How to Pray for Salem

Our friends, Stephen and Suzanna Nichols (who are about 6 months ahead of us in the adoption process), had a section of their blog dedicated to helping those reading the updates know how to pray for their daughter. We thought it was a great idea!!!

The following is a weekly prayer guide. Drew and I invite you to pray with us for Salem and her journey home. I'm going to cut and paste it onto a word document and plaster it to my bathroom mirror. Feel free to do the same:)

Sunday - the birth family of our little girl
Pray for the protection and health of the birth mother during pregnancy, delivery, and recovery; comfort and peace for the birth father and the birth mother as they struggle with and finally relinquish their daughter

Monday - the birth of our baby
Pray that all goes well with her delivery and there are no complications.

Tuesday - the abandonment process
Pray that she will be found quickly and out of harms way; comfort and peace for the birth family.

Wednesday - the orphanage
Pray that it will be a clean, adequately staffed facility with good care for the all the babies and children who live there.

Thursday - physical health of our little girl
Pray that all of her physical needs are being met; pray for her physical development and stimulation.

Friday - emotional health of our little girl
Pray that someone will pick her up when she cries and that she is nurtured and loved until we can get there to nurture and love her; pray that her transition from the orphanage to our family will go smoothly, that she will learn to recognize us and trust us as her parents.

Saturday - spiritual health of our little girl
Pray that our baby will always feel love, comfort and peace from her heavenly Father, but especially until we can get there to comfort her ourselves; pray that the Lord would give her a tender heart and make her into a woman after His own heart.

And if you ever want to pray for us as well, pray that He would prepare us fully, continuing to mold us into godly parents, for the calling ahead.

On It's Way:)

God is good!!! If you read the previous update, then you know that just yesterday we were anticipating another week of waiting on test results for the final preparations of our dossier. However, when I came home from church last night, there was a message on our answering machine from Laura, one of Dr. Duff's nurses, to inform us that our test results were ready for pick-up!!! So, it turns out that the initial information we recived from the lab tech was correct---only one day's wait.

This morning, I went to the Dr's office first thing (well, after our early morning workout), secured the results in hand and personally delivered them to Bethany. I just received an email from Mary that GR called and they are sending it off for authentication...which means everything is in order:) Yeah!!!

Slight Delay

After relinquishing all of our documents into the hands of others, we were relieved to be in the official last stages of waiting. However, yesterday, I received a call from Mary that revealed a minor setback.

I was excited to hear that our dossier had made it from Nashville to Grand Rapids, meaning it had received the Great Seal Of TN. But, in their detailed scrutiny of the dossier before sending it to China, they found that Drew's medical document was lacking liver and thyroid function results. I immediately called our physician to check on them and found that his liver results were normal, but they had overlooked the thyroid tests for both Drew and myself!!! So, I asked if they could fit us in right away, and we were in lab by 2:00. The lab technician told me that I could pick up the results today. I planned to do that and personally drive them to Bethany to be faxed to GR, but when I called and spoke with the nurse, she said that the technician was mistaken and the results of the thyroid tests would take another 5-7 days.

So, we are waiting again. I will be honest and say that tears filled my eyes when I heard that we would have to wait another week and that our dossier is on hold in GR, but the Lord kept reminding me to trust Him. It's hard not to think about the fact that if we had looked with more care, that we might have caught it ourselves sooner. But, just as He has taught us along this long road, we are trusting Him and resting in the grace that He gives to us. We know that He is orchestrating the time until we are united with our daughter. And, NOTHING can thwart His plans. We rest in grace.

On a happy note, Drew and I just celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary yesterday:) Also, Happy Birthday to Papa Thrift today!!!

Out of Our Hands

As if this situation has ever truly rested in our hands... Today, we will drop off the last fragments of paperwork to our local Bethany office. Whew. It really hasn't been too bad. It would be a breeze if we didn't also have daily and weekly responsibilities. Then again, we've been helped by many friends and family members in an attempt to gather all our documentation. Thanks to you all.

After the bundle of paperwork is deemed "complete," it will be sent to Nashville for the "Great Seal of the State of Tennessee." I suspect it has a guitar on it. Then, it moves to Grand Rapids, home of Bethany's big office. There, it will receive final authentication and scrutiny before it crosses the Pacific. They'll let us know when it officially "logs in" in China, and then we'll, well, wait some more. But we figure that if you consider we've been walking in this direction for over two years, we are officially past the half way point. Ahhhhh. It's all in how you look at it.

We came across a great article today by Russ Moore, the Dean of the Theology School at Southern. He has two adopted boys, and was writing on their 5th birthdays. Hope you enjoy reading it as we did. Click here for the link.

Please continue to pray for us as we wait, and pray for little Salem, not yet born. We can't wait to introduce you to her.