The Why Questions Answered

Why are you adopting? You already have four children! Why China, why not domestically? These are the two most frequently asked questions that we receive; so I thought that I would take a moment to answer them. We are adopting because we have been called by the Lord to do so. James 1:27 says, "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." While the world may not understand why we are doing this; I assure you, our King does. We are being obedient to God's Word and to His calling for our lives.

God planted the seed of adoption into mine and Ross' hearts at a very young age, and has continued to water that seed into adulthood, our marriage, and even until now. Not only was there a seed planted, but it was a seed to adopt from China. God does not say to take care of the orphans within the country you live; He says, "Care for orphans." I believe that God designed it so that different people are called to adopt from different places all over the world so that we would be able to care for HIS orphaned children; no matter what country they are from. The country that He happened to lay on our hearts was China.

 I hope that even if you do not agree with our decision to adopt, that you will continue to follow our story through to the end. It is our prayer and hope that all may say that they have seen the glory of the Lord throughout our adoption journey. If you do support our decision, then we would like to thank you for your prayer, kind words, and encouragement throughout this journey. To sum it up: yes, it's about being a forever family to a sweet baby girl who would otherwise be orphaned; and yes, it is about being obedient to God's Word. More importantly, it is about giving God the glory for what He has done and is doing in our lives. That is why we are adopting a baby girl from China.

Immunizations

Ross and I keep hearing, "Be prepared," from the Lord. We have done several things in an effort to do this, but today was one of the biggest steps that we have taken. We have known that we would need shots in order to travel to China, but have yet to get them. Well, we can no longer say that. Ross and I both received Hep A, Hep B, and Tetanus injections today. Even in this step, our God worked out all of the details. When we first arrived at the doctor's office, they said that I could receive the immunizations today, but that Ross would have to schedule an appoinment because it had been over a year since the doctor had seen him. So we played along. We waited for the nurse to call me back and then I asked her if she could ask Dr. B if Ross could go ahead and get his shots too. You see, Dr. B has known about our adoption endeavors since the beginning, so he already knew that we would be in for these shots one day soon. Of coarse he said yes; so we were both able to get our travel immunizations today. Now we have to go back in 4 weeks for another round, but woohoo for getting one step closer to being prepared!

UPDATE: Round two of our immunizations were done on July 25th. One more round in December and we should be good to go in that area anyway.