Giveaway!

My Friend, Kim is having a give away on her blog. She has found these cute dresses through etsy and you can go Here to see her adorable Viv modeling one of them. You can enter to win one specially made for your daughter!

PA!!!

We received our PA today for Benjamen Zachary! This time it only took 3 weeks and 3 days compared to 7 weeks and 3 doctor's letters with Shayle. I am praising God for all He's doing and going to do in Ben's little life. I will post later on how we chose his name.

The Flu has struck our house

I have been keeping busy for the last few days. Five of the seven of us have had the flu. Poor Darrel was sick in bed on his birthday. We have had a few hectic days and some are getting better while I'm afraid for the two of us who haven't caught it, yet. Payton and I have not had it and I believe Payton may be next. She complained about her chest hurting and that she had began coughing at school today.

This was the week my hubby and I were to fly to North Carolina to attend a Medical Mission Conference with Samaritan's Purse and Franklin Graham Ministries. I have looked forward to this conference for several months and am disappointed that we had to cancel our trip. I know that God has a reason and He knows what is ahead. Fortunately, He knew I would need to be here to take care of my sick babies and hubby.

We are still waiting to hear about our pre-approval (PA) from the Chinese government. It has been three weeks since our referral, hopefully we will here soon. We also had our immigration come back last week, which we were so excited to see until I opened it up to see a rejection notice on it. It stated we were missing a page in our application. As we began looking through our paperwork, the only page I hadn't included was page 9, which is used when someone else fills out your application for you. I didn't think we would need to include it, but apparently they want to see that it is blank and that we did fill out our own application. We resent it last Friday including the blank piece of paper. This is a good example of how things are when the government is involved, things get denied for very silly reasons. Think about how bad it will be if the healthcare reform gets pushed through. What a scary thought!

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!!!