Home Study...check!

We are SO EXCITED to share that the last piece needed for our home study arrived today!  We had a little bump in the road with Ryan's fingerprints.  We sent both of our prints off in March.  We did this because for the home study we have to have a clearance letter from the Alabama Bureau of Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  Well, my letter came in on May 5.  When Ryan's hadn't come in a week later, we decided to call Virginia.  We are so glad we did!  They thought they were still waiting for Ryan's prints to arrive.  Apparently, they had gotten lost in the shuffle.  But, by the end of the day they had found Ryan's prints and processed them...and his clearance letter arrived today!  So, that means that our Home Study is essentially complete!  I just need to read over it and check for any errors.  The next step is to send off our Home Study and our I-800A form so we can get yet another set of fingerprints done.  We are so thrilled to have this first BIG step in the adoption complete!  Next step...dossier!  Please continue to pray for our process, for the Lord's provision financially, and for Hannah Ryan!

Blessed on Cinco de Mayo!

The Lord is already providing in big ways for our adoption of Hannah Ryan.  Yesterday, we were blown away by the love and generosity shown by our Sunday School class at Briarwood.  Sweet friends of ours who have a big crawfish boil every year planned a "surprise" for us this year.  They spread the word to everyone in our class that this year they wanted to use the event as a way to raise funds for our adoption.  They were praying that the Lord would raise $1000 from the evening...God exceeded expectations and over $2000 was raised last night by our amazing friends.  Ryan & I are so blessed to be in the Heritage Builders class at Briarwood.  We are so thankful that the Lord has placed us in such sweet community.  Thanks to each of you for making Cinco de Mayo 2012 a day that the Akers will never forget!

And her name will be...

We will call her Hannah Ryan...I have always loved double names for girls!  :) Hannah means grace or favor.  We pray that Hannah Ryan will know the grace of God that has been lavished on us by the sacrifice of Christ.  When Hannah of the Bible prayed for a child, God heard her prayers and gave her a son, Samuel.  In her prayer of thanks she said, "...He raises the poor from the dust, and lifts the needy from the ash heap; he seats them with princes and has them inherit a throne of honor."  What a beautiful picture of what our Heavenly Father does through the beauty of adoption!

For each of our children, we have a passage of scripture that we pray for them.  Hannah Ryan's will be Ephesians 3:17-19:

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

So many sin struggles that girls go through could be avoided if they truly understood the lavish love that Christ has for them.  We pray that Hannah Ryan will know and be secure in the love that her earthly Daddy has for her and that this will give her a better understanding and security in the love of her Heavenly Father.  Being named after her Daddy will be a constant reminder that she is Daddy's little girl and that she is loved unconditionally by him!!!

He does immeasurably more...

than we ask or imagine!  Remember what I said in my first post about Lifeline being granted partnerships with 3 orphanages in China?  Well, make that 8!!!!!!!!!!!  That's right!  Lifeline now has exclusive partnerships with 8 orphanages in China, representing over 3000 children who need a family.  And, 5 of those orphanages are in Chongqing.  I have been DYING to post this for over a week, but I've been waiting for the official update from Lifeline to be released.  Go read the update from Lifeline and join us in praising our Heavenly Father for what He is doing on behalf of the fatherless!!!  

http://lifelinechild.org/orphanage-partnerships-in-china/