Where in the world are tim and mm?

Tell me you all had parents or teachers that encouraged you to play the game, "Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?" I know I might have just misspelled that name, but in spite of that, some of you are smiling right now b/c you used to play that game too.

Here's where we will be. We will fly into Beijing, arriving on the 2nd. We'll stay there until the 4th when we fly to the Zhejiang provincial city of Hangzhou. The 5th will be our "gotcha day" - the day we adopt Lily! On the sixth, we'll travel by train (about 4 hours) to Lily's city of Wenzhou (also in Zhejiang Province), see the orphanage, hopefully go to lunch with the director, and I guess see a little of her city. Then we go back to Hangzhou until the 10th. On the 10th we fly to Guangzhou, Guandong for one week. This is where we will have her medical evaluation and wait on her passport among other things. I believe we will have some down time here too. It's interesting to note that ALL Chinese adoptions end in Guangzhou, so parts of this city are catered to adopting families. We are told to eat at Lucy's - a western style diner. On the 16th we'll travel to Hong Kong and then on the 18th, It's home sweet home.

the quiver

Does your quiver look like this?

Or this??

Psalm 127:3-4 Sons are a heritage from the LORD,
children a reward from him.
Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
are sons born in one's youth.
Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.



Carrie Mac and Meg both looked at the blog title and were like, "What?" So, we've just had a good, brief, home-school, Bible talk.

Yes, I know we don't have sons, but usually when the Bible talks about the human race, the term men/sons refers to all people. And where would these sons be if it weren't for the females? And Tim might not be youthful, but the college kids think he's pretty cool!

Over a decade ago, a neighbor and I were visiting and she mentioned her brother's desire to have many children based on this verse. (Many meant 5 for them I think.) I don't know why I remember that conversation, but it has always stuck with me. And now, I am about to read a recommended book titled, One Million Arrows: Raising Your Children to Change the World by Julie Ferwerda. I'm so excited about reading this - good literature for an upcoming LONG flight! The book's introduction says, "Through role modeling, training, and encouragement, they (our children) can become part of a vision to deliver a more profound and eternal impact on this world than we ever thought possible." I share this with you to let you know where I am coming from with our blog title. Right now in our lives, God is increasing our quiver. And it is our prayer that each of our "arrows" will grow strong and serve the Lord by fulfilling the Great Commission. I hope this blog will be about God's glory. May He be glorified by what I write and share. May He be glorified when this blog reminds those of you reading it to pray. May He be glorified when this blog shares His Word. To God be the glory.


Today, we are 11 days away from our 5th daughter, Lily. Lily was abandoned at age 18 months in Wenzhou, Zhejiang in China. She was left with a birthnote, which probably indicates that she was left there by her biological mother. I am sure most of you are familiar with the one child policy that exits in China, and the desired child is a male offspring. In their culture, it is the male child who takes care of his parents later in life. Lily has mild cerebral palsy, and so we are guessing, that at around 18 months, her CP was noticeable, or a healthy child was born. My heart aches for Lily's mother! I'm sure many of you reading this are parents. Try imagining lying your child down in a populated place and hiding somewhere near by to see who will come by and pick her up - the child that you birthed, cradled, nursed, calmed, and love. Please pray for salvation for Lily's mother. How I hope for a reunion in Heaven for this mother and our daughter.

We began our adoption process July 8, 2009. I love a website: Rainbow Kids International. It is a site that focuses on international adoption. The site shows different countries and their requirements, has adoption articles, etc., and it has a waiting child list. This list is compiled of children around the world that are waiting to be adopted. Many of these kids have special needs - physical or mental, and some are waiting due to their ages or b/c they are part of a sibling group. For some time, I had been looking at these children's pictures/bios, and towards the end of last June, I found Lily - known on the website as Prema. She was listed by Faith International out of Tacoma, WA. At this point, Tim still wasn't sure about us adopting. I was very submissive, and instead of pressing the issue, I simply put Lily's picture as our screen saver :)! It worked! Tim was out mowing the lawn a few days later. He came in and said he'd been praying about it, and that he felt it was God's will for us to go forward. Woohoo! I cried and laughed and rejoiced! It was a sweet moment for us. On July 8, 2009, I contacted Faith International. On July 5, 2010, we will adopt Hu Ji Chang, Lily.

am i blogging?

For all of you who follow this, know from the beginning that if something crazy is posted on this site, it means that Tim has hacked into my blog and taken over! Today is my set-up day, and so far I have done it completely on my own. I started setting it up about an hour ago, it was all going smoothly, and then they had to give me all these choices: template, background, color schemes, layout, etc. As someone who has very little to none at all in the creativity dept., this can be a bit overwhelming. But, when I had so many choices, I couldn't just go for the khaki background with black ink that was first presented. I tried out the Ute background with beautiful flower and bird designs, then the leaf pattern in a soothing sage green, ...both were quite pretty, but then I couldn't figure out how to lighten my text box so you guys could actually see my posts. So, for today, it's blue:) Maybe when Tim gets home from work he'll help me liven it up.

I promise my next post will actually be about our family's adoption!