Orphan Care Ministry

I am so excited to see God moving in such a big and mighty way in the lives of orphans around the world. We are the East Texas Coordinators for the Christian Alliance For Orphans. Last April, I went to a conference led by Christian Alliance For Orphans. I attended with a friend who also has a big heart for orphans. God began placing this in and on our hearts in 2007. The conference was outstanding and gave us great insight on how to begin a orphan care ministry within our church/town.

This summer we began meeting with a core group of six people who have the same desire to care for orphans. We are getting close to kicking off our local orphan care ministry on November 8th, also the First Annual Orphan Care Sunday throughout the U.S. The goal through Christian Alliance For Orphans Orphan Sunday is to get churches throughout the U.S. to speak out and be the voice for the orphan through scripture, videos and testimonies. Thoroughout the Bible, God gives us several commands to care for the orphan. One is found in Hosea 14:2b For in you the fatherless find compassion.

Orphan care can be accomplished through adoption but not all families are going to be called to adopt. Their are several options to care for the orphan/foster child. They need our prayers, our time, our love and our support. I can't tell you how important it is for those that are in our local foster care system to feel important and loved by someone. Many may not have financial resources to adopt but all of us can pray and give of our time. I would like to encourage you to pray about how you can make a difference in the life of a child. As Christians we are to defend the orphan as it says in Isaiah 1:17 Defend the cause of the fatherless.

IT'S A BOY!!!!!

WE GOT A CALL TODAY!!!!!


Today, September 17, 2009 at 12:21 pm my agency called to tell us they had good news! Our coordinator said,"The shared list was posted last night and we locked a file for your family. He was born March 17, 2008 and has a repaired cleft lip and unrepaired cleft palate." I was in love the moment I saw his little face come across my computer. He is 18 months old today!

We of course sent in our LOI (letter of intent) tonight. It will be translated and sent to CCAA tomorrow. Now the wait will begin for our PA (pre-approval), hopefully it will be quicker this time around.

New List

Rumor has it a new shared list from China was posted last night. Praying for the possibility of getting a referral today or tomorrow!! I will keep you posted as I patiently wait..

Arron had his second cross country meet last Friday. I didn't get to go since it was Friday and the rest of the kids were getting out of school early. I don't have any pictures to post but Arron decreased his time by over 2 minutes running 3.1 miles. We are very proud of him and can't wait to watch him at the next meet!

My Cheerleader

Myranda is a 7th grade cheerleader this year. She is on the Aggies cheer squad for her school. This made her happy since her dad went to A&M and she considers herself an Aggie too. She had her first football game to cheer at this past Saturday. I didn't get any pictures of her on the field because it was raining. Actually she only cheered for about 15 minutes and they called the game off due to the weather. This weekend I will get some of her on the field.

She has done so well balancing school, playing tennis at school, band, cheer, youth group at church, AWANA's and her most favorite sport of all-SOCCER. She is such a great daughter and we are very proud of her.

Shayle's 1st Day Of Kindergarten

Shayle started to school last week on Tuesday, September 8th. She is going to a half day program at Kids Central, where I taught for the two years before we travelled to China to bring her home. She went there in the spring 2 days/week. She had a good first week of school, but I think she would rather be home with mom. When I told her she was starting to school, she asked, "Is mommy going to school too?" When I told her no, she then held up two fingers and said "two days". I said no, you have to go five days like your brothers and sisters. She then replied, "Aw man". This is her new favorite phrase, learned by one of her older siblings.

Labor Day Fun

We celebrated Labor Day with some good friends of ours. They came over and we rented a water slide for the kids to play on. They had a ball. Myranda and Payton both had a friend come over the night before. The four of them, along with Shayle were outside at 9am when the slide was delivered and began playing on it as soon as it was set up. Jacob soon woke up and began playing too. They ended up playing all day, only taking time out to eat lunch. All together they played non stop from 9am-7:30pm. This made for one tired and sun burned group of kids.

Payton with her friend Lauren

Eating Lunch

Shayle with her friend Kaitlyn

Payton asleep at the end of day!

Cross Country Meet

Saturday, we travelled to Tyler to watch Arron in his first cross country meet this year. He did well and the kids all cheered on their big brother.

Wildcat Football

Shayle went to her first home football game Friday night. Our high school won the state championship right after we got home from China last year. She really enjoyed going to the playoff games at Texas Stadium last November - December. One of her first words after getting home was "football" and "Go Wildcats." The wildcats did win their second game of the season Friday night, Go Cats!!!

Play Date

Last Friday Shayle and I had the opportunity to finally meet a family who has been close to my heart. We had lunch with my friend, Sharon and got to see Hudson for the first time, in person anyway. I have seen him in many photos over the last 18 months. Sharon adopted her son through the same agency that we adopted Shayle through. While we were waiting, a secret sister exchange began. I was given Sharon's name, who I had already met at a previous adoption seminar that she spoke at. I was very excited to be able to take part in praying for her and her family as they travelled to China to bring home Hudson. It was so nice to see him face to face!

Homestudy Approved!

Last week our homestudy report was completed and went through the final review stages. Our adoption agency e-mailed on Thursday to let us know our homestudy is now being finalized and we should have a copy in the next week. This is great news, now we can begin our immigration phase. I have completed our application to immigration and will be mailing it this week. The next step will be to be fingerprinted in Dallas. Due to China being a Hague country, our immigration steps will be completely different with this adoption. We now will receive a pre-approval from immigration to bring a child into the U.S. whereas with Shayle, we received our final approval to bring her home. Once we receive our RA, referral acceptance, from China we will then have a large amount of paperwork to fill out to obtain final approval to bring home a specific child. This is a major change since our first adoption. Please be in prayer for us as we begin waiting for all of these approvals to fall into place.

We are expecting to see a shared list come out this week! We are excited, since we are open to adopting a boy, the wait time for referral is very short. We may be getting called with a referral off of this list. We are asking for prayer as we will have to make a quick decision. Ultimately, we want God's will to be carried out.