Learning to Wait on Him

I was perusing facebook and saw that my friend Ohilda had updated her blog, her post read, "For all of you (myself included) that are struggling with God's timing... I hope this helps." Oh yes it did. Thank you so much Ohilda!!!! The author is unknown and how sad, but it could be that one of those angels we are told about delivered it straight from heaven so that we could hear God's comforting words as we wait.

You know the verse, Hebrews 13:2 "Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing, some people have entertained angels without knowing it."

OK, so probably a real person wrote this but how beautiful and I believe inspired by God!

WAIT!

Desperately, helplessly, longingly, I cried:
Quietly, patiently, lovingly God replied.
I plead and I wept for a clue to my fate,
And the Master so gently said, "Child, you must wait."

"Wait? You say, wait!" my indignant reply.
"Lord, I need answers, I need to know why!
Is your hand shortened? Or have you not heard?
By faith, I have asked, and am claiming your Word.

My future and all to which I can relate
hangs in the balance, and YOU tell me to WAIT?
I'm needing a 'yes', go-ahead and sign,
or even a 'no' to which I can resign.

And Lord, You promised that if we believe
we need but to ask, and we shall receive.
And Lord, I've been asking, and this is my cry:
I'm weary of asking! I need a reply!

Then quietly, softly, I learned of my fate
As my Master replied once again, "You must wait."
So I slumped in my chair, defeated and taught
and grumbling to God, "So, I'm waiting... for what?"

He seemed, then, to kneel, and His eyes wept with mine,
And he tenderly said, "I could give you a sign.
I could shake the heavens, and darken the sun.
I could raise the dead, and cause mountains to run.

All you seek, I could give, and pleased you would be.
You would have what you want--But, you wouldn't know Me.

You'd not know the depth of My love for each saint;
You'd not know the power that I give to the faint;
You'd not learn to see through the clouds of despair;
You'd not learn to trust just by knowing I'm there;

You'd not know the joy of resting in Me
When darkness and silence were all you could see.

You'd never experience that fullness of love
As the peace of My Spirit descends like a dove;
You'd know that I give and I save... (for a start),
But you'd not know the depth of the beat of My heart.

The glow of My comfort late into the night,
The faith that I give when you walk without sight,
The depth that's beyond getting just what you asked
Of the infinite God, who makes what you have LAST.

You'd never know, should your pain quickly flee,
What it means that "My grace is sufficient for Thee."
Yes, your dreams for your loved one overnight would come true,
But, Oh, the Loss! If I lost what I'm doing in you!

So, be silent, My Child, and in time you will see
That the greatest of gifts is to get to know Me.
And though oft' My answers seem terribly late,
My most precious answer is still, "WAIT."

- Author Unknown

My Provider

I am so amazed at the goodness of my God. I believe Abraham first called Him Jehovah Jireh in Genesis 22:14. From my limited research I believe that is the only time that specific name of God is used in the Bible. I just love the Hebrew language for He was so much more than "God" to them. He was their everything, like He is my everything, but their language is so much more expressive and all encompassing. Today and everyday He is my Provider. The Chinese proverb says, "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." As we began this Love's Journey it was knowing that we desperately needed God to be our provider. It was scary because we didn't have large sums of money lying around waiting for us to find something to do with it. We began this journey knowing that we were going to have to rely on Jehovah Jireh to provide in very real ways. We had no idea how He would provide, we just knew that He would see this journey through to completion. (Philippians 1:6 Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.)

Mustard Seed Faith Jesus's parable of the mustard seed is recorded in Matthew 13:31-32, Mark 4:30-32, and Luke 13:18-19. He told us that if we have the faith of a mustard seed that we can move mountains. Maybe mountains is literal, as in if we really had the faith we could tell Mount Everest to jump into the sea, but definately mountains are figuative. We all face mountains in our life. When Craig and I were looking to buy a home when we got married we bought the mustard seed house. I mean literally our house is white with mustard yellow trim and it took all the faith we could muster to put in a contract and buy this house. It seemed so huge because it was at the very edge of our budget. However if we had waited a year or two we would not have been able to buy a house, or at least not one that fit our needs so perfectly. And because we bought our home when we did we were able to build up equity. The equity helped us meet the requirements to adopt from China to begin with.
I am no stranger to mustard seed faith. I was raised in a mustard seed faith family. My mustard seed faith has allowed God to bless us with a home and allowed our son to come into our family. However, there were times in this journey when I felt perhaps, this seed was not viable. Maybe this time it just wouldn't work. I mean how many times can I ask and expect an answer. Do we run out of miracles? Do we start out our life's journey with a finite number or things we are able to ask or expect of God? "Of course not!" we hasten to encourage friends. However when my wonderful husband suggested we hold a yard sale to raise money, I was less than enthusiastic. I mean we don't have a lot. What could we sell?Craig was not going to let me loose my faith and he said, "we'll ask our friends." So that is what we have done. We asked our friends, and our friends asked their friends, and our friends asked total strangers when they were out yard saleing themselves. So we will have an AMAZING yard sale this coming Saturday, October 30th at our church, New Life. The address is 2740 E. Michigan Avenue, Orlando, FL 32806.

We are so blessed because not only did we grasp on to our mustard seed of faith and step out into this yard sale journey. Our friends have taken their mustard seed of faith to help us raise the money we need to bring Aryn home. I am completely amazed and blessed beyond measure as I see the way our friends have given of their time, thier stuff, their energy, and themselves to encourage us in our adoption. Today at church we went into room 5 where the church has been placing things people have brought for our sale. It is packed! They have had to place some items in other places! I don't know why I was amazed because when we were in the middle of Isaac's adoption God totally blessed us beyond measure in 2007 when we asked friends to donate to us. But this time I wasn't really expecting Him to do it. I mean I knew that He could, I just wasn't sure that He would. I feel ashamed to admit that, but it's real. I am just so completely and totally blown away!

And it's not just things that people are giving to us to encourage us in our endeavors. We have been blessed in the past week with over $200 in donations. One man doesn't even know us! He was fellowshipping with friends of ours and I guess they were sharing about this and that and in the process our adoption came up in the conversation. What a blessing!

The amazing thing is this. At the foundations of the Earth God knew that He was going to create Craig and I. He knew that in order to build a family we would have to turn to adoption. At the foundation of the Earth He had already planned how He wanted to bless us.

There is a verse about God doing more than we could ever imagine. This isn't the verse, but it's close. If you think of the verse please let me know. If I can remember it I will come back and update the blog.

Ephesians 3:20-22
20Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

So did you ever wonder what a tiny mustard seed can grow into? I mean what type of plant can this tiny seed yield anyways? I mean I've seen various types, but I like this picture the best! Are you ready? Because this is AMAZING!

Wow!!! Wow!!! Wow!!! Who knew??? Wow!!!

Unexpected Surprise!

We received an unexpected surprise from our adoption agency! The e-mail came yesterday, but I missed it. They requested an update on Aryn for us and we were able to learn some new things and we received some new pictures. I think it's pretty awesome that we received this information on our 2nd Forever Family Day! Yeah God!!

Update 10-13-10
1. May we please have updated measurements including foot size?
Height: 73cm (28.7 inches), weight: 9.4kg (20.72 lbs), head circumference: 41 cm, chest circumference: 43.5cm. Feet length: 11cm, teeth: 10

2. Could we have a developmental update? Can she run, stands unassisted, or verbalized any new words? How does she compare to her peers?
According to the foster family, her current development is pretty good and has no difference with other peers. She can stand unassisted, walk independently and can run as well. She can say some words, such as “mama”, “baba”, “jiejie” in mandarin. And she knows some gestures as well, such as “more”, “please”, “thank you”, “bye” and “have meal”. When she wants something, she will see you firstly, then says “yi yi ya ya”, or walk to you and pat you. She plays blocks one by one, but can’t stack blocks. She can draw on the paper. She can strew off the lid from bottles, but can’t screw it on or take things out of bottles.

3. Have there been any recent illnesses? Does she get tired or exhausted easily? Does she still suffer from asthma, pneumonia, or malnutrition?
According to the foster family, there haven’t been any recent illnesses. She doesn’t get tired or exhausted easily. Now she doesn’t suffer from asthma or pneumonia. She has good nutrition currently. But when she gets some cold, she will breathe deeply.

4. May we have updated photos including one with a peer or caregiver?

5. Is she in foster care?
She is still in foster care since Mar.30, 2010.

According to the foster family, she is active and easygoing. She likes reading, walking, swimming, music, playing on a swing, rocking horse. She likes tumbler dolls, trees, train toys, and blocks. She likes to play hide and seek and run here and there. She is a smart girl and has good imitation. She drinks water with cup. She likes to help others. She likes to watch Elmo DVD. She is not easy to get angry but she is gentle in daily life. She is very popular in the family. She is not picky on food and has good appetite. Usually she sleeps through the whole night. So far, she hasn’t to be found to have any other disease except heart disease surgery.

Two Years with Isaac

I have to begin my day of thanks, with a special prayer and thank you to the woman who gave Isaac life. I pray that she will learn about Jesus and accept him as her Savior so that we can meet in heaven and celebrate Isaac's life in eternity with Jesus. I can't imagine the emotions she went through as she carried him and then had to leave him. I can only speculate the circumstances that caused her to choose an adoption plan for him, but I pray that God brings comfort and peace to her heart. I pray that He will give her a vision of what he looks like since his cleft lip has been repaired and that she has a picture of his beautiful face in her mind. I hope that in her dreams she can see him laugh and love and that she can be comforted knowing that her son has found love and acceptance with a forever family. How heart wrenching to not know, but I pray that the Lord will give her a knowing so that she will know that God has a plan for each of our lives.

I pray that the words of Jeremiah 29:11 will ring true in her heart "'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,' declares the Lord." There are certain times I pray for this special woman, Isaac's China Mama. I continually pray that she will know the Lord, and I ask that He will rise up workers for His fields. I know that all mothers choosing adoption face a certain sense of loss, but I think for some it is harder. In America we have options and mothers can choose to select the family for their child and they can choose to keep in touch with that family. Some mothers don't have that option. They can't follow up on their children to see what happened. They choose adoption for many reasons and then they hope.

They hope for a better life. They hope for medical care. They hope for a chance to thrive and succeed. They hope their child will find a home in an adoptive family. They hope, but they never know. They hope because they know that some children never find a home. Some children wait, and wait. And these mothers, these fathers, who for whatever reason can not keep their child to raise as their own hope for the best knowing that it is quite possible that this child that they loved for nine months as they grew in their womb just might be among the unlucky who never finds a home. And they wonder, was it worth it? Could I have been what my child needed? Could we have gotten the medical care my child needed? Is my child being loved? And they never know. My heart breaks for these children and for their families. And I pray that Isaac's mom will know. And I pray that Aryn's mom will know. And I pray that God will move in the hearts of more people to bring children into their homes to be part of their forever families. We don't have to travel the world to add a forever child. They are here in our city, our state, our nation. God moved my heart to China, but He could call your heart to your hometown.

Two years ago we pulled up to the Adoption Registry Center of Guangdong Province at the same time the car from the Dongguan CWI pulled up with Isaac and another little girl. Both children were being welcomed by American families. I wish that we had learned the little girl's name, I know that she was adopted by a family in Michigan. It was so exciting to hear, "There is your son!"Where!? Where!? We were not allowed to touch him, if you can imagine the agony of that! But we were allowed to take his picture as he hugged onto his Ayi! What a handsome little guy! We were so excited to see that they had dressed him in blue because all of the pictures we had received the ayis had dressed our little man in pink.He's been a snuggle bug right from the start! In fact when Erin from Harrah's AIM read his file to me and I heard that he liked to snuggle, I told her to lock his file! It took Pepper less than a month to wrap Isaac around her paw and now the two are quite the pair!

Isaac's first visit to Walt Disney World was on November 24, 2008. He slept through his first ride on Dumbo! Today he LOVES to visit Mickey Mouse and believes that Ye Ye holds the keys to the kingdom. I guess he does since we are blessed that Ye Ye has worked for Disney for over 20 years and we are able to visit Mickey Mouse a lot! :o)

A favorite activity is watching football with Daddy. One of our first gifts was for this cute little outfit. Last weekend Isaac sat down in front of the TV and said, "I like that." Daddy was thrilled because Daddy LOVES football and hopes that Isaac will love watching football with him for many years to come!On Saturday we went to EPCOT to take pictures to celebrate two years as a forever family. Unfortunately the experience went better in my head and if I had followed Isaac's lead we may have gotten some wonderful pictures to go with happy memories. After all the celebration was about our love and it really didn't matter if I had the ideal picture to commemorate the event. I only post this so that in the future I can look back and remember the experience and learn from it. What mattered was that we came together as a family to celebrate our love. What didn't matter was the perfect picture, which I didn't get anyways. Isaac was upset and the pictures make me a little sad.

Actually the highlight of Isaac's day had absolutely nothing to do with China or celebrating his culture which is why we chose EPCOT. They do have a great place to meet and greet the characters and this was definitely Isaac's favorite part of the day. We counted down the days until we finally got to visit Mickey Mouse. He wanted to take the count down sheet, but we forgot it in the car. We did remember to bring the autograph book and Isaac bounced with excitement as he waited for his turn with the different characters. Now this is what I will remember of our forever family celebration!

Isaac's countdown to Mickey Mouse!

Waiting our turn!

Wow! Mickey Mouse!!!

Pluto is a pretty cool dog! Mama loves Pluto because he came to visit Isaac in the hospital when he had his palate surgery.

I could not believe how excited Isaac was to meet Minnie Mouse! He danced and danced around the little waiting area. I actually think this is one of the best pictures of the day!

Donald Duck didn't excite him as much as some of the other characters. He had fun watching Donald interact with the children ahead of him, but when it came down to it, he was not into it. I wonder if Donald gets any time on the Disney Channel or if he needs to contact his publicist??

Last, but not least Goofy! It was nice to meet you Goofy! Isaac is a pretty Goofy dude and if the pediatrician is right he'll be tall enough to play Goofy at Disney when he's in high school or college. With his personality I can see him making kids and adults day as they see Goofy come to life.


However, to every experience we can take something good. Next year I know to take time to celebrate and that if we don't get a picture, it's OK. The important thing is to love. In my heart I knew that, but sadly it didn't make it into my control freak, let's have a picture to commemorate this day mind. Well I take that back, on Sunday we went to our favorite Chinese restaurant to celebrate with the whole family: Ye Ye, Nai Nai, Uncle Joe, Mama, Daddy, and Isaac. We had a lovely lunch and I didn't interrupt the festivities to mess with the camera so, "lesson learned!" We had an immediate success and I didn't have to wait a whole year to try it out...

"You are the helper of the fatherless. LORD, you have heard the desire of the humble; You will prepare their heart; You will cause Your ear to hear, to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed, That the man of the earth may oppress no more." Psalm 10:14, 17-18

Celebrating Life with Isaac

Isaac is a delight! He really is. The other night I was tucking him in and having our bedtime stories and I held him close and told him, "You're my Isaac." That means so much more than you're my son, which is does; but truly, he is my laughter. He is so full of life and love and has such a crazy sense of humor that he truly is my laughter at times. What a good name that the Lord lead us to as we prayed for the right name. He's getting to the stage where Mama has invoked the middle name as I've had to reprimand him for something his curious nature has lead him into. Recently I tried to get his attention, "Isaac Yao Li!" He looked right back at me and replied, "Mama Yao Li!" I couldn't help it I started laughing because I would have never dreamed of looking at my mother and saying back to her "Mommy Gretchen Lea!" But he didn't understand and the way he said it just killed me because he had no idea I was frustrated and when I laughed and hugged him he probably thought that I had lost it. Poor kid.

We have started a count down to visit Mickey Mouse this weekend. We are heading to EPCOT to visit the China pavilion to celebrate our 2nd anniversary of Isaac joining our family. Our official anniversary is on the 13th, but we'll be celebrating early. Isaac has been begging to visit Micky Mouse for several weeks, basically since school started and our frequent summer trips to visit Micky Mouse went on hold as we got back to the real world with Mama going to work and Isaac going to school.

We'll be posting new pictures of Isaac later on this weekend so stop back by to see how my little guy has grown in the past two years.

Last post I promised to share another photo of Aryn so here she is. We are getting closer! God is so good!!

This is an older picture, I believe it's from somtime around April. She just looks so happy I had to share it. I do have another recent picture, but I did want to share this older picture of her that we have been so blessed to recieve.

The LORD said to Moses, “Tell Aaron and his sons, ‘This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them: “‘ “The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace.”‘ – Numbers 6:22-26

One step closer to Aryn

Ok, I was going to make you wait to see the picture of Aryn that God has blessed us with. However, I decided that I really want to share it with the world so that you can all oooohhh and ahhhh over her and see how she is growing. God is definitely with her. She looks so much bigger than she did in her referral picture, although I hear she is still a tiny little thing. Please keep her in prayer and ask God to prepare her heart to welcome us as her forever family. Please keep Isaac in prayer as he prepares to welcome a new sister and another person to share Mama's love and attention. We are so excited to welcome Aryn to our family and Isaac is very excited to become a brother, we just hope he is as excited about it when he realizes that Mama will have to hug and kiss on his little sister as well as sharing hugs and kisses with him. I have a couple more pictures, but you'll have to stop back in a few days because I want to spread them out in the blog so that I can savor them.

Last Friday I called our agency to ask about timing. We have been hoping and praying that we will be able to travel to meet Aryn by the holidays (Thanksgiving or Christmas). Thanksgiving never fit into their window of four-nine months from when we sent our letter of intent to adopt her, but Christmas fits at the very beginning of that window. We had been waiting on our LOA and were on day 37, when we adopted Isaac we had waited about 30 days for LOA.

So I called to ask her what the trend tended to be for families like us, who were recently logged into the system to adopt their child. I was told 2-3 months (60-90 days). She said that we would most likely travel in January or February to which I told her, "I can't travel in January! I have 9 days of leave and I need to travel in December." She probably thought I was a nut or a drama queen, who knows. Anyways, I told her that I needed a miracle because otherwise it was going to be tough. She said, "Well, it is possible if you get your LOA sometime next week." Ok for about 30 seconds after I got off of the phone I was dejected, I felt as if she had told me there was no way I could meet my daughter this year. Then I realized she just gave me the opportunity to put my trust in Jehovah Jirah rather than on man. So that is what we did. On Tuesday night we had Open House where parents get to meet their child's teacher. I told parents that my family is adopting a little girl and we are waiting on approval before we can go to China to finalize the adoption. I also told them that if they are a praying people that we would appreciate their prayers, because without them it would be impossible to travel to meet our daughter before Christmas which would mean I would be out of the classroom longer than I had planned. I'm pretty confident that got some parents on their knees because we don't like our child's teacher to be out of the classroom. I honestly have no idea how many people have joined with us in prayer as we wait to bring Aryn home, but we are so thankful for everyone who petitioned the Lord on our behalf this week because the same lady who pretty much told me it would be impossible to travel by the end of the year had to call yesterday to tell me that we haveHow about that!!?? So if you prayed with us, thank you!! We are so thankful!! We still have several steps to go before we get travel approval to go and meet our sweet girl, but we are one step closer!!! Step 1 Tuesday we should receive our copy of the LOA which we will sign and mail off with a stack of documents to USCIS where they will give us a paper that declares Aryn to be an immediate relative. Step 2 Once we receive our provisional approval declaring her an immediate relative we have to contact the National Visa Center for another letter, I'm not sure what it does for us, only that we need it. Step 3 We can send a scan of our USCIS approval and NVC letter to our agency and they will get them to the China office where the papers will be filed with the US Consulate (I think I have this right) and they will issue Article 5 which is the final paper that China needs to grant us travel approval. Step 4 China will issue Travel Approval and we can begin to plan our trip to meet Aryn. (This was the only step after LOA when we adopted Isaac, a lot has changed in the past 2 years...).

So from what I understand we will be able to travel within the next TWO to THREE months! That's right! So now our new prayer request is that we are at the beginning of that two to three month window. The beginning has us leaving for China at the beginning of December, but we could be home to celebrate Christmas with Daddy!!! My mom is definitely traveling with us and Craig's sister may travel with us, that is still to be decided. Craig wants to save the days that he has accumulated to bond with Aryn at home. After prayer, discussion, and more prayer, I feel good about him staying behind but we'll need prayers for that as well, because he'll be half-a-world away while this crazy life change is going on.

Now to Him who is able to do immeasurable more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen! (Ephesians 3:20-21 NIV)