My Greatest Hope

PLEASE read this to the end. That's all I ask. 

I've been praying for clarity recently, for discernment. In case you weren't aware, there are a number of people who believe that The Rapture may happen this week. They have many reasons why, many signs they believe that point to the probability of this occurring to be greater than any other time in history. I will agree that there are a large number of events culminating this week. Other than that, God only knows. Let me repeat that: God ONLY knows. Now before anyone gets upset, let me be clear, I have yet to hear one person say they know absolutely that Jesus is coming. They are all more in a "wait and see" position.

So why on earth am I writing about it? Well, I initially thought about just making a simple Facebook post. However, after thinking through what I believed I needed to say, I figured a blog post was more appropriate. LOL. So here is the important part of this post, here is where I ask you to pay close attention.

I do not know if Jesus will return this week. However, the reality is, I also don't know if I will wake up tomorrow. All I DO know, is that I woke up today. And if you're reading this, so did you. I am not eloquent, I am definitely not perfect, and I don't have the ability to speak to each of you personally. So I will post my thoughts here, and pray that you read them, and they make you ponder.

I want you to know that, whether you are my friend, my family, my neighbor; man, woman, child; gay, straight, or identify otherwise; Catholic, Protestant, Athiest, Muslim, or any other religion; no matter the color of your skin or the balance of your bank account; whether you are on my street or the other side of the world; no matter who you are or where you are; I am praying for you. PLEASE don't roll your eyes--I am incredibly sincere. I pray, not that you find a great church home, or realize your greater calling in life, not that you will be richly blessed, or any of a myriad of great things I could pray for you. Instead, I pray you find Jesus. Not the Jesus that you've seen portrayed on TV, not the Jesus that you felt you were never good enough for if you grew up in a strict church, and most definitely not the Jesus that we believers have so poorly represented to you as we mocked you, criticized you, cursed you, belittled you, shamed you and otherwise poured out rath and hatred rather than love and help. 

The reality is, He WILL come some day. You don't have to believe that to make it true. And the more important reality is that you need to KNOW Him...not just "believe" in Him. The Bible states clearly in James 2:19 "You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that--and shudder." Believing is not enough, sweet friend. You need to see your need for a savior, seek Him out and ask His forgiveness. You need to have a relationship with Him. That is my prayer for you--that you will look beyond our poor examples of who He is and find who He really is.

Because we are not promised tomorrow. We have today. So my greatest hope is that He will use me, in my imperfect ways and with my imperfect words, to draw you closer to Himself. I pray that in spite of what I say or do when I fail, that you would be able to see my heart, my truest intentions. I pray that at the end of the day, the one thing you think about when you think of me is "She served a mighty God." 

I pray that wherever you are, you take a minute to stop, to look inward, to really listen to the only One who can fill that void that you secretly hold inside, that longing for more, that emptiness nothing seems to fill. And I pray that when He speaks to your heart, you answer. He knows your hurt, He understands your pain. He's seen your sin. He knows your secrets. And He loves you just the same. He has changed my life, and I pray that you let Him change yours.

I love each of you dearly. I pray earnestly for you. And I will happily discuss Jesus with you any time, day or night. 

Her Province, Our Prayers

So it seems like every other day there is MORE to update y'all on! I AM LOVING THAT!!! After SO many years of feeling like nothing was ever going to change, but praying and believing God would still move mountains, it is both humbling and refreshing to see so many answers to prayer and so many MANY mountains being moved!! So for today's updates:

While I wait, ever so...ahem...impatiently (to be honest), I've been researching like crazy when I can't seem to sit still. I've been researching her Province, her city, her special need. I've been reading every blog post and article I can get my hands on that talks about what to expect, what not to expect, and what to completely have NO expectations on. I feel like I am full of a ton of info, a bit overwhelming, but also feeling like I am learning more about our daughter so that we are better prepared for what she may or may not need--more on that in a different post. I'm also asking a bazillion questions from BTDT (been there done that) parents on what our trip will be like, what weather to expect, what I need to know about the city where we will pick her up (this is not her home city, but rather the capitol city of her province), and gathering travel tips.

One thing I've been delving into lately is her province and specifically, what to expect there should we travel in January as we hope. First, while I've known for a few years that it is a coal mining province, I've only recently learned it is, in fact, the coal mining capitol of all of China. This being the case, I've also learned the air quality is less than ideal, and may indeed be a breathing issue for both my husband and our middle son, who both have asthma issues. While their asthma is not a major health issue for them where we live, it is irritated occasionally by allergens in the air--more so than for the average Joe. This being the case, we are praying, and we ask you to join us, that the air quality will not be a major issue for them. We will go prepared with their inhalers, other meds and, of course, my oils to help relieve them of any struggles. But we are praying specifically that they are not miserable while in her province, as we truly want this to be a time we can focus on our new little one and her fears, her struggles, her needs--things we KNOW will be an issue for her--so that her transition can be as easy as possible at what will be such a difficult time for her.

Along with this, I've learned that the temps in January can be anywhere from the teens to the lower 50s. While this is not an issue, per se, (we are totally used to winter, people), we also know that the second week of our trip in a different province, we will likely see temps in the 60s-low 70s. As you can well imagine, this leads to a bit of a packing dilemma. So, please join us in praying for good packing decisions that will allow us the flexibility to handle the variety of temps we may encounter, without the need to over-pack. We will only be allowed to take ONE 44 pound suitcase each (outside of our carryon luggage) and our goal is to pack less than is needed so that we might be able to bring home some future birthday gifts for our daughter.

We are keeping busy on the fundraiser front! We are taking in donations, a few times a week it seems, for the garage sale in 2 weeks! We even have an article going out in our neighborhood news letter in a couple of days which will definitely result in more traffic for the sale, but may even result in more donations as well! We are currently at 54 people for our race, as I mentioned in my last post. 25 of those people joined the team during the "Labor Day Weekend Contest" and...word has it THAT WE WON!!! I am still awaiting the confirmation email and the amount that we won to be disclosed, but we did it!! That contest will add extra funds to our race grant and every penny counts!! The kids continue to do odd jobs each week to earn money and they've even been going through their things to add to the garage sale! I learned recently of a 10 year old boy who raises funds to give siblings a $500 grant toward their trip with their family to adopt a sibling!! The boys (because sis isn't big enough to do it alone and it has to be without parental help) will each be writing a brief essay this evening to answer some questions and apply for the grant! If they receive it, they have agreed to split the funds toward all 4 of them going. SO blessed to watch their hearts intertwined on this mission to get their sister.

All in all, things seem to be moving quickly and we are keeping busy! I know that some day soon this will all be a distant memory and I will be holding my daughter in my arms, trying to remember what life was like without her. Until then, please join us in these specific prayers as we wait, ever so impatiently, LOL, to bring our little girl home!!

Selling, Racing & Praying

It has been totally crazy the last two weeks around here. We started building our team for the Chosen Race, starting taking in donations for our garage sale fundraiser, started school, and maintained our massive amounts of praying to bring our girl home! Here's where we stand:

Our race team is growing by leaps and bounds! We had originally set a goal of getting 50 people to join our team. We are currently at 54!! So what do we do? We raise the goal to 75! The beauty of more runners is two fold. First, we receive 100% of the registration fees toward our adoption! So right now, we've already raised $2795 just by people choosing to join us!! We've also had $200 donated, so our total right now is $2995!! Second, the more people that choose to join us, the less we need each person to raise in donations to hit our goal of $15,000! If we had 50 people running, we needed to average $300 in donations raised per runner. If we hit our current goal of 75 people, then that average drops to $200! That means each person only needs to find 10 people willing to donate $20. I know you could've done that math, but just putting it down in writing gets me excited as to how easy it should be to hit our goal!!! If you want to join our team to help us meet our goal of 75 runners, just click here, register to run, and choose "Miles for MeiMei" as your team! You can choose the Full Marathon, the Half Marathon, the 5K, Virtual Runner (run where you are!), or Sleepwalker (don't run, just sign up!). Your kids can even join you by running in the Kids Fun Run! If you aren't able to join our team but still want to donate $5, $10, $20 or even more, just click here, then click on the "Pledge" button! SUPER easy!

We are also preparing for a HUGE garage sale fundraiser! Our neighborhood is having a fall garage sale, and we plan to take advantage of all the traffic! If you're not able to run the race or donate monetarily, you can donate any unwanted items to our sale! We will happily swing by to pick it up. Our sale isn't until October 3rd and our garage is already filling up! We will turn your unwanted items into cash for our kids plane tickets to join us in getting their sister home from China! We will have huge signs up in the yard letting everyone know it's a fundraiser sale for our adoption, so we expect this place to be pretty busy all day long! Anything that doesn't sell we will donate to our local Thrift Store at the end of the day. Feel free to contact me through a comment on this blog post, through Facebook, or through a mutual friend if we're not "friends" on Facebook!

Finally, we are praying HUGE prayers over here!! First, we are still waiting on our official transfer to the new agency. This normally takes about a month and this week we are starting week 4 of waiting. This is beginning to drive me nuts. Please pray that the transfer would come quickly so I can move on to waiting impatiently for the next phase. LOL. Second, if we are to travel in January (which is our hope as December is much more expensive), we need to be matched with our daughter's file no later than October. Our new agency is hopeful that her file will come through soon as there has been lots of "activity" going on regarding their orphanage partnerships in China. Please join us in praying that her file comes ASAP, but most definitely before the end of October. Also, prayers of peace and patience for me are always greatly appreciated. It is really hard to stay focused on the here and now when we are getting sooooo close! I KNOW God is in control. But prayers of patience would be awesome.  :)

Friends (and family) I cannot begin to tell you how blessed we have been during this whole process. We were showered with blessings while we lived in Tulsa, back when we began this journey, and we continue to be blessed even after moving away from everyone we knew. God has brought exactly the right people into our lives in so many areas since moving...I cannot wait to tell the longer version of our daughter's story some day. It is completely humbling how He is orchestrating her story so beautifully. Our prayer has always been that if someone had any doubt that God was real and that He cares about every detail of their lives, that her story would leave no room for it any longer. He is answering that prayer in amazing ways. We are truly blessed, not only to be her parents, but to be part of her miracle story. Thank you for joining us on this journey and for loving us through it all. We love each of you dearly.