our mongolian miracle

i am incredibly sorry for not updating sooner. so many of you are fully engaged in this journey with us and i have not kept you up to speed these past couple of weeks. so here goes!

we DID receive some new measurements for our sweet girl. her head (the problem area, if you remember) did follow the growth curve, albeit way below the growth curve. that is good news. we'll take tiny but growing.

she is tiny. really small. 20 months old and about the size of an average 10 month old. it is pretty much guaranteed that she isn't getting enough nutrition. that is the biggest thing on my heart right now. i am pleading with God to somehow allow her to get some good food. noodles and milk just don't cut it for a baby.

she is in an orphanage, as opposed to foster care which lydia was blessed to be in. i did find a website for her orphanage although i don't put too much stock in it. china is famous for being great at outward appearances. but no doubt she is getting orphanage care - which can be loving at best and horrendous at worst.

we are now waiting for china to officially approve us to be her parents and then grant us travel approval. the time line we have been given to travel is december - february.

items for prayer...
nutrition. please pray for the orphanage to have an abundant supply of protein and for sarahjoy to eat a whole bunch! she is from the inner mongolian portion of china so i can't imagine a whole lot grows up there during the winter. maybe some yak or something yummy like that!

love. please pray for sarahjoy to receive affection and love from her caregivers. that she would be attached to someone special. her attachment now is what makes for a healthy attachment later so the care she is receiving during these months is incredibly crucial.

speed. we want our little girl. please pray for a super quick approval from china. what if we could even bring her home for christmas? would that be a cherry on top of our sarahjoy miracle or what?

money. our friends and family are clearly being the hands and feet of jesus. we are overwhelmed (as evidenced by my serious lack of up-to-date thank you notes!) please pray that God would provide 100% for sarahjoy's homecoming.

praises to jesus!...
sarahjoy. she is so precious and we can't wait to get our hands on her. lydia is SO EXCITED she can hardly stand it.

money. we are so thankful. wow. God is showing himself through some of the most unlikely of sources. one practical thing that is almost guaranteed - not many people are flying to inner mongolia in the winter. go figure! so it looks like we will have a substantial reduction from the estimated cost of our plane tickets! then again, we may have to pay for hypothermia and frostbite treatment.

thank you guys so much for your support. we could not do this journey without you. well, we could. but we would be a mess. so thanks. we can't wait to introduce you to our sweet mongolian miracle!

ashleigh

**i have had several people ask me about the info to donate. so here it is.
lifesong for orphans
po box 40 / 202 n. ford street
gridley, il 61744

make checks payable to 'lifesong for orphans' and write 'sanzone #1284' in the memo line.

we want her!

so, we have officially accepted sarahjoy as our new daughter!!!!!

the synopsis...the hole in her heart is "not a big deal. we know how to fix that," as stated by the international adoption pediatrician. now obviously it has to do with the heart and so i don't want to minimize that. but her congenital defect is very, very common and there are routine procedures to fix it, if it evens needs to be fixed. many children simply grow out of the condition. the rest of her heart looks very healthy.

so the question becomes is there anything else going on, which is where the smaller head circumference comes into play. we asked about getting additional measurements but we are not able to until we step thorough another hoop which will be in a few months. so that idea is null and void. which left us looking at all of the circumstantial evidence, so to speak. she looks healthy (the pediatrician did not see any facial features that would alert us to a certain syndrome or disorder), according to her records she is developmentally on target, and overall she is small (5th percentile). which is a much better scenario than being an average or larger child with the smaller head circumference.

to be clear, if we were to receive additional medical evidence later on in the wait that would alert us to something else going on besides the hole in her heart, we could change course. obviously, we don't foresee that happening and don't want it to happen. but essentially, we are accepting a child whose special need has been identified as CHD (congenital heart defect), not anything else. so if there is evidence of something else, china would allow us break our commitment.

what brought us to this point more than anything was our reciting of all of the miraculous ways God has been with us on this journey. the finances are the foremost that everyone sees. but in our 'secret' prayers (that i wish we hadn't kept so secret so everyone could see God's hand), we asked God for a 2 year old (she will be 2 on november 15), with a minor heart defect (hello!), who would come quickly (we just logged in last monday!) voila! both of us feel like God has answered our prayers and plopped her down in our lap and she is ours to love. i fully believe that the head circumference issue is not going to be given a second thought as soon as we get additional measurements.

what's next? lots of paper trails...and then we should be in china in 5-7 months which means decemberish-februaryish. good thing she is from the north, which has an average high of 22 degrees and low of 2 degrees in january and good thing i LOVE cold weather!!! : ) (for those who don't know, i am SERIOUSLY grumpy with anything under 55 degrees!!!)

we can't wait to get there!!!!! by the time she comes, i know God will have provided 100% of the expenses, have given us additional peace about her health, and provided northern china with a massive heat wave.

holy batman!

wow!!!! we received the file of a little girl this morning! we had no idea that it was coming so needless to say, we have been in shock all day! we have 72 hours to decide so i am writing to request your prayers!

she is a 20 month old little girl who has a congenital heart defect, the commonly heard of 'hole in your heart'. it very often closes itself as the child grows and if not, then there is a 'minor' heart procedure to be done. bottom line, not a big deal for american doctors.

the more concerning thing is her small head circumference. this could be nothing, or it could be indicative of something major. ironically, this is the same issue we had with lydia. and here's where international adoption gets fun. we have one measurement. it is from december 2009. so there is no point of reference. has her head always been small, but is growing steadily? or is it getting smaller? or has it leveled out and not growing at all? huge questions and not so many answers right now. there is nothing else to indicate that she has any sort of abnormality or syndrome but it's one of those things where you just don't know 100%.

we have spoken with an international adoption pediatrician in michigan (which is where i got the above info), we have an appt at the children's hospital tomorrow, and i have sent the file to my uncle who is a cardiologist. and i have also requested updated measurements from our agency. whether we get them or not, we will have to wait and see. we were able to get that with lydia and it made our decision much easier, but it is up to the orphanage and so we just don't know. we have to make the decision in the next 72 hours.

please pray with us for wisdom. specifically pray that we could receive one or more additional measurements so we could have a better idea about this head thing. and of course, if there is more to the heart issue, pray that the multiple sets of eyes looking at her files would be able to see that.

thanks so much for walking this journey with us! i will let you know more as soon as we know!

the arms that hold the universe

i know it seems like this could be
the darkest day you've known
but believe you me
the God of strength will never let you go
he will overcome, i know

and the arms that hold the universe
are holding you tonight
you can rest inside, it's gonna be alright
and the voice that calmed the raging sea
is calling you his child
so be still and know he's in control
he will never let you go

through many dangers, toils and snares
you have already come
his grace has brought you safe this far
his grace will lead you home
you can hope, you can rise, you can stand
he has still got the whole world in his hands

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JITAFqZjYGk

i heard this song for the zillioneth time the other day. and yet, in that moment my heart was instantly transported - to a faraway place, across the ocean. a mom, a dad. having given their baby girl away. to whom, they do not know. they have simply left her on a busy street corner and walked away, forced by their government to secretly abandon their own blood, the child of their womb. they can only hope that her life will be of some worth. they grieve for a little girl that remains only in their dreams. they wake up to heartache day after day, imagining the worst, praying for the best. pressing on under a government regime that has caused them the greatest heartache one could ever imagine. a wound that will never heal, that will be ripped open every time they see pigtails and wedding dresses. one of the greatest unrecognized tragedies of the modern world.

on this side of the ocean i pray. i listen to that song and pray. that somehow they will know God. that they will know his strength. that his arms hold the universe and he will never let them go. at the same time that we anticipate meeting our little girl (at least on paper) in just a few short weeks, i am keenly aware of the heartache that follows her. sometimes it almost overshadows my joy. the thought of walking in those shoes is gut-wrenching to me. almost nauseating.

and the arms that hold the universe
are holding you tonight
you can rest inside, it's gonna be alright
and the voice that calmed the raging sea
is calling you his child
so be still and know he's in control
he will never let you go

sweet sarahjoy. God is moving to bring her home. we have $8220.99 to go to reach our goal of $30,000. incredible. the generosity of those around us is astounding - even more so if you could know the stories of those who are sacrificing to bring sarahjoy home.

a new list is expected to be released towards the end of this month. we are ready and waiting and certainly anticipating being matched with our little girl. it is by no means guaranteed, but i would be lying if i said we weren't expecting to be. and after matching, there is a 4-6 month wait before travel. so we're looking at wintertime...if we get matched...

to those of you who have given so generously, thank you. your financial gifts mean more to us than you can know. they speak volumes.

to those who are praying, please pray for favor with this next list. we would obviously love to be matched. but if we are really honest, we would love to be matched with a little girl with very minor special needs and who 'fits' in our family. you know, how lydia just fits. we hear it all the time, "i know this sounds weird, but she just looks like she goes with your family. she's just a chinese version of the sanzones!" it does sound weird, until you see it for yourself. and then it's sort of, well, a bit uncanny.

and pray for God's provision. we have $8220.99 more to go. maybe God will provide with additional donations. maybe a grant from Show Hope (which we are waiting to hear from in august). maybe in lower airfare than we are expecting. maybe in some crazy way we can't even imagine. who knows, but we are praying for 100% provision.

sweet sarahjoy - your mommy and daddy are coming. eat your veggies, smile for your pictures, and get lots of lovin's from your orphanage nannies. we can't wait to hold you. and there are 4 little people here who are already plotting the menagerie of stuffed animals that you need to fill up your bed. so don't grow too big. someday soon, we will be in each other's arms.

we're ripe...for a miracle

oh boy. i never thought we'd do this. that's what i've said after a whole bunch of things in life. you would think i could learn something through the years.



Dear friends and family,

The honest to goodness truth is that we do not want to write this letter. It goes against every grain of human nature in our bodies, and yet in this adoption journey we have learned that God often has far different plans than we do. With that said, the simple point of this letter is to ask you to consider participating with us in our adoption journey in a very tangible way.

The price to bring SarahJoy home is $30,000. That’s a lot for any family, a whole lot for this one. We do not know why God has led us to have $60,000 worth of children in our family. But we can tell you that Lydia’s life is priceless as is SarahJoy’s. Adoption expenses were once described to us as simply the ransom money to bring our daughter home. We’ve never forgotten that – we wouldn’t think a second about paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to bring our biological children back from harm, and so it is with our adopted children. They need to be rescued and brought home, and there is a big price tag.

We currently have paid $13,500 towards the adoption, all of which has been miraculously provided by God. And as much as we rejoice over that provision, we still have $16,500 left to pay. We want so badly to be able to write a check and not ask for help. It has been humbling to have to say aloud that we simply do not have the money; a test of how much we believe this to be God’s plan for our lives and how much we trust that he will provide.

We fully realize that some may disagree with asking for help in bringing our child home, or may question the wisdom of our decision to add to our family. We embrace those feelings and invite anyone to ask us more about our journey. Our story is one of blind obedience to what our hearts feel is the leading of God. Scary, exhilarating, not without pain or without joy. It is a story that we never tire of sharing.

We also realize that there may be those out there whose heart is generous towards the needs of the orphan and would like to help in a very practical way to give SarahJoy a family. To that end, we have been offered the opportunity to establish a fundraising account, through Lifesong for Orphans, which will allow all gifts to be tax-deductible. Donations may be made in our name, and 100% of the funds will be forwarded to our adoption agency to pay for our remaining expenses. The goal date to receive funds is August 12, 2010.

We don’t know how God is going to provide for SarahJoy’s journey home. We do know it will be a miracle and that He will be faithful. Maybe, he will use some of our friends and family to be a part of that miracle, he certainly has done so already. We would treasure an opportunity for you to join our hearts in falling in love with our little girl across the ocean, and our efforts in paying the ‘ransom’ to bring her home.

From the bottom of our hearts, we thank you. May God’s presence be as real and tangible to you as it has been to us these past few months. If you are interested in following our adoption journey more closely, you can find our story at www.lettersforlydia.blogspot.com


Sincerely,
Eric and Ashleigh


Donations can be mailed to:
Lifesong for Orphans
PO Box 40 / 202 N. Ford Street
Gridley, IL 61744

Checks made payable to: Lifesong for Orphans (Sanzone #1284 on the memo)

Donations online (via paypal):
www.lifesongfororphans.org/donation

In following IRS guidelines, your donation is to the named non-profit organization. This organization retains full discretion over its use, but intends to honor the donor’s suggested use.

plateau

i am in a funk tonight. which i hate because i know in my head that i shouldn't be. that i have no reason to be discouraged, no reason to be doubting goodness and truth. and yet my heart is struggling to hold on to that faith that has been our lifeline in this journey. i hate that my belief is so tenuous, that it can so easily be rocked. which makes me dislike where i'm at even more, that i'm not good enough, not steady enough for God. that somehow he is going to abandon me here because i didn't make the cut.

our papers have been mailed to china. and we should be ready in the next couple of weeks to officially begin the search for sarahjoy. that part is exciting. the not so exciting part is that we received a call this week from an adoption foundation informing us that we were not chosen to be given a matching grant. not the first place which had turned us down, but this foundation happened to be one i was really counting on. i thought for sure we would qualify and it had the potential to bring in a lot of money. they supply matching funds so that if we were able to raise $4000 from our friends and family, they would have matched that and we would be recipients of quite a bit of financial assistance.

but that is not the case.

and it has sort of rocked my world. i think the hard, cold truth is that i had put a lot of faith into that specific foundation, and had taken it away from God himself. moved my confidence from the Giver to the giver. and so when it fell through......it gave me a good punch to the gut.

so i am fighting hard to hold on to what we believe to be God's promise to us - that he will provide 100% for this adoption. it seems so far away. so impossible. and yet - here we sit with almost $19,000 that has been given to us. so why do i doubt he could come up with another $15,000? .........because i feel like he's done his part. that it's my job now. that somehow i have to come up with the rest. God's finished with his end of the deal. he drove me as far as he could - now it's my turn to hitchhike the rest of the way home.

so how does God want to provide? does he want to use those around us? i feel guilty asking people for money. there are so many people who need money. so many worthy causes. why do i think i should be the recipient? it seems so selfish. and i feel foolish. that there are those who look at us and think, "well, why the heck are they adopting another one when they can't even afford to get her here?" i'm self-conscious. i am worried about what other people think of me, of our family (big surprise there, i've been worried about what people think of me since the day i entered this world) i worry that if i walk into church with my kids dressed in babygap that someone is going to raise their eyebrows at our apparent need for financial help and call me a fraud. and no, i didn't pay full price, and yes, i do shop clearance, and someone gave me those shoes, and the rest i used a giftcard, and those are actually the only nice shorts the boys have and....

as a friend described, we are on a plateau and we need God to pull us up to the mountain top. he's gotten us halfway up the trail, a lot of hard work is under our belt. but now we find ourselves waiting for some more help. and that waiting is hard. that's the only way to put it. it just is hard.

so for those of you who pray, i would covet your prayers in the next few days. we are going to be making some fundraising decisions and i truly want them to be what God wants. i don't want to be trying to manipulate the situation through my human endeavors, on the other hand, if God is asking us to do something, i don't want to sit around and ignore that leading. so we need wisdom. and we need faith.

from the beginning, the word God gave me for this adoption was 'faithfulness'. my heart knew that God would prove himself faithful through sarahjoy's story. my head still knows that, but my heart is waffling.

God, draw near to this discouraged heart.

and when the time is right, bring us our little girl. provide the ransom for her life. she belongs to you first, and you have paid for her soul with your son. now help us to pay for her to be ours. to love and cherish. to bring to the knowledge of your saving grace. you know her. you have created her. keep her safe and warm. comfort her heart and bring us to her soon.

so close

well, well, well, summer is almost here and we are ready to meet our sarahjoy!!! i just received word from our social worker that our papers should be in china in the next couple of weeks and then soon after we will be officially LOGGED IN. which means, in normal people language, that we are then eligible to be matched with a child. theoretically, there is a list coming out in july that will have available children so hopefully we will be ready to go by the time that list comes out and maybe, just maybe, we will meet our sweet SJ. or at least get to see her picture and her medical files! only God knows how long the matching process is going to take but we are praying really hard that it is quick. i want my baby home (speaking of, lydia insists that SJ is going to be a baby and i keep having dreams. people, if this child is truly a baby, you are going to have to pick me up off the floor)

God continues to provide financially for us. we have received $1000 more in the last few days and we have had several positive interactions with granting agencies. we should know something from a few of them in the next couple of months. please continue to pray with us that God would do a miracle and we would fly to china debt free.

and for some humor...i recently was explaining to lydia some details of the adoption journey (which she is VERY curious about) and told her that china would tell us when they were ready for us to come pick up SJ. mom, she says, but china doesn't talk. oh right, smarty pants, a PERSON in china will tell us.

sweet sarahjoy, your family is so close. hang on and we are coming for you. stay strong, eat your veggies, and dream of love. we can't wait to hold you in our arms.