May 2008
God plants a seed in our hearts for adoption after the tragic loss of Maria Sue Chapman.
February 2011
Seeking information on adoption in China through All God's Children International, I "accidentally" hit the wrong tab and sign up for a mission trip to China instead. Brodie and Aida decide to go...little did we know that at this very same time, a baby boy was being born in China who would later steal our hearts.
March 2011
Confirmed desire to adopt..."How can we not?" Praying for God's direction.
April 2011
In preparation for Brodie and Aida's short term mission trip to Beijing, China, we research the foster homes where they will serve and feel drawn to one special baby boy. We print out his photo, post it on our refrigerator, and pray for him every day. Slowly he becomes a part of our hearts. We love him. I nurse Boden (who is the same age) and each time I do, I pray and ask the Lord's hand to be upon this child on the other side of the globe. As we consider adoption and pray for the Lord's lead, we discover that we don't meet the criteria for an adoption in China. Closed door #1...so we continue to pray for God's direction.
May-July 2011
God leads us to Africa. We meet the criteria to adopt from the DRC and feel this is the direction God has confirmed for our adoption process.
September 2011
Brodie and Aida meet the little one we've prayed for on their mission trip to Beijing. We wonder if we are supposed to pursue adopting him, so even after we were already signed up for the DRC program through Lifeline Children's Services, I make one last phone call. I ask the China coordinator about our special boy and it appears that other families are pursuing him at the time. Closed door #2. Settled that we had given it our best and final efforts, not wanting to compete with other families when there are so many children in need, and confident that he will be adopted (so it seemed), we trust God's calling for us to begin our adoption in the DRC. We move on...for now. (Though I never stopped praying for the little one I loved already.)
September 2011-November 19, 2012
We go through the adoption process for Noble and India, our beloveds from the DRC, and praise the Lord for joining them both into our family! We placed our adoption at Lifeline on hold after transferring over to OFA to complete our DRC adoption. We wonder why the Lord led us to Lifeline in the first place and why we're invested financially there...could it be for a future adoption down the road? Only time would tell...
November 14, 2012
I feel like I must be a crazy person, but I can't get our little boy in China out of my mind just as Brodie is preparing to return home from Congo with Noble and India. I email the director of the foster home where he lives and ask about him. She says he isn't matched yet. (What happened to those other families that were supposedly pursuing him over a year ago? We will come to find out later that his paperwork was not ready at the time. Was God saving him for just the right time for us??)
February 7, 2013
We go to our Bible study and pray before going, knowing there is a reason we are able to attend this particular evening. During prayer requests, I mention the "other son" we felt led to adopt from the DRC before we met India. My sister chimes in stating, "and then there's always your little boy in China..." I hadn't let my heart go there for a while, especially as we transitioned home with Noble and India. Her comment (the reason, I assume, we were there that night) reignited a spark which would be fanned into a flame in the months following.
February 2013
I cannot shake the nudge to pray for him and the Chinese people in general...ever since that Bible study night. We celebrate Chinese New Year, his birthday, and everywhere we turn it seems China keeps popping up...China. China! China!! Is God telling us something?? We're listening, Lord...
February 11, 2013
Brodie and I have a serious conversation and pray (again) about this little one we've loved for so long. I had been praying for Brodie, as our leader, to feel the pull if this urge to pursue him (again) was from God. Brodie feels it. He can't deny it either. "How can we not?" he says again...his now famous words. That's the confirmation I was waiting on. We email Lifeline and they agree to try to locate the file...a complicated matter in Chinese adoption.
March 11, 2013
After a month of waiting and praying, we receive news that the paperwork is not ready. Closed door #3. He is not adoptable...yet. This explains why he was never adopted back when we initially pursued him in September 2011. We have options and understand that it would be a LONG shot, needle in a haystack, blind leap of faith to pursue him at this point. It would include compiling a homestudy and dossier and getting "logged in" in China before his paperwork comes up so that Lifeline can get his file. It would include doing all of that and running the chance that someone else gets matched with him before we are ready. It could include heartbreak, if we don't trust God's sovereign plans...but we do. This is "risky" (What is risk with the Lord?!), but we can't deny God's prompting. Prayerfully, we decide to proceed.
March 15, 2013
We have our first official phone conversation with Lifeline and realize that we forgot about one criteria we don't meet for China adoption. Closed door #4! How could we forget? We get off the call, disappointed, but trusting God knows best. We pray. It dawns on me that there may be a solution. We call back. She will check with her supervisor...
April 1, 2013
After weeks without hearing back, I let myself accept the closed doors. I erase the photos from my phone to help my heart forget and just pray. We thank the Lord for answers and ask for more closed doors if we are not to pursue this adoption. God's will cannot be thwarted! Then out of the blue, the email comes through which we did NOT expect. Her supervisor says it's a go. What?! OPEN DOOR!! By faith, we're walking through. God leads, we follow.
April 2, 2013
We fill out our first forms, pray for the Lord's financial provisions, trust that if for some reason we cannot adopt our little guy, God has His best plans in store...and we proceed (again). Knowing there's a strong chance we will not be able to be matched for many reasons that oppose us, we guard our hearts, yet joyfully anticipate what God will do, what God can do. He's definitely up to something and we are following Him out of obedience. Nothing is impossible for Him! If this is our son, then he is our son, and God will get us to him. If he is not and we somehow lose him in this process, then clearly God has another reason for getting us started on an adoption process in China at this time.
April 10, 2013
Start homestudy process & introductory phone call with Lifeline...here we goooo!!!
April 11, 2013
Live Scan
April 13, 2013
We find out that his foster mama's name is Anna :)
May 27, 2013
Homestudy complete
June 27, 2013
Homestudy amended/corrected and sent to immigration
July 3, 2013
Letter to orphanage (petition to adopt him)
July 5, 2013
Difficult news arrives that we may miss our little guy after all our effort as his paperwork is projected to be ready about a month earlier than our dossier. This is disheartening but not outside of God's control...He can still do this...will He? Prayerfully trusting.
July 19, 2013
News arrives that there are currently significant delays with the adoption proceedings in China. Could this delay allow for our timing to work out after all?? Only God knows...
August 8, 2013
Immigration fingerprinting appointment
October 13, 2013
Immigration approval! (2 children (just in case), both genders (just in case), up to age 8)
October 15, 2013
We discover documents have expired. Runaround paper chase day so we can move onto authentication...Miracle at the sheriff's station...and it all got done in ONE DAY!! :)
October 16, 2013
Dossier sent to county/state!
November 4, 2013
DTS!!! (Dossier sent to China!)
December 4, 2013
LID! (Logged in!)
November 18, 2013
He's gone. ...and God is still good...but who have we come all this way for then???
December 2013
Enter Bea and Beck. We love them, feel drawn to them, confirmed they are the ones. But...we are only permitted to adopt one. And we love both. We believe they are both ours. Yet, acceptance...again. Heartache...again. We tried. That's all that we could do. We pray to go back for Beck once Bea's adoption is complete. We praaaay for him. We loooove him.
January 13, 2014
LOI (Letter of Intent) sent for our sweet {girl!}
January 14, 2014
PA Bea! (Pre-Approval...just one day after it was sent!)
March 17, 2014
LOA Bea! (Letter of Acceptance)
March 31, 2014
Shocking email...After over 3 months without him, we may be able to adopt our little Beck after all!! He still isn't matched! We've watched the website and prayed to go back for him. Could he be ours too?! Now?!
April 1, 2014
We agree to our agency's terms and place Beck's file on hold...again. :) PRAYING he is ours! GRATITUDE that God's will cannot ever be thwarted. His timing is intentional.
April 3, 2014
Another shock...Beck's file was released to the shared list last night! BUT, this morning our agency caught it, found it, and locked it. What crazy timing...God is AMAZING!! LOI (Letter of Intent) sent for our little {boy!} (Whoa!)
April 9, 2014
Woah (again!) PA (Pre-Approval) for Beck too!! The projected wait time on this was 3-4 weeks!What a blessing! Praying for miraculous funding!
April 10, 2014
Woah {again!} We have been waiting to hear about an update on Beck. Come to find out, something we didn't expect until later this week happened YESTERDAY! He is "doing very well"!!! Praise the Lord...It's an official GO! And, the cost was a fraction of what we had anticipated! Thank you , Lord! Waiting for our LOA. Hang in there guys...we're coming as soon as we possibly can! Praying still for miraculous funding with faith that God CAN and WILL provide! It's been a big week of seeing God move.
April 14, 2014
I-800 Approval Bea
May 15, 2014
Article 5 Bea
May 22, 2014
TA Bea (Travel approval!)...just waiting for Beck's paperwork!
July 15, 2014
LOA Beck! (Letter of Acceptance...projected travel 3 months!)
August 9, 2014
Bulrush booties fundraiser kick off...Thank you to the Stinsen family!
August 9, 2014
I-800 Approval Beck (same day as our fundraising efforts begin :))
August 12, 2014
Praising God! A year and a half of hard work and sacrifice to pay for this adoption and praying for miracle funding to fill in the gaps and the Lord has answered in the 11th hour! Miracle funding!! Answered prayers!! Thank you, Jesus!!! We are in awe!! We still have more to go, but more than half of our deficit has been covered in just days. God answers prayers in His perfect timing and He is faithful to provide. We just need to trust Him.
August 14, 2014
Miracle funding again!! Thank you, Lord!!! What an answer to prayer!!! We are amazed!!!
August 16, 2014
Miracle funding again!! In just one week we have seen an incredible amount of miraculous funding come in. God is SO faithful!!! Where HE leads...HE provides! Always!
August 25, 2014
Miracle funding again!! What a trustworthy God. He promises to supply all our needs and He is faithful to do so!
August 26, 2014
Article 5 Beck
September 8, 2014
TA Beck (Travel approval!) That's all we were waiting on! We're on our way little ones!! (The holiday in the first week of October means we have to wait until the 2nd week of October to travel...but as soon as we can get there, we're on our way! God's timing is best.)
October 9-29, 2014
Travel!! China, sweet Bea and Beck, here we come!!!
God plants a seed in our hearts for adoption after the tragic loss of Maria Sue Chapman.
February 2011
Seeking information on adoption in China through All God's Children International, I "accidentally" hit the wrong tab and sign up for a mission trip to China instead. Brodie and Aida decide to go...little did we know that at this very same time, a baby boy was being born in China who would later steal our hearts.
March 2011
Confirmed desire to adopt..."How can we not?" Praying for God's direction.
April 2011
In preparation for Brodie and Aida's short term mission trip to Beijing, China, we research the foster homes where they will serve and feel drawn to one special baby boy. We print out his photo, post it on our refrigerator, and pray for him every day. Slowly he becomes a part of our hearts. We love him. I nurse Boden (who is the same age) and each time I do, I pray and ask the Lord's hand to be upon this child on the other side of the globe. As we consider adoption and pray for the Lord's lead, we discover that we don't meet the criteria for an adoption in China. Closed door #1...so we continue to pray for God's direction.
May-July 2011
God leads us to Africa. We meet the criteria to adopt from the DRC and feel this is the direction God has confirmed for our adoption process.
September 2011
Brodie and Aida meet the little one we've prayed for on their mission trip to Beijing. We wonder if we are supposed to pursue adopting him, so even after we were already signed up for the DRC program through Lifeline Children's Services, I make one last phone call. I ask the China coordinator about our special boy and it appears that other families are pursuing him at the time. Closed door #2. Settled that we had given it our best and final efforts, not wanting to compete with other families when there are so many children in need, and confident that he will be adopted (so it seemed), we trust God's calling for us to begin our adoption in the DRC. We move on...for now. (Though I never stopped praying for the little one I loved already.)
September 2011-November 19, 2012
We go through the adoption process for Noble and India, our beloveds from the DRC, and praise the Lord for joining them both into our family! We placed our adoption at Lifeline on hold after transferring over to OFA to complete our DRC adoption. We wonder why the Lord led us to Lifeline in the first place and why we're invested financially there...could it be for a future adoption down the road? Only time would tell...
November 14, 2012
I feel like I must be a crazy person, but I can't get our little boy in China out of my mind just as Brodie is preparing to return home from Congo with Noble and India. I email the director of the foster home where he lives and ask about him. She says he isn't matched yet. (What happened to those other families that were supposedly pursuing him over a year ago? We will come to find out later that his paperwork was not ready at the time. Was God saving him for just the right time for us??)
February 7, 2013
We go to our Bible study and pray before going, knowing there is a reason we are able to attend this particular evening. During prayer requests, I mention the "other son" we felt led to adopt from the DRC before we met India. My sister chimes in stating, "and then there's always your little boy in China..." I hadn't let my heart go there for a while, especially as we transitioned home with Noble and India. Her comment (the reason, I assume, we were there that night) reignited a spark which would be fanned into a flame in the months following.
February 2013
I cannot shake the nudge to pray for him and the Chinese people in general...ever since that Bible study night. We celebrate Chinese New Year, his birthday, and everywhere we turn it seems China keeps popping up...China. China! China!! Is God telling us something?? We're listening, Lord...
February 11, 2013
Brodie and I have a serious conversation and pray (again) about this little one we've loved for so long. I had been praying for Brodie, as our leader, to feel the pull if this urge to pursue him (again) was from God. Brodie feels it. He can't deny it either. "How can we not?" he says again...his now famous words. That's the confirmation I was waiting on. We email Lifeline and they agree to try to locate the file...a complicated matter in Chinese adoption.
March 11, 2013
After a month of waiting and praying, we receive news that the paperwork is not ready. Closed door #3. He is not adoptable...yet. This explains why he was never adopted back when we initially pursued him in September 2011. We have options and understand that it would be a LONG shot, needle in a haystack, blind leap of faith to pursue him at this point. It would include compiling a homestudy and dossier and getting "logged in" in China before his paperwork comes up so that Lifeline can get his file. It would include doing all of that and running the chance that someone else gets matched with him before we are ready. It could include heartbreak, if we don't trust God's sovereign plans...but we do. This is "risky" (What is risk with the Lord?!), but we can't deny God's prompting. Prayerfully, we decide to proceed.
March 15, 2013
We have our first official phone conversation with Lifeline and realize that we forgot about one criteria we don't meet for China adoption. Closed door #4! How could we forget? We get off the call, disappointed, but trusting God knows best. We pray. It dawns on me that there may be a solution. We call back. She will check with her supervisor...
April 1, 2013
After weeks without hearing back, I let myself accept the closed doors. I erase the photos from my phone to help my heart forget and just pray. We thank the Lord for answers and ask for more closed doors if we are not to pursue this adoption. God's will cannot be thwarted! Then out of the blue, the email comes through which we did NOT expect. Her supervisor says it's a go. What?! OPEN DOOR!! By faith, we're walking through. God leads, we follow.
April 2, 2013
We fill out our first forms, pray for the Lord's financial provisions, trust that if for some reason we cannot adopt our little guy, God has His best plans in store...and we proceed (again). Knowing there's a strong chance we will not be able to be matched for many reasons that oppose us, we guard our hearts, yet joyfully anticipate what God will do, what God can do. He's definitely up to something and we are following Him out of obedience. Nothing is impossible for Him! If this is our son, then he is our son, and God will get us to him. If he is not and we somehow lose him in this process, then clearly God has another reason for getting us started on an adoption process in China at this time.
April 10, 2013
Start homestudy process & introductory phone call with Lifeline...here we goooo!!!
April 11, 2013
Live Scan
April 13, 2013
We find out that his foster mama's name is Anna :)
May 27, 2013
Homestudy complete
June 27, 2013
Homestudy amended/corrected and sent to immigration
July 3, 2013
Letter to orphanage (petition to adopt him)
July 5, 2013
Difficult news arrives that we may miss our little guy after all our effort as his paperwork is projected to be ready about a month earlier than our dossier. This is disheartening but not outside of God's control...He can still do this...will He? Prayerfully trusting.
July 19, 2013
News arrives that there are currently significant delays with the adoption proceedings in China. Could this delay allow for our timing to work out after all?? Only God knows...
August 8, 2013
Immigration fingerprinting appointment
October 13, 2013
Immigration approval! (2 children (just in case), both genders (just in case), up to age 8)
October 15, 2013
We discover documents have expired. Runaround paper chase day so we can move onto authentication...Miracle at the sheriff's station...and it all got done in ONE DAY!! :)
October 16, 2013
Dossier sent to county/state!
November 4, 2013
DTS!!! (Dossier sent to China!)
December 4, 2013
LID! (Logged in!)
November 18, 2013
He's gone. ...and God is still good...but who have we come all this way for then???
December 2013
Enter Bea and Beck. We love them, feel drawn to them, confirmed they are the ones. But...we are only permitted to adopt one. And we love both. We believe they are both ours. Yet, acceptance...again. Heartache...again. We tried. That's all that we could do. We pray to go back for Beck once Bea's adoption is complete. We praaaay for him. We loooove him.
January 13, 2014
LOI (Letter of Intent) sent for our sweet {girl!}
January 14, 2014
PA Bea! (Pre-Approval...just one day after it was sent!)
March 17, 2014
LOA Bea! (Letter of Acceptance)
March 31, 2014
Shocking email...After over 3 months without him, we may be able to adopt our little Beck after all!! He still isn't matched! We've watched the website and prayed to go back for him. Could he be ours too?! Now?!
April 1, 2014
We agree to our agency's terms and place Beck's file on hold...again. :) PRAYING he is ours! GRATITUDE that God's will cannot ever be thwarted. His timing is intentional.
April 3, 2014
Another shock...Beck's file was released to the shared list last night! BUT, this morning our agency caught it, found it, and locked it. What crazy timing...God is AMAZING!! LOI (Letter of Intent) sent for our little {boy!} (Whoa!)
April 9, 2014
Woah (again!) PA (Pre-Approval) for Beck too!! The projected wait time on this was 3-4 weeks!What a blessing! Praying for miraculous funding!
April 10, 2014
Woah {again!} We have been waiting to hear about an update on Beck. Come to find out, something we didn't expect until later this week happened YESTERDAY! He is "doing very well"!!! Praise the Lord...It's an official GO! And, the cost was a fraction of what we had anticipated! Thank you , Lord! Waiting for our LOA. Hang in there guys...we're coming as soon as we possibly can! Praying still for miraculous funding with faith that God CAN and WILL provide! It's been a big week of seeing God move.
April 14, 2014
I-800 Approval Bea
May 15, 2014
Article 5 Bea
May 22, 2014
TA Bea (Travel approval!)...just waiting for Beck's paperwork!
July 15, 2014
LOA Beck! (Letter of Acceptance...projected travel 3 months!)
August 9, 2014
Bulrush booties fundraiser kick off...Thank you to the Stinsen family!
August 9, 2014
I-800 Approval Beck (same day as our fundraising efforts begin :))
August 12, 2014
Praising God! A year and a half of hard work and sacrifice to pay for this adoption and praying for miracle funding to fill in the gaps and the Lord has answered in the 11th hour! Miracle funding!! Answered prayers!! Thank you, Jesus!!! We are in awe!! We still have more to go, but more than half of our deficit has been covered in just days. God answers prayers in His perfect timing and He is faithful to provide. We just need to trust Him.
August 14, 2014
Miracle funding again!! Thank you, Lord!!! What an answer to prayer!!! We are amazed!!!
August 16, 2014
Miracle funding again!! In just one week we have seen an incredible amount of miraculous funding come in. God is SO faithful!!! Where HE leads...HE provides! Always!
August 25, 2014
Miracle funding again!! What a trustworthy God. He promises to supply all our needs and He is faithful to do so!
August 26, 2014
Article 5 Beck
September 8, 2014
TA Beck (Travel approval!) That's all we were waiting on! We're on our way little ones!! (The holiday in the first week of October means we have to wait until the 2nd week of October to travel...but as soon as we can get there, we're on our way! God's timing is best.)
October 9-29, 2014
Travel!! China, sweet Bea and Beck, here we come!!!
