A Few Thank You's

I wanted to start this morning by saying a few thank you's. First, we are so blessed to have been called by the Lord to our Chloe girl. We are already seeing how she was specifically chosen for our family. We feel honored that God has chosen us to introduce her to Himself. I am in awe that because of His great love for her, God called someone from half way around the world to rescue this little orphan girl from a pagan life of superstition and idol worship that so many follow. Everywhere we look we can see people searching and seeking to fill that God sized whole in their hearts. Unfortunately, they are looking in all the wrong places. Chloe has an opportunity to know the real, one and only God. Long before Chloe was even conceived, God knew her by name as He started our journey to get her. Matt. 19:14 says, "Let the little children come to Me." Ps. 139:13 &16 say, "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb...your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."

Thank you so much Becky and Mike for putting your lives on hold to care of the girls while were gone. It's made our trip so much easier to see how well the girls are doing at home. Thank you Tim for holding down the fort at work while Dad, Greg & I have been gone. I know that's been a lot of extra responsibility. Thanks to all of you for prayers and concern for us. Your support as our friends and family has been so encouraging. To all of you yet to complete your adoption journey, hang in there. God has a special little girl planned just for your family. Try not to get discouraged. It will happen. The international adoption process here is like a well-oiled machine and it is highly valued. We have gotten nothing but praise for giving these little orphans a home. Matching may be slow, but we have seen nothing to indicate that it will come to an end. In our lives, at times the wait was almost unbearable, but as we look back the things we learned and the changes that took place as a result will be invaluable to us and Chloe as her parents. God is stitching together the tapestry of our lives. We can only see a small portion on the under side where all the funny looking stitches and knots lie, but what God can see is the beautiful picture He is making out of each of us, one stitch at a time.

This is a picture of Chloe getting her first smell of chocolate. Greg had just eaten a Hershey Kiss and she was very taken by the smell.

For some reason, Chloe likes to kiss Greg on the nose. It looks really funny - Greg says it's because she's never seen a nose that sticks out like our before.

Here a few pictures of some of the shop keepers that we've gotten to know over the last few days.

Today we go to the American Consulate to take the oath of citizenship for Chloe and then this evening we'll taking the tradition 'red couch' photos. We leave very early tomorrow morning and have lots of packing to do yet today, but I'll try to post some pictures yet tonight. Our flight leaves for Beijing at 9:30pm Ohio time Wed night and we arrive at 10:00pm Thur night at Akron/Canton. Please pray for our safe travel and for Chloe girl who's world will once again be turned upside down. Can't wait to see you!