The whole story

April asked me to write out how I got from "our family is complete" to "lets adopt again". So here we go. Each life in this world is necessary, needed, and has value. Often however individuals do not treat each other in a way that exemplifies these values. As a result our perception of the world becomes negatively skewed. About three months ago I noticed April was reviewing the available adoption lists again and at that point I started to pray about if this was the best for our family. Honestly, the answer was no. I compiled a list of reasons why it was not the best choice for us, house is too small, we are spread thin emotionally, financially, school work, activities, etc... you know all those "reasons". We started as a family to be praying for a variety of kids who were in need of a forever family. Guess what, all four are being adopted and we continue to pray for more children. April approached me with a couple of kids, specifically a little guy by the name of Samuel. The part that surprised me was that he wasn't a cleft lip special needs..... I didn't expect the spiritual struggle this would cause me (so much for the "no" answer). Here was a little boy without legs. In the US this type of disability would be somewhat challenging, but in china it would mean he would end up in the streets. Thus entered into our discussion is "saving" a child from a bad life and is giving an opportunity the "right" reason to adopt? Good stuff, especially since, one of my "church" principles is to provide opportunity. Beliefs collide. Long story short, I got the impression to pray for one week about Samuel. Within the week, another family decided he was to part of their family.

Fast forward a month, and April and I started to review files together and discovered "Aiden" (we haven't picked out a name yet). First thing I did was hope on the internet and googled no arms... and discovered youtubes mariad of videos of people without arms who are highly functional. Then I listened to Nick Vujicic's message and website "No limbs, No limits". It was pretty impressive... but all those reasons not to.....then wouldn't you know...

I scheduled a meeting with my co-pastor to play the "devils advocate" and try to tell me why we shouldn't adopt. On the way there the song played which is basically about how you only have one life and what are you doing with it (turns out it is called "One life" by 33 Miles). Is your life all that it should be? You only have one chance, do you want to live it for yourself or for God? I didn't know the song so I went to their website and on the front page was a picture of Nick Vujicic..... Nick was planning to come to Bend on September 25 (April's birthday). Pfift. So much for human reasoning.

The Holy Spirit is a powerful aspect to our lives which we often leave out in our "enlightened" era. Hope. We need to provide hope to everyone in our lives. One... person... at.... a.... time.

Watch this.

Our family is growing again!!!

Yep, you read that right. We have decided to adopt again! David will write later to tell about how we got here, but just wanted to put out a quick announcement. We just got Pre-Approval from China to adopt a little boy! His name is Gao Ai Lang, and he just turned 1 on August 27th. He is from Gaozhou SWI, in Guangdong province (pretty much as far south as you can get in China). We haven't picked out a new name for him yet, but will probably keep Ai Lang as his middle name. Ai means love, and Lang means wave (as in ocean wave). His special need is listed as congenital absence of both arms, but his true special need is the love of a family of his own! It's going to be a looooong road with the paperwork process, but we are going to try to get everything done as fast as humanly possible, with lots of prayers that every step will go fast and smooth so we can get this boy home as fast as possible.

Here's a couple pictures we just got last week - they were just taken last week:

Don't those eyes just scream "Mommy and Daddy, come get me soon!"