birthday eve considerations.

a month or so ago i did a brief inventory of my year.  and i relay it now not to be showy, but to remind myself in the future of what God has allowed this past year.  between the beginning of this month and the same time last year i've been to: georgia, mexico (two parts), north carolina, south carolina, indiana (on several occassions), new york, new jersey and norway. and while that might not be much traveling for some...that's a lot of adventuring for me.  i've gained two new super cute nephews this past year and grown stronger with several new and past relationships. worked alongside an incredible group growing a fine arts ministry and i've learned what seems like a gazillion things. had an amazing group of clients to work with and had jacob by my side in business another full year.  i've also grown my hair out to astronomical life-recording lengths and totally conquered a year worth of bangs. another life record all it's own : )

and as i look at turning another year older tomorrow i can't be more thankful for all i've been given.  all i've been allowed to walk through and all i've been blessed with seeing and experiencing.  as a friend reminded me recently newsboys said it best when they sang "when we don't get what we deserve, it's a real good thing and when we get what we get what we don't deserve it's a real good thing". this has literally been the best year of my life. and yet we are walking into this incredible new adventure with adoption and i'm wide eyed at the possibilities of what this next year can bring.  this boding last year of my twenties.

it's gonna rock.  let's be honest. with all it's struggles and hang ups.  all its excitements and disappointments. i'll have the same God beside me. and it's going to be fantastic.

and just in case next year i'm awakened far to early by the squeals, or cries, or giggles of kiddos, i'm going to sleep a little later and sit a little quieter and sip something frou frou-ey from starbucks for free and be extra thankful for all the not yets in my life.  and consider and pray for those also in the "already but not yets" of life. (the post i'm referring to)

why taiwan? and why now?

as we are looking at sharing our news publicly tonight, i figured these might be two of the questions people ask first.  so decided i'd just go ahead and address it as many new viewers might be sent here.
(sidenote: the quiet, more reserved side of me is so nervous to make this very public announcement!!)

my parents asked how long we had been considering adoption...and we both easily responded, from the moment we got married.  my sister was fostering our now 7 year old niece talia, the year jacob and i got married.  we talked adoption then and knew as we walked into marriage that this was something we were both super passionate about. in fact, three years ago we had an appointment with a local agency and were considering south korea, but didn't feel it was the right timing...and now we know why. God had to walk us through so much before we were parents.  he had much teaching and learning for us. he had other endeavors for us to be apart of and another country to be preparing for us.....so we've always wanted to adopt. and this organization, at least for now, doesn't allow you to already have children...so it was easy to decide bring home our taiwanese children first before pursuing biological any further. so that's the why now.

why taiwan? lots of reasons.  jacob and i love asian culture. always have.  could be because my best friend from age 3 on was chinese and i love her and her family still dearly. could be because jacob's dad has been asked on several occassions if he's asian because let's be honest all cecils have asian eyes. we're not ashamed to admit that. jacob's been obsessed with jackie chan since our early high school dating age. so while i love africa and have been to both ethiopia and south africa it wasn't where our heart really was. asia seemed right for us. many of the countries require that you are 30 and we are just shy of that. so when jacob ran into a couple that were on their way to taiwan through an incredible chiristian organization we had to learn more. and we did...and continued falling more in love with taiwan...

it was important to jacob especially that we adopt from a country that christianity was not the dominate religion.  taiwan's christianity percentage is 4% with buddhism and taoism creating the majority. and the more we researched the more our heart hurt...taiwan has the number one abortion rate per capita in the world.  the world. my heart hurts for our birth mother even now at this thought. for every one live birth there, they have three abortions.  and 90% of all single mothers there will abort their child because the stigma is so harsh for single moms...and asian culture tends to lean towards believing that life does not happen until birth. we recognize almost daily how brave our birth mother(s) must be to carry our children to full term. we pray for her often and will tell her when we meet her face to face for our first court hearing. we see this as much as an opportunity to share christ's redemption with the mom as we do our own children. God can use any and every situation to open a door to his love.

hope that explains a bit of our heart in this process.  why this country in particular is so amazing, not to mention the missionary organization we are going through. and why we, more than ever, know that now is the right time.  all the other previous posts of what God has been doing in our lives will be evidence of that as well.

and those who are using this post as their first intro to our story...let me briefly say the term "sweet potatoes" is something we began early in our process. we read an article that said taiwan is shaped like a sweet potato and for that reason the residents often refer to themselves as children of the sweet potato...hence our little sweet potato picture announcements!! :) thank you for sharing this journey with us.  we are thrilled and humbled almost daily. prayers always appreciated as we continue this journey.

forums. and new time killers.

we were added to The Home of God's Love private facebook forum last night. oh dear me.  it's amazing. 350 parents who either have finished the process a while back and their children are growing like week, just completed are are currently basking in God's amazingness and their babies snuggles, or are in our boat of still waiting and hoping. one person just posted the video of them meeting their child. 

watched it three times. cried every time. lol.

they also had pictures on there of past babies that had been adopted.

oh my word. i studied their precious little faces and cried. lol.

so.  i may have found a new place to get a little taiwanese fix ha ha.  the group is amazing. tons of advice giving and encouragement from a tight knit group of people who have ALL felt what we have. so happy to be apart of this group that i had been hearing about from the beginning of our process.

last home visit (without children!)

yesterday marked our last home visit...this side of the adoption process! the next time we'll see karalee (our social worker...super cool name, right?) will be when we HAVE our chil(ren)! super crazy to think about.  it went super smoothly...which was fantastic considering i had been up all morning sick and i didn't get to scrub and clean as much as i had intended.

she found no concerns, nothing to hold us back about and changes that needed to take place. SO...what's next.  our home study as a whole is sent to our agency in owensboro, they review it and send it to the stateside part of our tawainese organization...they review it...and send it to taiwan to be translated into mandarin (the official language of taiwan) ....and....drumroll...we get placed on the waiting list!!

and we wait.
the real waiting begins.
sigh.

we will begin our dossier now too...and praying our government gets off of it's shut down status because a majority of that needed paperwork will go through homeland security, etc.

so this HUGE home study process is done...and in a SHOCKING 5 1/2 weeks time....officially it won't be done until our last reference letter is received this week (that we didn't know we were missing), but yes.  we are done with the home study. i made a copy of all the 150 pages of paperwork last week when i sent it all to the agency last week (type A much?...was nervous it'd get lost in the mail and we'd lose everthing lol). so needless to say, between our DVD educational curriculum, mass amounts of questionnaires, fingerprinting appointments etc, AND our normal working lives and church involvement, this has easily been the busiest two months of our lives.

we. are. so. excited.

pictures!

all immediate family finally knows!! we are so excited to be able to share with more people this past week! and our film shots came back of the little sweet potato shoot we did for our announcements...see this post for explanation on the the sweet potatoes. :)

so these images will be used to make our social media announcements later this week.  our final home visit is tuesday and then we plan to make it all public news at that point! can't wait!!

 

*and super awesome shout out to my friend virginia for doing the calligraphy for us...she's crazy talented!

isaiah 54

this chapter in isaiah rocked my face off this morning.  and as i read it out loud and declared it, i just cried. and then sent it to others i knew it would also encourage. this is the message version of it.
(**preface: if you're reading this and are the parents/moms of biological children, don't take offense to this chapter at all...we still plan to try for biological children in the future as well should that be God's will in allowing...this is just encouragement to where we currently are and i'm sure has tons of symbolism that could apply to many parent across the board where they are)

Spread Out! Think Big!

54 ^1-6 “Sing, barren woman, who has never had a baby.
    Fill the air with song, you who’ve never experienced childbirth!
You’re ending up with far more children
    than all those childbearing women.” God says so!
“Clear lots of ground for your tents!
    Make your tents large. Spread out! Think big!
Use plenty of rope,
    drive the tent pegs deep.
You’re going to need lots of elbow room
    for your growing family.
You’re going to take over whole nations;
    you’re going to resettle abandoned cities.
Don’t be afraid—you’re not going to be embarrassed.
    Don’t hold back—you’re not going to come up short.
You’ll forget all about the humiliations of your youth,
    and the indignities of being a widow will fade from memory.
For your Maker is your bridegroom,
    his name, God-of-the-Angel-Armies!
Your Redeemer is The Holy of Israel,
    known as God of the whole earth.
You were like an abandoned wife, devastated with grief,
    and God welcomed you back,
Like a woman married young
    and then left,” says your God.

^7-8 Your Redeemer God says:

“I left you, but only for a moment.
    Now, with enormous compassion, I’m bringing you back.
In an outburst of anger I turned my back on you—
    but only for a moment.
It’s with lasting love
    that I’m tenderly caring for you.

^9-10 “This exile is just like the days of Noah for me:
    I promised then that the waters of Noah
    would never again flood the earth.
I’m promising now no more anger,
    no more dressing you down.
For even if the mountains walk away
    and the hills fall to pieces,
My love won’t walk away from you,
    my covenant commitment of peace won’t fall apart.”
    The God who has compassion on you says so.

^11-17 “Afflicted city, storm-battered, unpitied:
    I’m about to rebuild you with stones of turquoise,
Lay your foundations with sapphires,
    construct your towers with rubies,
Your gates with jewels,
    and all your walls with precious stones.
All your children will have God for their teacher—
    what a mentor for your children!
You’ll be built solid, grounded in righteousness,
    far from any trouble—nothing to fear!
    far from terror—it won’t even come close!
If anyone attacks you,
    don’t for a moment suppose that I sent them,
And if any should attack,
    nothing will come of it.
I create the blacksmith
    who fires up his forge
    and makes a weapon designed to kill.
I also create the destroyer—
    but no weapon that can hurt you has ever been forged.
Any accuser who takes you to court
    will be dismissed as a liar.
This is what God’s servants can expect.
    I’ll see to it that everything works out for the best.”
        God’s Decree.

the devotional i was reading this morning that led me to this chapter was talking about the middle section 11-17 where we are built with all of these stones...and how these stones are ones that must be cut out, dynamited out of rocks, torn from their current nesting spots, that they might be used to decorate and be beautiful in new ways not possible until they were put under the pressure it took to get them there.  it was really cool.  i probably just botched it, though.  lol

THEN...i read this section of verses in isaiah 29 on my own reading time and LOVED it.  i'm going to have to blow it up for our kids room for certain.  sent it to jacob, which it conveniently is written to him too ;) 

^22-24 And finally this, God’s Message for the family of Jacob,
    the same God who redeemed Abraham:
“No longer will Jacob hang his head in shame,
    no longer grow gaunt and pale with waiting.
For he’s going to see his children,
    my personal gift to him—lots of children.
And these children will honor me
    by living holy lives.
In holy worship they’ll honor the Holy One of Jacob
    and stand in holy awe of the God of Israel.
Those who got off-track will get back on-track,
    and complainers and whiners learn gratitude.”