We are LOGGED IN!!!

We have recieved word that we are officially LOGGED IN on February 2, 2012!!!  This means that our agency can actually start to look for our daughter.  We are beyond excited to be where we are at this point.  We just look to God that he would reveal who our daughter is in his perfect timing.  We are asking for your prayers for this process.  We know that our daughter will have some type of special need(s) and that we will need to review all of the information that is provided in our referral.  We pray that it would be evident and that God would show us clearly when it is "her."  We are also praying daily that God would be preparing her heart for our family as well as we know that this is going to be tremendously hard on her.  We will be taking her from everything that she has known in her little life.  Our girls are asking daily if we are going soon to bring Piper home.  They have already accepted her as their sister even though they have never seen her before. 
Jon and I have been discussing how we are going to review our referral when we recieve the call.  Jon has decided that he does not want to see our little one's picture.  He wants to review the file, and then fast and pray allowing God to speak to show us if this is Piper.  I on the other hand have chosen to see her picture and pray.  I feel that I have been praying for this little girl and am really excited to see all of her information.   We invite whoever feels led to pray with us when we recieve our referral.  We have started this journey by faith in our God and we recognize that through prayer God would reveal Piper. 


BOTH HANDS UPDATE:
We have posted previously about our Both Hands Project.  We are excited to say that we have set a date for our project.  It will be Saturday May 12th.  We are currently in the process of getting volunteers to help us.  If you are interested in joining our team or would like additional information please contact us. 

To see what Both Hands is about check out this link: http://vimeo.com/bothhands/storyvideo

WE ARE DTC!!!

It has been a busy couple of weeks.  I have had two field trips with the girls to Harrisburg to get our paperwork state certified.  They were excited for the first one--not so much for the second.  They did amazing though!!  After getting the state seals, we sent our documents Fed Ex to Legal Ease in New York to have our documents sealed at the Consulate.  We received them back Wednesday, I have to admit I was looking for some really cool seals.  I opened up the package and saw that they had put the seal on the back of sheet with the state seals.  I was excited to see the package no matter what--just thought it was going to be different that is all.  Regardless, I don't think I have ever been so excited about seals, no matter what they look like!!!

State Seals

 Seals from the Consulate

After reviewing the seals, I took the documents to Staples where I made more copies.  Got it ready and sent it to our agency Holt International so they could review it.  When I went to look at the tracking information there as a notice in red, "IMPORTANT!!  Severe Winter Weather in Oregon and Washington may cause some service delays and disruptions today."   I opened the link to review multiple zip codes and thanked God that our zip code destination was not on there.  We just prayed that our documents would get there safely and that God would get it there in his timing. 

We are so excited to say that our documents arrived at Holt on time by 10:30 AM the next day.  Thank you Lord for watching over our documents!!  After our documents were reviewed by our agency, our paperwork was ready to be sent.  Holt mailed out our Dossier Friday January 20th!!!!   The Dossier is a lot of documents that we have been getting together over the past few months.  It is a set of paperwork that includes all of the necessary information that is required.  Once they receive our paperwork and we are logged in, our agency can start to look for our daughter, which means we can be matched at anytime.  It seemed like for a while that we had lots to get ready for our dossier.  It is amazing to be able to say that soon we could know who our daughter is.  We are just praying as we wait that God prepares our hearts for who he has in store for us and that he is preparing Piper's heart for our family.  Please pray as we wait for God to reveal our daughter that we would just trust in his perfect timing. 

Our family decided to celebrate this adoption milestone with a delicious cake!!  I didn't tell the girls until we had the cake and received the call from Holt that yes our paperwork was mailed!!!!  It is their New Year this week and everything is shut down.  Our paperwork will be logged in soon after they reopen.

Happy New Year!!

We Recieved our Approved I797 in the mail!!!!!!

We mailed our I800A on November 1st.  We have been counting the days of how long it was taking for our I797 to come.  Monday, I was talking to Jon and told him I need to go get the mail.  He said "you say that like you are going to get the 797 today."  I went out to the mail and saw a big white envelope.  I pulled the mail out and knew right away it was there.  I excitedly said "It's Here!!!  It's Here!!!"  He said, "stop messing around!"  It took a little bit but finally he believed me that it was there.  So after all of that--I quickly made a copy that afternoon, got it notarized and drove to Harrisburg with the girls to get it state certified.  See, last Wednesday I drove out to Harrisburg with the girls to meet my friend Audra to get our documents we had ready state certified.  I thought it was going to be awhile before we would recieve the 797 so I went out to get the rest started.  I even called the USCIS to see if they were working on our I800A yet, they said no.  It was processed the very next day!!  I have to admit it was better being surprised then knowing it was on its way!  Well, all of the documents are now in NY being authenticated at the Consulate.  Once we recieve the documents back our Dossier is ready to be sent!!!!  It feels so good to say that.  It seemed like it would be a while until we reached this point and we are there!!  We have been working on our paperwork for a few months.  It is so surreal that we are at this point already.  We are SUPER excited and cannot wait to see who our little girl is.  Please pray for us as we continue our journey.  It could be soon that we know who our little girl is.  We think about her often and pray for her everyday.

A HUGE BLESSING FROM THE JSC FOUNDATION

Mid December, Jon was up in the middle of the night with heartburn.  I had sent him a link from a blog that someone had posted with a little girl (8 years old) who was telling her story of what it was like to be in an orphanage and what the little kids really wish for.  A Mama and a Daddy.  It was the sweetest video!  He watched it and he started to look at the blog it was posted on which is where he found the information for a Foundation that gave adoption grants.  He started reading and discovered that they had received a large grant.  He immediately felt like God had placed this foundation in his path.  He had a peace that something great was about to happen.  The next day, he told me that this is a grant that we need to look into.  We started to look and realized that we needed not just information from us but references and information from our pastor.  We had about a week and things were coming together.  Our references and our pastor was able to get the necessary information in by the deadline which was the 20th of December.  We received an e-mail confirmation that all of our paperwork was in and would be reviewed and we would have an answer by mid January.
Last night, Jon and I were talking at dinner about the grant and he was telling me that someone else had gotten a grant from them and received an e-mail saying Congratulations etc etc.  I had received a phone call from a friend and went upstairs and decided to check my e-mail.  I opened it up and there it was.....CONGRATULATIONS FROM JSC FOUNDATION

We were blessed with an amazing grant!!!  As you can imagine we were ecstatic, shocked and still are in shock.  We woke up this morning wondering if we are in a dream.  Nope, not a dream.  It is just that God has blessed us tremendously!!  More than we could have ever imagined.  He has been behind the scenes the entire time.  We have seen his mighty hand on every step of our journey.  We took a huge leap of faith and knew that God would provide.  But this, we just never expected.  Thank you God!!  God is sooooooo good!  If you have faith, anything is possible with God.

We have been approved for Both Hands!!

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.  James 1:27

Right before our fundraiser in November, we recieved our approval notice for Both Hands.  Both Hands is a non profit organization with a two fold mission.  They help in a practical way by allowing us to help in our own community by helping a widow with her home and allowing us to raise funds for our adoption.  We are really excited to be able to have this opportunity.  I have had a chance to talk to JT Olsen, the founder of Both Hands.  He is AMAZING!!!  I will include a link for you to view.  He has an amazing story of how he got to where he is now.  Take a look.

http://vimeo.com/31441061

Here is how it works:

We will be serving a widow from our Church, Linda Nielson.  We are really blessed to work with her.  We will develop a team of family, friends and anyone interested in serving to help do whatever she needs to help with her home.  We are planning on doing the project towards the end of  January or early/mid February 2012.  We will plan to work on her home for one day, a Saturday.  And just like a 5K or MS150, our team members will get sponsors to help support our mission.  Jon and I will be doing the same.  The funds that are donated will go into an account through Lifesong for Orphans which will be used for our adoption.  100% of what we raise will help bring Piper home!!  Lifesong for Orphans will issue tax receipts for anyone who would like them also.   We will go to local businesses to also see what they are willing to help donate for Linda's home.  We are really excited to be able to serve and help Linda with her home.  What a tremendous blessing for her and for us!! 

God has called us to our adoption and it is so neat how through this process we have been called to help a widow too.  Just as we are instructed from the Bible.  God wants us to help widows and orphans.  There are 150 million orphans in the world.  I know that we cannot help all of them but knowing that we can help give one a chance at life, a family, a future, love, share the love of God with her etc etc.  This is an amazing gift for Piper!!  I know that we will have tough times and it is not going to be easy, but I know that God will be with us and I know he will not give us more than we can handle.  It is amazing to see how we can all come together to be able to help an orphan.  If you are interested in helping us with our Both Hands Project please feel free to e-mail or contact me  We thank you in advance for your support and for your help! 

Fingerprint Appointment

Yesterday we had our fingerprint appointment to complete our I800A.  We had to go to the USCIS in Philadelphia to have a second set of fingerprints done.  We were excited to go because it just means that we are getting one step closer to Piper.  We now need to wait for a form to come in the mail --797.  Once we get this form, we need to have our documents that we have been gathering state certified in Harrisburg.  After they are state certified, we will need to send our documents to New York to be authenticated.  Once we recieve them back, our paperwork will go to our agency for them to review and if everything looks good, our paperwork will be sent to China.  We are getting closer!  Praying we see our little girl soon :) 

Pictures from Our Fundraiser

I am posting some pictures from our fundraiser.  It really was a great night!  We are so thankful for everyone who came out to support us.  We also want to thank all of the businesses who graciously donated raffle items.  Thank you to all who volunteered to help make our event run.  We could not have done it without you!

Thank you to the following businesses who donated raffle items:
Applebees
Chick-fil-a
Dairy Queen
Texas Roadhouse
Moccia's Train Stop
Buck Nurseries Christmas Tree Farm
KB Portraits
Spring Mountain Ski Area
Evergreen Consignment
Iron Pigs
Lords & Ladies
Kelly's Worldclass Automotive
Boiron Basket
Sweet & Sassy
Vera Bradley
The Sparrow Fund
Bounce U
Arnolds Family Fun Center
Jungle Wonder
Monkey Joes
Chantilly Floral
Sonic
Salon Supreme
Philly Soft Pretzel in Trappe
Hatfield Quality Meats
Landis Supermarket
Johanna with Mary Kay & A Salon gift certificate
Rental World
Harleysville Rental

Bake Sale

Raffles

Sam Sandler's Magic Display

Isabella and Ava made bracelets and Christmas Ornaments that they were selling to help raise funds for their sister.  They were so excited for this night!!

This is a poster that Isabella and Ava made on their own.  I was so shocked when they came to show the sign to me.  They put so much thought into this poster for the fundraiser.  The little children at the bottom are the kids in the orphanage.  They drew Piper on the other side of the world.  We have been discussing how it is daytime there when we go to bed.  The building is the orphanage.  They are so excited for their sister to come home.  They cannot wait to see her!!  They love her already :)

Glitter Tattoos

Texas Roadhouse donated Pulled Pork Sandwiches and even had someone working to serve the food!  They were amazing!  Oh and there is the cotton candy table.  We made it all inside of our house!!  Sam Sandler even came over before the show to give us a hand!!