Trusting God with the details

It's been a whirl wind of a week!

Monday we received rather bleak news and we are still uncertain how the new court change will affect the timing of bringing Titus home. However, what we do know is that God is in control and we are trusting Him for His perfect timing and provision. We are aching to get to our Titus but we know that God is holding all three of us in the palm of His hand.

Tuesday morning was our appointment day to be fingerprinted for immigration. After our last fingerprinting fiasco, I was extremely nervous that we would have another "same song second verse" on our hands. However, the wonderful man who administered our fingerprints assured me that the KBI had nothing on him and he would get a good read. :) We are praying that he is correct...

While at the immigration office Kevin and I were surrounded by so many different ethnic groups all seeking one thing, United States citizenship for themselves or someone else. As Kevin was in the office being fingerprinted and I sat in the waiting room waiting for my turn, I couldn't help but sit there and pray. I prayed for our country and that the US would be a country that Titus would love and be proud to be a citizen of. All of sudden my thoughts and prayers were interrupted by a door being thrown open and an older Asian woman screaming with joy. Her entire family erupted into celebration and there were many hugs. I have no idea the words that were exchanged, but the joy was contagious. The entire waiting room erupted into smiles. Wow-what an amazing thing to witness a fresh brand new citizen of the United States.

This morning there were tears and rejoicing as I opened Anna's email that announced we have a court date set for July 22nd. We have been praying for two weeks for this news and it is finally here. God is in the details and we are praying specifically for several things.

• That God would soften the heart of the judge and that he would issue our first decree on July 22nd or VERY soon after
• Peace for Titus' birth mom/family for her decision
• AIT would quickly give us an appointment after we receive our second decree from court
• Continued safety and health of Titus
• That we will be able to hold Titus by his 6 month birthday-August 25th. (a mama can always hope)
  
• Our fingerprints will be readable and we will receive our I-171h (immigration) approval
• The last bit of money we need for travel
• For God's perfect timing, and His glory to be recognized in everything that happens in this adoption that He alone has orchestrated!

This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him. I John 5:14-15

In honor of Father's Day, I wanted to post a couple of my favorite funny stories about my father and father-in-law.

I was only 19 when I knew I wanted to marry Alicia, pretty much a kid looking back. I had been to her parents' house a few times, and knew her parents fairly well when it was time to ask for Alicia's father's blessing. I was up visiting them, trying to find an opportunity to get Leon alone to ask his blessing. The opportunity finally arose and I worked up my gumption. I told Leon that I loved Alicia and wanted to marry her with his blessing. Now, Leon is a pretty quiet person with a subtle sense of humor. When I asked for his blessing, he paused, smiled, rubbed his chin and said, "I don't think I'm the one you should be asking." I told him I was pretty sure what Alicia's answer would be, but I wanted to ask him first. He smiled again and said, "Welcome to the family."

And now a slightly embarrassing story about my dad. He's told this story many times, to many people so I'm going to go ahead and share it. Growing up, the Tooth Fairy was my dad in his sleeping apparel, a white under shirt and tighty-whiteys. The house I grew up in was an old farm house that had counter-weighted windows. To open or close them took some effort and was very noisy. The house didn't have air-conditioning, so upstairs where my brothers and I slept was very hot, and we had to keep our windows open and pray for a breeze. If it started to rain in the middle of the night, my dad would get up to close our windows. The first time I remember dad doing this I was old enough to know he was the Tooth Fairy, but still pretty young. I woke up to the window closing (clang-clang-clang-clang-clang-clang-clang-clang-BOOM!!!) and I saw Dad, in his usual sleeping attire. I was still mostly asleep, and I thought, "Why is the Tooth Fairy closing my window?" To this day, we still refer to Dad as the Tooth Fairy, especially when referring to his sleeping attire. :)

Happy Father's Day to both my father and father-in-law.

Titus' First Haircut

It was a big month for Titus!
Titus got his first haircut and loved every minute of it.
He just smiled and laughed as everyone oo-ed and ah-ed at how handsome he is.

He looks like such a big boy!

Along with the pictures Jess reported that Titus is doing really well. He is eating better and is now drinking 120cc (4 oz) 6-7 times a day. He is talking and smiling a lot more and has been sleeping better at night too.

We love you Titus and can't wait to hold you and love on you in a few months.

Adoption Arithmetic

2 sleep deprived, exhausted adults
- 1 trip to the bank
+ a 6 hour trip
+ 1 very nice SoS notary
+ 1 quick tour of the Capital
- 1/2 a tank of gas
+ a trip to the TECO in downtown KC
- 1 more trip to the bank
+ 1 more trip to the TECO
- $225
=paperwork ready to be overnighted to Taiwan by Thursday afternoon
with a remainder of 1 happy daddy and 1 overjoyed mama,
that are still sleep deprived and exhausted

Adoption: not for the faint of heart

So, this was our day...

This morning we tracked our much anticipated paperwork from Taipei, to Anchorage, to Memphis, to Lenexa, and finally to our door at 10:10 AM. It was a time for rejoicing, we were moving forward and making progress!

Now that we had the translated paperwork to go along with all the English versions, our next steps are to get them notarized, authenticated by the Secretary of State's office, and then to the TECO (Taipei Economic and Cultural Office) in downtown KC. All so we could send it back to Taiwan. Monday is Memorial Day so all the offices will be closed, and then Alicia is out of town the rest of the week. Alica came up with a brilliant scheme of a road trip to Topeka to the Secretary of State's office and then hightail it back to the TECO tomorrow, so we wouldn't have to lose another week. Gotta love the mommy mode...

I called the SoS's office to see if they happen to have a branch in our area like Missouri does. No dice, their only office is in Topeka. Then I talked to the Notary Dept. to double check what they needed for their authentication process and to see if Alicia's crazy scheme will work. What do you know, it will!

This afternoon, we go to get the Chinese translations notarized after I got off work. One perk of working for the bank is getting free notarization. We've been helped by the same nice guy at the branch nearest our home with all our paperwork so far. When we showed him the English and Chinese translations, he said he couldn't notarize them since neither we, nor he, could read the documents. At that instant, it was a blessing that Alicia is a stay-at-home-wife, and we need my job. Otherwise Alicia would have given this nice man a 20 minute "Come to Jesus" lecture about how a Notary's job is to verify that the person is who they say they are, they are signing of their own free volition, and that they actually signed the document in the notary's presence. It's that simple. It technically doesn't matter if you want to have a notary witness you signing a will, power of attorney, something in Chinese, or in ancient Hebrew. Alicia's tongue was almost bleeding and I have some indentations in my thigh from her death grip, but we didn't burn any bridges and I still have my job.

It's 4:25, and we still needed to get these documents notarized before our early morning trek to Topeka. So, Alicia kindly asked him if he knew of anyone who could notarize them, and happens to know Mandarin Chinese so they can verify what we are signing. His answer was to photocopy the Notary section of a couple phone books for us and we left. Alicia called 5 different places on our way home, almost in tears, having to leave messages for a few.

She finally reached a live human, a very nice woman who talked with Alica for 20 minutes saying that she's been a notary for 20 years, and has never had anyone need her services for documents in a foreign language. She searched through her Notary guidebook, and agreed with us that it doesn't matter what you're signing or in what language it is, but she wanted to call the Secretary of State's office to double check the rules.

It just so happened that I was already on the phone with the Notary department at the Secretary of State's office, who I've already talked to twice before this morning. By this time Rita from the Notary department and I are on a first-name basis. After I explained the whole situation, and asked her if she knew what we could do, or to whom we could go for foreign language notarization, she turned our whole afternoon around. They do notarization for free, and then they can do the authentication, all at the same time in the same office, in about 20 minutes! After hanging up and breathing a big sigh of relief that our day was salvaged, we looked at each other and laughed, wondering how can they notarize something, and then turn around and authenticate their own notarization? We aren't going to question them, after all, they are the Secretary of State's office. We just hope they actually know what they can and cannot do.

So, first thing tomorrow, we're heading to Topeka to the Secretary of State's office. It's next door to the State Capitol building, and since neither of us have ever been there we'll take a quick tour and some photos to commemorate this step in the journey. Then we need to hightail it back to KC to the TECO. We've heard it usually takes them 2-3 days to process the paperwork, so we are praying it will be ready for us to overnight everything back to the Skiles in Taiwan Monday the 7th.

With that, Ted can get us on the court docket for the first hearing, hopefully in the first part of July. The second hearing is usually around 3 weeks after the first, and then Titus is officially and legally our child! We still have Immigration frustration, but it's very possible, even plausible that we can travel the first week in August. Hopefully in time for my parents to meet Titus before they go back to Moscow.

Psalms 25:25

My heart skips a beat when I see emails from Ted that begin with "Like cold water to a weary soul is good news from a distant land." Psalms 25:25 Today we received the news that Ted has sent our translated homestudy and power of attorney and they should arrive via FedEx tomorrow morning.

Our next step is to sign and notarize our documents, then send them to the Secretary of State for authentication, and finally to the TECO (Taipei Economic and Cultural Office) to file everything. We are making progress!

Hello, contentment...are you there?

I’ve been thinking about this for a long time and hopefully I'm not the only one. For several years, probably since high school, I’ve felt like I’ve been measuring and marking my life by certain events. As if every life needs to follow a scripted, mapped out plan. Writing this post doesn’t mean I want to change “the plan,” but more how I view the plan and how I let it dictate my thoughts and actions.

I kind of look at my life like a scrapbook and it needs to have certain pictures in it. Not for anyone else, but for me to feel like I checked each box. The scrapbook, in my mind, once looked something like this: graduate from high school, go to college, met "the one", get engaged, graduate from college, start a job, get married, buy a house, have a baby, have another baby, have another baby, have another baby and maybe another baby or two :) ....then what? What do you wait and wish for next?

Obviously the above didn't go as planned. My scrapbook moments look more like this: graduated from high school, started college, found "the one", got engaged, got married, finally graduated from college, the house still hasn't come and we are still waiting for baby #1. I've spent so many years waiting, wishing and praying. Why do I put my life into such big milestones? Why can’t I live each day just for what it is and be happy with where I am right now?

My current contentment issue is with waiting on our Titus to come home. I just kind of feel like we’re waiting and praying and I’m becoming impatient. I knew stepping out into this journey there would be waiting. I just don't think I realized quite the emotions I would have to face. Right now, I need to just wait and see what the Lord wants me to do while I sit back, pray, and try to enjoy my life without my baby boy. So why am I doing this? Why am I thinking and planning so much rather than just being still and content in my wonderful little life as it is? Obviously, it's because I finally have a little one who is on the other side of the world. But, why can't I be content in the here and now? I am confident that He has a perfect plan for this time and I pray that I can be content and that God is using this time to prepare Titus, Kevin and me for His perfect timing.

Today, marks Titus' three month birthday and while I have uttered many prayers for him and his life especially today, my biggest prayer today is that I can find peace and contentment in Him, while I wait for Titus to come home. I am a Christian and a child of God and find so much fulfillment from my relationship with Him. I am very happy with my life. I can’t stress that enough. But I do feel like I’m always waiting for the next thing– and there may not be another “next big thing” for my life. There will be for my son’s life, but I’m hoping to not be one of those mamas that lives vicariously through her child’s life to find her happiness. I will be happy for him, but I don’t want his life events to become my identity. My identity and fulfillment are in Christ.

So In Love...

We don't know how it's possible to have such a deep love in your heart for a sweet little one all the way across the the world...that you've never met...but WE DO!! With each picture that we receive it gives us another piece of him or an expression to mesmerize and memorize.

We are so sad that Jess (pictured above) will be leaving THOGL on June 1st. Jess has loved and cared for our Titus since his arrival. She has also sent us pictures and updates of Titus. Thank you Jess for all your work! "We always thank God for all of you, mentioning you in our prayers. We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ." I Thessalonians 1:2-3

Blessed

A few months ago I was extremely apprehensive about the whole Facebook scene, however, it has been a huge blessing on our journey to Titus. We've been blessed and touched by stories, friendships, and photos from other THOGL adoptive families. Above is another picture of our Titus found by a FB family. Thank you Andrea!

Also, a few weeks ago we also received an update on our boy from Jess and Bev.

Titus still has a little bit of a cough and cold. We are continuing to give him the prescribed medicine and we are seeing some improvement. He does not eat very well at his scheduled times. We feed him every time he cries and he will eat pretty well then. Please continue to pray for him to heal completely! Even among his sickness, he has really started to smile and be rally alert! He loves to be held and played with! His smiles are pretty rare and very hard to get on camera! He is absolutely adorable! He has such a head of hair! He continues to charm everyone who sees him! He has an adorable voice!

The Gift of Photos

There is no sweeter gift at this time in my life, than pictures of our Titus. I am so thankful to the Burchetts! Last week they were in Taiwan picking up their son, Eli and captured a few pictures of Titus. What a sweet gift. Thank you again Burchett family!

Ron nicknamed our little boy "Wolfie"
When Titus cries he howls.
Can you spot our little howler?
Also, when he is eating he wolfs it down
and then there is an obvious, hehe.
I guess our little one has a reputation already...

This little boy needs a mama's love.
He still looks sick to me. :(

Loving hands taking care of our little guy.