Just Enough Light

I do believe that any observer would have diagnosed me with ADD today. There is so much going on in this house! Besides packing to move, Olivia and Annabel are leaving this weekend for their two week summer camp. We washed clothes, packed boxes, collected camp supplies, folded clothes, cleaned up a large glass of spilled water from the kitchen, organized messy drawers, counted socks, went to buy more socks, measured the length on shorts, cleaned up after Amelia . . . you get the idea. At about 4:00 Skip called to tell me to check my emails because we had received Grant's update. I could not open the email fast enough. Oh what a wonderful surprise to see our precious boy! AND he has hair! It did make me very sad to see how much he had changed. He went from 8 teeth to 16, gained 3 lbs, and is walking. What a blessing he looks so happy! They also told us that his family fosters 4 other children and he loves playing with them- I think that is unusual for a family to foster so many children, but so perfect for Grant. We have been praying that God would prepare Grant's heart to enter into a large family. He has many siblings that cannot wait to love on him. Olivia, his older sister, keeps telling everyone that SHE will be the FIRST to hold him. He is such a loved child already even he though he is so far away.

Grant's eyes are so full of life - I am so anxious to see his sweet personality and how God has shaped him. Like each child, Grant will have such an important place in our family, uniquely gifted beyond anything Skip and I could ever nurture. One of my biggest prayers is that I will be able to look his foster mother in the eyes and thank her for loving and caring for our son.Grant Yinan at 20 months old, smiling for his mama!

This wonderful gift was followed thirty minutes later with a call from Skip telling me our rental house fell through. I am so sad that we will not be living next to my friend, but I am believing that there will be a place for us. God is always faithful.

It Sold!

A few months back I mentioned that we felt led that God was leading us to sell our house. I think deep down inside I did not feel like it would sell, I thought it would be one of those places in our lives where He wanted to see if we were willing. Could we surrender all? My mind was on board - it is only a house. Last week in church I was talking to a friend who had also been in the process of trying to sell her home. She told me about the big celebration they had when they pulled up their sign because it had been 6 months and they felt like God had told them to stay. Her husband's business was really suffering and at the time they really need to cut all corners. They are doing much better now - praises. After church I told Skip that now we were getting closer to the fall and going to get Grant that perhaps we should reconsider selling, he felt the same way. I even asked him to pull the sign out of the yard, that God could sell this house without a sign if He was going to. And surely He would have done it by now.

I was so excited because I just knew we were staying, we too would have a celebration - and then I got a call on Monday from someone who wanted to see the house and for some reason I just knew this was the call. We did sell the house to a beautiful family on Wednesday night- and now if my heart and my head would just line up and be in agreement, I would be fine.

My head knows that financially this house is a lot for us in this economy and there is a lot of freedom from bondage with less debt. In all of our married life we have never been debt free. It knows that God always takes us from better to even better - even when it doesn't look like it. This is an answer to our prayer that we wanted to live an extraordinary life in Christ - however he chose to use us. And only God could have sold this house in this economy.

But, my heart has felt the laughter and tears cried over in this house, the scriptures we wrote on the 2x4's as we rebuilt and reflected on the might hand of God that saved us, the shelter the walls provided as God healed and strengthened our family and marriage, the contentment we had finally reached and every physical detail . . . my house. It is very difficult. I have really come to better understand why Abraham's father decided to stay in Ur.

We hope to move the middle of July in order to quickly get settled. Our social worker will have to write an updated about our new home and we will then have to file the update with immigration. We are praying every step of the way that this does not delay Grant's homecoming. In all the craziness of looking for a home and packing, I have moments when I rejoice because of the reality that we HAVE A SON!! God has blessed my heart's desire abundantly! I look at Grant's little picture and it doesn't seem real. I cannot wait to have him in my arms. God is always so good! and His ways are so much higher!

One day I want to go back to having the outlook of a child. The children are so excited to be able to live in another house with new neighbors! and all of the new neighborhood pets!!!!

Oh we did find a great house to rent for the next year. It is right next door to a very dear friend and I am so excited to share this season of our lives together! It IS going to be good!

Grant Yinan

Precious
Grant Yi Nan - 11 months old

On June 8th, 2009 our adoption agency sent us Grant's file and 6 other files of beautiful precious children. My heart was racing because I knew we had only a few minutes to lock a file as they were on the Shared List - many agencies have access to the Shared List and these files had just been put on it. I called Skip at work and we quickly discussed the files. Yi Nan's file and his big beautiful dark eyes especially stood out. We read over his special needs and all 9 pages of his file :). Fortunately, we have already studied his special need for the past 3 months - we have done extensive research and spoken to many families who have children with similar conditions. We decided we were very comfortable with his special needs. We quickly had our agency lock his file. Once the file was locked so no one else had access to it, we had 48 hours to have his file review by doctors. That night we kept looking at his picture, rereading his file and soon we fell in love with this precious boy and his amazing spirit, which was written about in his file! His beautiful big eyes and precious smile and tiny teeth captured our hearts. We remained in constant prayer and very as we continued to ask, :Could this be our son? After dinner I researched the meaning if his name on the Internet. I typed in Yi and it said, "Yi: second; as in second son." We had emailed his file to a specialist in Boston and that night at 11:30 P.M. we received his response! Skip sat down on the bed and pulled up the email and before I could get there -it took was seemed like forever to get around the pillows in order to sit next to Skip. He was going to read it without me! We read it together and it seemed like the world was put on hold - it really was surreal and so gosh darn exciting! We read it as fast as we could, read it again - WOW! his opinion about Grant's special need was truly something our family could handle. Peace, a peace that was so new to reviewing a file. We went to bed praying that we would like to submit a request to adopt him - and praying for God's wisdom and direction. It was very difficult to fall asleep! The next morning I turned to my assigned reading - June 9th in my book "read the Bible in a year" - Psalm 127. God is so good!! We wrote our Letter of Intent (LOI) and emailed our agency a LOI on behalf of Grant Yi Nan! Our second medical review came the next afternoon in full agreement with the first opinion. June 9th, 2009 we officially asked China if we could adopt Grant. Whew! that was quite a incredible 18 hours! God is so good!

It's a BOY! It's a BOY!

We are absolutely on on knees praising God for this indescribable gift! And that yet again He would bless us with one of His own!

Our son, Grant Yi Nan Perkins!11 months old

Grant is in the Sichuan province in the city of Chengdu. He is 19 months old. We received PA for Grant only 6 days after we wrote a letter of intent to adopt him (LOI)! Please pray for a smooth process from here on. We would love to be with Grant on his second birthday in October!

I will post more about how exciting the last two weeks have been. I am manning the fort alone right now - not a lot of leisure time!

Happy Birthday Annabel