Loving our Lila

This post has been seven months in the making. It is the one I have been wanting and dying to write since we started this process. I have wanted so many of you to see the face of the one you are help to bring home.

I guess I should start this post telling those of you who may not know-China granted us our Letter of Approval today. That is the single most important approval of the entire process. LOA is China saying yes-she's yours. I can not tell you what an amazing feeling that is. I don't want to draw this post out so I'm going to start with the very first picture we saw of her and end with the most recent. Here is Luoka Hong soon to be our little Lila love.

May 2016

November 2016

March 2017

 May 2017

Lila's birthday is coming up (the day before Thad's) and we hope to see pictures of her smiling with the birthday cake we get to send her. I am in love with this face and it is so awesome to see my kids talk about her and pray for her. 

What's next? I wish I could give a simple answer for this question but I'm not quite sure myself. We are hoping for travel within the next two months. Most all of the next several steps are working towards getting her US visa. 

I also wish I could put into words how emotional and overwhelming this last month has been. I cry every other day because of the amazingness (that's a word) of you. I will never be able to express these feelings to you. Please know I love each of you. 

If you want to keep up with more of the daily updates of the adoption just request to join our FB group. Here is the link-Loving Lila.  

Love you all. 

It's not about me.

This past week has been a very real reminder how my life is one hundred percent not about me. We live in a culture that teaches us from a very young age to take care of ourselves first but I can say without a doubt my life is not about me. When I step back from that thought it leaves a very hard lump in my throat. It's a difficult thought to process but it's an idea that has very rapidly been forced upon me over the last few months and even days.

Throughout this adoption process and over the course of Seth's eye trouble I have been told multiple times, "y'all are amazing." Or "I don't know how y'all do it." Sorry for the overuse of y'all. I just can't write you all. It is so unnatural, anyways. We have been praised for our ability to handle what I believe people view as difficult or overwhelming situations. Let's be honest. Most people just think we are crazy and they are just trying to be nice but they heap praise on us regardless. I don't take praise (or criticism) very well. My sister Allison recently had a wedding shower and she confided that she was nervous about being the center of attention. I guess those feelings are in our genes. I don't want attention and I sure don't want praise. But Allison gifted me multiple blessings on her shower day. Let me tell you about one of those things.

Allison  asked for a recipe shower since she lives far away and she also requested that if anyone wished to give monetarily that they give to their favorite charity. After the shower we came home and Allison opened the cards given to her that day. She opened several cards and then came to one that contained money. After reading what was written she handed the money to me. She answered my puzzled look with this reply "I asked that people give money to bring Lila home."  Yall I could  not hold myself together. It's been a crazy emotional week that culimanated, ironically on the same day as Allison's shower, with the passing of my Papa. I mean I am a wreck just writing this.

Each day I am reminded of the complete selflessness of Christ. There was a man who deserved nothing but praise and adoration. He could have easily spent much time in the spotlight but yet he walked away from it to be crucified. CRUCIFIED WITH SINNERS. I have to let that sink in. Crucified not sitting on a throne. Crucified. It was not about him but all about the Father.

Allison's simple yet powerful gesture just reminds me that my life is not about me. This adoption is not about our family. Seth's health struggles is not about us. All of these things are for the glory of the Father.

It has been almost exactly a year since I started this blog. It's clearly been therapeutic. Hang on let me wipe my eyes. My stories and words are not for me. I pray they will always be for the Father.

Sometimes there are no words.

There have been very few times in my life that words escape me. Times when I struggle to find things to say. Those times usually correspond with death. Death leave me speechless and rightfully so. Other than those times, words are not something I struggle with.  It all goes back to my genetics. I mean, "Have you met my father?" Here's an example of just how easily words flow from me. When I was in elementary school I tended to be a Chatty Cathy. So much so that my teacher took me into the hallway and proceeded to pull off a VERY long piece of tape. She explained that if I continued to be as "social" as I was that tape would be applied across my mouth. She then hung said piece of tape up in the room where it remained for the rest of the school year. Yikes! I still cringe at that one. Later in my life I married a man who has slowly morphed into my father. That's not a bad thing. They are just social people. We have no trouble carrying on a conversation.

On several occasions over the last few months I have found myself speechless. Left in awe by the generosity of people. People who love us, believe in us and even some who don't know us. On these occasions I think to myself, "What are these people thinking? Don't they know me at all? If only they could see me lose my patience with my kids or Jon. They wouldn't have so much confidence in us. They surely wouldn't have given us money to bring another child into our family. " But you have. You have given and given and given. We are blown away. We feel so unworthy. There are not enough words in my vocabulary to convey my gratefulness. No words and that's saying something. Thank you. Thank you.



Now that I have feebly attempted to convey my thankfulness here is a Lila and family update.

Seth:

Well it finally happened. Somehow we lost Seth's contact. So we are waiting for a new one to come in....ugh. He also graduated preschool tonight. This has been the hardest year of his short life but everyday we are seeing his amazing personality shine. I love this kid so much and I am excited to see how he blossoms in kindergarten.

Lila:

The quilt fundraiser has been amazing. Thanks to so many of you and several extremely generous people we have funded our next step and then some. Y'all you have no idea how amazing this is. When we first started seriously talking about adoption I talked with a precious friend who told us to trust God when it comes to the funds and she was so right. Y'all have really shown us the love of God. Here is where we are. We have one final piece of paper we are waiting to come back from DC. It is our I-800a approval. It should be at our agency sometime next week. Once they receive that paper they will double check all of our paper work and the huge mound of paperwork we have been working on for the past 5 months gets sent to CHINA!!!!!!!! That paperwork is called our dossier. Once our dossier arrives in China it will get logged into their system (LID) and then it gets, translated, reviewed and then we will be officially matched with our precious Lila. That official match is called a Letter of Acceptance (LOA) and it is China officially saying yes to us. It sounds pretty simple by the process from LID to LOA can take 45-60 days. It is going to be an excruciating wait but once we are granted LOA we are about 8-10 weeks from traveling. Y'all pray for a quick, uncomplicated LOA process. Also please be praying for our Lila's heart. This is going to be a very traumatic process that she won't understand at the time. I will talk more about that later. Thank you for constant love and support. This process has been one of the most encouraging and powerful experiences of my life. 

Love you all. 

Lila Update

So many of you ask me on a daily basis what is going on with our girl. The best answer is a lot and a little. We have finished our home study which was an enormous piece of our dossier and a key to filing for approval from the US government to adopt a child from China. If you are confused by this let me remind you of the chart.

If can read the chart we are on step 3. We actually got our letter for a fingerprint appointment to obtain that  I800a approval today. We are probably about 4-5 weeks out from that approval. Once we receive the hard copy of the approval we will have a few loose ends and then our dossier will be sent to CHINA!!! It's beginning to look more and more like our estimated travel time will be early fall. It's not what we wanted but we trust everything will work out for the best. We are really at the mercy of governments right now. We are doing everything we can to stay on top of the paperwork. 

We also found out this week that China is putting some stricter requirements in place in regards to visas. Because Jon is a minister he is heavily scrutinized. He will be only be granted a single entry 30 day visa. I will be granted a multi-entry 10 year visa. See what I mean. The developments that came out this week is dependent on where your visa is processed (Chicago, NY, San Fran). Your home jursidiction determines whether or not you will have to appear in person to be fingerprinted(again) for your visa. Our jurisdiction is Washington DC so there is a possibility that we would have to travel there to get his visa. So far, Chicago is the only city that is requiring it. Please pray this does not happen to us. It would add some extra expense and stress. 

Now to the worst part. I really hate to talk about this part but then again many of you have asked about the financial side of it all and to be truthful we can't do this without your help. You have given and given so much already and I am reminded constantly of how much love you've show my family. Complete strangers have bought puzzle pieces. People who I will probably never meet on this side of heaven are helping to bring our girl home and it is such a humbling feeling. I want to be totally honest with you because we are doing our best to contribute as much as possible but to be fully funded will absolutely not be possible without your help. 

We have planned to do 4 total fundraisers.

1. Puzzle fundraisers-as of today you have bought 326 of the 500 puzzle pieces. Wow! Those pieces are $10 each. Several people have had difficulty with the PayPal donation button so I will tell you in a minute about a new option. 

2. T-shirt fundraiser-Most of you know how much I ADORE a good t-shirt. They make up about ninety percent of my daily wardrobe. We are currently working on a couple of different designs. We plan to have adult and children designs. These shirts will not be geared towards adoption phrases but they will apply to each of us. I am super excited about this one. Keep your eyes out over the next few weeks.

3. Quilt fundraiser-This one is extremely personal. Shortly after we told my family about our decision to adopt I approached my mom with an idea. 

I asked my mom if she could make a quilt. The idea behind this fundraiser is very similar to the puzzle except it's geared more towards families. I asked my mom if we could monogram the name of each family who bought one of 50 squares we are offering. This quilt will be something Lila can touch and feel. She can run her fingers over the names and hear stories about the love that brought her home. It took my mom about 2 seconds to make her first quilt for her future granddaughter and I am so excited that I can tell Lila of the love Nena put into that quilt. Oh me, oh my. I might be crying just a little bit writing this. Each square is $50. 

4.  Both Hands Project-this is the biggest fundraiser we hope to do. The idea comes from James 1:27. The basic idea behind it is we identify a widow within our community who needs some manual labor projects done around her house. We then ask friends and family to help us and we seek sponsorships or give to our project. We are responsible for getting the necessary materials to complete the project. 100 percent of the money raised goes to our adoption fund. It's a win-win situation. We get to bless a widow and an orphan is brought home. This fundraiser is something we are doing in the months ahead. 

Thanks for sticking with me. To make the donation process a little easier I have created a crowdfunding page. Please put in the comment section what you want to use your donation towards. For example, Jones Family $50 quilt square. It is not tax-deductible page. The Both Hands project will be if you are looking for that. Yet again, I can not say Thank you enough. You humble me and bless my family so much. I got new pictures of Lila a few weeks ago and I wish I could show them to you but we are getting closer to being able to share those. I will tell you it is very clear she being well cared for and that is so reassuring. I love each of you. 

https://www.youcaring.com/jonandkatiemorris-797836

Lord, help me to remember.

As a thirty one year old woman my memory stinks. Really. I can't remember what I wore the day before unless I am still wearing it. Hello, stay at home mom. I can't remember what I had for lunch or what I said in the middle of an argument with my husband. That's a real kicker. It stinks. No vitamin or miracle supplement can help boost my memory. My brain is like an iPhone with a 16g memory capacity. You have to constantly delete stuff to be able to hold new stuff. It stinks.

I laid in bed tonight unable to sleep because I have also hit the age where I can no longer have caffeine after noon. My, sometimes sweet, sometimes defiant two year old laid beside me. He looked so precious and peaceful in sleep and yet so big and grown. It's hard to face the fact that I will carry no more children. I will have no more newborns to wake me constantly through the night. It's a tough pill to swallow and my prayer in that moment was "Lord, please help me to remember."



Help me to remember dirty dishes mean my family has food.

Help me to remember piles of laundry means plenty of clothes to wear.

Help me to remember toys on floor equals fun and creativity.

Help me also to remember they want to sleep in my bed because I make them feel safe and loved.



At the same time,

Help me to remember the small hands and fingers you allowed to me hold.

Help to me to remember that first grin and giggle.

Help me to remember that first basket or hit.

Help me to remember they are learning everyday, watching me and how I will respond.

Help me to remember what it was like to be scared in the middle of the night and how safe my parents made me feel.

Help me to remember that I won't get this day back EVER again.

Help me Lord to soak it in. ALL OF IT. You have blessed me to be their parent and I am blessed because they are my children.

What happened to February?

I realize that February is a short month but man did it fly by. February is typically a busy month but this one moved at a record pace. Some of you may or may not be interested in all of this personal stuff but I love looking back over the pictures from the past month. Pictures are my favorite. They are little time capsules that capture the feelings and emotions of the moment and looking back at them warms my heart. Here is a quick run down of what has gone on with the family, a big, fun surprise and a Lila update.

1. We put Seth's "magic circle" in and as of now it is working great. It's definitely a learning process for all of us because we have no idea about contacts.

2. We are trying to spend as much family time together as possible. We took the kids to see Lego Batman and I am almost ashamed to admit that Jon and I both slept through a lot of it. Oops.

3. Zoey finished up Upward and it is amazing the improvement she had made this year. I love watching her play.

4. Seth and Thad are still loving preschool. They really don't like anyone in their class if you can't tell.

5. We just spent last weekend in Gatlinburg at our annual CYC trip. It was an awesome trip and we made some crazy awesome memories.

6. The boys are living miserable lives.

February finally brought a surprise that several of us had been working on for MANY months. Jon and I have some close family friends who we love dearly. Katy Beth has always wanted to go to New York and so I convinced her mom, Kay, that we should take her for her birthday. Kay was super excited and we made the initial plans and booked the hotel and flights in SEPTEMBER. Y'all this trip wasn't until February and we booked in September. Here is a word of advice, DON'T EVER PLAN A SURPRISE FIVE MONTHS IN ADVANCE. That's a long time to keep a secret especially for three women who can't keep a secret. Well we made it until about 3 days before her birthday and that is REAL good, people. I don't know if I can stress how physically and emotionally draining keeping a secret of this magnitude was but we survived.

Here are a few photos from our trip. It was awesome and we had a great time. I also introduced the girls to a Carmel Apple Spice from Starbucks. Go get you one. You're welcome.

I've saved the best for last, Lila. We are making progress. Slowly but surely. We had our last homestudy visit last week. We are waiting for it to be edited and approved by our adoption agency. Here is what the process looks like from here. We are working on our dossier which is made up of several key pieces.

Dossier

1. A bunch of paper work that has to be signed, notarized, certified and authenticated by several groups of people. We have most of this paperwork done and waiting.

2. Homestudy-almost finished.

3. I-800A-This is approval from US immigration which allows us to adopt a child from a specific country. It will be amended later in the process to allow us to specially adopt Lila. We can not file our I-800A until our home study is completely finished. 

Once all of these steps are finished we send our dossier to China and the waiting begins again. If you didn't follow the crazy explanation above I am including the diagram I put in the last post. It is a lot easier to understand. 

Finally, we have sold almost 300 of our puzzle pieces. WOW! Your generosity is insane. You guys are more than welcome to buy one if you are still interested. We are still looking at a few different fundraisers. One of which is a Both Hands Project. We love the idea of this project. Look it up. The idea behind it is incredible. We have the next couple steps funded thanks to your generosity but we have some big steps ahead. Once our home study is finished we will start applying for various grants. Please continue to pray for us. We are racing to get to her but our hands are still tied in a lot of ways.

If any of you are still reading, thanks. I love you all. You are such incredible pieces of our family's foundation. 

The Chaos Lately

As soon as I wake each morning, all I can think about is going to bed that night. After a cup of coffee the number of waking hours that I face seem more possible. Despite the constant fatigue caused by a chronic condition called parenthood, I still love being home with my babies. It is chaos but really fun chaos. I wanted to update many those of you who have been asking about the chaos.

House Chaos: 

Our house is about 90% finished. We still have boxes to unpack, pictures to hang and odds and ends to tidy up. My favorite rooms in the house are the kitchen and family room. Ironically, those are the rooms  where I spend most of our time. Let me show you some before and after pictures of three rooms. 

Family Room

This room is my absolute favorite. We bought a new sectional that is pretty much my favorite piece of furniture beside my bed. I love this room so much. It makes me almost forgot the insanely bad smell. Thankful the smell is gone and the prettiness remains. 

Master Bathroom

This room is small and we are still working out the kinks but it is completely functional and doesn't have that weird exterior entrance so win/win.

Master Bedroom

I finally put up all of the boxes and our room feels much bigger. I have a confession. I had to take pictures of our home for our dossier and home study. These are the only 3 rooms that looked good enough to photograph.  Maybe I will get the other rooms in shape sometime in the next three months.


Seth Chaos:

Many of you have been asking about Seth lately and I really appreciate that. Seth has had a really rough six months. Last Friday was procedure number 4 and it hasn't really gotten any easier on him. We really didn't know what would happen when they went in to surgery. Seth has been very sensitive to light for a couple of months. The cause of this sensitivity was caused by the glaucoma tube being too long. It  was rubbing a hazy spot onto his cornea. They removed the tube, trimmed it and put it back into place. The good news is his pressure was still good so that meant the tube was still doing its job. Hopefully we will finally get to put the contact in this week and begin the patching within the next two weeks. I really feel like the hard stuff is behind us. The path forward will definitely have bumps but Seth will learn to get used to the new normal. I'm not sure if this is the last surgery but I suspect its probably not. His eye will continue to change and grow and the tube is a fixed objected that will have to be adjusted.
He has been through a lot but he is doing ok.


Lila Chaos:

This is some good, happy chaos. We had our first home study visit and it went great. We have our second and third in the next couple weeks. We have to have a total of four so it is really starting to roll. The home study is the biggest piece to our dossier. The good thing about the home study is that a lot of our paperwork overlaps with the dossier. Jon and I are waiting on Pre-approval from China. Pre-approval is basically China telling us they will put her file on hold for a certain period time for us to finish our dossier. We have two hold ups with that process right now. Our agency doesn't have her 'official file' yet they only have her pre-file. My agency is only one who will have access to her file so we really don't have a fear of losing her. The second snag is right now China is celebrating Chinese New Year. Their celebrations are not a one or two day event. They shut the country down for a full week. So PA will not come until after CNY is over. It really is a big deal. It will be fun to celebrate next year with her. We are still selling our puzzle pieces and you guys have bought 183 and counting. That is mind blowing. If you still would like to purchase pieces there is a donate button at the top right of this page. I think about her constantly. We talk about her constantly. The boys have started praying for her at meals (be still my heart) and Zoey wants to buy her all the cute clothes. We are beyond excited to have her in our family.

That's all the chaos at this moment. Love to you all.

Loving Lila

I can not begin to express the overwhelming gratitude I have for the outpouring of love and support for our decision to bring Lila into our family. I mean really overwhelmed and so excited at the same time. We know that God is writing this story and we are excited to share with you as we go. We have had many people asking a lot of questions about Lila and this process and I want to answer a few of the most common but before I do I want to reiterate a very important point. Jon and I are not within any stretch of the imagination, perfect parents. Nor will we ever be. We are simply walking the path we feel God has called us to. If at any point any of you are seriously considering international adoption I would love to talk to you. I have found some of the kindest and most supportive people to be adoptive parents. We are still learning daily about this process but we are passionate about these children. Now to the questions: I am going to answer the three most common questions we have gotten so far.


1. What do you know about Lila?

We know a lot and not much at the same time. Lila is about 17 months old and she has been living with a foster mom since April of 2016. She was abandoned as a baby outside of a hospital. Lila's special needs are physical and not cognitive. She has a difference in the size of her limbs (one sides' limbs are shorter than the other). She can walk and say a few words. We do have pictures and videos of her but we are not allowed to make those public until much later in the process. She is precious and her face is what motivates me to move as quickly as possible.


2. When can you bring her home?

I wish I could tell you a timeframe but we really have no idea. Chinese adoptions tend to be quicker and more efficient than other international adoptions. However it can range anywhere from 6-18 months depending on the route you take. You have two options: 1. Find your child first and then do all the paperwork and waiting. 2. Do the paperwork first and then be matched with your child. We went with the first route. It wasn't the way we intended to go but here we are. The hardest part about our route is knowing she is there waiting for us and we are missing months of her life. I have a timeframe in my mind but a lot of it depends on situations beyond my control (i.e. governments).  Below is a diagram that show the steps we will have to take. We are in the home study part. So you see we really are right at the beginning.

3. What can we do to help?

The most important way all of you can be a part of this process is to pray. Pray for Lila. Pray for us. Pray for government officials. Pray for Lila's foster mom. Pray. Pray. We also need your help with funding. International adoption is not cheap. It ranges anywhere from $25,000-$35,000 due to many variables. Jon and I have been able to fund the first major steps but we will be unable to apply for grants until after our home study is complete. We have decided to appeal to our friends and family to play a major role in bringing Lila home. So many of you will play a huge role in Lila's life just has you loved on Zoey, Seth and Thad. We are fully trusting that God will provide ways for us to gain the necessary funds but we are asking for you be a part as well. Our first fundraiser is not an original idea but is one that I love so much because it allows almost everyone to be involved. I have purchased a 500 piece personalized puzzle with this image.

Each piece of the puzzle will be worth $10. We will write the name of the person who donates on the back of each puzzle piece. If you give $50 you get 5 pieces. Once the puzzle is complete we will put it in a two sided glass frame and hang it in our home. Once Lila is old enough to hear her story we can show her the names of everyone who help bring her home. She will know she is loved simply by the names and those names will become a part of her story. I have put a donate button right over here.---->
We will be doing other fundraisers and projects but this is one that even my kids can be a part of!

Thanks for reading!! We love you all and yet again so grateful for your support!

The Unintentional Christmas Gift

The holidays have come and gone and I am ashamed to admit I was somewhat of a Grinch this year. I slacked on the gift buying. I wasn't overly excited to put up the tree. Bah-hum bug. I'm going to blame it on the craziness of the past six months. Yep, that's the culprit. Life. It sucked the Christmas spirit right out of me. However, the closer to Christmas it got the more I could feel that holly jolly spirit creeping into my bones. I adore family time and Christmas gives me the unavoidable opportunity to spend some time with my favorite people on the planet. The spirit culminated on Christmas morning. I love my kids' contagious joy over bandaids in their stockings. It really is magical but this Christmas Jon and I were gifted a blessing that was the result of months of prayer, research, prayer, endless discussions and did I say prayer? It was an idea that was planted by others and watered by friends who told us of its blessings.

Jon and I have decided to adopt a beautiful baby girl from China. She is a precious child whose story we are just beginning to learn. For now we will just call her Lila.  She was our unintentional Christmas gift. This Christmas as I sat and watched my children open dozens of gifts from people who love and adore them I also saw Lila and the faces of dozens of children whom I have read about. Children, who through no fault of their own, would not sit around experiencing that same love and adoration. Children who don't have a mom or dad to rock them to sleep at night or kiss their boo boos. You see, when you start researching international adoption or domestic adoption you quickly realize most of these kids would trade ALL of the gifts for family movie nights or t-ball teams or someone to sit down a read them a book. The research will get you. It will pull at heart strings you didn't know you had. It will make you look at your teenager in a whole new light because when a child turns 14 in China they age out of the foster care system. Forever.  Fourteen. To fend for themselves. I found this quote from a 30 year old Chinese orphan who aged out of the foster care/orphanage system. This quote sucker punched me and forced Jon and I to stop researching, discussing and start moving.

"When I grew up in the orphanage it was Christians who bought us beds, clothing and provided money monthly for food. It was a Christian who wrote a letter in a shoebox, who first told me I was loved. It was the Christians who met all my physical and material needs in that orphanage. But it was also Christians who neglected my biggest need. Children in orphanages don't need more money, nicer building or better clothes. I am not an orphan because I lost my home or provisions. I am an orphan because I lost my parents. I needed a mom and a dad. I needed a family. Christians treated all my temporary symptoms of need but never cured my long term disease of being an orphan. I am still an orphan."

Before you begin forming these mythical notions that we must be these amazing parents allow me to dispel those notions like footprints in the sand. We are imperfect people serving a perfect God. A God who gives and takes away. Although Lila has lost her biological parents we are praying daily that God allows us to be the parents who can give her exactly what she needs to not only grow physically and emotionally but to also develop a relationship with her heavenly Father.

What I ask from you is simple…..pray…pray….and pray. Pray for us as we navigate this process with unlimited paperwork. Pray for our family as we are striving each day to be better. Pray for Lila as she is about to undergo some major changes in her young life. Pray for funding. We know God will provide. Pray…pray…pray.


Love you all. I'm sure you will hear more about this soon.