Best of Facebook: April 2016

4/1/2016: Click here to see post on FB:
In the process of updating our homestudy (we do so every year) and it asks for a "Statement regarding your motivation to adopt." Here is ours:

We believe God cares deeply for the orphan and as Christians we are the hands and feet of God to show love and care for the least of these. We believe that every child deserves a safe family where they know they are loved regardless of their abilities, behavior, race, age, or history. We desire to make the least desirable children know that they are wanted and the hardest to place children know that they are deeply loved by us and their heavenly Father. We have built our family through the beautiful brokenness of adoption and wouldn’t have it any other way!

We are not perfect but one thing we have proven in our family dynamic is we have the commitment to love children from hard places. We have parented difficult trauma-related behaviors, delinquency, disorders such as RAD, PTSD, ODD, ADHD, and Enuresis. We have also navigated parenting many medical needs including Giant Congenital Melanocytic Nevus, atypical Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (aHUS), Microcephaly, seizure disorder, Cerebral Palsy, vision impairment, global developmental delays, short gut syndrome, and GJ-tube dependency. We are willing to work with doctors, counselors and therapist to provide the best quality of life for any child God calls on us to welcome into our large family!

:) What is your motivation?

4/2/2016: Click here to see photo album on FB:

I used to work with Parks and Rec and my favorite time of year was helping put together our bi-annual parade float. Although I don't work there anymore I still have the opportunity to create props and costumes and now the kids get to participate too! We have so much fun being apart of these parades and, oh, the memories we make!!!

4/3/2016: Click here to see photo on FB:

We got a frantic call while out on a date tonight. "Mom! Mom! Are you on your way home soon!?!"
"No, we are still at dinner, why? What is going on?"
His voice was shaking, "Mom, Buttercream's in labor! The hooves...the hooves are out!!!"
I smiled and mouthed to Brian that our cow was having her baby, "Anthony that is great!"
His voice becomes more frantic and he is having a hard time catching his breath, "But mom! What do I do? Will you come home? What do I do?"
I want to laugh at his intense concern but instead I used a more serious tone, "Anthony, calm down. You have read every farm book we own, every book on cows from the library, every cow pregnancy article online and watched every cow birthing video on youtube. You are a fully trained cow midwife (midhusband?) so breath and you'll be fine. You can do it!"
I hear very controlled breathing in and out, "Okay, thanks mom. I can do this!"

Not but a few minutes later, as we were heading home, we got a call that it was a boy! Brian and I arrived to all the children in their pajamas huddled around the birthing stall watching as mama licked her baby calf clean, cheering as baby stood on his own and took his wobbly first steps, and cherished in their heart the miracle of a new life on the farm! Welcome baby Cornbread!!!

4/6/2016: Click here to see video on FB:

Port surgery 1/2: Today Brittney is having a new chest port put in and she is in a good mood! :)

Brittney has been doing great since we have been home from the hospital! We have seen vast improvements since switching her to a real food diet, her cognitive abilities and speech have improved and her vocabulary has grown. We have also been able to wean her off ALL five of her daily meds!

She is healthy and infection free so today she is having surgery to have a new chest port placed. Brittney has been a great blessing in our life! God is good and faithful!!!

4/6/2016: Click here to see video on FB:

Port surgery 2/2: Today Brittney is having a new chest port put in and she is in a good mood! :)

2nd video before Britt's port surgery. She is too cute! And so happy!

4/6/2016: Click here to see video on FB:

Post-op: Brittney's Port surgery went well! She is a little "drunk" but is doing good, in great spirits considering, asking for food and to go home. :)

4/11/2016: Click here to see photo on FB:

Mirabel has taken over milking Willow while I work on milking our new-in-milk cow, Buttercream. Twelve years old and she loves milking her goats and, now, a cow. You may think, that's cool, milking a cow, must be easy if a 12 year old can do it. But I didn't hand this chore over lightly. That creature weighs almost 1,000lbs and one kick could send you to the ER. It takes and calm, gentle, forgiving and very patient spirit to have a cow stand calmly for you while you squeeze and tug on her nether-regions!

See I had to learn that kind of spirit, I had to beg God to give it to me after being kicked, swatted at with a urine-soaked tail and having the milk bucket knocked over. I had to forgive Willow, speak gently to her, move calmly around her, and show her love even when I felt like wringing her huge cow neck!

But you see, Mirabel may be like her mama in a lot of ways, but in this case she is not. Willow took to her immediately, trusted her, and stood perfectly still right away. Sometimes the best lessons in this life don't come from books or college but from the heart of God's creation, children and from the creatures we least expect it to, like Willow the cow. :)

4/16/2016: Click here to see photo on FB:

The kids reminded me that this is Brittney's first RV trip! Texas here we come! Can't wait for a week of camping, family-time, and fellowship!

4/21/2016: Click here to see post on FB:

Many of you may know we were recently preparing to adopt a special needs boy from an adoption dissolution (disruption, divorce).

We have always approached adoption the same, that we are are open and willing to walk whatever path God has for us. That means if we are approached to adopt a child we say yes and walk forward regardless of the challenges that may lie ahead. We trust the Lord will give us the grace and strength to endure and the patience to love any of His children. We aren't special or endowed with more patience, grace or strength than any other Christian. We are simply willing to trust God in the area of family planning and adoption. We renew our homestudy year after year not because we think we can handle more but because God is the caretaker of the orphans and we were adopted by Him. Therefore as the hands and feet of Jesus we care for the orphans and we adopt after our Father. We don't pray for God to "open the door to adoption," we feel He already has. We first pray we will trust Him as we walk forward through the open door and then we pray He will clearly close the door if this is not the child He has for our family. We see lots of closed doors. We see even more trust as our faith in our awesome God grows each time.

With that said, although we were willing to adopt again and we were in process of making it happen, we were also praying the entire time that God would clearly shut that door by rising up a family in this child's home state to adopt him before our homestudy was completed. And praise God that is exactly what happened! A family has come forward for this little boy, in his home state and we couldn't be more excited. We are now praying for this child, his new family and whatever God may have in store for us (we are praying about embryo adoption, but that is a different story). :)

4/24/2016: Click here to see photo on FB:

We are home! Our trip to Big Sandy, TX was sweet and quite inspiring, maybe I will find some time to write more detailed about it soon. But we are so glad to be back on the farm. I did miss it, even though we all thoroughly enjoyed the break!

We drove home all day Saturday and I spent last night/this morning from 1am-8am in the ER with Brittney. Turns out it wasn't as severe as we originally thought just several small things piled on top of each other so she just was feeling no good. She has a mild cold, an awful yeast diaper rash and added inflammation due to becoming a little lady, a mild bladder infection and constipation (even though we had a bm every day). Rest, fluids, prescription cream, antibiotics and some Miralax and in a few days I am sure she will be up and feeling great again! :)

When my expectations were to be hospitalized again this news is a blessing! Sometimes the difference between blessings and burdens is just in what lenses you choose to look at life through. With all this little girlie's challenges (and now womanhood, oh my!) I still wouldn't trade her for the world! She is God's gift and blessing to us! We are so undeserving!!!

4/26/2016: Click here to see photo on FB:

Worry happens when we assume responsibility for things that God never intended us to. The remedy for worry is trust. Worry won't heal my broken toe but trusting in God' goodness gives me a peace while it takes time to mend.

"Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:6-7

What are you worried about? Can you trust the Lord with that area of your life?

P.S. Excuse my poorly manicured toes, I even thought maybe I should re-paint them before taking a pic (how vain) but real mommy-hood sometimes looks like dirty toes and chipped nail polish. ;)

4/26/2016: Click here to see photo on FB:

I am contemplating locking myself in a closet for 24 hours! LOL :) 

I feel like a comedy of errors! A couple weeks ago I schedule a wellness exam at my doctor as necessary to update our adoption homestudy.
So 2 days ago I take Britt to the ER and pick up a nasty cough, yesterday I break my toe, and today, IN THE DOCTOR'S OFFICE, I take a sip from my water bottle while holding my physical form and the paper perfectly slices my cornea!

Ha! Life is never boring indeed....

4/27/2016: Click here to see photo on FB:

Britt-head is feeling so much better today! She is such an easy girl, seriously my easiest kid even with all her medical craziness, because her spirit is so sweet and joyful! She calls me over to show me all the toys she has been looking at sitting quietly on the couch. "Look mommy, toys, YAY!" Can't help but smile around this girl. We are seeing such a HUGE improvement in her mood, language, vocabulary and cognitive abilities since switching to her to an all-natural formula, Liquid Hope. It is amazing to watch!

Lots of good news today, my eye feels so much better, yesterday it felt like someone was rubbing a tree branch across it over and over. Ow! I don't have my vision completely back so I didn't feel comfortable driving, so a friend came by and picked up 3 big kids to go to the abortion clinic where we minister some Wednesday mornings. Then Anthony was picked up to help friends install gutters, lately because he is so smart and hard-working many friends and local farms hire him to help them out with building, yard and farm projects. And my favorite event is that Brian is off work today! It is beautiful out so we are all going to take a drive to an local fruit tree farm to plant the beginning of a fruit orchard on our property. God is good!

4/29/2016: Click here to see photo on FB:

Mommy wars are real! Babies and kids don't come with manuals. Let us always season our words with grace, educate in private and encourage in public :)

Our baby Pygmy goat, Boberry, staring in his very first meme! ;)

Posted by Shannon

Best of Facebook: March 2015

3/1/15: Click here to see video on FB:

AMEN x20!!!! This is such an overlooked subject when dealing with the church and adoption. Praise God for a little more light shed on this subject. Please watch and share if you have or know someone who has adopted! It is a lonely road parenting RAD especially when you don't know what RAD is or why this child you love dearly hates you!

We watch Wretched often although Todd (the show host) drives me crazy sometimes with his antics. I do not believe that Todd is saying that 100% of children have RAD, I think he is saying that potentially you can adopt a child with 100% RAD. Not only did our first 3 have RAD to varying degrees but last year we specifically adopted a child diagnosed with RAD from an adoption disruption. RAD behaviors are REAL! Yet let me point out that Jesus can heal and release the bondage of even RAD!!!

The hardest part of adoption and RAD is loving a child that does not reciprocate any form of love, but isn’t that the gospel! Jesus loved us, a people that did not reciprocate His love yet He filed for our adoption anyway! We then love Him because He first loved us! That is the story of RAD, we as parents get to live on the front lines of the gospel and sacrifice our lives and love with sometimes no reward. We do have hope even with RAD, we have Jesus. Also, the best biblical resource we have found for parenting children with these symptoms is “Parenting the Difficult Child” by Linda Rice.

Click here to see video on Wretched, "Reactive Attachment Disorder: You need to know that most adoptive parents are dealing with this."

3/4/15: Click here to see post on FB:

Let me present an adoption scenario: Twins are born, mom decides that she isnt ready for this and begins looking for an adoption plan for her babies. She needs an immediate family for these 6 week old baby boy twins. Question, would you be willing to adopt them?

I do believe that most of you are so willing to adopt that you are about to comment or message me to ask if this is real. But are you ready to appear in front of an attorney and adopt today? In an hour? In your willingness to adopt did you prepare for adoption ahead of time? Have you completed your adoption homestudy? If God has laid adoption on your heart, if at any point in your walk you have said, "I would love to adopt one day" then step out in faith and get prepared! God could call on you at any moment. You could talk to a woman tomorrow at the grocery store or hear a need from a friend. There may not be time to say, "I am willing but give me 3 months to get my homestudy completed." Adoption needs tend to be immediate and almost never are you going to have 9 months to prepare! I you are not ready you may miss out on a unique opportunity to be surprisingly blessed!

Willingness is great, but are you prepared to say "I am ready. Lord, send me," with homestudy in hand, if you were offered twins today?

3/5/15: Click here to see photos on FB:

Just got home very late from dancing the night away! We were invited to a English Country Dance event with a purpose to fundraise money to help our friend Dima, an orphan from Ukraine who came here on a medical visa, apply for Asylum to stay in the country! So today we spent 2 hours of last minute thrift store shopping in hopes of finding some old english costumes. After prayer, three thrift stores and $25 our goal was accomplished! We loved learning so many old dances including our new favorite, the Virginia Reel. Here are some pictures of our fun!

3/6/15: Click here to see photo on FB:

Let me tell you a story of blessings!

Our tax return just came in (woohoo!) and we have budgeted all the money to fulfill our final needs for our new home. One of those budgeted needs was an AC/heat system. The house is set up for central air but the AC system was old and broken when we bought the house. We budgeted $1500 for a good, used one and called an AC guy that a good friend recommended. He came out discussed our budget, looked over everything and said he would call with a quote. His call later that day blew me away!

Now let me set the stage a little bit. That morning we got a late start, it was a plain old rough morning. It was 10:30am by the time we finally got farm chores done and breakfast on the table. Here I am in a old t-shirt and had kinda skipped the hair brushing and make-up in my usual morning routine when the scheduled AC guy shows up. He was just here to do get a quick quote for a paid job so I let it go that I appeared so unorganized and frazzled. He left after about 30min of gathering all the information he needed to write up a quote and promised to call later. Around 3pm the same day the phone rang.

"Mrs. Carroll this is _____, the AC guy. I wanted to let you know that I have never met a sweet and well-mannered bunch of kids as your own. I was so thoroughly impressed with your home and felt an overwhelming peace of God while I was there. The presence of Holy Spirit is so evident all over your home and family. I could barely make it out your driveway without tears streaming down my face. Because of the amazing work you guys are doing I want to donate a AC/heating system, all new duct work, the wiring and installation. You will have the whole package and won't pay a thing. I want to do this for your family. God has been so good to my business and my family and He has placed it on my heart to bless yours. You have other places that budgeted money can be well spent I am sure!

When I picked up my jaw off the floor and wiped away tears I called my hubby and fell in awe of our amazing God who is so big and so evidently seen through our weaknesses, flaws and imperfections!

Today, four guys for six hours worked hard and fully installed and set up our brand new system! God is good all the time, all the time God is GOOD!

3/12/15: Click here to see photo on FB:

Our garden is done! Seeds planted and baby seedlings are a sprouting. It took a lot of work for 3 days straight but we will see what God does as we venture to grow our own produce. It is as big as our house at 2000sqft! A huge thank you to my hubby for tilling the land, it was way harder than one would imagine with all the roots and compacted soil. A shout out to my awesome kiddos, Anthony who cut down every tree that made our garden boxes and Mirabel, Risa and Sam who moved trees and raked and spread lots of old hay! Yay!

3/19/15: Click here to see post on FB:

Our visit to Orlando to see Brittany this past Mon-Wed went part very well and part frustrating. Due to some hiccups we didn't get to participate in all the stuff we planned on, like our CMS medical training or a visit with her school nurse and teacher. But we did get to be a part of a doctor's visit with Brittany and speak with her doctor at length about her aHUS condition. She was all smiles once we were out of the hospital and talking in the parking lot. We also were able to see her later that day briefly at her foster parent's house.

Brittany was much more interactive and talkative and again smiled up a storm around the kids. Little Maggie is so sweet around her. Maggie gently placed her hand on Brittany's leg, "We have yours bed for you in ours room. You will live with us. You can play with my Minnie Mouse kitchen." As we were leaving and promised to come back, Brittany reached out and grabbed my hand with both of hers, she held tight and began repeating, "I want you to stay, I want you to stay." To say the least, it was very hard to leave. The kids already love her and talk about her all the time. We are working on our schedule and budget for the next time we can travel and visit with her. Next visit we should be able to do an overnight visit with her in Orlando.

We have such a wonderful host family in Orlando to stay with and have so much fun visiting even when frustrations arise. Also it has been a blessing to see my family more often and for them to get to know the kiddos, who are pretty fun and awesome!

3/20/15: Click here to see article on FB:

Our guest post "with open arms" about adoption disruption was published yesterday on the blog "No Hands But Ours."

It is about the little known world of adoption disruption. Adoption disruption is a real dilemma in our culture, even in our churches. There are orphaned and children waiting to made family have their adoptions disrupted or dissolved daily. It is a much bigger reality than any of us wish to admit or recognize. Our culture is one of shallow commitments, we see that through the stats on our nation's divorce rate. And to think married people fell in love and both willingly chose each other for life. Often when adopting a child it feels more like an arranged marriage, one in which only one party is making a commitment to love. First comes commitment, then comes adoption then, sometimes much later, comes the moment when we fall in love.

"Attachment takes both parties. A child struggling with attachment needs us, as the parent, to show them a love that they cannot resist. A love that says, “I am going to love you no matter what you do or say to me!” A love that says, “I am going to be here for you whether you want me to be or not, because I love you!” A love that says, “I am not going to let you hurt yourself, me or others because you mean too much to me!” A love that has nothing to do with how we, as parents, feel. We are not toddlers controlled by emotions, but adults who can and must control our emotions.

These children need a love that isn’t a passing warm feeling, but an unwavering commitment. A love that is a daily choice, sometimes a daily battle, but these kids are worth the battle. A love that cannot be shaken by the hard behaviors born in their history of loss and rejection. A love that does not fade or diminish when it is not reciprocated. A love that does not look like any other “love” this world tries to sell us." - Me ;)

Read whole post here:

Click here to see article on No Hands But Ours blog

3/24/15: Click here to see photos on FB:

Easter Egg Hunt at the FL Governor's Mansion. So glad we were invited again this year as the kids look forward to this event every year!

3/31/15: Click here to see photos on FB:

This is where a bleeding heart will you! ;) Sunday night we went to pick up a rescue Great Pyrenees girl who had been living under a shed and needed a home. Apparently she had 6 little puppies who were very sick and we knew they needed to see a vet right away. Mama was sick too and all her milk had dried up, now we have an unexpected $200 vet bill and 6 three-week old puppies that we are bottle feeding.

But aren't they ADORABLE!!! And mama is sweet as pie and is more of a blessing to us then we are to her! Some things in life are about making it a priority to do what is right, not what we have time or money for. Good thing I have some awesome kiddos to help with constant feedings and God's amazing strength to continue to add to our life of busy chaos!

Posted by Shannon

Feels Like A Mansion! Before and After Home Photos Part One

We are home! At least we know this is where God has us for hopefully a LONG while because moving just plain stinks! We have been on an up and down financial roller coaster for years. It feels like we are nearing the end of this ride with debt freedom in sight! We are SO close and finally relaxing from a month of very intense labor!

To recap, in June 2013 we put our big, beautiful $260,000 mortgaged house up for sale and purchased a raw 7 acre property. Then in Dec. 2013 our house sold more quickly than planned and God orchestrated details that resulted in us moving into a 600sqft trailer on 4 acres. Click here for more about that story: Debt Free Here We Come! Surprisingly we fell in love with that tiny home and were quite content our year there (although we are putting it up for sale shortly). Now we have just finished moving again!

To recap on our most recent move, we found and bought a foreclosure/repo 1904sqft doublewide mobile home for $11,500. We had it moved to our paid off 7 acre property for $6000. Permiting ended up costing $2000 and septic installation was $4000. Thankfully we our electric and water were hooked up by the county for free! We moved in Christmas Eve and shortly after Brian's awesome brother flew in to help us with the load of repairs. Click here for more details on our move: Move in Progress. This move has held blessing after blessing as we see God care for our every need and desire!

After tons of work moving our family and farm, now we are all settled in and loving it!

  

Now for the first half of before and after photos of our new home!


This is from the front door. This floor was horribly stained and this room smelled heavily of cat pee, yuck! After lots of cleaning, sanding and sealing we were able to install this beautiful new floor which was donated to our family from Flooring USA!

You can really see just how bad the floor was from this angle. This 400sqft dining/living room is HUGE compared to our previous tiny 600sqft house! How how I have missed having a couch and a living room. I still cannot believe it is mine!

Our dining/school room, the table and hutch were given to us by Nanny Diane and the hutch is full of homeschool and craft supplies. The bulletin board and cork board-turned felt board were from thrift stores.

Our living/tv room, all the stuff in here was from four local thrift stores in town. The huge reclining, sleeper sofa sectional was $150, the tv stand was $25, the coffee table was $15, the awesome picture was $10 and dresser to hide all our kids books, cds and dvds was free on the side of the road! That is $200 for everything!

From the living/dining room you enter the kitchen. We ripped up the peeling sheet laminate and were able to replace it with peel and stick laminate tile that we carefully pulled up from the master bedroom. 

Is this seriously my kitchen!?! I mean really, did you see the blog post showing our tiny house's kitchen? I am in love!

I just love the kitchen island! I can move around without stepping on all the little people that surround me! That black dishwasher in the before picture had a mouse nest bigger than a watermelon inside and smelled awful. I wasn't even going to try to clean it! The very moment we opened it up and saw the nasty surprise inside my phone dinged with a text message. It was from a friend saying their neighbor was needing to get rid of a working dishwasher since they were upgrading to stainless steel applicances and she asked if we needed it. God knows our needs before we do!

Another amazing "God provides" story right here. We needed a fridge. Brian had the perfect fridge picked out, a double door, freezer drawer, stainless steel fridge, but there was no way it was going to happen with the $2000 price tag. I convinced him to settle temporarily for a cheap, used one until we saved the money. We went by our favorite thrift store for appliances and lo and behold the EXACT make and model fridge he wanted was there for only $600. It was as if God picked it up and dropped it there the moment we walked in. Just amazing!

I just love this tile counter top. Maggie and Ty can almost always be found at those barstools while I am cooking in the kitchen.

Okay now if you didn't hear me the first time, I have SO missed having a living room and now I have, not one but, two! This is what the kid's call the "adult living room." I call it the fireplace room. :)

We are pretty excited about the fireplace! It is a working wood burning fireplace and we have never had one before.

So you know you want to hear more about God's amazing provision! Every piece of furniture in this room, the piano, the sleeper loveseat, the papasan chair, the four swivel rockers, and the five barstools, were FREE! Some from local thrift stores that know and love our family, some from friends and others from the side of the road. The rug Nanny gave us and the picture was from my parents ages ago. Oh, and here is a close up of our colorful schedule there on the wall next to our bedroom door. I got the idea from this book Managers of Their Homes and a trashed dry erase board.

Last room I have to share today is our laundry/mud room. There is also an enterance door here and this is where we mainly enter, kick off our farm boots, hang up our rain coats and throw dirty clothes straight into the washer. This is also were we store our animal feed and outdoor equipment in bins since we don't have an outdoor shed. It is nice having a real laundry room opposed to the washer and dryer next to the fridge.

Part two is coming soon and will include bedroom and bathroom photos!

In other news

Since we are settled in and loving our new home, we thought it was a good time to get our adoption homestudy updated (as it expired just before our move in Dec. 2014). Let me remind you we committed long ago as new Christians that we would put family planning in God's hands. We committed to do nothing to prevent or promote pregnancy and the same goes for adoption. While we don't prevent adoption by not renewing our homestudy and not being available, we don't promote it either. We do not actively seek children to adopt.  

As soon as we scheduled our adoption social worker to come our for a home visit we received a call from a case worker in Orlando with Wendy's Wonderful Kids. She wanted to match us with a little girl, Brittany, that has spent 8 years in foster care with developmental delays and asked if we would be interested. We committed long ago at the beginning of the journey that we would say yes to any call we received about a child. We would consider the call not from a man but from God.

Picture from Brittany's online profile at adoptuskids.org, click here for her full profile.

Well, of course, we said yes. Honestly, with much fear at first. But God is quickly turning that fear into great excitement! We are just about done with all the checklist items for our adoption homestudy to be complete, 23 page application filled out - check! And signiture page Notarized - check! Four character reference forms handed out to friends - check! Dr. physicals for Brian and I - check! Home visit completed- check! Fingerprints done- check! Kid's physicals scheduled - check! This coming Sunday and Monday we will be driving to Orlando, FL to meet Brittany for the first time and attend a staffing with all her fostercare, adoption, medical and therapy professionals present so we can better grasp what her needs are and learn how to best care for her. The same way we have made a commitment to love our kids, before they came, and regardless of their abilities, health, race or behavior, so have we already committed our hearts to love Brittany regardless of the challenges! But that is a blog post for later :) 

Posted by Shannon

Soli Deo gloria - Glory to God alone

Turner's Adoption Story Journal - Part Three - Forever, Love and Family!

***This is part three about our 90 day wait until adoption, to read part one which explains the two month process that led up to the big trip click here: Turner's Adoption Story Journal- Part One - Paperwork, Prayers and Miracles! To read part two that tells all about our big trip to Michigan and meeting him for the first time click here: Turner's Adoption Story Journal- Part Two - Trials, Chaos and Hope ***


Turner fit right in from day one. Seriously, it was as if he had always been there. Like we had a hole in our family that only he could fill. God knew what He was doing when He brought us Turner! Since we had moved only a month and a half prior to taking a trip to Michigan we still had a lot of work to do! Turner got to get his hands dirty right away and learned a lot of new things like the character-building task of putting up wire farm fencing through wooded property!

Only days after we arrived home Turner got to witness his new sister, Mirabel, being baptized as a follower for Jesus! (Click here to see baptism video on youtube)

               

On February 25th, only days after Turner joined us we got to celebrate his 8th birthday. I think he got 3 separate cakes and parties that day from all our friends in our church, homeschool and adoptive parent support community!         

On February 26th our 2 week "honeymoon" had ended and some anticipated behaviors began to emerge. This is the first mild angry outburst, crying and shutting down event we had:

When one child was helping another child by cleaning up all his legos so they could come to lunch, he let her know, with much anger, that she was not doing it right and he didn't want her help!

"NO, NO, NO! Those are MY legos! I didn't want you to do that! You ruin EVERYTHING! FINE! Just ruin this too!"

Insert mom to stop the crazy stomping and throwing tantrum, scoop him up in my lap, hold him and begin to whisper: "I am not mad at you. I love you. I need you to listen to me and answer me or we will have to take a break from Legos today and they will have to spend the night in mommy's room. Okay?"

He calmed, but huffed under his breath, "Oh-Kaaay!"

"You are SO smart and creative. You have been given a talent to build anything you think of with legos. You build such wonderful and beautiful creations. Do you know you have legos inside you? Legos to build relationships. You can build beautiful word and actions that help relationships and build others up or you can build mean, ugly words and actions that hinder relationships and hurt others. What kind of word legos do you think you used?"

"Bad ones," came as a whisper.

"You used mean words with your sister, ugly legos. You know how sometimes when we have a big bin of legos the ones you use a lot end up on top but the ones you really need, but don't use often fall to the bottom? I know you have legos that build sweet words, beautiful legos somewhere in there. But because you use the ugly ones, the ones of disobeying and yelling and anger so often they are the easiest to find. Right on top. I would like to help you dig deep and bring out all those legos that I know are in there! It might take a while and a lot of digging. Can we, together, dig down deep and find the beautiful legos of truth and love? And use those legos to build relationships and encourage each other?"

He nodded, wiped the tears from his eyes, "yea I think we can."

So many times, including this one, after we are done talking and hug, I praise God in awe of the words He formed on my lips. In awe of the ceaseless grace He gives me to parent these little ones. I praise Him for the legos He filled me with to build a relationship of love and attachment with my child. 

That was just one of the patience testing fits and angry outbursts that filled up the month of March. Shutting down became a reaction to everything, everything was ignored and he would pick a spot and sit still as stone, sometimes for 10 minutes sometimes for 4 hours. Then all of a sudden he would happily run over to show me a toy or picture and the angry spell was broken. We had many occasions to walk through the process of reconciliation. You can't just get angry and ignore someone you love then act all happy when its conveinent for you. I would stop him and say, "I would love to see what you want to show me but first we need to talk about why you got so angry and ignored me all afternoon and wouldn't play with the family." At first he would blame it on something small like, "I hurt my toe" but as time went on he really began to open up and tell about past hurts and struggles and memories.

I purposed that from the time we picked him up to the time we adopted him we would make sure he knew he was very wanted. Everyday I told him how glad I was that he was with our family. On March 30th he finally responded.
Me: “I am so glad you are here, Samuel!”
Samuel: “You have said that everyday since I came here! Why to you say that!?!”
Me: “Because I am so overwhelmed with joy that you are here that it just overflows. I am truly glad you are here. Would you rather I stop saying it?”
Samuel cracks a smile: “No.”

As March ended and Turner began to mellow out and mesh again we began our search for the perfect name. We gave him four choices to choose from. Samuel was our favorite as it means "heard by God" or "answered by God" and God sure did hear us and answer our prayers for this little boy! We had prayed specifically for a boy Risa's age and here he was, her Chinese twin as she says :) After taking two weeks to really decide one day I called for Turner to come here and when he came he said, "By the way, it's Samuel now. You can call my Sam." That was that. Everytime a sibling or Brian or I would stumble and say Turner he would correct us right away, "it's Sam now." We decided that he would be given the new first name Samuel, we would keep Turner as a middle name in honor to the place his previous adoptive parents had in his life, Tianqi was his name in the Chinese orphanage and that would stay as a 2nd middle name and he would inherit our family name as his new last name.
           
April came and went like a blur, our mini farm was in full swing, it felt like we were being called to take in unwanted pets every day! Plus our two week family vacation to TX made the month fly by! Samuel was blossoming more and more everyday! He was becoming an excellent helper, was great during school and such a joy to be around. He began to talk about how much God was doing in his life and caught me off guard when he interrupted me one morning to tell me that he now knows why God purposed him to come here, to this family. Sam told me that, “God said, I will put him in a home where he will learn more about Me.” And learning about Jesus he is!

It has been amazing to see how tender his heart is and how he just adores learning what God has said in His Word. Samuel talks often of how he wants to go back to China, how there is so much idol worship there, and how he wants to become a missionary to tell them about Jesus. What an amazing little boy God has sent us!

  

On May 21st, 2014 our 90 days wait period was over and Samuel Turner Tianqi became legally ours! The court adoption was beautiful! Over 25 of our church and homeschool family came to witness. The judge had Sam come right up next to her and told him the story of Samuel from the bible and how his name means, "prayed for" or "heard by God"! She even had Sam sign the Final Judgement of Adoption with his hand on hers saying "if you sign this it means FOREVER!" She then had all our guests join hands and called our pastor over to pray over us! It was more like a church service than an adoption! A moment of pure bliss! The perfect memory of how our Sam was born into our family!

  

Watch Sam's adoption video here!

Posted by Shannon
Soli Deo gloria - Glory to God alone

Turner's Adoption Story Journal - Part Two - Trials, Chaos and Hope!

***This is part two about our trip to Michigan, to read part one which explains the two month process that led up to this trip click here: Turner's Adoption Story Journal - Part One - Paperwork, Prayers and Miracles! ***

We arrived in TN on Saturday 2/8 evening to visit with our friends, the D family. They are an amazingly encouraging family with 3 bio and 4 adopted children. We were excited to spend the weekend with them as we waited for Monday to roll around and our ICPC paperwork to arrive in FL for processing. The weekend flew by, we were blessed by the D's loving hospitality and the kids had a blast. Monday 2/10 early morning we got word from FL that they hadn't received our ICPC packet yet but were on the lookout for it and it would take 2-3 days to process once it had arrived. We packed up, said our goodbyes to our wonderful friends and headed north with the hopes the paperwork would arrive that day and we would be released by Wednesday 2/12.

Our dream is one day to have a house in the rolling mountains of TN!



Since we only made it 4 hours north to Cinncinati, OH by dinnertime we decided to park there for the night and enjoy our northern loves, Skyline Chili and the Creation Musuem! Tuesday 2/11 we enjoyed the warm, free inside activities the museum offered and checked in with the ICPC office around lunchtime. 

Bad news. 

The packet was not sent expedited mail on Friday 2/7 as we had thought, it hadn't even arrived yet to begin processing. We began brainstorming. All we could do is pray and trust. We decided to pray with faith that the paperwork would be recieved and not held up any later than Friday 2/14. God is faithful. Even though our stay in MI was becoming longer than planned we didn't want to miss out on any more time with our new son. We left OH and began the last 4 hour trek to MI arriving after sundown. After a long and noisy night boondocking at a rest station we were ready to be at his house on Wednesday 2/12 at 9am.

More bad news. 

Our RV wouldn't start, it wouldn't even try, no lights, sound, nothing. Must be the battery, we probably just needed a jump. As we stood outside in the single digit temperature, looking under the hood, we prayed "Lord, please send us someone to jump us." We looked around and asked the dozen other truck drivers that were parked around us. No one was willing or able. We called our roadside assistance service. They would come out in an hour or so but all normal charges would apply and what if it was more than a jump, a repair wasn't in the travel budget. We prayed again. "Lord, search our hearts, you know we just want to meet our son, please start our vehicle!" Our kids won't forget the miracle that happened next, Brian put the key in the ignition and the RV reved right up. I won't forget the silence on the other end of the phone when I called roadside assistance back only minutes later to say, "never mind, we don't need service, we prayed and God fixed our RV!"

It was a little nerves mixed with excitement that churned inside me as we waited at the door. A stack of boxes and suitcases greeted us in the foyer when the door opened. We stepped inside and a little boy with the same face as the child in the picture on our fridge, that we have been praying for since December, came forward and greeted us. "This is Turner, he is ready to go." And just like that he happily told us what was in each box and suitcase then darted down the front steps and to the RV. "Turner, do you need to know our names before you leave with us?" I stopped him. "Um, sure." We knelt down, introduced ourselves to our new son and walked him to our RV where he was greeted by five smiling children. We had prayed for him so often that even Titus and Maggie pointed from their seats, "Mama, Ter-ner, Ter-ner!"

Our new son joins us for the first time!

We sat down around the table for lunch at a local buffet. "Turner, we pray and thank God for our food before we eat, have you prayed before?"

"No."

"Okay, well have you ever heard of Jesus?"

"No."

"Well, that is the God we pray to, you will learn a lot about Him, let's pray."

All the campgrounds in Michigan were closed for the winter with 4 feet of snow on the ground. A local KOA campground had mercy on us, they plowed a spot and let us plug into the electrical outlet outside the bathrooms. After 15 minutes of waist-deep playing in the snow the kids were back in the warm RV changing into dry clothes and playing legos and board games. I had a barrage of phone calls and emails to decipher and spent a couple hours in the bathroom hallway in tears mudding through it all. We did find out that MI ICPC emailed all documents directly to FL since the mailed copies still had not been recieved. After explaining our situation and desire to go home with our son to the FL ICPC office I was told to "take a chill pill" and that they could take 10-14 days and even deny the request which would place Turner in foster care. Then email after email piled in my inbox with numerous additional required documents and paperwork, 23 items total, were needed to approve us to leave MI. Next thing we know this email came in:

"ICPC received a phone call from an anonymous person who claimed to be an attorney here in FL. This person stated that your family moved and now lives in a run-down mobile home that this anonymous attorney described as unhealthy to live in. This anonymous person also said the person with ICPC is being bad-mouthed over the internet, being called obstructionist, etc. The anonymous source stated that she has significant concerns regarding the new living conditions of your family. At minimum, an updated Home Assessment needs to be done now."

Bizarre. Just bizarre.

I was crying in the bathroom when Brian came in. We will never leave. Not with a new home visit and all the documents required. It could take weeks. We prayed, prayed boldly that God would perform more mightly miracles and let us leave by Friday 2/14. I have to admit it took me until Monday the following week to forgive this "anonymous attorney" for their call that labeled our family a "home with concerns" and threatened to send our son into state foster care. If you are reading this and you are this anonymous attorney, I forgive you.

I gathered my emotions, gave them to God and went to join Brian and the kids for a quiet, and cozy evening cooped up in the 250sqft RV.

  

Thursday 2/13 brought a blessed distraction from the previous day's emotional roller coaster. We spent lunch and dinner fellowshipping and playing with new friends, the G family! They have 12 adopted children and loads of encouraging experience in all things adoption, including ICPC! This was the family behind the His Hands His Feet Today Facebook page where we first learned of our son's need for adoption! We parted ways only after I joined KG for a special church service that evening and promised to update her as long as we were in MI.

We had been praying boldly for God to let us go home Friday 2/14, on Valentine's Day! Friday morning we headed to Ypsilanti, MI closer to the border to hang out and faithfully wait for the call! For only $22 we spent the morning and afternoon at the Michigan Firehouse Museum having loads of fun!

Adoption is a hurry-up-and-wait game.

Just as we were leaving and looking for a place to eat lunch we recieved two urgent documents that had to be notarized immediately. We found an OfficeMax to print the documents from my email, then found a local bank to wait and have them notarized, and then back to OfficeMax to scan documents in and email them back to our attorney. Even with rushing around this process took almost two hours. Happy Valentine's Day. We were sure that with all that urgency we would be released once ICPC recieved them. We went to lunch/dinner at Costco and waited until 5pm came and went. No call. Nothing. Documents sent in but no word, it seemed we would be stuck in Michigan for the weekend, possibly even all next week! Feeling let down, we stocked up on some more food for our lengthened stay. Since we were much farther south than the previous campground we stayed at we tried to find anywhere else. The navigation system directed us incorrectly for two hours around closed snowed-in roads resulting in us getting stuck twice and manuvering very difficult u-turns for a 32ft RV on dark, icy roads. Finally we found a parking spot in a closed state park. Water was shut off and we were out of water. Sewage dump site was under 4 feet of snow and we were way over due on dumping our sewage tanks....ew. Bathrooms and facilities were closed and locked. Then we noticed that overnight warm water had seeped through our bathroom floor meaning we had a frozen pipe and a leak...ugh.

It was not a fun night.

We were frustrated, angry and sad. We wanted to go home. We were tired of snow, ice and everything frozen. I wanted warm water and a shower. We were worried about the increasing attorney and social worker costs due to all this additional ICPC paperwork. We were worried about running out of funds in our travel budget if this trip was extended into next week. We were worried about Brian missing work and losing income. This is not how it was supposed to go. Where was God? We truly believed He would answer our prayers. We truly believed He would make a miraculous way for us to go home TODAY. We spilled our hearts and disappointments before the Lord and sought Him in His Word. We know God is sovereign and always good. We know God always pursues His perfect will, even when we don't know what that is. Even when we are just plain upset with His plan.



New mercies each morning.

Our fridge completely froze overnight, cereal and frozen milk for breakfast! On Saturday 2/15 our social worker, JB, who completed our homestudy back in December made a visit out with a friend to our new place. She, once again, approved our home to adopt. Around lunchtime she called to fulfill ICPC's additional requirements of interviews with the children. We passed the phone around as each child told JB, again, that they in fact wanted Turner to stay and be their brother.

Good news.

We expressed a need for prayer as we were struggling with the sad news of a longer stay and increasing attorney (ICPC), social worker (homestudy) and travel costs. Before I could even begin to think about fundraising, between 8am and 12pm on Saturday 2/15 morning God's people flooded our accounts with $3155 toward bringing Turner home! We have never been so excited to write the remaining checks when we get back home! Still has me in awe just thinking about it!

More good news.

A friend in FL who are members of ATI found a couple other members in their directory that lived up near Flint, MI so we could have friends to fellowship with and pass the time quickly. A wonderful man, GC, got in touch with us and told us that his wife and 7 kids were out of town at a funeral but he would love to have us stay with him as long as we needed to stay in MI. We were strangers, had never met before. GC was full of joy and so sweet to open up his entire home of empty beds and toys for us to enjoy! It really felt like the biblical hospitality you only read about in Acts!

   
The home church we visited on Sunday 2/16 morning, at the V family's house, was so encouraging. We brought boiled peanuts, which allowed much amusement as our northern brothers and sisters had never even heard of them before. The all day fellowship was sweet and the cute northern accents and different phrases kept me smiling! "Oh my stars! Where is my pop?" We even borrowed one of the V family's sons to visit America's Largest Christmas Store in Frankenmuth, MI. We enjoyed his company, presents and jellybeans!

Thank you again, Nicholas, for joining us! 

As Monday 2/17 rolled around we were actually sad to leave our new MI friends. GC was too sweet spending our last morning there playing many games with our kids while Brian and I responed to emails, cleaned up and packed all our stuff back in the RV. We were about to have to make a decision about whether Brian would head back home to work, leaving some or all of us in MI to wait, when our attorney said she was sure she could get us approval to leave today! We were on the road headed south by 3pm, a little anxious we would be wasting gas and have to turn around, but trusting in our good God's perfect will and plan this time.



At 4pm that Monday the email finally came! We could go home!!! We weren't done jumping through ICPC hoops just yet though, more awaited us in FL. Our attorney forwarded us the email from ICPC: "Praise The Lord and leave Michigan now before they want something else from me. -CT" 

"Florida is providing PROVISIONAL placement approval for this family
to return to Florida with Turner.

Florida requires an updated addendum to include face-to-face private
interviews with the children within 30 days."

We drove all night! 1000 miles from 4pm to 9am, stopping only for one more to-go dinner at Skyline Chili in OH, coffee and gas. We definitely felt your prayers as we drove through a snowstorm, ice and 25mph wind. Brian was able to make it in to work a little after 9am Tuesday 2/19 and we made it to our Classical Conversations weekly class. It was so nice to be home! No more snow! No more cold, it was 70 degrees and sunny, I packed up my snow boots and dawned a pair of flip-flops! 

  

Home Sweet Home!

State of FL law says that a child must be in your home, monitored by a social worker, for 90 days before you can legalize the adoption in front of a judge.
Stay tuned for "Turner's Adoption Story Journal - Part Three - Forever, Love and Family" as I journal the next 3 months up to the day Turner officially becomes our adopted son!




Posted by Shannon
Soli Deo gloria - Glory to God alone