Meet Hannah Ryan!!!

We have been matched with our little girl!!!  We were actually matched on January 9 but needed to wait until we had our PA (pre-approval) from China to tell the world.  To say we are smitten would be an understatement.  There is no doubt that this little cutie is our daughter!  The Lord was so sweet in how He worked out all the details...

One week before we were matched, the last of the money that we needed to pay for the adoption came in. The Lord provided every penny that we needed before we were even matched!

We were matched with Hannah Ryan on her 19-month-old birthday.

She is at Love Manor, an orphanage in ChongQing (CQ)...the city that both Ryan & I have spent time in together.  Not only that, but friends of ours who live in China actually visited this orphanage with the group from Lifeline this past fall!  As far as orphanages go, it is a really good one.

We have had her name, Hannah Ryan, picked out for months.  Her Chinese name is Qian Anna.  Anna is part of the name we had chosen for her!

She is just 8 days younger than our niece, Savannah...they are going to be the best of friends.

But, my absolute favorite thing the Lord did was a picture that was included in Hannah Ryan's file.  She has a Mongolian spot on her hand.  These are birthmarks that are very common in Asian children.  However, they are not as common on the hand...they are usually found on a child's back or ankles.  Because of this, they included a picture of her hand in her file.  Here is the picture...

For those that know our family well, I am sure you have already picked up on what sign her hand is making.  Her hand is laying on the table in the sign for "I love you."  When I saw this the first time, my breath caught in my throat.  Because of our sweet Hudson this sign is a daily occurrence in our family...at carpool in the morning as the boys are entering school, at bedtime, and all throughout the day.  If our family had a gang sign, this would be it!  When I showed this picture to Hudson, I told him, "That was for you, buddy."  I prayed that the Lord would make it crystal clear when we were matched that the child was our Hannah Ryan.  He went a step further...He gave us a sign.

So, now we ask for your prayers for our little girl...

Please pray that her needs are being met and pray for the sweet woman in this picture who is caring for her daily.

Pray that we will be able to travel to get her in April.  That is pretty much the soonest that the paperwork trail will allow us to travel.  Now that we have her picture, we are ready to hop on a plane!!!

Pray that she will bond and attach with us quickly!

I will post more this week...I can't wait to share the reactions of her sweet big brothers when they heard the news and saw their baby sister for the first time!  :)

LifeSong for Orphans

More exciting news!!!  We found out on Wednesday that we qualified for fundraising through LifeSong for Orphans.  LifeSong is a non-profit Christian ministry dedicated to help meet the needs of orphan children around the world, and obey God’s call to “visit the fatherless…in their affliction” (James 1:27).  They have set up an account in our name to go towards our adoption of Hannah Ryan.  Funds donated to Lifesong for Orphans in our name between now and December 5, 2012 will be given to help cover our adoption expenses. Since LifeSong is a 501(c)3 organization, your gift will be tax deductible.  100% of all funds raised will go directly to cover our adoption costs--nothing will be taken out for Lifesong for Orphans administrative costs.

If you want to contribute to our LifeSong account, make your checks payable to "LifeSong for Orphans" and put this in the subject line: "Akers #3104 adoption."  You can mail your check to LifeSong between now and December 5.

Lifesong for Orphans
PO Box 40
Gridley, IL 61744

Thanks so much for your prayers for our family and for Hannah Ryan!!!  Daily we are amazed at how the Lord is providing for us to bring our baby girl home!!!

Adoption Yard Sale

We had our BIG adoption yard sale this past Saturday.  Ryan & I are still amazed at the generosity of our friends.  The outpouring of love in the form of clothes, toys, & furniture was overwhelming….not to mention the HOURS that some of friends spent helping us set up for the yard sale on Friday.  So many of our dear friends came and shopped at our yard sale as well.  At this point, the yard sale has raised over $2500 for our adoption!!!  I say “at this point” because now we will begin Phase 2:  selling the remaining items on eBay, Craig’s List, and Facebook yard sales sites.  So, please continue to pray that the Lord will provide for our adoption through these sales…and that one day soon, we will once again be able to park in our garage!  Hahaha!

There were a couple of times on Saturday that I was overwhelmed to the point of tears.  One moment was when a sweet woman, who I don’t even know, made her purchases and then pulled out a 50 dollar bill and insisted I take it for our adoption.  I may never see her again, but I will always remember her generosity.  The second moment was having the opportunity to meet Chinese neighbors that live a couple of streets over.  Ryan has noticed the man several times before walking his dogs in the neighborhood.  On Saturday as he was walking his dogs, he stopped to look at our yard sale.  He and Ryan began talking and he noticed the sign we had up about how our yard sale was benefiting our adoption from China.  The man’s eyes lit up and he immediately began telling us about himself, that he was from Beijing, and how excited he was to hear about us adopting from China.  Before he left, he offered to help us in any way he could…translating documents or talking in Mandarin to Hannah Ryan when we get home.  Later in the day, his wife came by to meet us.  He had told her about our adoption.  As we talked with her she said, “We appreciate what you are doing so much.  You are saving her life.”  I just about fell to pieces right there in our driveway.  How sweet of the Lord to give us Chinese neighbors AND to allow us to meet them on the day of our adoption yard sale!!!  Thanks to so many of you who were praying for this event...the Lord continues to provide and we are so humbled!!!

More praises!!!

How great is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you, which you bestow in the sight of men on those who take refuge in you.  Psalm 31: 19

The Lord just keeps pouring on His blessings today!!!  I just went to the mailbox to find a letter from Show Hope...we are receiving an adoption grant from them!  Praise the Lord with us for His goodness!!!  Along with that, He is graciously blessing my Usborne business through so many sweet friends & customers who know that my income is going towards our adoption.  We are so overwhelmed by the Lord's faithfulness today.  He is good!

Log In Date!!!!

We are officially logged in with the CCCWA in China!  Our LID (log in date) is today August 27, 2012...just 10 days after our dossier was shipped to China!  We are blown away by God's goodness...we were prepared for a wait a 3-4 weeks before we were logged in.  So, this means that we are eligible to be matched with our baby girl!!!  Please be in prayer for this process...that the Lord will clearly lead the Lifeline staff and us to Hannah Ryan.

We are DTC!!!

In China adoption lingo, DTC means our dossier has been sent to China!!!  That means that in approximately one month we will receive our LID, which stands for Log In Date!  (Seriously, adoption lingo is like another language in itself!)  Once we are logged in, we are eligible to be matched with a child.  This is SO EXCITING, but also very sobering.  There is a very good chance that this fall we will see a picture of our little girl for the first time.  But, even after we are matched with our Hannah Ryan, it will still be 6 months or more before we can travel to get her.  Everything is becoming so real, but we know we still have a long time to wait before we get to hold her in our arms!

In light of our exciting news, we have a few important prayer requests to share:

• Please pray for wisdom for the staff at Lifeline...that the Lord will clearly lead them to Hannah Ryan when the matching process begins.

• Pray also for the Lord to continue to provide for our adoption: 
• We have applied for 2 adoption grants...please pray that the Lord would allow us to receive grants from both of these wonderful organizations.

• Pray for the Lord to continue bless my home business with Usborne Books & More this year...all of my earnings are going towards our adoption.

• We are having an Adoption Yard Sale on Saturday, October 6...please pray that the Lord would pour out His blessings and provide abundantly through that event.

• Please continue to pray for Hannah Ryan...that loving arms are caring for her and that all of her needs are being met. 

Thank you so much for joining us on this journey!

Other lights...

In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets...  -The Four Loves, C. S. Lewis

As soon as we started the process to adopt Hannah Ryan from China, Ryan and I started noticing a change in both our boys...particularly in Hudson.  Hudson is now a big brother.  Even though he has not yet met his little sister, there has already been a change in him...he has already assumed the role.  As we started to see this happen, I immediately thought of the above quote by C. S. Lewis.  Even though he is specifically talking about friends, I see it already in Hudson's life as a result of the coming "light" of Hannah Ryan.  He already loves her unashamedly...he tells everyone about her.  He is already talking about how he is going to protect her and help care for her.  He has even described how he will make her laugh when she is upset.  There is a tenderness that Hannah Ryan is awakening in him that is absolutely blowing me away!  I think one of the things I am looking forward to the most when we arrive at the airport is seeing Hudson's face when he meets his baby sister for the first time...somebody is going to have to have their video camera ready!

The week after we officially told the boys that we were adopting a little sister from China, Hudson came home from school with a pink purse.  He regularly comes home with prizes that he has earned from the "Treasure Box" of one of his teachers at school.  When he has earned enough stickers for working hard, he can redeem them for a prize.  Well, apparently, he had been saving up to get something really good.  This particular week, after learning that he was going to be a big brother, he redeemed ALL the stickers he had been stockpiling to get a pink purse for his little sister.  The purse has remained hanging on his bedroom door since that day...waiting for the day when he can give Hannah Ryan her purse.  Before we left for Summer Beach Project, I was cleaning the house and picked up the purse.  I was surprised to find that it was full.  I poured out the contents to discover that Hudson had been bringing home more and more "girly" treasures from school (and finding things around our house) to put in Hannah Ryan's purse for her...a purple brush, beads, stickers, a necklace...  Oh how blessed this little girl will be!!!  I am so thankful for the "other light" that God is bringing into our family and for the "facets" of her big brother, Hudson, that we would never have gotten to see without her!