Numbering Graces

In the last month, I had two friends recommend the same book  -- One Thousand Gifts written by Ann Voskamp. Last week when Brody and I were checking out at the library, that very book was sitting there, behind the desk ready to be re-shelved. So, of course, I had the librarian add it to our already abundant pile. I won't bore you with a whole book review here (if you want that, you'll have to friend me on Goodreads), but one thing this book did was refresh my perspective and encourage me to be totally present in the now. It's a particularly good reminder for me, as there is so much we are anticipating in the future. The book is centered around Voskamp's decision to take note of the little things and write a list of 1,000 things she is thankful for - gifts from God. She has been numbering graces for over a year and half by the conclusion of the book, having passed 1,000 long before. If you like to read, I highly recommend it - just be prepared that she is very poetic, and it may weird you out at times. ;) Regardless, Sydney and I have decided to embark on a similar exercise this summer....and I cannot wait to actually start putting ink to the page. We plan to pass all this waiting time by numbering some of God's infinite graces to us! 

Our biggest news lately was that our dossier was sent to China on May 13th!! Get ready for a whole bunch of crazy adoption acronyms...the first of which is DTC = Dossier to China. We are now waiting and praying for LID = Log-In Date. In the meantime, we had our first matching grant interview, and we should have much more news a few weeks from now -- as far as both funding and paperwork progress!!

We are absolutely thrilled to be surrounded by a church family who is so supportive of adoption, and part of our church family/sweet friends, the Brannon family, is hosting a garage sale fundraiser for us on Saturday June 1st!! I can't tell you how encouraging that has been to us...God is using this experience to show us what a burden is lifted when the Body of Christ comes together on mission. We also just finished up our Pampered Chef fundraiser today, and we raised $240!! Thank you, ladies!! Lastly, we are working on our final (what a blessed word that is!!) fundraiser - a benefit dinner, silent auction and scavenger hunt - which will take place on June 22nd! Please pray that God would smooth out all the details - there are so many graces to count surrounding this event already...more on this to come. As for the quilt, I only have the label left to stitch on, and I recently found out that it's going to be in an upcoming quilt show called "Georgia Celebrates Quilts!" It's my personal prayer that this may create opportunities for gospel conversations among friends attending the show!! Another wonderful support we've been blessed with is our local children's hair salon, Pigtails & Crewcuts. They have been collecting change for our adoption (and sharing our story) throughout the month of May! Too many graces to count...seriously, all the cups we own are running over at the Wolfe home. If you are ready to order more coffee from Just Love, use the coupon code "MEM10" now through Memorial Day and get 10% off your order!

I pray you would not miss God's graces to you today...SLOW DOWN and watch a child play, listen to the birds and the wind in the trees, savor the taste of the food He has provided, feel a drop of rain on your skin, take in the sweet smells around you...and give thanks to the Creator and Sustainer of all things. No doubt there are times we become blind to God and His graces to us, but we have a God who turns ashes into beauty. Miracles surround if we just open our eyes to see His goodness and glory. I'd like to close by sharing two quotes from the book I mentioned above; these I found especially meaningful, because these are graces that have been given to all who follow Christ, regardless of what circumstances surround you: "He washed our grime with the bloody grace. He drove the iron ore through His own vein...Need there be anything more?" and "Anywhere - in the kitchen scrubbing potatoes, in the arching cathedrals, in the spin of laundry and kids and washing toilets - anywhere I can have intimate communion with Maker of heaven and earth." Believers, as children who have been adopted into the family of God, we have the unfathomable graces of redemption, reconciliation and relationship with God...praise Jesus!!

"Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." - Romans 5:1-5 ESV

Why China?

I realize it has been WAY too long since I've blogged - so sorry, this is LONG. It has been slightly crazy around these parts as of late. Anywho, I've recently had several people ask me why we decided to adopt from China, so I've been inspired to blog about that this time. Then I'll close with an update on all our recent adoption happenings!

For as long as I can remember, I have been interested in, drawn to and burdened for other countries. Some of that may be in my blood. My Grandpa Thompson had an incredible "heart for the nations" (a phrase I am borrowing from my lovely cousin Hope). He and my Grandma traveled extensively (to more than 20 countries on 5 continents), preaching the gospel, training pastors and loving on children everywhere they went. Grandpa had a special love for orphans and children living on the streets. My parents also spent time living in Haiti on a mission/school project. My older sister Sharon actually spent her first year growing up in Haiti. Because my family had been so involved in international missions, I grew up with family friends from all over the world. What a blessing and privilege I consider that to be!! I have always had an adventurous spirit, so I was thrilled to take my first mission trip to Brazil during my sophomore year of high school. I was thrilled to see more of the world and to serve the people however I could. I didn't realize how much that trip would change me or how much I would be blessed. We visited a small orphanage in rural Brazil, and my heart has never been the same. I can still close my eyes and picture several children that I bonded with on that trip. Those images are tattooed in my mind. My heart was torn in two to leave those kids without a family. I still remember our bus pulling away, and just praying through sobs, "Lord, what can I do?" At that moment, I knew God was calling me to something more than "the American dream." David Platt expresses it perfectly in his book Radical, "We learned that orphans are easier to ignore before you know their names. They are easier to ignore before you see their faces. It is easier to pretend they’re not real before you hold them in your arms. But once you do, everything changes.” Now more than 15 years later, I'm getting to see the beauty of God's work in my heart unfold. Oswald Chambers once said, "If through a broken heart God can bring His purposes to pass in the world, then thank Him for breaking your heart." Broken heart, thankful lady...right here.  

When Josh and I first started pursuing adoption, we began talking about where we would adopt from. We are insanely systematic in our decision-making (just ask me about how we came up with our children's names sometime!), and we tried to talk and pray through every consideration. Our first inclination was international - mine, because of all the history I just finished telling you about, and Josh just had this overwhelming tug toward Asia from the get go. However, being the calculated, over-thinkers we are, we did a lot of praying and a lot of research. We first reached a clear decision on the adoption agency that we wanted to use (Lifeline Children's Services). Check out their website, and you may just melt like I did! What an incredible blessing they have been through this process!!!

What I think people are most curious about is why we chose China over domestic adoption. Obviously, this is not meant to discourage domestic adoption (or adoption from other countries); this is just the story of how our family came to adopt from China. We've said before - adoption is awesome, regardless of location! EVERY child deserves a loving forever family, regardless of where they happen to reside or what ethnicity they are. That being said, there is a dramatic difference in what domestic orphans are facing versus those in other countries. I'd like to share some statistics on international orphans mentioned in an article by the Adoption Law Firm: 

"In fact, out of the 167 million orphans, 120 million will never receive any education whatsoever. About 60% of these orphaned girls will become prostitutes, and 70% of these boys will become criminals by the age of 18. 10-15% of these children will commit suicide before the age of eighteen. Every year, 1.8 million are forced into human trafficking, prostitution, or the pornography industry, and 11 million will die of a preventable or treatable disease. These children have no chance at improvement. While orphans here are struggling, orphans oversees are dying."

Read the whole article, if you'd like more information about this. Internationally, children age out of the system very young (in China it is at 14), and they basically have nowhere to go at that point. Having seen and known personally what obstacles orphans face in other countries, I was all the more drawn toward international adoption.  We began speaking with a lady from Lifeline about different countries that they work in and devouring all the information. We knew that (at this time) we wanted to adopt a child close to our other two children in age (0-5 years), and we were open to and excited about children who needed specialized medical care (we've been through lots of that with our bio kids). We had not mentioned Josh's draw toward Asia, but she immediately thought China would be a perfect fit for our family. This being our first adoption, we were even more attracted to their program as we researched it further - it is established, predictable and stable. The fees stated are the fees charged...no hidden costs, no bribes, and they are reasonable compared to many other countries. It is also part of the Hague Convention, with laws designed to protect the rights of these children. The China program requires only one visit in-country (and only about two weeks long), which was great for us since we have two other littles at home. Orphans in China have literally been abandoned or removed from their homes, because it is illegal to place your child up for adoption there. China does a local search for birthparents and screen of each child prior to deeming them eligible for adoption, so custody is final. So, when both parents travel, the adoption is finalized in China. Every new piece of information we received just confirmed that China was where God was leading us; it was a great fit for our family. Again, it was a personal leading/calling because we have a personal God!! I hope this sheds some light on all those questions, but feel free to e-mail me if you have any others! Sydney and Brody are getting so anxious - they talk about her every day. We were at the zoo a couple weeks ago, and they wanted to take a picture in the bamboo. They are thinking of their sis and asking "Where are you? Come home!"

As for recent happenings, we have received our USCIS/Homeland Security approval from our biometric fingerprints!!! Now we are waiting on the consulate, then the next BIG step with be Dossier to China (DTC)! All the paperwork on our end is ready and waiting with our agency. We've begun to work with our matching buddy, too, which is REALLY exciting!! We'll be sure to keep you posted. We have also been approved through an organization call AdoptTogether, so that families can make tax-deductible donations towards the last half of our adoption expenses! See the link on our sidebar for our AdoptTogether page, and I also put together a flyer on the sidebar if you'd like to share our story with others. I have finished the quilt top, and I'm starting to practice on the longarm so I can quilt it this month.

We also sent in an application for one more grant, held a fundraiser at Panda Express and we're planning what I hope are our last few fundraisers. I am hosting a Pampered Chef party on May 16th (see details on the sidebar), awesome friends of ours are hosting a garage sale on June 1st in Acworth, and a really fun benefit dinner is in the works for June 22nd. More details to follow!! Let me be honest, I'm exhausted. Fundraising has been a full-time job, but it has also been a tremendous blessing to see God work through so many individuals and families to bring our girl closer to home! Thank you for buying a necklace, thank you for sponsoring a quilt block, thank you for eating egg rolls, thank you for handing us a check, thank you for donating books and other goods, thank you for volunteering your services, and thank you most of all for your prayers and encouraging words. We are incredibly blessed to be surrounded by such a supportive community of folks!        

"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you." - Philippians 4:4-9