Following HIM to China

I'll pick up from my last post...We ventured out to exchange money at the Bank of China and eat lunch at a nearby mall. The mall was just like the Galleria except 6-7 floors. We were amazed at how Americanized the stores are. Many stores have English names and advertisment is in English. We had a really hard time choosing where to eat. I finally chose a restaurant call Seahood. The atmosphere was unique....seafood, loud American rap music, waitresses wearing large crabs on their head, dark, decorated in a rustic nautical theme. We had no clue what to eat even with English on the menu. We finally decided on Garlic shrimp and rice. The waitress brought us a ziploc of white rice then 20 minutes later a basket of tiny fried shrimp with head and tail. We decided to leave and grab some chicken from the restaurant that Brian initially wanted to go to.  We made it back to the hotel just in time to grab our things and head to get the Cival Affairs office with our guide, CoCo. We were taken to a room where we met the CA director. We were very nervous but ready to see Lydia. Lydia and her caregivers had taken a 5 hour train ride to get to Taiyuan. Finally, the orphange director walked in with Lydia's nanny holding our sweet girl. I walked over and took her. Finally we had our girl. We did paperwork, asked questions and loved on Lydia. She was taking it all in watching everyone. She kept holding my hand and Brian's. She walked around the room leading Brian to the door. Her nanny was very loving to Lydia and held her as much as she could. She seemed emotional about leaving Lydia. The first smile we saw was when her nanny talked to her. We left the office and went back to the hotel. Lydia did very good on the ride to the hotel. Once there all the sweet girl wanted to do was lay on the bed. She fussed when I took some of her clothes off and tried to take her to the potty. So we took her que and just laid on the bed. She made sure one of our hands were on her the whole time. She just laid there processing everything. We decided to just call it a night and went to sleep around 8:00. She didn't want to sleep in her pack n play so we kept her in the bed with us. She and I slept great but Brian struggled. Lydia moved around alot and Brian was the one getting kicked.

The next morning we awoke late at 6:50. We had to meet our guide at 8:00 in the lobby to go back to the Consulant office for Lydia's final adoption paperwork. We quickly dressed and went to breakfast. I know Lydia had to be hungry. We couldn't get her bottle right the night before and she will not eat solids so we were eager to get her something to eat.  She ate a bowl of rice congee so we felt better. At the Civil Affairs office we meet the nanny, orphange director and CA director for the paperwork. Lydia's nanny immediately got her and started loving on her. It really makes me feel good knowing she was soo loved. In China you have a 24 hour period to decide if you want to adopt the child. We of course told them yes and reassured them we would take care of her. I gave her nanny a necklace with 2 hearts and tried to express through our guide that I would take care of Lydia. We asked a few questions and said our final goodbyes.

Once back at the hotel we went to the market to get the correct formula and some rice cereal. After that we had some quiet time then play time. We are just trying to get to know each other. I will try to post some pictures later but we are focusing on our sweet girl right now.

We are here! After 26 hours of travel, we are settled in our hotel and ancipating getting our daughter. We are very thankful for all of the prayers and well wishes for our journey.

We said our goodbyes to the 3 amigos at my parents house on Friday afternoon. They handled it really well. Owen is our worrier and we could tell he was a little anxious. He had asked me earlier if there was a way they could bring Lydia to us. Faith was so sweet hugging Brian bye. She held on for the longest time and said she didn't want him to leave. Cade has surprisingly handled us leaving very well which is surprising since he is our sensitive child. Brian and I stayed up the whole night packing and preparing the house for the kids. We left some surprises for them and my mom in the kitchen. We also left small gifts for them to open throughout the trip. We have already face timed with them several times. Owen has had many questions and we have loved him being so interested in everything. I am doing really good emotionally. Last trip I could not speak to our kids without crying, so...so far so good. We will see as the trip progresses. We flew from Birmingham to Detroit then to Beijing then Taiyuan. I enjoyed watching several movies and sleeping on and off. Brian did not fair so well. For the first time in all his travels, had motion sickness and threw up on our landing in Beijing. There was alot of turbulance and many people became sick. We meet our guide at the Taiyuan airport. Her name is CoCo, seems young and is very sweet. She traveled with us to our hotel and went over our schedule. Our hotel is extremely nice and roomy. All of the personel have been very polite and speak English well. We settled in last night and had a great nights sleep. Breakfast was good and now we are hanging out in the room before going to exchange money and grab a bite to eat. We leave here at 2:10 to meet our guide and head to the Civil Affairs building to get Lydia. Lydia has a 5 hour train ride to where we are. Her orphange is in Jinchang City and we are in Taiyuan. Taiyuan is a large city with alot of activity and many tall buildings.

We are soooo excited to get our girl. Through out our adoption we have been told what Lydia can not do. We have peace we are in God's will for our lives and are hopeful for what Lydia can do. We are prepared and are ready to teach Lydia how to love and give her everything she needs to be live the life God has planned for her. We truly love her soo much! She is chosen, pursued and loved. I know it will be hard. There will be days we have to choose love. There will also be days of pure bliss. We are so excited to watch God work in Lydia's life and change us in the process.

Lydia Li Sewell

Long before we knew if we were going to adopt again or not, God put the name Lydia on my heart. I was doing a Bible Study and I learned a little about who Lydia was. I told Brian that night that I felt like that would be our next daughter's name. (yes, he laughed at me).

Lydia: Lydia is the first believer in the New Testament.

Lydia trusted. She believed Paul's message about Christ.

Lydia was obedient. She was determined to follow Christ's will and obey His teachings.

Lydia was hospitable. She opened her home to thank those that led her.

Lydia continued to follow God's will because it was evidently her desire to be judged faithful to the Lord. Lydia knew there was no other way to be happy but through Jesus.

Li: part of her Chinese name, Jin LiYa.

Strong, Powerful, Beautiful

A lot has happened since my last post. First, we finally finished our Home study. Life happened and it took longer than we had hoped but it is all in His timing. The most exciting news is that we have found our beautiful daughter.

The initial purpose of this blog was to have our journey documented for Faith. It also became a way to keep family and close friends updated. I loved journaling how God was working in our lives and how he walked us through each step. I wanted to do the same with our 2nd adoption however I have really struggled with what to share. I want to protect our daughter's privacy yet I want God to get all the glory He deserves. So I am going to try to do both!

As the home study progressed Brian and I felt like we were being called to adopt a child a little older than Faith. We then learned about the Special Focus. Children tend to be older with more needs that the children on the Shared List. With the SF program you can browse the list once you are accepted into the agency's adoption program.

Wonderful Waiting Kids is a website that advocates for children on the Special Focus list. We get an email when they add a child onto their website. We had already looked at a couple of files but never felt we should move forward. On February 28th, Friday afternoon, Brian called to let me know that he saw a little girl with Cleft lip/ Cleft Palate and high blood count on the website. They had posted a picture, summary and video. After viewing the little girl's video, my heart ached for the child. She was crying and so upset. I immediately had developmental concerns but thought we should review her medical file. So, we emailed the agency to request her file. On Monday we received her file and put it on hold. The little girl's name in China is Jin LiYa and is one month younger that Faith. The last medical update was from 2012, Tuesday we requested any recent medical information along with 10 questions. If you are reviewing a Special Focus file you have 2 weeks to let your agency know whether or not you are going to pursue the adoption. Over the next 2 weeks we prayed and read scripture so that we could make a decision according to God's will. We were hoping to get the update from China but we did not. As we approached the weekend our social worker called us to remind us that they needed an answer by Monday. I spoke with her about our concerns. She said we need to think about how we would handle Jin LiYa's needs if it is worse case scenario. So Brian and I continued to think and pray non stop about Jin LiYa. Is she our daughter? Can we care for her needs and met the needs of our other 3 children? So much to process!! We were already feeling the roller coaster of emotions that adoption brings. Saturday night Brian and I prayed that we felt like this child was to be our daughter.

We could not find any reasons to say no. Sure, there were plenty of 'worldly' reasons to take off running and believe me we wanted to. But, we felt God calling us to completely step out on faith like we have never before. Completely trust him.

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight." Proverbs 3:5-6

That night we sent an email to our agency to let them know that we wanted to pursue Jin LiYa's adoption. I wanted to share our news with family and friends in a cute and creative way but, as usual, our excitement got the best of us and we immediately began to share our news. On Sunday, I consulted with Dr. Kyser at the International Adoption Clinic in Birmingham regarding Jin LiYa's medical file. We used the IAC with Faith from Referral to 1 year home. She went over everything with me and she validated my concerns. I told her we would be submitting our LOI the next day so once we brought our daughter home we would be seeing her at the clinic. They will help us from attachment to physical development and anything else we need. On March 27th we received our Pre-Approval to proceed with Jin LiYa's adoption.

Sweet Jin LiYa,

Since we first saw your precious face, we have been thrown to our knees in prayer seeking God's Will for our lives. We only want to please God and do His Will. We are relying completely on faith.

"And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly see Him." Hebrew 11:6

Here we go again!!!

Time to dust off the computer and blog. We have started the adoption process again!! Like before I want to document every moment of our journey to our 2nd daughter. We are soo thrilled that God has called us to complete our family through adoption. Though we know the ups and downs of this process we are soo excited to meet the precious soul God has for our family. As just about everyone knows I have wanted to adopt again since the moment Faith became our daughter. The past 2 years I have told myself all the reasons we shouldn't. Believe me the list is long but God kept pulling at my heart. I secretly prayed that God would let Brian know His will for our family. I wanted to know that this wasn't just a personal want but our calling. As time pasted God began to stir Brian's heart and he felt our family was not complete. I'll always remember the moment he shared what he had been feeling. I knew that this is God's plan and we will follow Him back to China!! The next day, October 13th, we told our family and close friends and that Monday we called Lifeline and started the process.

1st step is Homestudy!! So far we have completed the online application, had our phone interview with our Social Worker, home tour and meeting, individual interviews at office, couple interview at office, online training, online discussion videos, gathering of documents and completion of questionaires. The last step is to schedule our doctor appointments for physicals and have forms completed. We will turn everything in and go from there. We have been super impressed with Lifeline as an agency. We love that God is the focus of everything they do. The staff has morning prayer meetings before each work day begins. They prayer for each family and all of the children they are working to place in forever families. They have walked us through each step with every questioned answered. Everything has moved along smoothly. The flu and Christmas break slowed us down a little but we are now ready to finish up this Homestudy!

Getting the fever....

I did the one thing your not supposed to do. I looked at pictures.

Maybe it is just because we are approaching The Big Birthday. Her first with us. The end of her baby years.

She has changed sooo much. I catch myself watching her and I am amazed at how beautiful she is.

How happy she is. And adored.

As crazy as our lives are, I wonder...Are we going to go back? Soon? A couple of years? I guess we need to consult The Big Man on that one. In the meantime I am going to try my best to cherish each day with these 3.

Happy Little Chatter Box!

Faith has become a chatter box to say the least. Her favorite place to chatter away...the car. She loves to call my name over and over. "Momma, Momma, Hey Momma, MOOOOMMMMMMAAAA, Momma, Momma, Momma"

She also likes to express how happy she is. "I happy."....."I happy."....."Hey Mom, I happy."

My not so favorite phrase is one she has picked up from the boys,"You hit me." If anything touches Faith in the slightest uncomfortable way, she will loudly say, "You hit me." You can tickle her and she will say, "You hit me." In WalMart, in Dollar Tree, at Church, anywhere. It doesn't look good considering our situation.