Well everyone, she's here and what a tiny beautiful angel from God! We stand in awe!!!
Sunday, June 29, 2014
Thursday, June 19, 2014
TRAVEL APPROVAL!!!!!!!
Travel Approval was received only 4 days after our Article 5 was picked up. So, we are on our way to bring Piper home!
DEPARTURE DATE!!!!!!!
We are leaving Wednesday, June 25th!! These past few days have been very stressful! We now have our flight tickets and are preparing to leave the country. We will pick Piper up on June 29th. Lord willing, we will be able to get pictures downloaded to FB or this blog!!
In the meantime, please be in prayer for the kids who will be here at home and little Jon that won't understand where Mommy & Daddy went. AND, please pray for Piper to adjust well and begin attachment early with us both.
Thank you all for your support and love and encouragement!! Love to All!
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Article 5 pick up!!!!
I am so amazed to be where we are today!! All I can say is...but God! Here we stand at the end of our adoption journey and it makes me look back at where we came from. It was almost a decde ago that The Lord grabbed my heart at a Steven Curtis Chapman concert and showed me the needs of orphans around the world. I had never considered adoption and our "quiver" seemed very full. We were on deputation raising support to go to the mission field of Australia. I called every adoption agency I could find and requested information on every country they served. Asia was top on my list but everything I read, I knew that we just weren't in a position to be qualified. We had: 4 children between 10 & 14; living in a 2 bedroom trailer; traveling for 6+ weeks at a time to churches sharing our ministry in Australia; & were making about $1,600/month. I was frustrated and threw them all in the trash. Over the years The Lord kept tugging at my heart but never did we see an open door. I settled in my heart that we would not adopt and was wondering what empty nest would look like as a Pastor's family. We began the study, "Experiencing God" and knew to hold on tight. It was our 2nd time through the study & God did not leave us the same the first time. When Jeff came home and said we needed to consider adoption, I was not on board. My fear was that he would want to go domestic and I did not want to go through the chaos that I had seen with friends and their journeys. Jeff went to see a friend and saw a picture of a beautiful Chinese doll and asked what the story was with this little girl. David shared with Jeff their journey to adopt Jaelynn and he called me on the way home. It seemed like everything aligned and our lives were about to change forever!! I can't say that we jumped with both feet. Fear gripped my heart due to finances and wondered how in the world we could ever afford to adopt a child and especially a child from overseas. As we started making appointments to check out the process of adoption, I had only been able to write the "M" of our last name on the application. We finished the app and took it with us to the meeting in case we needed to refer back to it. As we were leaving the office that day, I grabbed the app and just left it with them. No more praying about the what ifs and how's and what do we do. We left it with CCAI and ultimately left it in God's hands to open or close the door. We were approved in September of 2012 and off we went on this wild journey. We had no idea that God had bigger plans than just sitting and filling out paperwork to bring our China doll home. Jon came into the picture as a pure miracle of God. What I had said 'No' to...God said 'Yes'!! Here we are 21 months later and we have a new 2 year old little boy...Jonathan Benjamin and in about a month, a new 20 month old little girl. It is amazing what happens when we let God write our story. Even when we do not know the who, what, when, where and why's ...we know that God has all those answers. God has provided so much for us along the way. He has provided financially and emotionally and spiritually. The journey has not been easy and there were days when I wanted to give up....but God! He wouldn't let us and we trust Him fully to bring it all to finalization on Chinese soil. Thank you all for your love, prayers, financial support and encouragement. We are waiting for our travel approval, which should come in about 2 weeks and then we will book our flights. Piper Jade is not a burden in a heart anymore but a real little girl with hopes of a family and a life outside an institution. A Mommy and a Daddy to love her and dry her tears and let her know that she is safe, wanted and chosen by God to display His salvation to a lost and dying world. She and Jon will have a story to tell of their own and I pray by God's grace that He will be at the center of every tale. We will keep you updated as we complete this journey and pray that your hearts will have been touched in such a way that your life will never be the same!! When God extends a call...don't waste time fighting Him by questioning. Surrender and KNOW His blessings....they are out of this world!! All our love!!!!!
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Update!!!
I am so sorry that I have not updated everyone until now. Life is a little crazy :-).
Jon's adoption will be finalized in 14 1/2 hours... May 21, 2014 @ 2:30pm. It's been a long time coming but praising the Lord that
Jon's adoption will be finalized in 14 1/2 hours... May 21, 2014 @ 2:30pm. It's been a long time coming but praising the Lord that
Jonathan Benjamin Malin
Is going to finally have a forever secure family! Anyone wanting to come, we will be at the Bartow courthouse at 2:15pm, hearing room 5a-1 (5th floor), red elevators!! :-)
Piper Jade Malin
(Dang Zheng Ling)
Piper is quickly approaching her gotcha day! We have been approved by China to adopt her and have applied for her Visa to enter the US. I can not believe it has come so quickly, although I have had the feeling it would. Jon has kept us so busy along with all the paperwork associated with his adoption and Piper's adoption.
We are now awaiting an Article 5 letter which states that we have been found eligible, by the US, to adopt Piper and that China has agreed and. Piper's
paperwork is in order and she is allowed to enter the
US. Once this letter is received we will wait a few weeks and will receive our invitation to come to China to pick up Piper and bring her home. The current timeline looks to be July but will not know for sure for about another 3 weeks. When the letter is
received we will have the consulate appointment date which will decide when we have to be in China. Please be in prayer for us as we seek to raise the monies for our flight tickets ($4000) as well as the
orphanage fee of $5700 , plus in country flights, train tickets, food & lodging that total close to $5000. We
know God will provide..He has been in this from the beginning, so we know that He will be the one to complete this journey.
paperwork is in order and she is allowed to enter the
US. Once this letter is received we will wait a few weeks and will receive our invitation to come to China to pick up Piper and bring her home. The current timeline looks to be July but will not know for sure for about another 3 weeks. When the letter is
received we will have the consulate appointment date which will decide when we have to be in China. Please be in prayer for us as we seek to raise the monies for our flight tickets ($4000) as well as the
orphanage fee of $5700 , plus in country flights, train tickets, food & lodging that total close to $5000. We
know God will provide..He has been in this from the beginning, so we know that He will be the one to complete this journey.
As I have had time to ponder, stress, plan,
panic... Haha. Yes and more importantly, PRAY! I have realized a lot of fear in the journey. Not just in adopting Piper with special needs, from a country around the world, but also raising Jon as well. When you have your biological kids, they love you and
don't seem to question that love. Jon is different. Even though we feel as if he has always been with us, he has had a rough start in life, being rejected by his mother, unknown by his father, sent to babysitters by his grandmother so they wouldn't lose their home, to being left on our doorstep by his grandmother (a good thing). Even though each step was to protect him and find a loving family, in his little brain, he has been abandoned twice and that
alone will create issues for the rest of his life as he processes that information. How will he handle it...how will he react to us as he ages... Are we doing right on a daily basis to create a security & love within him that will bridge the gap as he grows and
accepts the journey that God has placed him on. As I look back, I remember the months of no sleep... I remember the bruises of being pushed away, the eyes of a terrified obstinate little one year old, the screams of terror at bed time, the meltdowns to be
left with anyone else but us.....the list goes on and some of those issues still exist. I am afraid of how Piper will respond and will she attach? Will she like us or will she adapt quickly or are we in for a very
long haul. Little Piper was abandoned on the doorstep of the Nanyang Hospital 6 days after she was born. She has been raised in an orphanage with lots of other little ones who are in need of constant care as well...we know how difficult that is and that
you can't hold every crying baby. On top of the attachment fear, there is the special need of her cleft lip/palate. I have no idea how to care for her... What to feed her... How to console her or know when she's
hungry or tired or hurting and her language is Mandarin and not English. This has been and will continue to be a God journey. With any of our kids it is, but it feel stretched beyond my limits a lot of
days and wonder why God chose us. We were about to be empty nesters soon and had started to think about what that would look like and now feel like I've rewound my life 21 years and started over. We have
4 biological kids who are now 21, 19, 18 & 17. God is good and has always walked right beside us and I know He will continue. I am just starting to have those butterflies and nerves about the what if's and know that I'm making things up in my head that
haven't happened yet and need to rest in The Lord and the children that He has chosen for us to care for as if we had birthed that all along. Funny thought hit me the other day. As a mother, you carry your
babies full term inside of you. You feel their every move, every hiccup, and you get a sense of their temperament or personality even before they are born. Not so with adoption. So I can relate to how a new Dad must feel. They are handed a bundle one
day after this long bonding between mom and baby and told, congrats.. You are a daddy... I'm finding out how to attach to a child without having that inner connection. I am amazed at the love that The Lord
gives you for a person that you have never even met. It's only an act of God...very important on those hard days.
panic... Haha. Yes and more importantly, PRAY! I have realized a lot of fear in the journey. Not just in adopting Piper with special needs, from a country around the world, but also raising Jon as well. When you have your biological kids, they love you and
don't seem to question that love. Jon is different. Even though we feel as if he has always been with us, he has had a rough start in life, being rejected by his mother, unknown by his father, sent to babysitters by his grandmother so they wouldn't lose their home, to being left on our doorstep by his grandmother (a good thing). Even though each step was to protect him and find a loving family, in his little brain, he has been abandoned twice and that
alone will create issues for the rest of his life as he processes that information. How will he handle it...how will he react to us as he ages... Are we doing right on a daily basis to create a security & love within him that will bridge the gap as he grows and
accepts the journey that God has placed him on. As I look back, I remember the months of no sleep... I remember the bruises of being pushed away, the eyes of a terrified obstinate little one year old, the screams of terror at bed time, the meltdowns to be
left with anyone else but us.....the list goes on and some of those issues still exist. I am afraid of how Piper will respond and will she attach? Will she like us or will she adapt quickly or are we in for a very
long haul. Little Piper was abandoned on the doorstep of the Nanyang Hospital 6 days after she was born. She has been raised in an orphanage with lots of other little ones who are in need of constant care as well...we know how difficult that is and that
you can't hold every crying baby. On top of the attachment fear, there is the special need of her cleft lip/palate. I have no idea how to care for her... What to feed her... How to console her or know when she's
hungry or tired or hurting and her language is Mandarin and not English. This has been and will continue to be a God journey. With any of our kids it is, but it feel stretched beyond my limits a lot of
days and wonder why God chose us. We were about to be empty nesters soon and had started to think about what that would look like and now feel like I've rewound my life 21 years and started over. We have
4 biological kids who are now 21, 19, 18 & 17. God is good and has always walked right beside us and I know He will continue. I am just starting to have those butterflies and nerves about the what if's and know that I'm making things up in my head that
haven't happened yet and need to rest in The Lord and the children that He has chosen for us to care for as if we had birthed that all along. Funny thought hit me the other day. As a mother, you carry your
babies full term inside of you. You feel their every move, every hiccup, and you get a sense of their temperament or personality even before they are born. Not so with adoption. So I can relate to how a new Dad must feel. They are handed a bundle one
day after this long bonding between mom and baby and told, congrats.. You are a daddy... I'm finding out how to attach to a child without having that inner connection. I am amazed at the love that The Lord
gives you for a person that you have never even met. It's only an act of God...very important on those hard days.
Please pray for us as we walk this path. Many think we are nuts and I have to say that many a day, I agree with them. But God.... he has called us to love these little ones...to raise them to know Him and to be known by Him... To teach them about His love and sacrifice that led to our adoption into God's family as well. We already have something in common through adoption. The days ahead may be very hard...tiring...emotional.... And good. We know
that His grace will sustain us...will teach us how to minister to their needs and how to love them as He loves them. May God grant us strength, good health, and arms full of love to meet them in their grief over lost loved ones and what could been without hurt
feelings and bitterness. During these days after bringing Piper home, please don't be offended if she's not passed around. We have been told that we must keep her with us and teach her about family and what that means. She is used to being taken care of by the multitudes and must learn what a Mommy and Daddy are to secure attachment and bonding. Be
patient with us and please pray. We love you all for your support, financial partnership, listening ears, hugs, faith in the journey God has put us on... We are overwhelmed and amazed as we watch God
work!!! Stay tuned and we will be introducing you to child #6 VERY SOON!!!!! Please help us by buying our adoption t-shirt "Love knows no boundaries". $20 donation and this is the site you can order from.. http://www.ten30seven.com/fundraisers/bring-piper-home-3/
All monies will go towards bringing Piper home!
that His grace will sustain us...will teach us how to minister to their needs and how to love them as He loves them. May God grant us strength, good health, and arms full of love to meet them in their grief over lost loved ones and what could been without hurt
feelings and bitterness. During these days after bringing Piper home, please don't be offended if she's not passed around. We have been told that we must keep her with us and teach her about family and what that means. She is used to being taken care of by the multitudes and must learn what a Mommy and Daddy are to secure attachment and bonding. Be
patient with us and please pray. We love you all for your support, financial partnership, listening ears, hugs, faith in the journey God has put us on... We are overwhelmed and amazed as we watch God
work!!! Stay tuned and we will be introducing you to child #6 VERY SOON!!!!! Please help us by buying our adoption t-shirt "Love knows no boundaries". $20 donation and this is the site you can order from.. http://www.ten30seven.com/fundraisers/bring-piper-home-3/
All monies will go towards bringing Piper home!
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Praise the Lord!!!
We applied for a grant through Ephesians 3:20 Foundation and they awarded us a grant of $3,400 that will be distributed as soon as we get our travel authorization. I am amazed at how God works and shows us that He is still with us and that He is the one that is orchestrating this new change in our family. We still have a LONG ways to go with funding but I am feverishly working towards applying for more grants. We have $3,000 due in the next few weeks and are trusting God to provide. He has already shown His hand in even that goal with a generous donation of $1,250. Our hearts are blessed.
Well we are hopefully coming to the end of the process of adopting John. We have been told that they are hoping to have everything ready to go by April 23rd. I will believe it when I see it though :-) Trusting God with His timing. He will need to be in our name before we can get our USCIS immigration paperwork updated (for another fee). This will hold up our travel if it is not done quickly. Again, another exercise in FAITH!
John is doing well adjusting to our home and family. He still struggles with outside friends and family. He does not trust easily and will take time. We found out that his mom was on drugs through month 5 of pregnancy. She was addicted to cocaine and meth. When she went out to do drugs, she left John with her violent boyfriend for 7+ hours at a time then she would return home to violence which resulted in the both of them being jailed and John being removed from the home. Praise God that He watches over the little ones. Please be patient with him if he seems to you, rude and unfriendly. He is adjusting and adapting but it is going to take time and love and security for him to heal. Most of all it will take God's hand in his life and his heart to heal.
Please pray that the Lord would prepare his heart for a new addition to the family. Pray that we are able to meet the demands of two toddlers with their own special needs and hurts. Piper will need surgery and since she can't walk will take a lot more care and time. God knows all of this and knew all of this before asking us to take on their care. So, we will trust Him and take it one day at a time!
Thank you for all of your prayers and your support. We are entering a new phase (and an old phase) of life and it takes adjustment on our part and these children will need a different kind of care than what our biological children needed. There will be times when you will not see me as much as I care for these gifts from God and some times when we might seem "crazy" but its adjustment and we just need your love and prayers. Thank you for taking the time to read this blog and know that when something new comes up.... we will let you know :-)
JONATHAN BENJAMIN MALIN
(hopefully by end of April)
Update:Well we are hopefully coming to the end of the process of adopting John. We have been told that they are hoping to have everything ready to go by April 23rd. I will believe it when I see it though :-) Trusting God with His timing. He will need to be in our name before we can get our USCIS immigration paperwork updated (for another fee). This will hold up our travel if it is not done quickly. Again, another exercise in FAITH!
John is doing well adjusting to our home and family. He still struggles with outside friends and family. He does not trust easily and will take time. We found out that his mom was on drugs through month 5 of pregnancy. She was addicted to cocaine and meth. When she went out to do drugs, she left John with her violent boyfriend for 7+ hours at a time then she would return home to violence which resulted in the both of them being jailed and John being removed from the home. Praise God that He watches over the little ones. Please be patient with him if he seems to you, rude and unfriendly. He is adjusting and adapting but it is going to take time and love and security for him to heal. Most of all it will take God's hand in his life and his heart to heal.
Please pray that the Lord would prepare his heart for a new addition to the family. Pray that we are able to meet the demands of two toddlers with their own special needs and hurts. Piper will need surgery and since she can't walk will take a lot more care and time. God knows all of this and knew all of this before asking us to take on their care. So, we will trust Him and take it one day at a time!
THANK YOU!
Thank you for all of your prayers and your support. We are entering a new phase (and an old phase) of life and it takes adjustment on our part and these children will need a different kind of care than what our biological children needed. There will be times when you will not see me as much as I care for these gifts from God and some times when we might seem "crazy" but its adjustment and we just need your love and prayers. Thank you for taking the time to read this blog and know that when something new comes up.... we will let you know :-)
Friday, March 7, 2014
GUESS WHAT... GUESS WHAT... GUESS WHAT!!!!!!
Yes.... we have a match and we have been locked in with China for this special little princess!!
Piper Jade Malin
age: 16 months old
12 lbs
24 inches long
Cleft Lip/Palate (surgery needed)
Delayed Motor Development
(she can not crawl or walk, she is still on only formula, she can not talk yet as well)
Please pray as we wait for the final approval that will lead to our travel authorization and date of departure. There are many details to consider and we are trusting God's hand and His timing!!
Please pray for God to continue to provide... we still have over $14,000 to raise(IF she comes home before October.. if she turns 2 then we will have her plane ticket & will add $2,000). We believe God will provide.. what HE has called us to... HE will provide like he has done to this point!!
We thank all of you who have been following us and supporting us through this journey!
<3
Friday, December 27, 2013
WOW!!!
WOW, is all I can say!!! We handed our Dossier (our family history/BOOK) to our adoption agency on December 16th... it was mailed to the Colorado office on December 17th... mailed to China on December 20th... Received Christmas Eve and Logged in to China on December 25th - Merry Christmas! WOW.... that's fast. We were told we would find out by the end of January what our log in date was.... Never expected a 24 hour turn around time. So, what is a Log In Date ---
LOG IN DATE and its importance! When China receives all of our paperwork (Dossier) - ie: Family photos, autobiographies, medical exams, police reports, petition for the Chinese government to adopt from their country, birth certificates, marriage certificates, health reports for kids, reference forms, job verifications and the list goes on. In a nutshell, its everything the government wants to know about us, in order to see if we make the cut to adopt one of their children. When they review all the information, and approve us, they give us a Log In Date. This date means that we are officially approved to bring a child from China home with us. NOW.... the process begins for matching. We have a list of medical needs that we are willing to consider and so now they will begin to search the children that are turned over to the American system to see if there are any matches. When a child comes available that matches a health need, we approved then they will call us to see if we are willing to review that child's health file. If we have this Log In Date ( LID ) then we are then able to accept this child and send a Letter of Intent (LOI) to China asking for permission to adopt this special child. SO, here we go - Please continue to pray for the finances to come in - for God to help us to know which child that He has chosen for our family. Pray that God will prepare little John for this process as well.
John!! January 6th is his mothers termination hearing. The adoption process will begin with that date - we have all we need to complete everything for him, except a few pictures to take and our part is done and we wait for the state to set a trial date to finalize his adoption.
I look back over the past year plus and never imagined where we would be today. God set us up on this amazing journey in the summer of 2012. We were willing to take in a few orphans if God so chose, but decided that with our lives that it probably wasn't wise to take on two medical needy babies so we settled in for the long haul with China. God had other plans... I had always said that I did not want to do domestic adoption due to the chaos is seems on this side of things - but God said... Oh, just you wait. John was placed in our lives in January of 2013 and became part of our family on February 26, 2013. What was told us to be a short journey is still continuing today BUT we wait, knowing that He is a Malin and was born to be a Malin. God has changed our lives and the lives of our children. They have been fantastic through this transition and I can honestly say that it has NOT been an easy one but God's grace has sustained and given us strength to be patient and love this little child of God when days are hard and nights were VERY long and loud. Now as we continue on with the process that God originally led us to.... we walk with peace but also knowing that some days might be hard.. and the nights might get very long again and the transition may not be as smoothe as we may have imagined. We also pray for God to help us and prepare us to be able to care for this little girl that He will choose for us. That He would be sovereign in the decision as well as in the illness she may have, knowing that He has already entrusted us with John. Its a little intimidating but when God calls, He equips and His timing is ALWAYS perfect!!
Thank you for your prayers and your love!
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