100 Days

With the wait longer than we anticipated, we decided to go away to the beach last weekend. The weather was perfect and we had a wonderful time. Of course, we were thinking about Sam and how much fun it will be to take him to the beach.

It has been 100 days since our Letter of Intent was given to the CCAA. It seems like a year since we first saw Sam's cute little face. The closer we get the harder the wait becomes. We continue to be faithful that God is in control. He is giving us all we need to get through the wait. We are praying that we will travel in November. In the meantime, Sam's story is a testimony of God's love and purpose. Our friend Nancy, who is also adopting from China, wrote a wonderful story about our adoption in our church newspaper. We also gave our testimony about how our church family has helped with our adoption. The testimony was videotaped and was played during church services last Sunday. The purpose was to push several new Sunday School Classes and to get people involved in a small church group. We give all praise to our mighty God who continues to shower us with His blessings. One miracle that God has performed has been the fact that He took away Nick's desire to smoke cigarettes! That's right! Nick has been smoke free since May 29! PRAISE GOD! I am so proud of My Honey! I know it was a very hard habit for him to break and he could not have done it without God's help. He wanted to quit for me and Sam. What a great gift to give his new son!

Update Day 87, Being Refined

We are on day 87 of our wait on the letter that confirms our adoption of Sam. Most letters come before day 90, however, it seems that ours will take longer. We got an update from our agency that we are still in translation room. There are three rooms in the adoption process: Translation, Proofing, and Matching. It seems that when our dossier got pulled from the non special needs line to the special needs line, it had not been finished being translated. We were orignally logged in November 30, 2006 and we thought we were finished with translation, however, with so many people waiting to adopt, it is taking longer to ge through each room. Now for the good news. Pat, our agency director, says they put priority on special needs so we can go through the other rooms quickly. There are two other families in our travel group and they are ahead of us in the process and should receive their Letter Seeking Confirmation soon. We know that God's timing is perfect and we also know that all things are possible with God. Please pray for our application to go through each room in record speed. Pray that each person reviewing and holding our file will expedite their work. Continue to pray for Sam's health and that his caretakers are providing all his physical and emotional needs. Also pray that God is preparing Sam for us so that when he is put in our arms he will know us and bond with us quickly.
We know God is sovereign over all things (even our hardships and setbacks). We can take comfort in the fact that God is behind our trials. He does not train those whom He does not intend to use in wonderful ways. Praise God!
Romans 8:28 "FOR WE KNOW that all things work together for good for those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose". This is our assurance in all situations. This is our assurance that Sam will be home shortly and we will gladly share our witness and testimony with all who will listen. God is refining our faith and we give all glory to Him.

Baby Shower Fun

Ray, Joetta, Alethia, Shannon, and Clare

Me and my cousin Judy (Sam, you are going to LOVE her)!

Beautiful Cake!

I'm pretty excited about the Diaper Genie!

Hello Ray!


Sam's cousins Tyler and Ryan take a dip in the pool

Sherry, Bev, and Angie

We were showered with gifts!

Playing games

Knoxie holding Mary Grace

My dear friend Sherry gave me a baby shower Saturday, August 18. We had a great time and Sam was showered with lots of gifts. We are so thankful to all of our family and friends who are waiting anxiously with us. Sam is loved by so many. While we were having the shower he was on the other side of the world sleeping, not aware of all that is going on in Alabama to prepare for his arrival! We hope to get our Letter Seeking Confirmation real soon. Please continue to keep us in your prayers. Thank you to Sherry for hosting our shower. Sherry and I have been friends since we were about 13 years old. She has held my hand and shared many tears with me during the last two years since we began our adoption. She is going to be a wonderful Aunt to Sam!

Updated Photo and Health Report

God has answered our prayers and has given us the joy and priviledge of getting an update on our son. Can you believe how much he has changed? Look at that hair!! Here is the story of how we got the update. We joined a yahoo group of other families who have adopted children from Sam's orphanage. There was a post with the email address of the Director of the orphanage. Everyone talked about how nice she is and how much she cares for the children. I took a chance and emailed her and introduced myself to her, explaining that we had sent in our Letter of Intent to adopt Zhang Jin Hao. That was about two weeks ago and I thought I wasn't going to get a reply. Imagine how thrilled we were this morning to check our email and see those chinese symbols in our inbox! I sent the email to our translator, Amy Chen, and she translated the email to read: "Greetings! I have received your mail. I am so glad you will be Zhang JinHao's parents. Jinhao is an active, lovable, and adorable child. He is loved by everyone. Last year he had heart surgery and since that time his health is excellent. Now his only other condition is his extra digit on right hand. Doctors do not want to do surgery now due to his recent heart surgery. His current physical is: height 78 cm (30 inches), weight 9.3 kg (20 pounds), head 45 cm (17 inches), chest 46cm (18 inches), 7 teeth, and feet 11cm (4 inches). I have enclosed his recent picture. I hope to see you next time." Director Gu.

We are so amazed by his growth and excellent health. We are thankful to God for being faithful to us and answering our prayers. Now we continue to wait on the CCAA to send us our LOA so we can get this child and give him a loving home. We know it will happen in God's perfect timing.

Sam's Room in Finished

Nick and I finshed Sam's room last night. The final touch was some shelves. The theme of his room is "Under the Sea". The walls are spearmint green and we got some of the cutest stickers of fish to put around the room. One of our favorite walls is the porthole where it looks like you are in a submarine and looking out into the sea. We hope Sam loves it!!! We had so much fun putting it together. We are getting closer to receiving our LOA (Letter of Acceptance) from China. They have been arriving between 60-90 days and we are on day 55 so I guess it could come anyday!! Please continue to keep us in your prayers. Please pray specifically for God to prepare Sam's heart to love and accept us as his forever family... and for us to get word that Sam is officially ours. God has been so good and faithful to us. He is preparing us because our love for Sam grows each day. God bless all of you!

44 Days and Getting Closer

It has been 44 days since the CCAA received our Letter of Intent to adopt Sam. The average time frame for most families receiving their letter of approval comes between days 60-90. The longest is 120 days. I have a positive feeling that we will get that letter sometime in August. Nothing concrete to base it on... just my mommy instinct (which I am developing more and more each day). In the meantime we have started packing and we are just about finished with Sam's room. I will post pictures once I get everything in place (probably next week). I am having so much fun buying things for Sam. I went last week and got all of his baby medicine that is on the packing list from our agency. I got such a kick out of looking at the infant tylenol's and teething gel's.. and I was really thrilled to buy his first pack of diapers!! Most of you know that I have a strong desire to be a mom for the last 12 years so these little things just warm me to the bone!!!! I was reading over his profile again and wanted to share some things about Sam. He gets up at 6am and takes a 2 hour nap in the morning and afternoon. He goes to bed at 8:30pm. He eats at 6:30am, 10:20am, 2pm, 6:20pm and 10pm (I guess he wakes up and eats??). He has ten diaper changes a day (can't wait for that). He is a moderate to light sleeper and sometimes sucks his fingers while sleeping. He eats five meals a day (milk with rice powder) and eats fish soup, fruits and egg cake at 9am; steamed eggs and noodles at 4pm. Under language and social it says he follows you with moving head from one side to the other; laughs aloud; knows name and turns when called; distinguishes between acquaintances and strangers; eats crackers without help; crawls on floor, imitates sounds; imitates words (so he already knows some chinese); responds to facial expressions of adults; and expresses his refusal in a simple way. It says he is active (look out Barney), fond of playing with toys; fond of music; has ready smile; loves toys that make noise; and is close to caretakers. The caretaker writes: "Jinhao is fond of listening to music; playing noisy drum, imitating talk, very playful; quick response, such as faking to avoid punishment. He is learning to walk and he is getting so cute"!!

Pancake Success Beyond Our Dreams

Our Sunday School teacher and his wife (Judy and Jerry)

made our t-shirts. They read "Sam's Dad and Sam's Mom!

The Wade Family (mom was helping in the kitchen)

The Singleton Family

Our niece and nephew, Summer and Jamie Kyser

Two lovely helpers: Shannon (our niece) and Annie

The Pope Family

Some of our angel helpers (Renae, Sherry, Farris, Caroline,
Elyse, Tracie, and Alethia)

Our lovely hostesses: Leigh Ann and Mary Grace

Praise God. He is so faithful! When he calls you to do something he promises that He will provide everything you need for the journey. So why should we be surprised that we surpassed our goal of raising $1,000 from the pancake breakfast fundraiser??? Drum roll please..... the total raised was $2,011.90 from pancake sales/tips and $900 in donations from some members of our Sunday School class!!!! We are so blessed and all the glory goes to God!!! Since May (when God put Sam in our lives) we have raised and/or friends have donated more than $5,400 toward his adoption (this doesn't count our anonymous angel who is donating our airfare to and from China)! WOW.. what a reaffirmation of God's will for us!
We had a wonderful turnout of friends and family at the pancake breakfast. We want to send a special thanks to all our helpers who sold tickets and then got up early to help serve: Nick's mom, Judy and Jerry (who also made t-shirts for us.. see pictures above), Ted and Joetta, Sherry, Renae, Farris, Caroline, Shannon, Gerald (who helped get us organized with the serving), Sue, Alethia, Elyse, Tracie, Sandra (who works with Nick and helped sell a huge amount of tickets), Scott, Kim, Annie, Leigh Ann, John, and of course Mary Grace!! And we want to thank all of you who bought tickets. May God bless each of you for helping us get Sam home. We are still hoping to travel in October. Hang on Sam... mommy and daddy are coming soon!!! "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose" Romans 8:28