Good News! We get to skype with Brandon, our son in Shanghai, the one we have had no contact with. We got an email from China saying he is back at the orphanage and would we like to skype? It is currently set up for Sunday evening 2-26-12 (our time). He will have a translator. We are praying that this will be a positive "first meeting" that will put him at ease. If he has any big questions or concerns, we are praying that he will bring those up so that we can address those. This is one more answer to prayer!
We leave in 2 days! Would appreciate all prayers as we do last minute things!
The Family
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Monday, February 20, 2012
TRAVEL DATES...One week will lift off!
These dates have changed multiple times, but we finally have solid plans and tickets purchased!
TRAVEL SCHEDULE:
Feb. 27 - Leave from DFW at 7:05 PM
(You can literally follow our plane if you go to http://flightaware.com/ and input our airline and flight number:
American Airlines #2477 from Dallas to LA (departs 7:05 PM on Feb. 27)
Cathay Pacific #881 from LA to Hong Kong (departs 12:15 AM on Feb. 28) "the red eye!"
Cathay Pacific #6888 from Hong Kong to Beijing (depart 9:00AM Feb. 29)
***Note: China is currently 14 hours ahead of central time. After daylight savings time, I think they will be 13 hours ahead. :)
Feb. 29 - Arrive in Beijing at noon and meet Eric at the airport!...when we look and feel pretty!!
Mar. 1-3 - Visit China Little Flower (the organ. that runs Eric's foster home, 5 other homes, and a baby home), visit Eric's foster family, friends, and school, and do a few Beijing tours with Eric.
Mar. 4 - Take a train with Eric (and his escort) from Beijing to Taiyuan (the capitol of the province he is from...Shanxi province)
Mar. 5 - Officially "receive" Eric and formalize adoption in one day (expedited process)
Mar. 5 - Fly from Taiyuan to Shanghai (Eric is now formally ours!)
Mar. 6 - Receive Brandon!
Mar. 7 - Formalize adoption! (Brandon is now formally ours!)
Mar. 8-9 - Relax and maybe tour a little of Shanghai (with our friend Wei!)
Mar. 10 - Fly from Shanghai to Guangzhou
Mar. 11 - Free day
Mar. 12 - Medicals and TB testing
Mar. 13 - Free day
Mar. 14 - Check TB results (pray for good results so it won't delay our trip!)
Mar. 15 - Consulate Appointment
Mar. 16 - Pick up Brandon and Eric's visas and start the long trip home!
Mar. 17 - Fly "backwards" in time and arrive home on Jaiden's 6th Bday! :)
Whew...I'm tired already! We've already had some "glitches" and are stressed to get ready in time. Please pray for peace, for finalization of a few loose ends, for sufficient packing, and most of all for Brandon and Eric to have peace and courage!
TRAVEL SCHEDULE:
Feb. 27 - Leave from DFW at 7:05 PM
(You can literally follow our plane if you go to http://flightaware.com/ and input our airline and flight number:
American Airlines #2477 from Dallas to LA (departs 7:05 PM on Feb. 27)
Cathay Pacific #881 from LA to Hong Kong (departs 12:15 AM on Feb. 28) "the red eye!"
Cathay Pacific #6888 from Hong Kong to Beijing (depart 9:00AM Feb. 29)
***Note: China is currently 14 hours ahead of central time. After daylight savings time, I think they will be 13 hours ahead. :)
Feb. 29 - Arrive in Beijing at noon and meet Eric at the airport!...when we look and feel pretty!!
Mar. 1-3 - Visit China Little Flower (the organ. that runs Eric's foster home, 5 other homes, and a baby home), visit Eric's foster family, friends, and school, and do a few Beijing tours with Eric.
Mar. 4 - Take a train with Eric (and his escort) from Beijing to Taiyuan (the capitol of the province he is from...Shanxi province)
Mar. 5 - Officially "receive" Eric and formalize adoption in one day (expedited process)
Mar. 5 - Fly from Taiyuan to Shanghai (Eric is now formally ours!)
Mar. 6 - Receive Brandon!
Mar. 7 - Formalize adoption! (Brandon is now formally ours!)
Mar. 8-9 - Relax and maybe tour a little of Shanghai (with our friend Wei!)
Mar. 10 - Fly from Shanghai to Guangzhou
Mar. 11 - Free day
Mar. 12 - Medicals and TB testing
Mar. 13 - Free day
Mar. 14 - Check TB results (pray for good results so it won't delay our trip!)
Mar. 15 - Consulate Appointment
Mar. 16 - Pick up Brandon and Eric's visas and start the long trip home!
Mar. 17 - Fly "backwards" in time and arrive home on Jaiden's 6th Bday! :)
Whew...I'm tired already! We've already had some "glitches" and are stressed to get ready in time. Please pray for peace, for finalization of a few loose ends, for sufficient packing, and most of all for Brandon and Eric to have peace and courage!
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
URGENT: Eric's good friend needs a home!!!
Eric's friend, Ming, will be left behind. China will only let us adopt 2. Who will step forward and adopt Ming? Will you? The director of Eric's foster home says, "Any news on a family for Ming? He’s so sad that Eric is leaving." :( That just breaks my heart! Please pray with us that a family will step foward to adopt Ming. He sounds like a great kid. I believe he is 12 years old. And we'll get to meet him (in March) and take pictures and video. If anyone is interested, please let me know. I can send you more pix too! And I can put you in direct contact with the foster home director and you can ask whatever you want! Remember, we have even been skyping and emailing with Eric, so this is a situation where you would have access to a lot more info. than usual! It's going to break my heart to leave him behind. I would LOVE to be able to tell him he has a family coming for him!! Please pray for Ming and for his family to feel the nudge!
We are guessing this picture of him is "a year or two" old because we have seen more recent pics of him. There is more info about him on wonderfulwaitingkids.webs.com you will have to join (which is VERY simple) then look at the shared list boys.
We are guessing this picture of him is "a year or two" old because we have seen more recent pics of him. There is more info about him on wonderfulwaitingkids.webs.com you will have to join (which is VERY simple) then look at the shared list boys.
Friday, February 3, 2012
BIG NEWS: THE HOODS ARE EXPECTING TWINS! :)
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
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
SEPTEMBER 22 UPDATE
(Please note: I've been saving the following 3 updates since I didn't know how to add pictures to a post. I decided I wasn't going to post again until I learned how to add pictures. So that's why there are suddenly 3 new posts and a bunch of pictures. The pictures include some from our family vacation to Branson in July.)
Amanda has had 3 game days now. They are undefeated so far. In fact, they (the jr. high A team) just beat our highschool JV team yesterday! Amanda had quite a few serving points in that one.
EARLY SEPTEMBER UPDATE
Thankfully, we have settled in to the "new normal". I think we’re up to 5 gallons of milk a week now. (And that’s with no cold cereal…we eat cooked cereal for breakfast.) I’m trying to get it down to only visiting WalMart once a week but the hard part is WHEN to fit it in without 2 little helpers taking up all the room in the cart. Seems like I’m cooking more often now. Whatever happened to leftovers?? It’s all gone these days. (Not really…I just have to make more to begin with.) But we even had two nights last week with impromptu company and fit everyone in and had enough to eat, so once again we are thankful for how God provides for our growing needs with this house he lead us to 6+ years ago.
Wendy has already cooked for us…Chinese dumplings. We had eaten some when we were in China, so we sort of knew what they should look like and taste like, and she did a great job. She worked so hard on that meal. She seems to be feeling comfortable here and hasn’t appeared to have any homesickness. She has even enjoyed using skype to talk with her folks, once with web cam. It’s still so amazing to be able to talk to someone in China, clearly hear and see them…all for FREE! We even got to visit with them ourselves. They have already invited us to come visit!
Today Wendy helped me make a cake, so that was another first for her. We told her she is already becoming "Americanized" since she now asks for 2 scoops of ice-cream instead of one. (i.e. They don’t eat much "dessert" in China, so most of our sweet stuff is too sweet. For example, when she copied me in licking one of the mixer beaters after making the cake, she said she didn’t like it because it was too sweet! Imagine that!)
Josh has had two more games, and Amanda is still waiting on her first V-ball game of the season. (They have a much shorter V-ball season this year.) Andrew has found a new buddy (who lives "2" minutes away), and Daniel and Jaiden are as busy as ever.
AUGUST UPDATE
AUGUST UPDATE
Wendy has arrived!! As you may remember, we are hosting a foreign exchange student this year from China. Wendy (Wen Qin) has been here one week now and seems to be doing great. We have had an extremely busy week getting her school clothes and supplies, shuttling Josh and Amanda back and forth for soccer and volleyball practice, meetings and meet the teacher night, etc. School starts Monday, and life has to slow down (at least from 8 AM to 3 PM)!
Daniel and Jaiden are getting more creative at getting in trouble lately, so they are vying for attention too. They also think they are starting school on Mon., so I better come up with something that will feel like school for them too. (Josh, Amanda, and Wendy will be at Longview Christian School this year, and Andrew (4th grade) will be homeschooled.
Amanda is adjusting to sharing her room, and is anxious for her volleyball games to get going. Josh just had his first highschool soccer game today. The highschool team played against the alumni, and Josh scored one of their two goals.
Andrew has hit it off real well with Wendy and continues to climb trees and practice basketball skills. His latest interest is reading about the basketball greats like "Pistol" Pete Maravich, Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, and Magic Johnson.
I won’t tell you how many miles I put on the van this week, as I’m sure this is an unusual week. But I am so thankful Mike will be able to take the big kids to school this year! (At least that’s the plan for now.)
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Summer activities
Hello everyone! This is Amanda! Thought we better update everyone so I am the one that gets to do that!
Our house is officially off the market. We took it off on Monday. Mom will probably keep looking with at least one eye but the market isn't selling so we are probably here to stay for now.
Well we went on a vacation a couple weeks ago to Branson, MO! It was fun! We did some boating with a "hotdog" as a tube, hiking, swimming at a pool near our condo, mini-golf, and just lounged around in our condo! One of my favorite parts was when we went boating and hotdogging!!! We would rent a pontoon boat and hotdog for 4 hours at a time and then have fun for those 4 hours. We did it 2 different days. On the first day we had to quit an hour early because of a really bad storm that had started. It was funny because before the storm I (Amanda) saw some clouds that looked like some storm clouds. I asked Dad if he thought they were storm clouds. He said that they looked like regular clouds, and then later it stormed. So now everytime he predicts something about the weather we always bring it up and say "Oh ya like the clouds in Branson weren't storm clouds." I don't think we will ever let that go! :)
We've been back from vacation a couple of weeks now. This Tuesday we went to Shreveport, LA to a science place called Sci-Port. It was pretty fun! You got to do everything they have there. We went to see an animal movie in their I-MAX theater. It was soooo cute to see Daniel and Jaiden watching it! They were so focused on it!
We should go get Wendy (our exchange student from China) from Dallas on Friday, August 14. We all are getting ready for her and are excited to finally meet her! We have been emailing her and chatting with her online. Mom has been talking to her about what classes she is taking and getting that all settled. Josh and Dad (with some help from Andrew) have been making a bunkbed for her. We are trying to get everything ready for her dresser and everything else you can imagine that you need for another child. It is finally setting in for at least me that in a little over one week she will be here for a whole year!!!
Josh on Tuesday got himself a riding lawn mower from a man that he mows for that he is trying to fix. Josh is also getting ready to start soccer practice this coming Monday, doing some driving, and even drove to Shreveport, LA on Tuesday.
My friend Courtney and I (Amanda) are doing a project to raise some money for babies around the world who cannot be taken care of by their family. These babies are with the organization Feed The Children. We sent out this email:
"HI!
For those of you that don’t know who I am my name is Amanda Hood (daughter of Mike and Amy Hood), and I am going into the 8th grade. I hope your summer has been going well. Mine has been pretty good.
Well, during the school year my friend Courtney and I really felt that God told us to help feed the hungry in other countries. After a lot of praying and thinking we have decided to raise money to give to infants through Feed the Children organization. One way we are going to do this is by walking, jogging, or running laps on August 3. We would really appreciate if you could help us by sponsoring us for every lap we complete. You can give any dollar amount for every lap and then email me so that I will know how much you are committing to. After we finish I will email you to tell you how many laps I did then you can mail me the money.* If you prefer just donating a set amount then feel free to do so. The money we raise will go to these infants all over the world to provide them with care for a certain amount of months! If we raise $96 it will help a baby for 8 months, $48 will help for 4 months, and $24 will help a child for 2 months. Please pray for us in our hope to help the needy. We will need many prayers.
Thank you for all your prayers and support. It will really help us. I pray that God will use our efforts to further His Kingdom.
If you have any questions please call 903-295-0839 and ask for Amanda. If you would like to learn more about Feed the Children go to www.feedthechildren.org.
If the date changes I will send you another email to let you know!
Thank you,
Amanda Hood
* If you are writing a check please make it out to Feed the Children and they will send you a receipt for your tax deductible donation. When you send money please mail it to Amanda Hood at 305 Monterrey Lane White Oak, TX 75693."
We did the walking thing this Monday and did 10 miles!! It was hard because it was so hot outside, but we did it! In the process we have gotten quite a lot of money which we will send in once we have all of it!
Andrew is being the normal active boy! He goes outside almost everyday in this heat. I don't know how he does it. I go outside for a couple minutes and I start sweating!
Daniel and Jaiden are just normal little kids!! They love to play together!! Sometimes one gets made when the other one doesn't want to play with them! They are so cute.
Sorry about no pictures again!!! We'll try to add pictures soon!
Amanda
Our house is officially off the market. We took it off on Monday. Mom will probably keep looking with at least one eye but the market isn't selling so we are probably here to stay for now.
Well we went on a vacation a couple weeks ago to Branson, MO! It was fun! We did some boating with a "hotdog" as a tube, hiking, swimming at a pool near our condo, mini-golf, and just lounged around in our condo! One of my favorite parts was when we went boating and hotdogging!!! We would rent a pontoon boat and hotdog for 4 hours at a time and then have fun for those 4 hours. We did it 2 different days. On the first day we had to quit an hour early because of a really bad storm that had started. It was funny because before the storm I (Amanda) saw some clouds that looked like some storm clouds. I asked Dad if he thought they were storm clouds. He said that they looked like regular clouds, and then later it stormed. So now everytime he predicts something about the weather we always bring it up and say "Oh ya like the clouds in Branson weren't storm clouds." I don't think we will ever let that go! :)
We've been back from vacation a couple of weeks now. This Tuesday we went to Shreveport, LA to a science place called Sci-Port. It was pretty fun! You got to do everything they have there. We went to see an animal movie in their I-MAX theater. It was soooo cute to see Daniel and Jaiden watching it! They were so focused on it!
We should go get Wendy (our exchange student from China) from Dallas on Friday, August 14. We all are getting ready for her and are excited to finally meet her! We have been emailing her and chatting with her online. Mom has been talking to her about what classes she is taking and getting that all settled. Josh and Dad (with some help from Andrew) have been making a bunkbed for her. We are trying to get everything ready for her dresser and everything else you can imagine that you need for another child. It is finally setting in for at least me that in a little over one week she will be here for a whole year!!!
Josh on Tuesday got himself a riding lawn mower from a man that he mows for that he is trying to fix. Josh is also getting ready to start soccer practice this coming Monday, doing some driving, and even drove to Shreveport, LA on Tuesday.
My friend Courtney and I (Amanda) are doing a project to raise some money for babies around the world who cannot be taken care of by their family. These babies are with the organization Feed The Children. We sent out this email:
"HI!
For those of you that don’t know who I am my name is Amanda Hood (daughter of Mike and Amy Hood), and I am going into the 8th grade. I hope your summer has been going well. Mine has been pretty good.
Well, during the school year my friend Courtney and I really felt that God told us to help feed the hungry in other countries. After a lot of praying and thinking we have decided to raise money to give to infants through Feed the Children organization. One way we are going to do this is by walking, jogging, or running laps on August 3. We would really appreciate if you could help us by sponsoring us for every lap we complete. You can give any dollar amount for every lap and then email me so that I will know how much you are committing to. After we finish I will email you to tell you how many laps I did then you can mail me the money.* If you prefer just donating a set amount then feel free to do so. The money we raise will go to these infants all over the world to provide them with care for a certain amount of months! If we raise $96 it will help a baby for 8 months, $48 will help for 4 months, and $24 will help a child for 2 months. Please pray for us in our hope to help the needy. We will need many prayers.
Thank you for all your prayers and support. It will really help us. I pray that God will use our efforts to further His Kingdom.
If you have any questions please call 903-295-0839 and ask for Amanda. If you would like to learn more about Feed the Children go to www.feedthechildren.org.
If the date changes I will send you another email to let you know!
Thank you,
Amanda Hood
* If you are writing a check please make it out to Feed the Children and they will send you a receipt for your tax deductible donation. When you send money please mail it to Amanda Hood at 305 Monterrey Lane White Oak, TX 75693."
We did the walking thing this Monday and did 10 miles!! It was hard because it was so hot outside, but we did it! In the process we have gotten quite a lot of money which we will send in once we have all of it!
Andrew is being the normal active boy! He goes outside almost everyday in this heat. I don't know how he does it. I go outside for a couple minutes and I start sweating!
Daniel and Jaiden are just normal little kids!! They love to play together!! Sometimes one gets made when the other one doesn't want to play with them! They are so cute.
Sorry about no pictures again!!! We'll try to add pictures soon!
Amanda
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
6th Child Update
Well, my blog administrator (Josh) is out of town this week, so I'll see if I (Amy) can figure this posting stuff out.
You may have seen our recent teaser where we mentioned we were praying about a 6th child. Well, we now have confirmation... We have officially decided and been matched to be a host family for a foreign exchange student program through AFS. We will be hosting Wen (Wendy) Qin from China! She will arrive mid-August and stay through late June. She turns 17 this Sunday, will attend school at Longview Christian school (where Josh and Amanda will be), and will share a room with Amanda. We had room in our hearts and in our home for another child, but not in our car. So we will simply be taking 2 cars to church from now on. :) We are real excited to have this opportunity. We just began communicating with Wendy (via email) this morning. Sounds like she is excited too. Now we need to get to work on another set of bunk beds!
Josh and Amanda are at church camp this week. And Andrew just returned from a week with G. & G. Hood and 3 other boy cousins. They had a great time.
Nothing new with our house situation. We still have it listed, but probably only for another couple weeks. The house we wanted is still under contract and is set to close on July 15th. If nothing falls through with that one, then we'll stay where we're at unless something comes on the market that is worth the hassle. Our primary motivation is location, so we have a fairly small area we are looking in. We'll keep you posted.
Sorry no new pix. That's asking a little too much of me for now. Just posting text is a new step!
Amy
You may have seen our recent teaser where we mentioned we were praying about a 6th child. Well, we now have confirmation... We have officially decided and been matched to be a host family for a foreign exchange student program through AFS. We will be hosting Wen (Wendy) Qin from China! She will arrive mid-August and stay through late June. She turns 17 this Sunday, will attend school at Longview Christian school (where Josh and Amanda will be), and will share a room with Amanda. We had room in our hearts and in our home for another child, but not in our car. So we will simply be taking 2 cars to church from now on. :) We are real excited to have this opportunity. We just began communicating with Wendy (via email) this morning. Sounds like she is excited too. Now we need to get to work on another set of bunk beds!
Josh and Amanda are at church camp this week. And Andrew just returned from a week with G. & G. Hood and 3 other boy cousins. They had a great time.
Nothing new with our house situation. We still have it listed, but probably only for another couple weeks. The house we wanted is still under contract and is set to close on July 15th. If nothing falls through with that one, then we'll stay where we're at unless something comes on the market that is worth the hassle. Our primary motivation is location, so we have a fairly small area we are looking in. We'll keep you posted.
Sorry no new pix. That's asking a little too much of me for now. Just posting text is a new step!
Amy
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