Package for Isaac

We have always sent packages to our children ourselves but this time I decided to use a service.  Ann with Red Thread was recommended over and over again.  Now I understand why!  She was so nice and prompt.  She spoke with our son's orphanage the same day she received our request.  The package will be in his little hands in a couple of days.  She also sent us a picture of the package she is sending to Isaac. 

Lifesong for Orphans - Zambia 100 Team

 Join us to IMPACT lives in Zambia...   

    

"Hi.  My name is Richard.  I am in grade 7.  I stay with my sister, Josephine.  I have three brothers and two sisters.  My other sister attends Lifesong and is in grade 5.  Her name is Emelia.  My mother stays in a village far away.  My father died in 2006.  Thank you for supporting me and may God bless you and add more days to your life.  My favorite subject is art."

Richard is just ONE of the 253 students that we are blessed to serve at Lifesong Zambia.  He is also one of the students that will be moving on to grade 8 this fall.  

Without the construction of new classrooms, Richard may join the 95% of Zambian children that are not able to attend High School. 

Will you join us in impacting the lives of children like Richard?

To add to the excitement--thanks to a generous donor, all donations will be matched up to $225,000!!

  

To join the Impact Zambia 100 team, email info@lifesongfororphans.org!

For every person who joins the Impact Zambia 100 team and mentions my name, Rebecca Maas, I will be entered into a drawing to win a trip to Orphan Summit VIII. 

We have PA(pre-approval) #2

So excited to announce that we have received PreApproval for our son.  I have no idea how old he is in this picture.  His file is over a year old so we have no current information or pictures.  He just turned three years old this month.

We have named him ISAAC

SOLD!!!!!!!!!!!!

We have been looking for a bigger house for several years.  We were just not finding anything within our budget.  Then, in September of last year God increased our monthly budget.  Enough were we could seriously begin looking for a larger house, but we were still a little hesitant.  God had to give us a CLEAR signal that we needed to put our house on the market and start looking for a house.

On Christmas Day, later in the evening, the doorbell rang.  When I opened the door there was a beautifully wrapped present on our porch.  When I opened the box inside I found $1,500 in CASH!!!  The card said “please use this gift to help in the purchase of your new home whenever God makes it available to you”.   PS. “We pray that God will find a way for this gift to be multiplied for you and the He will be glorified!!” 

That was all we needed!  After the holidays we began looking for a house.  Still we just did not find anything that would meet the needs of our children.  We decided we should build a house so that we could accommodate ALL the needs of our children.  This house is not for us but for our kids!

                                                                                

The next step was to put our current house on the market.  Although our monthly budget had increased we still needed to put a large sum as a down payment on the new house to get it within our budget.  God is good and always provides.  We had put a considerable amount of money down on our current house so we just needed to get that money back out of the house when we sold it.  NO BIG DEAL, RIGHT???  I think our realtor/friend thought we were crazy.  No one is making money on the sale of a house these days.  Darren and I prayed about the number we would need.  We put the house on the market for $3,000 more than we absolutely had to sale at in order to get our money back out of the house.  Our realtor in a very gentle way said, “don’t be disappointed if we have to lower the price in a week or two”.  We also wanted to be able to stay in our house and rent it from the new owners when it sold.  We still had no house and where were we going to find a place that will rent to a family with eight kids. 

You are NOT going to believe what happened!!!!

Our house was on the market for two weeks when we got an offer on the house.  We closed on it TODAY!!!  AND guess what else??   we are still living in it!!!  When the guy came to look at our house he had already started working on financing to build a house but his realtor talked him into looking at our house.  He loved it.  One of the reasons he loved it was because he could not move in until June so he was excited that we wanted to rent it from him until then.  WOOHOO!!

Guess what we sold it for??  The EXACT number we had prayed for!!!!!

New Pictures and Package for Lily

How cute is she?

I love getting to send our new children a package introducing their new family. 

Here are the contents of Lily's package.

Moving Forward but Never Forgetting

Thank you for all your kind words of sympathy.  It may seem strange to those who are not adoptive parents but you do begin to attach with your child as soon as you see their picture.  You dream about "gotcha day".  The first time they smile at you.  The first time they allow you to touch them without screaming.  The first time they let you console them.  The first time they fall asleep in your arms.  It is in so many ways like seeing your birth child in your ultrasound for the first time.  Then, for months you dream about the day you will meet your baby. 

The kids all dealt with Daniel's death in their own little way.  They are all very sensitive and caring.  I will never forget Ethan's response.  He was very quiet and I could see tears in his eyes.  He walked to his room and a few minutes later he came out with a small piece of paper and pencil.  He sat down very quietly and intently at the kitchen counter.  He began to draw.  Then he asked how to spell Daniel.  He handed me the small piece of paper and said he wanted to send it to the people who were with Daniel.  He had drawn a picture of himself, Daniel, and Jesus.  He drew a big sunshine on the next page.  I can only think he was drawing the moment they would meet in Heaven. 

We are praying that God will send us another little boy to love.  I dare not get my hopes up.  We had seen Daniel's picture for the first time five months ago and were still waiting on his file in order to proceed with the adoption.  This is a unique relationship between our adoption agency and this orphanage.  Because of this relationship our agency knows the children and has pictures before they receive the actual file.  There are a couple of little boys on our agency's list, one that I have been smitten with from the beginning.  Unfortunately, they are ones the agency has not received files on.  Since we have already commited to Lily we have a time restraint in which we can add a second child.  We know that it will all work in God's perfect timing.  Trying to keep myself busy and not think about it.

Great Sadness

During the course of our many adoptions we have experienced several lost referrals.  Although it was frustrating, I never really felt grief or sadness about loosing a referral.  We knew for whatever reason God had a plan for our family and we were trusting in Him.  This week we experienced a different kind of loss.

Many of you do not know that we have actually been in the process of adopting TWO children.  We could not announce our referral of Daniel until we were given approval by China to adopt him.  Daniel was 10 months old and also had Down Syndrome.  Friday I received a call from our adoption agency, our baby Daniel had passed away.  I never expected to feel so much sadness.  Although we had never met him, he was already a part of our family.   We loved him.  Many tears have been shed.  The one thing that brings us peace is knowing that Daniel is now in the arms of his Heavenly Father.  We can’t wait to meet him some day in Heaven.

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Another picture of sweet Lily

Now that we have pre-approval we can send our Lily a package. 

 I love being able to send our new kids a little something from their forever family.

Somehow it just makes it feel a little more real.

Treasures

Yesterday, we were in the path of the storms that went through Kentucky. Due to the very high risk that we would have a significant tornado outbreak we packed up and headed to a friends house with a basement. We were very fortunate to not have any tornadoes in our direct vicinity.

We had several hours warning so we had time to pack necessary items and some treasures. After packing the medication, diapers, pediasure, wheelchair, etc. . .

I packed up my most treasured items in the car.

*picture by Nina Mullins Photography

Next I grabbed this folder!

This folder represents two children in China.

I could not leave them behind.  

As I was packing up I noticed our son putting a few things in my bag.

I did not take time to see what they were.

When we arrived at our destination I went to get something out of the bag

 and found this in the bottom.

I have a few things I could learn from my 6 year old son!

Where to begin? 

Back in October I followed a link from a friends facebook page. 

I called JUST to ask some questions. 

Husband and I talked and prayed. 

God confirmed our decision in some big ways!

WE

HAVE

PA(pre-approval) from China