If you haven’t been receiving our occasionally email updates, you may not know our big news. Here's a brief recap to bring you up to speed...
In Jan. of 2010 we felt the nudge to consider adopting an older boy through the TX foster care system. We had 5 children at the time (3 bio. and 2 adopted from China), so we already knew the blessing adoption can bring...but also knew it needed to be bathed in prayer. As is the case in many life-changing decisions, we have found that prayer AND taking one step of faith at a time is the way to discern God's will. So we took the first step...and the next step...and the next step...all without knowing if we were meant to actually adopt any more children, let along an older child this time. Even when our home study was completed and approved (in Aug. of 2010) we still felt like it would only be confirmed by whether or not there was a match that we felt was appropriate for our family. We searched and waited and prayed for many potential matches during the next "9" months. Some of the potential matches we had felt like miscarriages. Adoption is not an easy journey. But living the life of an orphan is not easy either. So we persevered and prayed. Then in the spring (of 2011) God orchestrated some events that ended up redirecting our journey. (Someday I hope to share that thrilling story with you.) On June 3rd, 2011, while dabbling on a China Waiting Child web site, I found our son! Mike was out of town on a business trip, and I sent him the following email late that night:
It's 1:00AM and I am thinking of you. :) Hoping you're asleep, but realizing you might be having another short night. Yes, the computer was still on...as I have quite a story to fill you in on. It just may be that even though we are apart tonight, we might be conceiving our next child...June 3rd, 2011. Remember that date. Would the Lord be so gracious as to allow us to be in China 9 months from now?!? I'll fill you in later. ;)
Well, the Lord GRACIOUSLY has us on track to be in China approximately "9 months later"! But better yet, the Lord has allowed us to be a part of something we can only do with His help...adopt 2 boys at once! They are close in age to Andrew (our middle child), so although we feel like we are adopting twin boys...it will really feel like having triplet boys! Let us introduce you . . .
*Eric Ethan Tianqing Hood*
is 11 years old, is in the 6th grade, and is 8 months younger than Andrew. He is currently in a foster family in Beijing and likes to play soccer. Although it is quite unusual, we have had the amazing blessing of emailing and even skyping with him over the past several weeks. We even sometimes find him online and get to use QQ (it's like Chinese Facebook) to chat with him!
*Brandon Elijah Fengmao Hood*
is 11 years old, is in the 6th grade, and is 3 months younger than Andrew. He is currently in a foster family in Shanghai and likes soccer and basketball. We have not had any direct contact with him and are praying that his foster family is effectively preparing him for this huge change in his life.
Orphans in China don't have much hope for a future, but in order to be adopted, they have to be brave enough to say "yes" to leaving all that they have known to go to a big unknown. We are praying they will be brave enough to follow through on their decision to be adopted. May the Lord, the Father of the fatherless, provide for their every need every step of the way.
TRAVEL PLANS: We are currently waiting for our TA (Travel Approval) which should come sometime between Feb. 16-24. We are still estimating we will get to travel sometime in (early) March.
If you want to be on our email group in case of urgent prayer requests or the inability to post from China, you can request to be on our email list. Please let us know if you would like to do this at: mjaaa97@yahoo.com
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