Prayer Requests!
So many of you have asked what you could pray for and these are some of the prayers.
1. Pray for our safety not only getting to China but also while we are there.
2. Pray for all of us to have good health for the entire trip.
3. Pray for this little brave girl, Megan that she will feel loved and accepted. We pray that she will feel very comforted and it will help ease her fears.
4. Pray for our all of our hearts and attitudes in China. We will all be very tired during the trip.
5. Pray for minimal "bumps in the road" regarding the trip and the finalizing of the adoption.
6. Pray for the communication needed while we are there with Megan.
There are so many different things to pray for especially the big ones. There are also all of the little things to pray for as well. So here is a partial list of needed prayers. We hope to be updating this in China. Thank you so much for your thoughts and prayers!
Our Adoption Story
As you know now, we are adopting and adding another blessing to our family. Following is the story of how this all came together.
This process began in November of 2006. We felt that God was telling us to expand our family and adoption would be the right choice for our family. We didn't know where to start so Janet contacted a long time friend that just completed an adoption to receive her wisdom in this process. First, we needed to choose which country to adopt from. After considering many factors, we settled on China. Her friend's recommendation was to go with an agency that would only do adoptions with that country. Her reasoning was that the agency would be more aware of constant law changes in that country. That made a lot of sense to us so we went that direction and chose an agency based in Texas but specializing in Chinese adoptions.
Although the agency was in Texas, we needed to find a social worker up here in Illinois to do our home study. We found one that many referred. So we started the paper work in November of 2006. By February of 2007, we attended our first all day workshop on international adoption. After the eye opening day of information, we put on the brakes with the adoption. We had every excuse imaginable why we should not go forward. One excuse that ran over in our minds many times was that we have a son going to college in a few years. Yikes, this is crazy! So we did not go forward with any paperwork for months. Although we were not completing any paperwork, the adoption was always on our hearts. By June of 2007, we humbly realized that no one is bigger than God (not even us) and that we need to submit to his authority. If He wants us to adopt then we need to adopt. It was a leap of faith at the time. So we started the paper work again. Unfortunately, there was so much time that had passed that we had to redo some of the paper work that we had already completed.
In June, we had a social worker come to our home and go over lots personal information about families, parenting, marriage etc. Well, we were very nervous about this because back in February when we attended the all day workshop, the social worker that led that was a very different mind set than Kevin and I. So we were not sure if what we do as a family would be okay in the eyes of the social worker. We were wondering, how are they going to handle our faith? how are they going to handle our homeschooling? Well, through the interview we were nervous but also knew that this is what God wanted us to do, so we were really leaning on the Lord to work all of this out. At the end of the interview, the social worker (someone different than the one at the all day workshop) said that she is also a Christian and thought that homeschooling would be an excellent environment for a new addition to the family. Phew!!!!! Kevin and I were amazed of God's umbrella of protection in assigning us a social worker that is more in agreement with our viewpoint.
By November of 2007, our paper work was completed and in China. We were relieved to have the paper work completed! Now the wait begins. We assumed that God was wanting us to adopt a little girl that would be of infant age. The waiting process from the time your paper work is in China is about 26 months. Wow, we are not getting any younger, but we knew that God has cleared the path during this whole adoption process that we shouldn't be so concerned about our age. During this time of waiting and during the paper chase earlier, every member of our family would be praying for this little girl. Because of the wait, we knew that possibly she wasn't even born or that she may not have been conceived yet. One of our prayers was for her birth parents who made the heart wrenching decision to abandon her. We would be praying for her health and her circumstances. We were praying for her everyday. That is how time passed in our family regarding the adoption.
As we waited, family life went on for the family. April of 2008 was a particularly busy time for our family. Our oldest son, Kyle, was in a play one weekend and then, a few days later, we headed to Georgia for a long weekend for his team's robotics competition. It was a fantastic time to be there with so many teams from around the world. After a successful competition, we came home on a Sunday looking forward to a week of downtime. However, on Monday we received a phone call from our adoption agency. They had a little girl for us to consider, however, she has some eye issues and is 5 years old. They wanted to know if we would consider her for adoption. We have always thought God wanted us to have an infant, but by trusting Him, we knew that we needed to look at this little girl's medical file and pray about it. So we said yes that we were willing to look at her file and make a determination if we could handle her special need. So we began another very busy week.
I started making phone calls to any optometrist and ophthalmologist that I had some form of connection with. We know that doctors are very busy people and that they are not going to spend time with just anyone. The first two doctors who looked at her file gave us polar opposite opinions. We knew at that time that we needed to keep searching for more opinions. We were running out of connections and time. Janet thought of her aunt who uses an opthamologist in Highland Park, IL. We gave that office a call and explained our situation. Their response was, "Have you called a pediatric opthamologist?" We said yes, however we had no more connections with one and highly suspect they will have no time to look at a medical file. The Highland Park office said, "Where do you live?" I said, "Arlington Heights." The office replied, "The pediatric opthamologist that we were going to refer to you has their office in Arlington Heights." Wow, this is great that the office is so close to our home. Now the next hurdle would be if they would be willing to look at the medical file.
So we called the office and told the receptionist our situation. She responded by telling us that she is a grandmother of two granddaughters that have been adopted from China and one has special needs. We thought that was so neat. The Big question was would the doctor look at the file? The receptionist then went on to tell us that many of her patients are children that have been adopted internationally and that she has been to Asia several times to help train others regarding the eyes. So God has lead us to one of the most qualified doctors in the area of our need. The receptionist said that she would be willing to see the file. Hallelujah! Two days later Janet is at the office waiting anxiously. The doctor spent 40 minutes with Janet! That is amazing - plus she didn't charge us a penny. Wow! We were praying for direction on this little girl and this doctor could clearly see what issues there may be. We were so grateful to have a knowledgeable, trustworthy opinion.
So now, we knew that her eye issues were manageable for our family, but we still were challenged by the fact that she is 5 - almost 6 years old. We thought we were supposed to adopt an infant. Apparently, another leap of faith on our part. After much prayer, we know that God will walk us through this journey and that this is the child He had in mind for our family all along. We are excited that she will be joining our family. It has been an amazing journey through all of this. To think that we thought our family was done with three children. Wow, God continually reminds us that His plan is greater than our plan and that we need to humble ourselves to his loving authority. His plans will always produce good.
July 24, 2008
We received our LSC from China!!! These are the official documents from China saying that we will adopt Megan. We are thrilled about this because due to the paper trail, we now know that Megan knows about us! We are waiting for our travel approval right now which will take about 3 weeks. At that point we will have a better idea when we are traveling. Our adoption agency said that it would be in September or November. We are wanting to get Megan as soon as we can, but we are relieved that we are not going in August during the Olympics. The prices of airfare and hotel is through the roof. God is watching over us. We are wanting to take all three kids with us so hopefully we can. We will write another update when we know more.
This process began in November of 2006. We felt that God was telling us to expand our family and adoption would be the right choice for our family. We didn't know where to start so Janet contacted a long time friend that just completed an adoption to receive her wisdom in this process. First, we needed to choose which country to adopt from. After considering many factors, we settled on China. Her friend's recommendation was to go with an agency that would only do adoptions with that country. Her reasoning was that the agency would be more aware of constant law changes in that country. That made a lot of sense to us so we went that direction and chose an agency based in Texas but specializing in Chinese adoptions.
Although the agency was in Texas, we needed to find a social worker up here in Illinois to do our home study. We found one that many referred. So we started the paper work in November of 2006. By February of 2007, we attended our first all day workshop on international adoption. After the eye opening day of information, we put on the brakes with the adoption. We had every excuse imaginable why we should not go forward. One excuse that ran over in our minds many times was that we have a son going to college in a few years. Yikes, this is crazy! So we did not go forward with any paperwork for months. Although we were not completing any paperwork, the adoption was always on our hearts. By June of 2007, we humbly realized that no one is bigger than God (not even us) and that we need to submit to his authority. If He wants us to adopt then we need to adopt. It was a leap of faith at the time. So we started the paper work again. Unfortunately, there was so much time that had passed that we had to redo some of the paper work that we had already completed.
In June, we had a social worker come to our home and go over lots personal information about families, parenting, marriage etc. Well, we were very nervous about this because back in February when we attended the all day workshop, the social worker that led that was a very different mind set than Kevin and I. So we were not sure if what we do as a family would be okay in the eyes of the social worker. We were wondering, how are they going to handle our faith? how are they going to handle our homeschooling? Well, through the interview we were nervous but also knew that this is what God wanted us to do, so we were really leaning on the Lord to work all of this out. At the end of the interview, the social worker (someone different than the one at the all day workshop) said that she is also a Christian and thought that homeschooling would be an excellent environment for a new addition to the family. Phew!!!!! Kevin and I were amazed of God's umbrella of protection in assigning us a social worker that is more in agreement with our viewpoint.
By November of 2007, our paper work was completed and in China. We were relieved to have the paper work completed! Now the wait begins. We assumed that God was wanting us to adopt a little girl that would be of infant age. The waiting process from the time your paper work is in China is about 26 months. Wow, we are not getting any younger, but we knew that God has cleared the path during this whole adoption process that we shouldn't be so concerned about our age. During this time of waiting and during the paper chase earlier, every member of our family would be praying for this little girl. Because of the wait, we knew that possibly she wasn't even born or that she may not have been conceived yet. One of our prayers was for her birth parents who made the heart wrenching decision to abandon her. We would be praying for her health and her circumstances. We were praying for her everyday. That is how time passed in our family regarding the adoption.
As we waited, family life went on for the family. April of 2008 was a particularly busy time for our family. Our oldest son, Kyle, was in a play one weekend and then, a few days later, we headed to Georgia for a long weekend for his team's robotics competition. It was a fantastic time to be there with so many teams from around the world. After a successful competition, we came home on a Sunday looking forward to a week of downtime. However, on Monday we received a phone call from our adoption agency. They had a little girl for us to consider, however, she has some eye issues and is 5 years old. They wanted to know if we would consider her for adoption. We have always thought God wanted us to have an infant, but by trusting Him, we knew that we needed to look at this little girl's medical file and pray about it. So we said yes that we were willing to look at her file and make a determination if we could handle her special need. So we began another very busy week.
I started making phone calls to any optometrist and ophthalmologist that I had some form of connection with. We know that doctors are very busy people and that they are not going to spend time with just anyone. The first two doctors who looked at her file gave us polar opposite opinions. We knew at that time that we needed to keep searching for more opinions. We were running out of connections and time. Janet thought of her aunt who uses an opthamologist in Highland Park, IL. We gave that office a call and explained our situation. Their response was, "Have you called a pediatric opthamologist?" We said yes, however we had no more connections with one and highly suspect they will have no time to look at a medical file. The Highland Park office said, "Where do you live?" I said, "Arlington Heights." The office replied, "The pediatric opthamologist that we were going to refer to you has their office in Arlington Heights." Wow, this is great that the office is so close to our home. Now the next hurdle would be if they would be willing to look at the medical file.
So we called the office and told the receptionist our situation. She responded by telling us that she is a grandmother of two granddaughters that have been adopted from China and one has special needs. We thought that was so neat. The Big question was would the doctor look at the file? The receptionist then went on to tell us that many of her patients are children that have been adopted internationally and that she has been to Asia several times to help train others regarding the eyes. So God has lead us to one of the most qualified doctors in the area of our need. The receptionist said that she would be willing to see the file. Hallelujah! Two days later Janet is at the office waiting anxiously. The doctor spent 40 minutes with Janet! That is amazing - plus she didn't charge us a penny. Wow! We were praying for direction on this little girl and this doctor could clearly see what issues there may be. We were so grateful to have a knowledgeable, trustworthy opinion.
So now, we knew that her eye issues were manageable for our family, but we still were challenged by the fact that she is 5 - almost 6 years old. We thought we were supposed to adopt an infant. Apparently, another leap of faith on our part. After much prayer, we know that God will walk us through this journey and that this is the child He had in mind for our family all along. We are excited that she will be joining our family. It has been an amazing journey through all of this. To think that we thought our family was done with three children. Wow, God continually reminds us that His plan is greater than our plan and that we need to humble ourselves to his loving authority. His plans will always produce good.
July 24, 2008
We received our LSC from China!!! These are the official documents from China saying that we will adopt Megan. We are thrilled about this because due to the paper trail, we now know that Megan knows about us! We are waiting for our travel approval right now which will take about 3 weeks. At that point we will have a better idea when we are traveling. Our adoption agency said that it would be in September or November. We are wanting to get Megan as soon as we can, but we are relieved that we are not going in August during the Olympics. The prices of airfare and hotel is through the roof. God is watching over us. We are wanting to take all three kids with us so hopefully we can. We will write another update when we know more.
Monday, October 6, 2008
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2 comments:
Hello George's,
We are so excited you are finally going to China to get Megan. We will be praying for you and following your blog. We can't wait to meet your precious child!!! God Bless your trip!
Love,
The Seafield's
Hi guys -
Just to let you know you are on our minds and in our prayers here!
The Hanrahans
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