human trafficking.

Will you pray for them?  Will you pray for the families adopting them?  Many times the process needs to be extremely expedited to get them in time.  If you are in process to adopt an aging out child and it isn't completed by their 14th birthday it doesn't happen.

Will you look at their faces?  You can click the Wonderful Waiting Kids icon to the left and join that site for free and see some of their faces.

We are standing with Will as he works toward his goal of Eagle.  We have fought for him this year as he learns to become a Godly man.  It is work and it is driven by deep, unconditional love.  How very tragic to have no one to fight for you.

Celebrating!

We are a week late because Jenny was at camp and she's been sick but we finally made it to Menches to celebrate our LID!  Continuing to pray for our sweet Sarah and all those in this process. 

Let the closet cleaning begin!

Do you know what this empty set of shelves mean?  

It means work has started on Sarah's room!  I have said for months I didn't want to start on her room until we got our LID. I've been workings on other projects trying to hold off. After I painted every baseboard in the house I was running out of project and took to things like this:

Painting the cubbies in my laundry room teal. They needed painting. I figured why not?

I was halfway through the cubby project when our LID came!!  It was time to move on!  

Before I can get to the fun stuff I have to do the cleaning out stuff. Which for weird people like me is  also the fun stuff. 

The empty shelves in the closet above held all our games. Those shelves have to be ripped out. When we built this house we designated that room as a playroom and so both sides of the closet have those shelves. We need a place to hang all the cute clothes she's gonna need. And yes I mean need!  

Now the games are here:

Which means all my fabric is here:

That's tomorrow's project. 

We are still 5 months or more from getting her home, but progress has started and that's a good thing!!

PRAISE THE LORD!!

After years of praying, dreaming and reading about log in dates .......

I have my very own!!  We are officially 

I am still in shock that it came this quickly.  Just a couple of hours after I wrote the last post I got the email.  And I sat in the parking lot of Ridgleand Specialty Hardware and cried and then I called Shane and I cried!  And now I have to go back to the hardware store because I couldn't even go in before!!!

Please pray for so many others who are still waiting and please pray specifically that LOA's will begin coming in.  So many have been waiting well over 100 days!

God has done great things and we are filled with JOY!!!

A Season of Quiet

If I need to be still give me peace for the moment.....

Help Me Find It by Lincoln Brewster

We have entered a season of quiet in our adoption.  It's also an exciting time.  Each milestone we hit now brings us signifigantly closer.  But we will jump from wait to wait to wait to wait for the next few months with nothing to do in between.

We have been DTC for 19 days now.  Not that I'm counting.  Ok.  I'm counting.  Actually I'm not counting days, I just now figured that out.  I'm counting weeks.  So it's been 2 1/2 weeks.  Typically to go from DTC to being logged in is about 3 weeks.  This is not a typical time.  Those stinking computers are still not working right and while some things have started to move again, log in's are not one of them.  I am NOT asking our social worker about it for threee solid weeks. I have made that pledge and I was waiting pretty well until yesterday.  And yesterday I wanted it BAD!  It will come though.  I have also vowed not to get all freaked out about it for 6 weeks.  I'll let you know how that is going next week!

Once we are logged in we jump immediatly to our LOA wait.  We don't do anything or sign anything we simply go from Logged in to day one of our LOA wait.  Our official timeline says 30-60 days.  Right now LOA's are the other thing the computer isn't spitting out and there are LOTS of people waiting well over 100 days.  When we travel is heavily dependant on when this comes.  

So we really go from a time of crazy paper chasing, interviews, fingerprints,ect to being still.  From the time we scanned and emailed (best inventions EVER by the way!) our immigration approval to our social worker we don't have anything to do until the LOA comes.  We wait for exciting phone calls and emails and pray for our little girl.

So....  While this is a season of quiet, it's not a season of sitting still.  I have said all along I wasn't going to start getting her room ready until we were logged in, but there were lots of things that I needed to do before starting her room.  I just haven't been in the mood to get things done lately.  But once we were DTC that lit a fire under me!  I feel like the mouse in If You Give a Mouse a Cookie books.

If you give Stacy a Paintbrush she's gonna want to paint the bedrooom.

And if she paints the bedroom she gonna want to paint the bathroom.

And if she paints the bathroom she's goona step off the ladder and rip the TP holder out of the wall. (OOPS)

And is she paints the bathroom she's gonna see that the baseboards need to be painted. 

And if she paints the baseboards in the bathroom it makes the other baseboards look bad so she's gonna paint all the baseboards in the house.

So... I'm keeping busy!  Jenny has gone to camp this week so I have some time to get a lot done.  She's my..."So what are we goint o do together today!" child.  Will is here all week and although I have enjoyed uninterrupted conversation with him he's not exactly asking me to play with him.  I'm working to get all my house projects finished.  Some big, some small.  and then I am going to start cleaning out the playroom.  That will be Sarah's room so we are shifting some things around.  

School will start soon and time will move quicker then.  I'm goin to go back for awhile and be a semi permanent sub for the first month or so of school.  We will see where we are after that.  

In the meantime I'm working away at my to do list, helping Will learn to drive (!) and having girl time with Jenny.  Everything we do is marked by these words, "Next year, when Sarah is here..."  

Come on Log In!!