100 days

I have sat down to write down what has been going on many times, but the words are simply not there. I have not been able to put words to what this wait has been like. But as of yesterday, it has been 100 days since our dossier was sent to Korea and has been completely out of our hands. 100 days that we have been waiting to be submitted for Lyla's emigration permit submission. 100 days of suffering through this wait. So here it goes, I will try to give you a glimpse into what our heart has been going through...

After being matched with our precious Lyla, the excitement was soon accompanied with sadness. A sadness that I wasn't expecting, but comes from being separated from our child. We very much feel the absence of our baby girl. The fact that she has missed our day-to-day life, our family memories, our hugs and kisses. I am so incredibly thankful for everyday with Todd and Madilynn, but with every memory we make and picture we take, Lyla's absence is felt. There is definitely a missing piece in our home and everyday we pray for and look forward to her coming home soon. 

I don't even know how to begin to describe what this wait feels like. It is not like the wait of pregnancy. There is no due date, no tiny kicks, no growing belly. This adoption wait is filled with so many unknowns, not knowing what your baby is doing, missing so many milestones, not being able to advocate for your baby on a daily basis, not knowing if you will see her in 5 months or 10 months, and knowing that they are making memories without you. This wait is way harder than I ever expected. In any other wait, decision, time that I have come up against, I have been able to see where God is working or where He could be working for my good. But in this situation, I cannot see it. All I have been able to do is repeat the things I know to be true, the promises God has given us. One of those promises is that the testing of my faith produces perseverance (James 1:3), so I am trying my hardest to lean into this ridiculously hard wait and continuously remind myself that even when I can't see it, God is working this hard time together for my good and His glory.  

The only thing I can tell people is imagine your child is on the other side of the world. Like if your 15 month old child was 7,000 miles away growing up without you, going to bed every night without you, having her tears dried without you. A child that you are madly in love with and you cannot do anything to get to them. That is the pain that is felt. 

It is hard. This adoption process is hard. But the thing I have been able to learn through this wait is just how much God loves us to adopt us into His family. He did the hard things to be able to call me His daughter and this small reflection of the pain and perseverance is not lost on me. I am thankful that our family will always have this tangible story to point back to for our children as we lead them towards Jesus and teach them of what God did for us. We do the hard things because He did the ultimate hard thing (Galatians 4:1-7). And that is the simplest way I can put it. 

Through all of this pain and suffering, I am thankful we serve a loving God. A Father that does not leave us in this pain. He is constantly holding us and reminding us of His constant presence. He has shown us through our amazing family and friends who have been reaching out to us to encourage our hearts and have been continuously praying for us. We have seen how He has placed these sweet brothers and sisters in Christ in our life in order to share their experience and wisdom with us at the perfect time and to always point us towards Our Savior. Jesus has spoken sweetly and persistently to our hurting hearts. Even when it may not be what we want to hear, I am in awe of the love that God has for me, to not be silent, but to speak lovingly and repeatedly. He has directed us to His word and the many times He speaks of patience and His promises. And we are so grateful for the hope we find in Him. It seems I need to remind myself daily of His promises and hope, and although I wish we were not facing this hard wait away from our Lyla girl, this suffering has brought us to the feet of Jesus I am thankful for that.

"Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.

Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.

The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for 3 years and 6 months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit."

James 5:7-8,11,16-18

So for now, we humbly ask that you pray fervently with us, just as Elijah did, that The Lord will bring Lyla home faster than what we have been told is possible. Our God DOES the impossible and we pray He shows His majesty through this process. We also pray that God gives us peace and understanding of His will in this difficult time.

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#BringingLylaHome

Sorry we have been quiet around here since we announced our little Lyla Grace! I am busting at the seams to tell you all about her and show you every picture we have, but sadly we cannot until we take custody. So... I will fill you in on what I can tell you!

Our girl turned one this past July and is living with a loving foster family in Seoul, South Korea. They threw her a big, wonderful birthday party and put her in this gorgeous, white gown with a flowery headband. They even put our family picture in front of her for the celebration, along with the lovie we sent her. Lyla is the prettiest, little, dainty girl and has beautiful big brown eyes and the cutest little button nose. She is on the smaller size: about 25th percentile, but seems to be going through a growth spurt lately. Yall, I cannot wait to show everyone her sweet, precious face!! Almost as much as I cannot wait to hold her amazing, little body!

We have gotten pictures from when she was 2 weeks old, 4 months old, 6 months old, 9 months old, and from her first birthday. We also have access to all of her family medical history (as her birth parents willingly put her up for adoption) and as a baby placed for adoption, she has been to more doctors appointments and had more tests run than Madilynn may ever have. She has been well taken care of and we are so thankful to have all of this information and and the fact that she will have all of this information when she is older. Especially since most all children placed for adoption do not get the privilege of knowing about their early days, much less their birth family's history.

Lyla and Madilynn will be 14 months apart and I think seeing the two of them together might be the thing I am most excited about. The gift of a sister is something I cannot imagine my life without and knowing my girls will always have each other makes my heart swell. Madilynn asks about her "baby Yigh-Ya" at least a couple times a day. She asks when Lyla can come home, she asks if Lyla will be able to watch specific movies with her, she asks if Lyla can sleep in her room. My heart breaks everytime she asks about her sister, but I also smile knowing that The Lord is already knitting their hearts together.

We can send Lyla a care package every month, which we have already been doing. We are getting things together now for her 4th care package and hope to send it by the end of the month. Madilynn asks to "color for Lyla" daily and loves sending cards in her care packages.

We turned our dossier into our adoption agency, Holt International, on July 18th and they approved it and sent it to Korea on July 21st. Our dossier is filled with our homestudy, certified copies of legal documents, reference letters, numerous signed and notarized documents, and more. Now that it is in Korea, it has to be translated, and sent through several Korean government agencies. 

Now we are waiting for our EP (Emigration Permit) Submission [hopefully in the next 2 months] and then our EP Approval [about 1-2 months after submission]. After that, we will wait to be submitted to court [a week or 2 wait], and then will be waiting for our court date [another 1-4 months].

We would be so grateful if you would pray with us for Lyla to get home soon! Please pray that God would push our paperwork through the Korean government at a supernatural speed. My best friend and cousin sent me this awesome reminder that God is able and He is God of the impossible.

"I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God's power for us who believe in him. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God's right hand in the heavenly realms. Now he is far above any ruler or authority or power or leader or anything else - not only in this world but also in the world to come. God has put all things under the authority of Christ and has made him head over all things for the benefit of the church. And the church is his body; it is made full and complete by Christ, who fills all things everywhere with himself." Ephesians 1:19-23

Our Daughter, Lyla!

Words cannot explain how excited we are to tell you this exciting news: WE HAVE BEEN MATCHED WITH OUR DAUGHTER!

We are officially on the way to bring home our 11 month old baby girl, Lyla!

Here is the story of the first time we saw her face, the fervent prayers we have been praying, and the amazing confirmation The Lord has given us.

On March 24, 2017, Todd and I received an email with 4 children in need of homes (these children were unable to be matched with any of the families with approved home studies, so our agency sent them out to all of the in process families.) Our sweet girl was the first picture on the list. Her picture was accompanied by a short paragraph of her birth history and developmental progress. Todd came home that day and immediately said "did you see the first little girl?!" Honestly, I skipped over her picture, because I read her paragraph first and she has some sad things in her birth history that filled me with fear. Todd was very gracious and seemed understanding of these fears. The next day, I was spending time in the word and very clearly heard God tell me that my spirit of fear is never from Him. He gives us a spirit of power and love, but never one of fear. [1 Timothy 1:7] He told me that we should request Lyla's information. After going back to my email and looking at her picture, my heart completely melted and I told Todd of what God had been saying to me. That day we requested her information. At this time, we were also finishing up our psychological evaluation updates for our homestudy. Busy, exciting time in our house!

Todd and I read over the medical information they sent over, but the last report was from February (when she was 6 months old). Unfortunately, the Korean pediatrician quit in March and they were without a doctor for 6 weeks, so it took until the last week of April to get updated medical information on Lyla. During this month of waiting, we prayed continuously for peace and unity on our decision to pursue Lyla or not. We also prayed that God would make it very clear to us. When we received the updated medical information on April 28th, God was so gracious to have given Lyla a great well baby visit, showing that she is right on track developmentally, and He gave us an indescribable peace to happily say YES to her!!

After speaking to our pediatrician and praying over our family and our sweet new daughter, we let our adoption agency know, on May 2nd (Madilynn's 2nd birthday), that we would be ecstatic to move forward with our adoption of Lyla. They called us on May 9th and told us the amazing news that we were matched pending homestudy with our girl!!! I immediately called Todd and with the biggest smile on my face, told him of our newest daughter!! We were a blubbering mess the whole day and were simply in awe of God's goodness and provision.

Then came the fun part of letting our family and friends know! The love for our baby girl is overwhelming and I know a huge community that cannot wait until she is safe in our arms!

Then on May 22nd, we got the big news that our homestudy was completed and approved, which meant that we are OFFICIALLY MATCHED! So we filled out our acceptance paperwork and wrote the largest check we may ever write, and sent it off to our agency. The next day we submitted our immigration paperwork to the US Government (which should take about 6 weeks to receive back.) Once we receive the immigration paperwork back, we can send our dossier to Korea and really get the ball rolling to get our girl home!

*We cannot share our sweet Lyla's picture until we take custody, but if you see me in person, please ask to see a picture, as I am carrying around a stack of pictures of our girl and love showing them off!!

March/April Update

It has been 2 and a half months since our last adoption update!! This is partially because we have been recuperating from 8 months of intense fundraising efforts,  we have been trying our hardest to wrap up our homestudy, and then we have normal day-to-day life on top of it all. So here is what has been going on since March:

- The week after our Silent Auction Fundraiser, we turned in every piece of homestudy paperwork that we had been working on for the past 6 months. Every questionnaire, every medical report, every certificate, every piece of information you could ever think of. 

- We then waited for our social worker to write up our homestudy. This took about a week or 2 and then she sent it over to our adoption agency (Holt International) to approve. The approval process was supposed to take about 2-3 weeks, but due to some set backs at Holt's office, it took a month for our homestudy to be looked at. And then when they got to it, they figured out that our psychological evaluation was not written in the right format. :( So that puts us at early April. We had to go take another multiple choice test at the psychologist's office and then set up ANOTHER appointment to cover information that wasn't in the first report (family history, parenting techniques, etc.). Well I just got a call from our our psychologist saying that our new evaluation is ready!! 

So hopefully we will having exciting news soon that our homestudy is officially approved!! In the meantime we would appreciate prayers that we have patience to endure this long process with hope and expectation, for health, safety, and happiness for our future baby, and for God's will to be known and done.

About a year since God pushed us to pursue our baby

The other day, Facebook reminded me that about a year ago we asked our friends and family to pray along with us as we followed God's will and guidance to move up "our plan" to adopt and to pursue our child. His child. We were praying for guidance on His timing and guidance to which country we would be adopting through. We could have never imagined the (pause for not being able to find words) pure unimaginable ways He has revealed himself to us this year.

But right now I am dealing with a hard feeling that brings tears to my eyes. The feeling of missing a baby I know nothing about. I truly miss our korean baby, although we do not know when they were born, if they are a boy or girl, what their personality is like, or what their smile looks like.

The only reason I can think that The Lord would allow these feelings is because He is shaping my heart to have a hole in it to be filled with our little one, the newest Smith. Adoption is hard because it does not begin with joy. For a baby to be an orphan, there has to be pain. A painful decision for our child's birth parents to put them up for adoption. (And many other pains that come along with adoption.) Pain that comes from the fall of man. God did not want sin for His children, but it did enter the world, and He still works everything together for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28).
God has called our little family to pursue our child as a small reflection of the way He pursues us. We were separated from Him due to sin and He longed for us to come home to Him and our family. Separation from Jesus is pain and so our separation from our soon-to-be baby must be painful too. We are meant to be a family. God has shaped our family to bring our baby in and to fit perfectly, in order to show His love. "If we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us." 1 John 4:12

So although it is painful in the moment, I pray that our baby is in our arms soon and that every word we speak and action we take speaks only of the love of Jesus.

Our Silent Auction Fundraiser

February 3rd, 2017 was our last big adoption fundraiser. The emotions that come along with saying that vary. On one hand, we are so incredibly relieved and thankful that we have almost reached our $45,000 adoption cost and we have not even received our match yet! We only have $5,321 left to raise and over a year to raise it (since it is not due until we travel). That fact takes an enormous weight off of our shoulders and makes our hearts explode from pure gratitude to our amazing God. What an incredible provider He is and we pray everyone who has watched our adoption journey so far has seen that He is a god of miracles.

On February 8th, we turned in our LAST 2 pieces of homestudy paperwork!! This is huge! Our social worker compiled our months of work into our official home study report, and sent it to our agency. Our agency needs to approve it and once that is done they can send it to Korea! Once it is in Korea, we will be able to receive a match (which means we are one step closer to seeing our baby's face!!)

On the other side of this (and I am sure this is a little difficult to understand) is fear: the fear of the unknown. Having these large things behind us and being several steps closer to bring our child home brings fear. For the last 8 months, we have filled every spare second with fundraising efforts and home study work. But now, we wait. And in this wait, we do not have a known date that we will receive more information. In this wait, we have to lean into Jesus for peace. I like to keep busy, but I know this wait will produce good fruit.

But onto our Silent Auction!!

What a wonderful night put together by the most wonderful community!  An amazing group of ladies worked so hard to get over 50 top notch items for us to auction off and then put it all together so quickly and so beautifully. We had so many huge blessings in the form of donated items. These items were seriously more than we could have ever expected!!! I wanted to bid on everything! haha. We had a selfless, loving friend who took of work on Friday and helped Todd prepare food all day and serve a delicious Korean meal to everyone.  An amazing local artist, Liz Lindstrom, (who we have never met but was incredibly sweet and so so fun) who painted live for our event (such great entertainment and talent)! And last but definitely not least, the most wonderful group of family and friends who made our night so successful and  full of joy.

Our total amount raised was $9,289.28!! We knew to expect God's blessings, but He never fails to leave us in awe and completely humbled to receive His love in such a huge way.

The night was so lovely: full of laughter and sweet smiles, love for our Korean lovebug that none of us have ever laid eyes on, and all of the glory to our God. A big thanks to our friend, Jeanette, for capturing the night!

When Nikki and Adam won the raffle for 4 nights at an all-inclusive in the Mayan Riviera with only ONE ticket purchased! Honeymoon!!
(aka another way God provided in the details)

I could cry I am so excited that Mom and Dad won the live painting bid! Not only is it stunning, it is just another reminder of this pursuit of our Korean baby and along with that comes the reminder of how God himself pursues us: his adopted children.

Even though this post is long overdue (by a whole month), it still fills our hearts to overflowing gratitude to our good, good Father. And tonight at church our pastor asked us if we have people in our lives who know our deepest needs, what we are praying for, who pray for us and encourage us as we pursue Jesus. This question left me speechless because words fail me for the body of Christ we are so blessed to be a part of and the encouragement, support, love that we receive.

2017: what we are believing to be a big year

2016 was crazy in our house. Madilynn turned one, God brought adoption to the surface much sooner than we expected, M started walking and turned into a toddler before our eyes, God provided our needs in a way we never could have dreamed of, and in amounts we never ever could have imagined! With this crazy year behind us, we stand before 2017 with so much hope, excitement, and anticipation (along with a little bit of fear of the unknown). Our God is a god of miracles and He is a god that puts orphans into families. This year we are honored and excited to see Him work through our little family.

 

We know that 2017 is going to be a huge year for us. It will, Lord willing, be the year that we see our baby's face. The year that we get to learn about any medical needs they may have, be able to send care packages monthly, get updates and pictures as they grow, and it will be a year of waiting. Lots of waiting. We are waiting to find out who our child is, then we will wait for paperwork to be approved by Korean government, then we will wait for our court date. We will get to travel to Korea to meet our sweet lovebug and jump through government hoops before we come back home to wait for a little more. After a month or two of waiting for more paperwork and formalities, we will be able to go get our baby! We know that this process will continue on into 2018, but 2017 is definitely going to hold the bulk of it and we couldn't be more thrilled that everyday gets us closer to seeing our baby's face!

So for now, here is where we are. (Let me preface this by saying, we stepped out in faith mid-June this year so ALL of this has happened in only 6 short months!!)

• We have our LAST thing (psychological evaluation) to mark off of our homestudy to do list scheduled for January 3rd!!! And then, we will be able to turn our 4 months of hard work to our social worker and she will write up our homestudy!!!!
• We have split our financial need into 3 goals: Homestudy and US Processing fee ($7,000), Adoption Program fee ($22,500), and Travel Expenses plus Government Paperwork fees ($15,000)

If you haven't realized this, God has raised almost THIRTY THOUSAND DOLLARS in only 6 months, y'all!! We only have about $700 left to complete our Adoption Program fee, which means we can say yes to a baby at anytime!! God is our huge, great, extravagant provider! All we have left to save is our travel expenses (for both trips) and about $1,800 of government paperwork fees! Our hearts are seriously bursting! We are 65% of the way to being fully funded for our adoption and we haven't even seen our sweet baby's face. God is good!

"For nothing is impossible with God." Luke 1:37

I will do a BIG write up at the end of our fundraising about ways God gave us to raise funds for our adoption, details on how we did them and how it all worked out, but here's a quick recap so far:

• Selling our custom adoption T-Shirts: $1,689
• Calligraphy signs: $5,280
• eBay sales: $3,325
• Donations: $5,900
• Cooking Class Night: $590
• Yardsale: $6,164.55
• Puzzle Pieces: $5,850
• TOTAL (so far): $28,778