Many of you may be visiting this page as a result of our Christmas card. We are excited you chose to join us on this journey and we wish you a very Merry Christmas as we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus. I'll take just a few lines to share what has happened since our last post...
Our case workers, Mary and Peggy, have been hard at work furnishing us with a five-month timeline starting in December. We began the official paperwork this month, having already submitted our prelimenary application and being approved to move on as planned. We had our first appointment last Friday, one of many to come. Our local fingerprints were taken which was a huge blessing. I called at the beginning of that week hoping to snag a date in January, and they were able to fit us in that very same week!!! So, now we have one fingerprint appointment down and one to go. Our next will hopefully be in early February with the INS in Nashville. They will receive the I 600 A immigration form that we sent last week with our first official payment and then send us a preselected date for that appointment. Please pray that we will have a date for EARLY February, as it can take sometimes 6-9 weeks to get those results back. Our medical examination appointments are scheduled for the 19th of January, and our interviews fall within the following week. We will each meet with our case workers seperately then also have a joint interview as well as a home visit. January is a big month! As December has already flown by, we anticipate the next four months will, too.
May your Christmas be filled with JOY!
We love you all!
Friday, December 23, 2005
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Our Christmas Letter
Dear Loved Ones,
There is so much we could share with you about this past year, and I could fill many pages attempting to do so. However, in our brief letter to you this Christmas, we would like to give testimony to what the Lord has been and is teaching us about Himself in the midst of our journey.
Many of you know, as our last letter to you solicited prayer on behalf of our family, that Drew and I have hope to raise children. The past four years of marriage and ministry have been filled with joys and sorrows as we have prayed to conceive a child. Again, we could write a book sidestepping each stride of our adventure, but will not subject you to the details of our lives. One thing we do wish to exclaim is the greatness of our God and how He has chosen to reveal Himself to us through this.
As we have gone month to month, carefully documenting and becoming experts in the world of fertility treatments, our God, our Rock, has been walking this road alongside us, reminding us of His sovereignty and great love. How we have learned to trust Him!!! He stands firm on His throne and His ways are good! In a study of Genesis this year, our pastor reminded me of a truth that I have clung to in the midst of our sorrow and seasons of questioning why…God opens and closes the womb for His purposes. As I sat and listened to those nine words echo through my mind and heart, every beat resounded the love our Lord. As I hear these words over and over, I see a small glimpse of the plans that He has always had for us.
In the beginning of our relationship, Drew and I took many opportunities to share our hopes and dreams with each other. One of these, on each of our lists, was to adopt a child one day. Although we anticipated adopting after having biological children, we are understanding more clearly and accepting that His plans for us may or may not include conceiving a child.
Within the past year, the Lord has astounded us with the realization that He is ABLE to create a child for our family in someone else’s womb! He has opened our hearts to see the beauty of adoption, created by Him. As we, too, have been adopted into the inheritance of our Lord through Christ, it is a privilege to be on the other side of that, choosing to extend the grace that we have received to our child.
Heavy on our hearts from the beginning has been the growing dilemma of child abandonment in China. Most of these children are little girls whom are desperately wanted by their mothers, but are secretly relinquished due to the one child policy and the social demand for little boys. Another government regulation has kept us from pursuing this sooner: the parental age requirement of 30 years. As I will be celebrating my 30th birthday this April, we are excited to announce that we have begun the adoption process to bring our daughter home. To have the opportunity to give one of these girls not only a family, but an opportunity to be raised in a home where she will hear and see the grace of God as our child is too beautiful for words.
It is amazing what the Lord places on our hearts before we even know what it means. It is exciting to discover His plans as we piece together the clues to this adventure. As we have discussed names for a little girl, one continues to stand out. It is a name I selected over 15 years ago! What once was a name I loved became special as Drew and I, both from Winston-Salem, began dreaming about a family. It comes from the Hebrew word "shalom", meaning peace, completeness and wholeness. It wasn’t until just recently that the name we had chosen so long ago had meaning for our daughter. As we have journeyed through the ups and downs of the past few years, the Prince of Peace has been gracious to instill within us a peace that only He can give. Knowing she will be born into a hostile environment and will experience much brokenness in her first year of life, we are praying now that the Creator will place that same solid peace within her forming heart. Also knowing her need for Christ, we are praying now that the Lord will cause her heart to beat for Him. As we are honored to be entrusted with her as her parents, and will find great joy in providing a secure place for her to receive love and acceptance, her ultimate security will come from Christ alone. Our prayer for her now, as she is in the womb, is that our daughter, Salem, will one day know the joy of being complete and whole - shalom - through Jesus Christ.
We greatly desire for each of you to have a part in praying for our daughter, anticipating her arrival, and celebrating with us when she comes home. We have started a web log online that will document our adoption journey. Join us at drewandamyscott.blogspot.com. We will keep it up to date with what we know and what we learn, and we invite you to pray with us as we look forward to finding Salem.
As we celebrate our Savior this Christmas, we are reminded of the great lengths He went to in order show His love to us, to redeem us from a life of brokenness. He came as a baby, into a hostile world, to save us from our own hostility towards God and each other. A song that we have listened to over and over this Christmas reveals God’s power, humility, and love that He demonstrates to us in the Christ Child. Our prayer is that Salem will recognize that her God willingly and humbly came into her world, to bring her into completeness with Him. As I listen to this song, I imagine that she may one day share, more intimately than us, the understanding of being born in such a lowly and hidden place.
"Labor of Love"
©2004 Andrew Peterson
(From Behold the Lamb of God)
It was not a silent night
There was blood on the ground
You could hear a woman cry
In the alleyways that night
On the streets of David's town
And the stable was not clean
And the cobblestones were cold
And little Mary full of grace
With the tears upon her face
Had no mother's hand to hold
It was a labor of pain
It was a cold sky above
But for the girl on the ground in the dark
With every beat of her beautiful heart
It was a labor of love
Noble Joseph at her side
Callused hands and weary eyes
There were no midwives to be found
In the streets of David's town
In the middle of the night
So he held her and he prayed
Shafts of moonlight on his face
But the baby in her womb
He was the Maker of the moon
He was the Author of the faith
That could make the mountains move
It was a labor of pain
It was a cold sky above
But for the girl on the ground in the dark
With every beat of her beautiful heart
It was a labor of love
For little Mary full of grace
With the tears upon her face
It was a labor of love
We anticipate traveling to China soon after Christmas 2006. This year will be filled with paperwork, interviews and months of waiting for our referral. We are excited about the next chapter of our life’s novel and give thanks to the Lord, the Creator, the Giver of Life, the Sovereign One, the Prince of Peace.
Kneeling before the manger throne,
Drew and Amy
Highlights from 2005
--We rescued our Australian Cattle Dog mix, affectionately known as "Cody Bear", whose favorite pastimes include running with Amy, playing fetch, a good belly rub, and chasing the UPS truck.
--We traveled to Lima (Saul Cantaral) and Huaraz, Peru with our church to share the gospel of Christ, sponsored 9 year old Luci through AMG, and practiced our Spanish-speaking skills.
--Amy loves her new part-time Reading Interventionist position at East Brainerd Elementary. She also teaches one of the youth girls Sunday School classes, and has returned to her love of art and painting.
--Drew continues to enjoy his position at Concord Baptist as the Minister of Music, nurturing solid Christ centered relationships with the other staff and some guys from our college ministry. He has enjoyed developing his guitar-playing skills, even playing on Sunday nights at church.
There is so much we could share with you about this past year, and I could fill many pages attempting to do so. However, in our brief letter to you this Christmas, we would like to give testimony to what the Lord has been and is teaching us about Himself in the midst of our journey.
Many of you know, as our last letter to you solicited prayer on behalf of our family, that Drew and I have hope to raise children. The past four years of marriage and ministry have been filled with joys and sorrows as we have prayed to conceive a child. Again, we could write a book sidestepping each stride of our adventure, but will not subject you to the details of our lives. One thing we do wish to exclaim is the greatness of our God and how He has chosen to reveal Himself to us through this.
As we have gone month to month, carefully documenting and becoming experts in the world of fertility treatments, our God, our Rock, has been walking this road alongside us, reminding us of His sovereignty and great love. How we have learned to trust Him!!! He stands firm on His throne and His ways are good! In a study of Genesis this year, our pastor reminded me of a truth that I have clung to in the midst of our sorrow and seasons of questioning why…God opens and closes the womb for His purposes. As I sat and listened to those nine words echo through my mind and heart, every beat resounded the love our Lord. As I hear these words over and over, I see a small glimpse of the plans that He has always had for us.
In the beginning of our relationship, Drew and I took many opportunities to share our hopes and dreams with each other. One of these, on each of our lists, was to adopt a child one day. Although we anticipated adopting after having biological children, we are understanding more clearly and accepting that His plans for us may or may not include conceiving a child.
Within the past year, the Lord has astounded us with the realization that He is ABLE to create a child for our family in someone else’s womb! He has opened our hearts to see the beauty of adoption, created by Him. As we, too, have been adopted into the inheritance of our Lord through Christ, it is a privilege to be on the other side of that, choosing to extend the grace that we have received to our child.
Heavy on our hearts from the beginning has been the growing dilemma of child abandonment in China. Most of these children are little girls whom are desperately wanted by their mothers, but are secretly relinquished due to the one child policy and the social demand for little boys. Another government regulation has kept us from pursuing this sooner: the parental age requirement of 30 years. As I will be celebrating my 30th birthday this April, we are excited to announce that we have begun the adoption process to bring our daughter home. To have the opportunity to give one of these girls not only a family, but an opportunity to be raised in a home where she will hear and see the grace of God as our child is too beautiful for words.
It is amazing what the Lord places on our hearts before we even know what it means. It is exciting to discover His plans as we piece together the clues to this adventure. As we have discussed names for a little girl, one continues to stand out. It is a name I selected over 15 years ago! What once was a name I loved became special as Drew and I, both from Winston-Salem, began dreaming about a family. It comes from the Hebrew word "shalom", meaning peace, completeness and wholeness. It wasn’t until just recently that the name we had chosen so long ago had meaning for our daughter. As we have journeyed through the ups and downs of the past few years, the Prince of Peace has been gracious to instill within us a peace that only He can give. Knowing she will be born into a hostile environment and will experience much brokenness in her first year of life, we are praying now that the Creator will place that same solid peace within her forming heart. Also knowing her need for Christ, we are praying now that the Lord will cause her heart to beat for Him. As we are honored to be entrusted with her as her parents, and will find great joy in providing a secure place for her to receive love and acceptance, her ultimate security will come from Christ alone. Our prayer for her now, as she is in the womb, is that our daughter, Salem, will one day know the joy of being complete and whole - shalom - through Jesus Christ.
We greatly desire for each of you to have a part in praying for our daughter, anticipating her arrival, and celebrating with us when she comes home. We have started a web log online that will document our adoption journey. Join us at drewandamyscott.blogspot.com. We will keep it up to date with what we know and what we learn, and we invite you to pray with us as we look forward to finding Salem.
As we celebrate our Savior this Christmas, we are reminded of the great lengths He went to in order show His love to us, to redeem us from a life of brokenness. He came as a baby, into a hostile world, to save us from our own hostility towards God and each other. A song that we have listened to over and over this Christmas reveals God’s power, humility, and love that He demonstrates to us in the Christ Child. Our prayer is that Salem will recognize that her God willingly and humbly came into her world, to bring her into completeness with Him. As I listen to this song, I imagine that she may one day share, more intimately than us, the understanding of being born in such a lowly and hidden place.
"Labor of Love"
©2004 Andrew Peterson
(From Behold the Lamb of God)
It was not a silent night
There was blood on the ground
You could hear a woman cry
In the alleyways that night
On the streets of David's town
And the stable was not clean
And the cobblestones were cold
And little Mary full of grace
With the tears upon her face
Had no mother's hand to hold
It was a labor of pain
It was a cold sky above
But for the girl on the ground in the dark
With every beat of her beautiful heart
It was a labor of love
Noble Joseph at her side
Callused hands and weary eyes
There were no midwives to be found
In the streets of David's town
In the middle of the night
So he held her and he prayed
Shafts of moonlight on his face
But the baby in her womb
He was the Maker of the moon
He was the Author of the faith
That could make the mountains move
It was a labor of pain
It was a cold sky above
But for the girl on the ground in the dark
With every beat of her beautiful heart
It was a labor of love
For little Mary full of grace
With the tears upon her face
It was a labor of love
We anticipate traveling to China soon after Christmas 2006. This year will be filled with paperwork, interviews and months of waiting for our referral. We are excited about the next chapter of our life’s novel and give thanks to the Lord, the Creator, the Giver of Life, the Sovereign One, the Prince of Peace.
Kneeling before the manger throne,
Drew and Amy
Highlights from 2005
--We rescued our Australian Cattle Dog mix, affectionately known as "Cody Bear", whose favorite pastimes include running with Amy, playing fetch, a good belly rub, and chasing the UPS truck.
--We traveled to Lima (Saul Cantaral) and Huaraz, Peru with our church to share the gospel of Christ, sponsored 9 year old Luci through AMG, and practiced our Spanish-speaking skills.
--Amy loves her new part-time Reading Interventionist position at East Brainerd Elementary. She also teaches one of the youth girls Sunday School classes, and has returned to her love of art and painting.
--Drew continues to enjoy his position at Concord Baptist as the Minister of Music, nurturing solid Christ centered relationships with the other staff and some guys from our college ministry. He has enjoyed developing his guitar-playing skills, even playing on Sunday nights at church.
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