We were able to get our USCIS fingerprints finished on October 8th. Somehow we feel like that step was big. I guess it's really the last thing we do before sending our dossier to China... except wait on that approval letter from USCIS that is! Anyway we made a day trip to Atlanta with the kids. My dad took us to the Spaghetti Factory and we toured the Federal Reserve Bank and the Secretary of State building since we also got some seals but on our paperwork. Grace got to miss school. I figure with missing 2 to 3 weeks in the spring to go to China she's not going to win any attendance awards this year anyway. You can tell I'm a homeschooler at heart... I like those life lessons and hands on field trips more than book work any day. Thankfully Grace's teacher agrees
We are also getting closer to the amount that we'll need to send our paperwork to China and are just amazed at God's provisions. When we felt God stirring in our hearts to adopt again this summer we said to each other, "Let's start saving and then maybe summer 2010 start the process with a little money." We started looking into domestic adoptions. Well God had other plans and He is definitely supplying everything we need. Friends that Clayton is doing carpentry work for have been generous when contributing to our adoption. Clayton has also been able to work some overtime and that is helping. We've had a yard sale that brought in about 3 times as much as my normal yard sales do and the kids got to sell lemonade and tell about their new sister. Friends that we home school with have set up a donation table at a co-op we participate in and people have been generous. Another friend even went with her kids and sold cookies door to door in her neighborhood to help with Joy's adoption. All of these things have also given us and those that know us opportunity to talk about adoption with others and we pray spark a desire in others' hearts as well.
One thing that we are becoming increasingly aware of is that God is in adoption. Our adoption into His family and His care for the fatherless on this earth. Joshua has started talking about China now that we talk about Joy being there. He'll look at his scrapbook that has the photos in it of his first two years of life in China. Before he would only want to look at the photos that included us in China and his life here now. He also put his hands up to his eyes the other day and was pretending to look through them like binoculars and saying Joy's name. I asked him if he was looking for Joy in China. He said yes and that when he was in China he'd look through his hand for mama. WOW!! I'm so grateful God provided someone that would talk to him about us and love on him there. Joshua obviously went to bed hungry a few too many nights and couldn't have consistent love and care like a forever family provides but God is using those hard experiences to shape him now too. We pray for Joy MenQian that way too. That she would sense God's Hand on her life and know that we love her. We pray that even now she'll start to understand what a forever family is and that God would put people in her life in China that love her.
Meanwhile we are making plans for revamping Faith's room to make is Faith and Joy's room. We have pictures up of Joy and have made up her bed with some things that will be hers. Some Christmas gifts will be sitting on her bed for her. We are excited about getting our paperwork to China so that we can prepare for her arrival.
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