Safe in the Shepherd's Arms: 2016

Thursday, October 20, 2016

I said it before Max Lucado!

Since we created our blog, Max Lucado has written a devotional book entitled "Safe in the Shepherd's Arms". Hopefully that will bring some traffic to our little blog! I am so thankful that no matter what we go through, we can always depend on and trust God to stay with us and help us through!

That's good to know, since we are heading into a new adventure which requires us to let go and let God. We have found that many people don't understand letting go and letting God - that is a foreign concept, and one that relied on heavenly wisdom and priorities, not conventional human wisdom and norms.

We really thought our family was complete by necessity. Our home is small, our finances are challenged, and our age is, well, we are not spring chickens! But God definitely had other plans for us . . . yep! He has been making changes in our lives to make us ready for this very point, small corrections in the way we do things and even a miracle or two! Maybe I will list them later, as we are in awe now of seeing what He was doing that has now been made plain:

Here's the news . . . we will be bringing home Lizzy's best friend from her orphanage days in China to be our daughter. Her name will be Sarah Joy Smedley! She will turn 14 in August of 2017, so we know we will be in China before that date to prevent her from aging out. The prospects for a special needs orphan in China after he/she turns 14 is very grim. We felt God tugging at our hearts to not let this happen to this child. We cannot save them all, but to the one who gains a family and learns about the love of Christ, it means everything! Next time I will tell you how this came about. Until then, say a prayer for us! Making a decision of this magnitude definitely brings on some turbulence from the evil one!

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Catching up after 2 1/2 years!

Oh my! I feel as if a lifetime has passed since I last created a blog post! Two and one-half years ago was my last post. YiLi and I had just met Lizzy Fang Fang. We were still in China, and, shall we say, Fang Fang did not take to me! After we came home, though, she quickly (within a couple of months) became comfortable, and it became clear that she has a sweet and content personality. She was almost 11 at that time, and now she is 13, a teenager! But inside, she is still a sweet little girl. Sam is 10 and YiLi will be 13 in March.

So much has changed! I reduced my hours at work simply to allow for all the surgeries(two) and therapies (weekly or more than weekly) that our children need. My full-time job at a small law firm for an attorney who knew me well from my previous banking career and as organist at church FELL INTO MY LAP back in late 2009. Soon after that, we began our first adoption process. As our family needs changed, my attorney's needs changed right along with us, as he began to gradually, ever so gradually prepare for retirement. Recently we began homeschooling all three children, and I was able to choose the work hours needed to support our family, while being home most of the day for schooling. God is good!

One thing that has stayed the same is our desire to tell our children about the love of Jesus. We believe very firmly that God has blessed our adoption path because of our commitment to riase our kids up in a Christian home in the middle of a world that seems to be turning from Him more and more. So, I will not be changing our blog title, because "Safe in the Shepherd's Arms" is ever so appropriate!

I think what you really want to see are recent pictures of our family, so let me get right to it! On my next post, though, I will give you some really BIG news, so stay tuned . . .