The end of the Journey... Or is it?

So many things happen when you come to the end of a story.
In some the world is saved, or at least the princess.
In some the knight slays the dragon.
Yet in others we see sadness, empty loneliness gripping the hearts of the reader like the long boney fingers of a storybook witch.

So how does this one end?

You know there was a movie from the 80's. Some would say it was a classic, others a bore. Yet to me it was real. We find the story encompassing the main character until he is sucked into another realm an finds the story he has been reading was about him.

So how about you who are reading this blog? How will you find yourself joining in this adventure and becoming what this story is about? Advocate for the orphans (check out orphan sunday at www.carefororohans.org), visit them (check out www.goodgoers.com or your churches missions department), maybe others can support families in their journey financially as you may have done us. New Life Church network has an adoption fund to help support families with a matching grant. Jamesfund.org allows you to do the same. As well they both partner with Lifesong For The Orphan. Many others are out there such as Show Hope, Love Without Boundaries etc.

You remember the movie I mentioned previously? You remember the title? The Never-ending Story!

For our family the journey will never end. We will be now even more a megaphone for the cry of the orphan.
We will ever help others in anyway we can to adopt. For us, even though the trip portion may be over the JOURNEY will never end.

So how will you help make this journey be never ending? What role will you take?
James 1:27 says "the religion that God our father finds pure and faultless is this: 'to look after orphans and widows in their time of distress and to keep oneself polluted from the things if this world"

So we find ourselves on this road, our journey, and we had 4 kids and added two.
AND IT SEEMED LIKE THE BIGGEST FAMILY IN THE WORLD....





But wait...…………

Day two of our Journey

Day two an start of three

We met another couple on Saturday. They were traveling with us for the tours. Tim an Julie Ellis from Minneapolis.

So saturday we started out at Tienamans square and the Forbidden city. It was fun to see the improvements since 2004. The colors were so vivid.

Then we went to the great wall. Such an amazing experience walking on a piece of a wall started in 7bc. We made it 2 sections up the steep climb.

Then back to the hotel for a quick shower and supper.

Again i was out around 9. Mandy made it till 10. Again i woke up at 3 and finally fell back to sleep from 5-8. Hope we are done with jet lag today.

So its Sunday an we are getting ready to leave for the airport yo fly to Ella's province. Today sept. 2nd is Gotcha Day for her. So excited!!

Day 1 of the Journey

Beijing
Yesterday we arrived in Beijing.
Saw Sherry who was my guide in 2004 and then drove to the airport.
We decided to walk around so we went down the street for about a mile and back.

Then yes we slept. Early like at 8 pm. So of course hit 1 am and woke up. Then i slept till 4 when i just couldn't sleep. So i spent the next almost two hours praying over all my children. It was amazing!
Now we are on to find some breakfast and then off to our day of sightseeing with our guide Winnie and our driver Mr. Wong.

Praise God we made it this far.
Wish we had more snacks and a power converter though. Going to have to find one!

I can't believe it!!!

Sitting her just overwhelmed with thoughts, feelings and emotions.
The day has finally come. We are leaving tomorrow for China!!!

Nerves, anxiety, excited and so may other words could describe. Yet the word I am using to sum it up is Blessed.

God has blessed us to be able to follow His heart for adoption and to be a light to others. He has blessed us through the gifts, prayers and support of our friends and family. He blessed us this morning by being prayed over by the pastors of our church network.

I feel like Hosea. I know this isn't going to be easy. Nothing in mind my mind is telling me that they will immediately attach. Will there be hurts and heartaches in our future? I am sure. But will God walk us through? You better believe it!

I will try to post occasionally while gone. As long as my vpn works i will post here or on facebook.

Pray for us and our children, all of them.

May God be glorified through this.

China's Goodwill Ambassador

For those of you who keep up with this blog you know my review's and the genre's that I read.
Well, the next three posts will be outside of those norms.

First off they are KIDS books and second they are all not from Christian publishers.

I recently received China's Goodwill Ambassador-Tai Shan the Panda to review free from Washington International Publishers.

As someone who lives in the DC area this caught my eye as it is the story of the Panda who China had us return after it was born and somewhat grown up.  While there was a large controversy and uproar to keep Tia Shan in the US... this book doesn't address that so neither will I.

The book was a children's story book with photos.  I really enjoyed it.  It was a breath of fresh air to read this book.  It was cute, soft, cudley and very child friendly.
In fact I read this to my kids via my Kindle and they loved it.

What else can I say: The illustrations were well done, the only issue I had with the book was a formatting issue on the e-book which caused some of the lines to switch places.  Not sure if that is a Kindle issue or publisher issue but should be fixed.  Yet the message was still nice, and cute.