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

A Lesson in Trust

Let me preface this by saying that God has not told us who our child is yet, but here is a little bit of what was happening here in the Smith household last month:

On November 2nd, I was up late working on calligraphy pieces and felt lead to take a look at our adoption agency's "Waiting Children" list, although I was sure that there was probably not any new children on this list. But when I opened it, there was a sweet, sweet little girl in need of a home. I immediately ran upstairs to show Todd. We read over what little information was written on her and we both quickly decided that we would like more information on this adorable baby. So I emailed our adoption agency and the next morning, we received an email full of medical information on the baby girl and they also let us know that multiple other families had requested her information and after us, they were not allowing anyone else to pursue her.

Through several situations that were very apparently orchestrated by God, Todd and I looked over her file and dropped it off with our pediatrician to give us his opinion on if we would be able to handle her needs as she grows up.

Without going into too much detail, she had the possibility of a condition that could be very serious and scary. And after much prayer and counsel, Todd and I still felt lost, even after a week of solid prayer. I finally prayed that God would speak through someone else, because our hearts were so conflicted. Well the next day we received a text from a very dear friend and relative that pretty much said "God wanted me to tell you that there is no reason to fear. God is her protector. We should feel at peace with saying 'no' and knowing that God will provide her with a beautiful, loving family and we should be able to be at peace with saying 'yes' and knowing that if God places her in our family, she will be a blessing and not a burden." With tears in our eyes, Todd and I so clearly felt God's hand on our family and confidently decided to tell our adoption agency that we would like to be considered as the family for this sweet girl.

James 1:3 was one of the verses God gave me during this long, tiring week of seeking His will.

There was one other family being considered and after filling out a stack of paperwork on how our family would adjust to bringing a new child into our home and especially one with the needs she may have, we started our wait. A couple weeks later (the day before thanksgiving to be exact), we got a call from our adoption agency letting us know that the other family had been selected as the family to adopt this child. Although we had to adjust our plans that had started to form for our family, we could not get over the overwhelming peace that The Lord had given us. Peace that this sweet girl found her family and that our baby is still out there. We do not know the big picture reason that God had us pursue this beautiful little girl, but we did learn alot about trust and that may be the only thing we ever know about this situation. But through it all, we give Him praise. God has a perfect child for us and we so look forward to the day we receive the news that we are matched!

Thanksgiving consisted of being thankful for the fact that God is a father to the fatherless and He is the powerful protector of our little one.

December Update

This past month has been a whirlwind of craziness! With traveling multiple times, working on homestudy stuff, so many calligraphy orders, and 2 super fun calligraphy parties... our bodies are tired, but our hearts are so full!!

One friday night, Madilynn stayed with Mimi and Pop while Todd and I stained over 20 pieces of wood for calligraphy order and completed our required 10 hours of adoption training! This was a HUGE item marked off of our homestudy list!

These nativity pieces have been SO popular! If I had to tell you one thing that November consisted of, it would be these!! I love the idea that all of these families will take these pieces out every year to decorate for Christmas and will think about our sweet baby and be able to pray for them as they grow!!

They take so much time that I started recruiting help whenever I could get it! Haha. (Several people not pictured: Mimi, Beth Palmer, Emily Geyer, Aunt Sissy, Mamaw) 

Sadly, these are sold out this year, but we may bring them back in 2017! ;)

Also, our new passports came in!!!! Another thing checked off of our to do list! 

 Then , we had 2 calligraphy parties and they were so incredibly fun!! I have some super talented friends, if I do say so myself!! ;) Several people have requested another night, so be on the lookout for another calligraphy night in the spring!

This month was busy, but oh so good! We also had a big event happen regarding a sweet korean baby, but I will save that for it's own post (hopefully in the next few days). This baby ended up not being ours, but was most definitely a huge part of our story!

A quick numbers update:

Y'all!! God has provided almost $5,000 in ONE MONTH! 

Once we reach our largest goal of $22,500, we will be able to accept a child at any time! And we are almost there!!!

At church tonight, the main verse we discussed says it all: "For nothing will be impossible with God" Luke 1:37

Total we are at $23,418 (out of $50,000), which means we are almost HALFWAY to our TOTAL GOAL!