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.