With baited breath, and from our knees, we thank you...

A mighty fortress is our God,
a bulwark never failing;
our helper he amid the flood
of mortal ills prevailing.
For still our ancient foe
doth seek to work us woe;
his craft and power are great,
and armed with cruel hate,
on earth is not his equal.

Did we in our own strength confide,
our striving would be losing,
were not the right man on our side,
the man of God's own choosing.
Dost ask who that may be?
Christ Jesus, it is he; 

The Lord of Hosts, his name,
from age to age the same,
and he must win the battle.

We are humbled. Today we received the most blessed news from our placing agency, and I have been almost sick to my stomach all afternoon with joy, gratitude and humility.

I don't know who I can thank, or how I can even find the words to express it...

But whoever the two anonymous donors are who sent the checks allowing us TO BE FULLY FUNDED.... Thank you. We are grateful yesterday, today and always. There are no words in the dictionary to convey our gratitude. 

There's no joy like knowing that God has used the generosity and grace of others to allow His face to shine on our family, our on precious Caroline. Every single one of you who has lifted us in prayer, who has offered a word of encouragement, who has given so generously, YOU are the face of Jesus to our family. You have offered us the most tangible reminders of the Gospel- you have reminded us so amazingly that we were once orphaned, but the God of the universe pursued us while we were still sinners; He sought us out, and made us His children.

Our girl. She is ours, and now we have no question that we will be able to bring her home.

Thanks to you, we can now rest, and watch, and "wait on the Lord." We can see His plan revealed in His glorious timing.

May I confess something?

I felt God calling me in November to start praying for full funding by Christmas. I was fully aware that this was beyond lofty, and totally outrageous. I started praying, though.

Between November and December, He provided.

But not on my time.

I prayed He would allow us to be fully funded by Christmas. When Christmas came, and I literally got only $4 on scratch offs (my last hope at being fully funded by Christmas) I cried to Him. I questioned His voice. I doubted His plan. Call me Doubting-Mandy, because friends, I doubted... HARD.

He allowed us to be fully funded by December 27. May I state- I'm confident that His purpose was to remind us that HE is in control, and NOT me. I don't get to boss the God of the Universe around by giving Him my timelines. He will hear my cry, and He will answer my cry, and He will do it well, but in His time.

In one month...

$6500 in 3 Grants
$3000 in a Covenant Loan
$9100 in generous gifts from friends, family and anonymous donors

I DIE.

There's something else we learned this week.

See those Chinese Characters? That's our daughter's name.

I didn't understand that you had to search the actual characters, and not the English alphabet spelling. It came up that THIS is what her name means. I had been wrong all the times I googled- for a time I thought her name meant punctual. Now we know, when those workers looked in the face of our precious, abandoned four month old baby girl, they saw Grace.

I feel like this is kind of a big deal, and this is why. In China, most children who are abandoned are given a name without meaning. Their names often reflect their finding place, or the street the orphanage is on, etc. However, these workers looked on our girl and saw grace.

So in light of that, we are officially changing her name. She is no longer going to be Caroline Mercy, but Caroline Grace.

We are so blessed, and we are so grateful.

Thank you.

A Little (Big) Immigration and Funding Update

Hi All!

What a fantastic day. We have all been fighting a nasty sinus infection/ear infection the past couple of weeks, and it's easy to start to feel frustrated and a little saddened during this holiday season away from family. However, we have seen God's faithfulness so tremendously lately... Especially today!

First, we made it to our USCIS Biometrics appointment this afternoon (come hell, or high water- we were going to be there on time- sick or not). We are all set- now, we wait. Please join us in praying for a quick immigration approval, speedy mail and a smooth authentication process so we can get everything needed in our dossier sent to China ASAP!

The big boys, "patiently" waiting at USCIS. The appointment went much quicker than we anticipated when we first got there. Keegan ran all over (as we hollered at him to stay by us) and Bennett watched his show, and pretended to sleep :)

This one fell asleep on the way there, so he was a little peach in his stroller the whole time we were there. Ah, he's a dolly, that's for sure. 

Lastly- If you recall, we have been boldly praying to be fully funded by Christmas. We are not QUITE there, but by God's grace, we have gotten within spittin' distance! Friends!!!! He is SO faithful- may we NEVER question His faithfulness. He is good, and He is the only one who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine (Eph 3:20).

Here's a quick update on the grants we've applied for and the current decision:

One17 Foundation- No grant awarded. No notification received.

Sowing Roots- No grant awarded.

Rollstone Foundation- No grant awarded.

National Adoption Foundation- No grant awarded. No notification received. $25 minimum donation (you can cancel your ongoing donation after the first one when applying).

Trusting Him Grant Foundation- No grant awarded. Rec'd email notification that they didn't have enough funding to assist, but requested to keep our application on file for the next decision.

Bowen Zacapa England Grant Foundation- This is a PRIVATE grant foundation through our placing agency and we were awarded $2500 ! Woo-hoo! We rec'd notification via email from our agency. The family funding the grant sends the funds directly to our agency.

Lifesong for Orphans- Just this morning, we received a call from our advocate, Carol, at Lifesong for Orphans. She excitedly let us know, that although we were not awarded a matching grant, they approved us for a $3000 interest free, payment free covenant loan. I was confused- I didn't know how these worked- essentially, they require NO payment until a year after our daughter comes home, when it is due in FULL. Thankfully, we can use our 2018 tax refund (adoption tax credit) to pay this back. Yay!

Families Outreach- And then, just when we thought today couldn't get any better, we received an email while we were standing in line at our immigration appointment this afternoon, that Families Outreach was awarding us a $1000 adoption grant! The grant is being sent directly to our placing agency to cover fees.

Never Alone Foundation- STILL PENDING. Decision will be reached in JANUARY.

Show Hope- STILL PENDING. Lord willing, we should hear from them in JANUARY also. This is one of the largest adoption grant foundations, but they are still not able to award every applicant a grant to assist with their adoption expenses. We hope and pray that we are awarded a Show Hope grant- they are one of the few grant agencies that allow you to use the grant monies towards travel expenses.

JSC Foundation- STILL PENDING. Again, this is another major grant agency in the adoption world. We should hear on a decision THIS MONTH. Still praying so hard for the decision makers at JSC. They receive a TON of applications, and it would be such a burden to have to determine who they're able to award grants to, and who're they're not able to assist (they state they're only able to award about 50% of applicants).

Kids for Kyla- STILL PENDING. They state on their website that applicants will receive written notification either way within 10 days after the committee's decision (however, the committee met on November 17). I'm praying that the lack of response is good news verses bad news. I will reach out after Christmas if we haven't received notification.

We have four more completed grant applications, that we have not yet mailed in. They have application fees, and I don't want to submit anymore applications with fee's until we receive all notifications on the submitted grant applications without fees. Lord willing, we will be fully funded WITHOUT having to submit application fees.

This world has so many devastating things happening in it. My heart is broken for Aleppo, and all the pain and sickness around the world. I feel a bit selfish praying for additional funding in light of all the tragedy in the world. But, if you wouldn't mind, after lifting up these tragedies before the throne, will you please join me in praying boldly for FULL FUNDING by Christmas? We are SO close!

Thanks so much for your continued prayers and support for our family. Thank you for joining us on this journey!

A Little Closer

One week from right now, our USCIS Biometrics appointment will be HISTORY! I called first thing Monday morning, and found out when our appointment time is, and then received the confirmation letter the very next day:

WOOOHOOO! I love progress! Please join us in praying for a quick, quick, quick approval after this appointment. We're coming down to the wire regarding when we need to have everything to China before our "pre-approval" for adopting Caroline is up, and there are some hoops to jump through prior to being able to send everything, and there may be more delays with the holidays coming up.

Yesterday, Keegan came home with all of the presents he bought from the Christmas Shop at his school. He was SO proud. I was even PROUDER when from his bag of goodies, Keegan pulled out a little toy and announced, "Look what I got for CAROLINE!" GUYS... I didn't even put her name on his shopping list. He was spending his own money, and since she's not here yet, I didn't include her on the envelope. IMMEDIATE TEARS. I bawled my eyeballs out.

I've said it before, and will say it again: I'm most impressed by our kids selflessness that we are seeing through this adoption. They totally understand having to save money and are thinking of her all the time. So proud of these puppies.

On a side note regarding these puppies... GUYS. Smith has experienced Cheetos for the first time this week, and is a Cheeto maniac. He doesn't stop. He's normally super, super crabby after nap, but the minute you whip out some Cheetos, the boy is all freaking smiles. LOVE!

Anyway, no other news other than that on the adoption front. Again, please join us in praying for a quick approval from immigration. Also, please continue to pray for our funding. So far, we're still at one approved grant, and six declined grants. Every grant agency has been so gracious, and have reminded us that it doesn't have to do with our family or application, but has been solely based on the fact that there is limited funding, and they had to award to more urgent placements. We still have quite a few outstanding grant applications that we're praying over..."And if not, He is still good," Daniel 3:18.

We are so confident that God is doing some big things. We have seen His provision beyond our imagination the past few months through unexpected financial provision, through the generosity of you all, and are sure we will continue to see Him move until Caroline is home, and long after!

Psalm 5:3- In the morning, LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly.

Updating and Dreaming

Good news: two days after my last post immigration cashed our check, and two days later I received our receipt in the mail! Praise the Lord- seriously, progress feels SO good in this process. 

Next, we have to wait USCIS (Immigration) to mail us the date/time of our Biometrics appointment. Luckily, when you're adopting from a Hague Convention country, they don't make you wait in "line" to be handled by an agent. Lord willing, our application is currently on the desk of our immigration agent, who is also just waiting on our appointment. Once that appointment is done, we will be holding our breathe, eagerly awaiting our approval... once it's here, I'm driving straight downtown to have that puppy authenticated at the Secretary of State, and overnighting it to our placing agency so we can get that dossier to China (or DTC in adoption terms)! Please be praying for speed in this process.

Now for the bummer news: we've received word from four more grant agencies, and none of them decided they were able to assist in our adoption. I am a super sensitive person, and my heart is just prone to taking things personally, so I have to fight myself to not wonder if I said something wrong, or what it was that WE did that made them decide to help other families. I literally spent hours upon hours working on these grant apps, so I suppose it's natural to lean towards those feeling when you put such effort into them. I'm finding that these moments require the most self talk for me, to remind myself of the other precious children that WILL be awarded financial assistance to come home. I have to remind myself consistently that perhaps their health condition is more urgent or fatal than Caroline's, rather than just chronic. 

This Sunday we had a guest speaker at church, and his message couldn't be more applicable to our hearts during this process. It's so easy to become ungrateful for the gifts God has already given us, and simply focus on what else we want or need. Then he said, "We're given limits so we reach for the limitless God." 

Whew.

It was exactly what I needed to hear, and has become my mantra this week- with each declination letter/email that comes: God is limitless. He will provide how He sees fit. He cares for the fatherless and orphaned far, far more than any human heart or mind can fathom. 

 

 

 

Now onto another good thing: last night I had my first "Gotcha Day" dream. With all of my boys, my pregnancies all became so much more real with my first labor dream. I woke up so excited to be dreaming of picking her up. It wasn't stressful, or scary- I dreamed we were standing, having our picture taken before she came into the room. Unfortunately, I woke up before I dream-met her. But it was so exciting and made it feel SO real in the best ways. 

 

Lastly, today we are having our Usborne Book Fundraiser. If you're interest, click HERE and make sure to select our fundraiser at check out.

Thank you so much for reading, for supporting us, and for praying for us. Please continue to lift this process up, and our funding up to our limitless God. 

"Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever." Ephesians 3:20-21