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.