Waiting Again...

I wanted to give you all a brief update of what it currently going on with the adoption process.

We went a couple of weeks ago to Birmingham to get our Bio-metric fingerprints done for Homeland Security.  Mark's parents had to do this with us.  (Hopefully that is the last thing they will have to do in this process with us!) Anyway...we got a notification last week that Mark's mom's fingerprints were unreadable....AGAIN! :( That is the 4th time her fingerprints have been unreadable in this process.

We are very grateful that by contacting Homeland Security and explaining the situation - She has unreadable prints, and is on dialysis and it it very difficult for her to get away for a two hour trip like that.  They were very helpful and allowed us to provide background information in a different way.  We pray that all this paperwork moves through the system quickly and allows us to get our Dossier to China SOON!!

DTC
What exactly is DTC? Well...it means Dossier to China and it is really the place we want to be at next...quickly!! Please pray that all our paperwork comes together without any snags and that we can get it to China ASAP!! This would be the only thing that could hinder us being "officially" matched with the little boy that we were referred from our agency.  We do know it is all in God's hands and timing...we just really want to see Godspeed on these papers!! :) I will keep everyone posted!!

Fundraising
We are coming to an end of our $50 Family Photo Fundraiser.  It will be ending after 7 wonderful months, at the end of November!! We have met some AMAZING families through this process and are just blown away at God's provision through this fundraiser.  All the glory goes to the Lord for it...because it was His idea for sure!! We're grateful for all the families who participated to help us.  At the end of November...we will have photographed close to 85 families! That truly boggles our mind!!! It has been a blessing though!! Thank you to the families who participated!! YOU have helped us raise close to $7500 to go and bring our little boy home!! YAY!!!

We are getting close to the $12,000 mark for fundraising.  We praise God for His provision so far...and we look forward to what the next few months hold.  There are great opportunities for God to do some wonderful things and we look forward to see what He is going to do!!

Travel
Many of you have asked when we will be going to China to get our little boy.  This is something we really will not know until we're logged in over there and know more so where our paperwork is in the process.  Our guess is it will be sometime in the spring of 2013.  But we do not know specifics. We promise to keep you all posted!!

Prayer
-  Please continue to pray for the paperwork to move through quickly!

-  We have applied for an adoption grant...please pray for favor regarding this

-  We still need to raise at least $23,000 more.  It will come! We're not worried...we just want to lift this up     to the Lord and ask Him to bring the provision! It really is expensive.  Thats sad...because so many more people would be open to adoption if it were not for the cost.  We would love to see this change in the   future. But until then...we pray that other families will step out in the boldness of the Lord and trust HIM to     provide for these children.  It is an eternal investment!! It is definitely storing up treasures in Heaven!!

Thats it for now! As we get more details and info...I will make sure and send them your way!!! Thank you all for your love and support! It means the world to us!
Blessings,
Mark & Buffi

We've Seen His Face!!!

Ok y'all...I cannot give you any details...but what I can tell you is we've been given a referral by our agency and we've accepted this referral and we are in the process of sending in our LOI (Letter of Intent) to adopt this precious little boy!!! AHHH!! HE IS PRECIOUS!!  It is so exciting and we would love to shout all the details from the roof tops...but we can't.  We have to make sure it's "official".  We pray all the paperwork goes through and that nothing hinders us being officially matched with him there in China!!

So...how can you pray?!?! Pray that we get our paperwork and info where it needs to be in a quick and timely manner and that there are no delays!! (We don't want delays to possibly have us loose this referral because of timing.)  Pray for all the finances we need to continue to come in!! We are SO amazed at God's provision.  I'm telling you...God is SO blowing us away by his continued provision!! You guys, our dear friends and family, have blessed us SO MUCH by helping to support us in this process and all you have done means more than you will EVER KNOW!!!

As a matter of fact...one of the fundraisers that was done for us by Kid's Kloset Consignment sale has just overwhelmed us!! They were able to give over $800 toward our expenses!! WOW!! To all those that donated during the Kid's Kloset sale...THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! Every dime is going to help us get to China and bring our precious little boy home!!! :) 

We cannot WAIT for all the paperwork for our referral to be final, so we can share his sweet face with you all!! Until then!! We SO appreciate your prayers, support and encouragement as we press on to carry out our Fathers heart to care for at least this one special boy that is close to HIS heart!! 

We'll keep you posted as we get news!!

Blessings,

Mark & Buffi

IT'S HERE...IT'S HERE!!!!

I am SO excited to announce that the children's book we have written and had illustrated by our precious friend Stephanie Presley...is ready for purchase online at here!

We are SO excited about this book being available!! Not only is it just a wonderful Fiction story for children and families to read together....but it is going to help us raise funds to go toward the adoption of our precious little boy from China!!!

So spread the word and share with as many friends and family as you can about this special book:

Buy this book to raise $$ for our adoption! 

Let us know if you have any questions!!! God is faithful and we LOVE being able to share this journey with all of you!!

MORE GOOD NEWS:
I cannot say very much...but what I CAN tell you is that we are VERY CLOSE to knowing who our little boy is from China!!! As soon as we are able to share with you all the news....we WILL!!

WHAT'S NEXT?
The next thing we do is go to Birmingham in two weeks to have our  Biometric fingerprints done for Homeland Security.  We are in the process of getting our Dossier ready to send to China!!

Lots of great news today. We will keep you all posted!!
Much love and appreciation!!
Mark & Buffi

Exciting Things Going On!!

I have to admit...the waiting process in adoption can be very challenging and stressful at times.  But we are SO grateful that God gives us many projects and things to do in the process of our waiting!!

Not only have we been doing the $50 Family Photo Fundraiser to help raise funds for our adoption (God has done some AWESOME things through that!!)...but we have written a children's book that we are self publishing on Amazon to also help us raise funds for our adoption.  We are SO EXCITED that the book is almost ready.  It will be ready to purchase in the next few weeks off of amazon.com just in time for November - Adoption Awareness Month and also CHRISTMAS!  It will make a GREAT Christmas present for any child or grand child you know! Better yet...it will be great for ANYONE who has a heart for adoption or for helping orphans!

We are just thrilled about this project and we pray that it is a blessing to many adoptive families...but we also pray that it inspires other people to step out and adopt, or maybe even help organizations with the mission to help orphans!!

It will be released really SOON...but I wanted to show you all a few sneak peeks of some of it!! As soon as it's ready to purchase...we will share with you all the link so you can purchase it if you'd like...and you can share the link with others...so they can purchase it as well!!! We cannot WAIT to see what God is going to do!! Here are a few samples. You can click on each photo to make it larger so you can see it better.  We sure love you all and are so grateful for your prayers, support and encouragement. They mean a TON to us!! We will keep you posted!! Here they are!!

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A Quick Update

Hey guys!! So sorry for the lack of posts.  This process just takes a little bit of time and we don't want to overwhelm everyone with updates unless we actually have info! :)  Anyway...so here it goes!!

HOME STUDY COMPLETE:
We finally have completed our home study...whoohoo!!...(took 6 months this time, 7 months last time around.)  We are waiting for our social worker to finish it up so we can begin compiling our Dossier - More paperwork! :) We did FINALLY get Mark's parents fingerprints straight.  Whew...it was a little touch and go there for a bit...but it got worked out! Praise God!! :)

BEING MATCHED:
We don't have any new info regarding being matched yet with our little boy. BUT...we did get a very encouraging email from Lifeline this week that I wanted to share with you all.  We anticipate that it will not be long before God shows us our precious little son!!  Here is the note we received:
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The Lifeline Team is having an amazing time in Chongqing and tomorrow will travel to our new orphanages in Fuling and WanZhou. We have seen several of the children whose files we have received and are preparing to match. We appreciate your patience as we continue to receive updates on children, have our questions answered about them and progress with the matching process.

On another encouraging note, we have received word that we will be receiving files from a few more of our partnership orphanages in the next few weeks. We are so excited to see files continue to come in. Please remember that matching will be a process occurring over several weeks, not just one matching event. We are confident that we will have referrals for our families, we are just unsure of the timeframes at this point. Your social worker will be contacting you in the next few weeks for an update on your family's status.

Give thank to the Lord, for He is good,

For His steadfast love endures forever;

to Him alone does great wonders,

His steadfast love endures forever.

Psalm 136:1&4

The Lifeline China Team

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This is VERY EXCITING NEWS and we look forward to being matched.  We know it is in God's hands and timing and we pray that HE direct the hands of the Lifeline Team to the child that He wants in our family!! We will definitely keep you all posted!!

FUNDRAISING:

Our fundraising has been going wonderful!! Thank you ALL SO MUCH for helping us with our $50 Family Photos, and our bracelet fundraiser...AND now to the Kids Kloset Consignment Sale!! We don't have the final amount yet of all that was donated there...but we should have that amount very soon!! We will keep you posted and be sure and let everyone know!! God is SO FAITHFUL and never ceases to amaze us in His hand of provision!! As you can see from our fundraising "thermometer" to the right...things are doing well!!! We love every time we get to raise that bar!!! It is just an immense faith builder!!! 

One thing we are SUPER EXCITED about is we have a Children's book coming out in October that we will be selling on Amazon.com as a fundraiser.  We wrote the story about 4 years ago...and our friend Stephanie Presley has just finished with 17 original illustrations that absolutely bring this book to LIFE!!! We are diligently working on the book daily now and hope to have it ready for everyone to purchase in early October!! 

We will be sure and post the link here so you can go directly there to purchase one if you'd like.  Its a wonderful gift for Christmas, or even for November - National Adoption Awareness Month!! We cannot WAIT to share it with you all!! It is SO exciting!!

ALL FOR NOW:

Thats it for now!! Hopefully we will have another good update in a couple of weeks.  We truly look forward to seeing the face of "our brother." (Thats what we all call him now, until we learn who he is and pray about what we will call him.)  We promise to keep you posted!!! Y'all...let us know if you have questions!! Thank you again for following our journey and for praying for us each step of the way!! This is indeed a blessing for us to be on this journey!! Have a great weekend!!

Mark & Buffi

Gratitude and Grace

We are SO excited to be sharing with you guys something SO AWESOME God has done!! We feel so blessed to have such amazing friends around us with such hearts for adoption and hearts to help these precious little ones find their forever families!


GRATITUDE:
We have dear friends who are the owners of Kids' Kloset Consignment sale in our area.  They have such amazing hearts to help connect families with children in need and they have decided to sponsor a family, beginning this fall, for each of their sales.  For the Fall 2012 sale...they are sponsoring OUR family and taking donations to help us raise some of the money needed for our adoption costs!! THIS IS AMAZING!!! We were in tears as Tiffany, one of the owners, contacted us to ask us.  God is truly amazing...and when people are obedient to follow His leading and His heart....GREAT things happen!!! They even set up a page on their website to let people know!! You can check it out here! If you live in our area...please support this wonderful organization.  We are so excited about what God is going to do!!! We cannot wait to keep you posted!!

GRACE:
As always....we need grace as we wait through this process.  There are so many highs and lows as we wait. There are a couple of things we ask you to pray for.

1.  We feel like in the next month to six weeks or so that we might find out who our little fellow is.  We are not 100% sure...but its what we are anticipating.  Please pray that we will sense God's leading and know for sure when He has placed before us our little boy!! As our pastor says...as long as we stay out of things ourselves...and let God do it...we won't get in the way!! That is our prayer...that our thoughts...desires...plans...etc...do not get in God's way!! We want to have open hearts and ears to sense what He is telling us and when!!! We need to hear CLEARLY the voice of our Shepherd!!! ;)

2.  Also...would you please pray for Mark's parents fingerprints to come back quickly? Mark and I have already received our suitability letters from the state...but his parents fingerprints were rejected because they were not clear enough for them to read.  SO....we had to get them printed again...and send them again.  Our wait to get our suitability letters back took 3 months....PLEASE pray that it does not take an additional 3 months for his parents to be approved now.  We need them to be clearly read...and quickly approved and back to us.  These delays are out of our hands...but GOD is there in the midst of it all and He can keep their paperwork moving forward!!! We really appreciate your prayers concerning this and we will keep you posted!!

That's it for now!! We were incredibly excited to share with you about Kids' Kloset!! We know God is going to do exceedingly and abundantly more than we could ever think or imagine!!! And all those families will have the opportunity to sow into the life of a precious little boy and help to bring him home!!! So AWESOME!!!
Night!!
Blessings,
Buffi

Home Study ALMOST Complete!!

So sorry for the lack of posting info on here. During this part of the process....its just a waiting game right now. I will tell you to please be praying for all of our CA/N (child abuse and neglect forms) to come back from Alabama, and Tennessee, and for all of our reference letters to come in. So far...that is all we are waiting for to get our home study paperwork finalized!!!

We did have our last home study on Monday, July 23rd with Karla in Birmingham. Karla was our social worker when we adopted Sadie!! She is SUCH a blessing!!! We are working on our I800A form now. The I800A is:

"the Application for Determination of Suitability to Adopt a Child from a Convention Country, the convention country being China is this case. USCIS will evaluate whether not we are suitable to adopt a child from China."  

It is just another form of paperwork we are required to fill out and get approval from. We are once again "hurrying up...to wait on it's approval." Which is the nature of adoption!! :) Thanks for keeping all our paperwork process in your prayers!! We want things to go as smooth as possible!!

HOWS FUNDRAISING? 
Well...We just cannot praise God enough for His faithfulness!! We are scheduled all the way through November doing family photos!! This is a HUGE blessing! God is providing through ways we would have never imagined!!! AND...we are meeting some amazing families in the process!!! What a BLESSING!!! You can see the slideshow to the right of our blog here. These are a few pictures of family pictures we have taken. Its been such fun!!!

You can also see where we are at in our fundraising process on the thermometer to the right. We are just totally FLOORED that God has provided that much money just since FEBRUARY!!! That is just under 6 months...AMAZING!!! We still have a way to go...but HE is able to meet above and beyond what we could ever think or imagine!! He is definitely up to something and we feel so blessed to be in the middle of what He is doing!!

We are also working diligently on our children's book. Stephanie Presley has sent us some samples of what she has done and it is SO AWESOME!!! We get so excited every time we talk to her!! Our goal is to be able to sell this children's book as a hard back gift book, or an ebook off of amazon.com. So keep your eyes and ears open for when it is ready!! Our goal is for it to be ready in October!!

GETTING MATCHED
We are still waiting to see the face of the precious little boy God has for our family. We truly feel he is in one of the orphanages that Lifeline has partnered with in South China. HOPEFULLY they will be matching from those places within the next month or so. I can guarantee that we will let you all know what we can as soon as possible!!! We are praying daily for him and for his transition and our transition!! We cannot wait to meet him!!

That is it for now. I just wanted to let you know where we are in the process!! As we get more news...we will keep you posted. Thank you all SO MUCH for your prayers, support and encouragement. It means the WORLD to us!!!
Blessings,
Mark & Buffi