Drumroll please............

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."  James 1:27


It's official...we are adopting Stoves baby number three from China!

We are so excited about where God is leading us in our adoption journey.  We have decided to work with Lifeline Children's Services out of Birmingham as our adoption agency.  And as I stated before, we are adopting our precious baby from China. 

I believe God has been preparing us for this particular journey for many years in many ways.  Particularly in regards to where our child would come from, China.  I have always had a fascination with Chinese culture, the country, the language and the food.  So much so that I took Chinese (Cantonese) as my foreign language elective for one year in high school (I would have loved to continue learning the language, but I transferred to a school that didn't offer it).  Also, Randall has had experience traveling to China a few times.  The first two years of our marriage, Randall worked for a company that sent him to Guangzhou and Hong Kong several times (I was so jealous).

We still have a long journey ahead of us, and we are very excited to move forward from here.
Here is what we know about our projected timeline:
*6 months (October - March):  Paperwork...this includes our Home Study, Finger Prints & lots of paperwork
*1 month (April):  Submit Dossier (paperwork) to China and await acceptance
*1 - 4 months (April - July):  Wait to be "matched" with our child
*6 months (from match to travel):  Wait to travel to China (during this time paperwork is being translated, and taken care of by the governments)
*2 weeks (October '12 - January '13):  Hopefully, we will TRAVEL to China sometime between next October and January to bring our baby home!

FAQs:
1.  Are you adopting a boy or a girl?
     We don't know yet.  We are leaving this particular detail up to God.  We will know if it's a boy or a girl when we are matched with our specific child.
2.  How long will it be until you bring your baby home?
     From what we understand about our estimated timeline, we should know who our child is 6-10 months from now, and we should be holding our baby 12-16 months from now.
3.  Will you both be traveling to China?
     Yes, we are planning for both of us to travel to China to meet our precious baby.  Our two boys will stay here in the states with their grandparents while we are away.
4.  How long will you be in China?
     We will take one trip to China that will last from 7-14 days.  While there we will go to Beijing, Guangzhou, and whatever province our baby's orphanage is in.
5.  How old will the child be?
     We know that our child will be younger than "Big D", however, we do not know how much younger.  There is a good chance that "Big D" and baby number 3 will be very close in age (weeks or months apart).  This means that when we bring our baby home, he/she will probably be between 18 months and 2 years old.
6.  How can I help?
     #1.  Pray!
          a.  Pray that God would be glorified in every aspect of this journey!  It's all about Him, and it's amazing to see what He can do with such ordinary people.
          b.  Pray for our baby:  that he/she would be loved, held and cared for during this time that we are apart.
          c.  Pray for our baby's caregivers.
          d.  Pray for Randall and me:  that we would continue to seek God's will throughout this process, and not our own; that we would prepare ourselves and our boys to welcome our new addition.
          e.  Pray for our boys:  that they would see us living out our faith, which would in turn build their faith; that they would know how much we love them; that they would be excited about welcoming their new sibling.
          f.  Pray for our adoption fund:  that we would be wise with our money, so that we can save as much as possible; that we would be successful in our fundraising attempts.
     #2.  Partner with us in our fundraising.  You can do this in several ways.
          a.  Lend your time/resources to our fundraising events.  (yard sales, fundraising parties, etc.)
          b.  Attend our fundraising events.
          c.  Donate:  We are accepting monetary donations to go towards our adoption expenses.