Updates & pictures!!

This is a pretty exciting time! We were able to send care packages to the kiddos in July. We have now received new pictures & updates for both of them! Enjoy the pics & pray for them. We are mindful that huge transitions are coming. We want desperately for both kids to know they are precious, safe & loved by us but even more importantly by Jesus!

We were able to send the gifts & cake. Our hearts wonder about the stories of the other kiddos in the pics. Do they have adoptions in the works? Do they long for the day they will have their cake party too? Praying for them to know the love of parents & a home, too!

Ms. Bethany Joy seems to be growing & getting stronger! Look at those beautiful feet & toes! Oh...that beautiful fuzzy hair. We cannot wait to hold her & tell her how much we love her already. We were told she weighs only 15 lbs. She is itty bitty. Zachary weighed about 30 lbs at her age. 

US CCCI becomes Cru ....

2nd LOA!!!!

Our I800 is on the way to Texas! We are getting closer every day. It was an incredible blessing to get Bethany Joy's LOA yesterday after waiting 93 days. We are so excited to be moving forward. It seems so difficult to estimate travel as we finish these last couple of steps, but our agency thinks September. Thank you for your continued prayers for God's glory in our lives & His perfect timing in every detail!   With love, Art & Jen

On the topic of Patience

This is an open letter of confession from both of us! Many of you can probably relate. We struggle with patience especially in the area of waiting to get to our babies in China. Struggle with patience is maybe not strong enough.... HATE TO WAIT is more appropriate! Oh.... we are learning so much through this adoption process. Below is a devotion from Streams in the Desert we thought might be a blessing to some of you who are a waiting season too. It really changed our perspective and openned our eyes to the amazing work of waiting with patience! We want so much to honor God with our lives. We want so much to trust Him in the biggest things and all the way down to the smallest of details. There is a lot of peace letting go and letting Him lead the way. Praying that our times of waiting will be peaceful giving way to praise & joy. Lord, help us to rest in that place!

We pray this encourages you too....especially the adoption forum friends we are coming to love & cheer alongside....

With joy,
Art & Jen




Wait With Patience
"Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him" (Ps. 37:7).

Have you prayed and prayed and waited and waited, and still there is no manifestation?

Are you tired of seeing nothing move? Are you just at the point of giving it all up? Perhaps you have not waited in the right way? This would take you out of the right place the place where He can meet you.

"With patience wait" (Rom. 8:25). Patience takes away worry. He said He would come, and His promise is equal to His presence. Patience takes away your weeping. Why feel sad and despondent? He knows your need better than you do, and His purpose in waiting is to bring more glory out of it all. Patience takes away self-works. The work He desires is that you "believe" (John 6:29), and when you believe, you may then know that all is well. Patience takes away all want. Your desire for the thing you wish is perhaps stronger than your desire for the will of God to be fulfilled in its arrival.

Patience takes away all weakening. Instead of having the delaying time, a time of letting go, know that God is getting a larger supply ready and must get you ready too. Patience takes away all wobbling. "Make me stand upon my standing" (Daniel 8:18, margin). God's foundations are steady; and when His patience is within, we are steady while we wait. Patience gives worship. A praiseful patience sometimes "long-suffering with joyfulness" (Col. 1:11) is the best part of it all. "Let (all these phases of) patience have her perfect work" (James 1:4), while you wait, and you will find great enrichment.  --C. H. P.

***

Hold steady when the fires burn,
When inner lessons come to learn,
And from this path there seems no turn
"Let patience have her perfect work."
--L.S.P.