I know the title is kinda long but it's been a while since I've posted... so much has happened ~ I barely know where to begin....
Last post was about our new journey beginning for Taiwan.... well, a few days into Taiwan adoption paperwork and I started to get a little scared... I was not exactly "in the spirit" so fear had its way of creeping in to my head about what Taiwan adoption could mean to our China adoption.... To us, we have 2 daughters... Selah and another (which we've named and will be revealed a bit later in this post). My Taiwan agency was telling me that if referrals do not happen as quickly as they hope for Taiwan, we could be having to put our China adoption on hold until we have reached sufficient time in between placements... so, ofcourse, that made me somewhat uneasy and I began to question what we are doing.... HOWEVER, I have learned enough in my walk with God, that when I start to feel FEAR, it doesn't come from Him so I need to seek Him and find His perspective. So I asked Him to please give us confirmation (more than what we had already received) that we are on the right path with Taiwan....I specifically asked that somehow we (Aaron & I both) would receive encouragement that we are on the right path during that week's sunday message at church.... well, that sunday, at our church, we had a very special guest speaker... JACK HAYFORD.... most people in the Christian community knows who He is, He's written numerous books, hymns, and is known to be such a wonderful, man of God, full of integrity. He is the president of our denomination and came to our church in wee little Bend, Oregon :)
Well, His message was about the "promises God has given us"... and it spoke directly into our desire for our girls and he even confirmed through his message the name that we were seeking to give our daughter from Taiwan! About 6-8 months ago, God began to speak to me about naming our 2nd daughter, with the name meaning GRACE or FAVOR.... He started to speak to me about who she would represent to us in this journey. At the time, we were hoping to adopt from Indonesia, but since that time, God has really closed the door with that country (atleast for now). So, when we were thinking of names for our daughter from Taiwan, we were not sure if she was supposed to be named GRACE or FAVOR so I asked God to confirm that to me somehow... well, the message by Jack Hayford was all about GRACE and FAVOR and to make things even more funny, he kept mentioning his wife ANNA (which, by the way, means FAVORED GRACE).... Ofcourse, I didn't want to tell Aaron what I had felt like God was speaking to me through Jack's message, so I asked Aaron "So, what did God say to you through that message?" and I am not joking when I say, He told me basically the same thing I had been feeling!!!! So, that left us with the names, Anna, Annie or Grace... I didn't feel peace about any of those names right away because Anna is Aaron's sister and my best friend, Annie was the name we gave one of the Indonesian girls that we almost adopted, and Grace is one of my nieces that is 2 years old, who would probably become our daughters' playmate... So, we just let those names sit around in our heads for a while.... to make a long story even longer, the day after Jack Hayford's message, Aaron was making rounds on his patients at the hospital when he ran into one of the ladies that goes to our church.... her oldest daughter had just been in a terrible car wreck and was in critical condition at the hospital. She had fractured her skull and was in the ICU recovering from a surgery to remove bone pieces out of her brain. This lady is an wonderful, God-fearing woman and she had been praying all night for her daughter and miraculously, her daughter recovered and was going to go home the next day (on a side note, Aaron had said that this truly was a miracle because he himself has never seen a patient in that terrible of a condition recover so quickly! Praise God!!!) So, back to the NAME... This woman (the mother of the teenage girl) was asking Aaron about our China adoption and Aaron mentioned to her that we were going to adopt from Taiwan and the first sentence out of her mouth was "You know, I think this is about God's GRACE".... Aaron was so shocked to hear that and told her that we had been sensing that her name is to either be GRACE or mean GRACE.... So she said to Aaron.... "What about Anna Grace?" We actually had not thought of putting those names together and when Aaron told me that, it just clicked and I felt so excited about our ANNA GRACE. After reading all that, you now deserve a huge THANK YOU! I tend to be LONG-winded. So sorry.
So, now we are done with all the paperwork part of our new homestudy and are just awaiting our social worker to visit so she can write up our homestudy for Taiwan.
For Taiwan adoptions, you get in line for a referral as soon as your homestudy is in the country and you can work on your dossier while you wait for your referral.
We really don't have any idea how long our wait will be. The agency says it could be as early as 2 months or as late as 18 months. We are praying for very quick referral so that it'll give us plenty of time to adjust and travel to China for Selah.
We had to get more labs today for our dossier.... it hurt to get blood drawn again.... but it was worth it. At the end of all the paperwork and seemingly endless adoption "stuff", we'll have our daughters!
Last post was about our new journey beginning for Taiwan.... well, a few days into Taiwan adoption paperwork and I started to get a little scared... I was not exactly "in the spirit" so fear had its way of creeping in to my head about what Taiwan adoption could mean to our China adoption.... To us, we have 2 daughters... Selah and another (which we've named and will be revealed a bit later in this post). My Taiwan agency was telling me that if referrals do not happen as quickly as they hope for Taiwan, we could be having to put our China adoption on hold until we have reached sufficient time in between placements... so, ofcourse, that made me somewhat uneasy and I began to question what we are doing.... HOWEVER, I have learned enough in my walk with God, that when I start to feel FEAR, it doesn't come from Him so I need to seek Him and find His perspective. So I asked Him to please give us confirmation (more than what we had already received) that we are on the right path with Taiwan....I specifically asked that somehow we (Aaron & I both) would receive encouragement that we are on the right path during that week's sunday message at church.... well, that sunday, at our church, we had a very special guest speaker... JACK HAYFORD.... most people in the Christian community knows who He is, He's written numerous books, hymns, and is known to be such a wonderful, man of God, full of integrity. He is the president of our denomination and came to our church in wee little Bend, Oregon :)
Well, His message was about the "promises God has given us"... and it spoke directly into our desire for our girls and he even confirmed through his message the name that we were seeking to give our daughter from Taiwan! About 6-8 months ago, God began to speak to me about naming our 2nd daughter, with the name meaning GRACE or FAVOR.... He started to speak to me about who she would represent to us in this journey. At the time, we were hoping to adopt from Indonesia, but since that time, God has really closed the door with that country (atleast for now). So, when we were thinking of names for our daughter from Taiwan, we were not sure if she was supposed to be named GRACE or FAVOR so I asked God to confirm that to me somehow... well, the message by Jack Hayford was all about GRACE and FAVOR and to make things even more funny, he kept mentioning his wife ANNA (which, by the way, means FAVORED GRACE).... Ofcourse, I didn't want to tell Aaron what I had felt like God was speaking to me through Jack's message, so I asked Aaron "So, what did God say to you through that message?" and I am not joking when I say, He told me basically the same thing I had been feeling!!!! So, that left us with the names, Anna, Annie or Grace... I didn't feel peace about any of those names right away because Anna is Aaron's sister and my best friend, Annie was the name we gave one of the Indonesian girls that we almost adopted, and Grace is one of my nieces that is 2 years old, who would probably become our daughters' playmate... So, we just let those names sit around in our heads for a while.... to make a long story even longer, the day after Jack Hayford's message, Aaron was making rounds on his patients at the hospital when he ran into one of the ladies that goes to our church.... her oldest daughter had just been in a terrible car wreck and was in critical condition at the hospital. She had fractured her skull and was in the ICU recovering from a surgery to remove bone pieces out of her brain. This lady is an wonderful, God-fearing woman and she had been praying all night for her daughter and miraculously, her daughter recovered and was going to go home the next day (on a side note, Aaron had said that this truly was a miracle because he himself has never seen a patient in that terrible of a condition recover so quickly! Praise God!!!) So, back to the NAME... This woman (the mother of the teenage girl) was asking Aaron about our China adoption and Aaron mentioned to her that we were going to adopt from Taiwan and the first sentence out of her mouth was "You know, I think this is about God's GRACE".... Aaron was so shocked to hear that and told her that we had been sensing that her name is to either be GRACE or mean GRACE.... So she said to Aaron.... "What about Anna Grace?" We actually had not thought of putting those names together and when Aaron told me that, it just clicked and I felt so excited about our ANNA GRACE. After reading all that, you now deserve a huge THANK YOU! I tend to be LONG-winded. So sorry.
So, now we are done with all the paperwork part of our new homestudy and are just awaiting our social worker to visit so she can write up our homestudy for Taiwan.
For Taiwan adoptions, you get in line for a referral as soon as your homestudy is in the country and you can work on your dossier while you wait for your referral.
We really don't have any idea how long our wait will be. The agency says it could be as early as 2 months or as late as 18 months. We are praying for very quick referral so that it'll give us plenty of time to adjust and travel to China for Selah.
We had to get more labs today for our dossier.... it hurt to get blood drawn again.... but it was worth it. At the end of all the paperwork and seemingly endless adoption "stuff", we'll have our daughters!
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