A good and gracious God

That is what we serve. A good and gracious God. He has been so good to me and my family. I can't get over what He has shown me in the last few weeks and I don't want to. I mentioned in the last post that we read the book "Radical" by David Platt and it has really messed with me in a good way. It has made me take a serious look at how I live my life and what I spend my time, talent, resources and money on. That last one is a big one. In America we have sold into the "American Dream" where we believe we are "owed" certain things and that our goal in life is to dry a fancy car, live in a big house, have a nice savings account and see how much "stuff" we can accumulate. THAT ISN'T WHAT OUR LIVES ARE SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT. That isn't why we are here. That isn't what God has destined for us.....that isn't why Jesus Christ gave his precious life on a old wooden cross....that isn't it. It is soooooo much more. It means so much more. None of that matters. What matters is what did you do for Him. Not what little did you give in your tithe...which many "Christians" don't do to begin with, what did you do above that. I have been praying that God would open my eyes to those in need because it is so easy to get sheltered in our lives and loose sight of those hurting around us. Well let me tell you if you are going to pray a prayer and mean it that God opens your eyes to those in need get ready for it to hurt. It hurts my heart, my mind and my wallet! But my goodness the blessing that comes along to see in someone else's eyes hope restored. Not just doing good but telling those you help why you do it. I have been given that privilege the last couple of weeks and it is AMAZING and contagious. It makes me want to do more. My life is counting, it is making a difference. I am loving people with the love of Jesus. Am I perfect? Absolutely not, just ask my husband. But I have a Savior who loves me with all His heart and He is teaching me how to love Him with all of mine.

The pictures of our recent trip to Gatlinburg. We were blessed by some friends who let us use their cabin and we had a nice family get away.

Now that over 3 months have passed

So last post I talked about being better at blogging and now it has been over three months and I'm finally getting around to updating this thing. I really, really do want to keep going with it but then life happens and next thing you know three months have flown by. We have been having fun and staying busy. We just had a big fall festival at work/Anna's school. We had so much fun but am soooooo tired. Anna was a princess and she truly believes she is a princess....look out world.

We are praying through some pretty serious stuff right now. We are reading the book "Radical" by David Platt....highly recommend it but only if you want to really challenge what you say you believe. We just read the chapter about going out into all the world and telling them about the love of Jesus. In the book, he mentions that 1 billion people in the world have NEVER heard about Jesus. Have no clue who He is. Can you believe that? IF you are a believer does that not shake you to the core to think how we have failed in the Great Commission. David Platt also addresses the question he gets all the time that surely God will make an exception for those people....a loving God wouldn't send those people who have never heard about Jesus to hell but then David supports his argument with a ton of scripture that if this were the case the worst thing we could do is send missionaries around the world, because then they would have the opportunity to reject Jesus and for sure go to hell. Makes you think. We have gotten very comfortable in "our" faith and turn a blind spot to what God said to go into ALL the world and make disciples. My daughter came from the other side of the world. How many people are going to her side of the world and taking the hope of Jesus Christ? If we hadn't have been blessed to adopt Anna, if she had never been adopted and lived her life in a Chinese orphanage would she have ever been told about who Jesus is? If she didn't hear and never gave her life to Jesus, the bible is clear where she would spend eternity.....it shakes me to my core. What am I going to do to make a difference in my life? What have I done to make a difference in my life? When I stand before God what will I say when he ask me what I did to further His kingdom? He isn't going to ask me how big was my bank account, what kind of car I drove or what size house I lived in. Makes you think!!!!!!

Bad blogger...so much so little time

The party is never over with this girl
Our new puppy---Cooper
Anna's reaction to the dog
"How old are you, Anna?"
Party, Party, Party


At Shedd's Aquarium in Chicago on Anna's Birthday


Baba's birthday-we won't say which one
At Nana's playing dress up-girly girl

I really do want to keep this up and going but I have been so bad lately to keep it going! I hope people haven't give up on my blog altogether, although I wouldn't blame them. I use to look at blogs non stop when we were waiting for Anna and would get frustrated with people when they didn't keep up with their blogs and here I am doing just that. I have started a new job which I love. I'm the director of a daycare...one of the best in the area if I do say so myself. Anna is there with me and I love it. Time literally flies while I'm there and I wonder how I will ever get bored at this job which is a good thing because I don't like to get bored. Since I last blogged, we have had Scott's birthday, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Our Anniversary, Anna's birthday and 4th of July....Whew that is a lot. We both had a wonderful Mother's Day and Father's Day. Scott got me a diamond wedding band (yay Scott) and I got him a watch. I'll have to say he did a little better on my gift then I did his. Anna got an above ground swimming pool for her birthday, which we are all enjoying in this incredible heat and humidity. We got a trip to Shriners in Chicago for our anniversary :). It went well except we go back in two weeks for tubes. Other than that, the doctors were pleased with her progress. Wonderful to hear. Other than that we are just settling in to life. God has blessed us richly. I can't thank Him enough nor do I want to for healing Anna. It is amazing to me how God does these amazing things in our life and for the moment we thank Him and praise Him and share His wonderful works with the world and then a little time goes by, life happens and we start to grumble about "what has God done for me lately" I don't want to get like this with what He has done for our family and for our precious Anna Banana. I pray the Lord won't let me forget his healing mercy. The next day I wait for with great anticipation is the day He heals my little girl's broken heart for eternity. The day she accepts our precious Lord Jesus as her savior. That is the healing I'm praying for now.

One other thing is we added to our family....through that of a furry little four legged friend who will hopefully one day answer to the name of Cooper. He is our 4th of July present. Scott didn't realize you get those but we did and so far we are enjoying him. Hopefully though, he'll learn really soon that outside is where you potty. So far no accidents inside other than his crate but he sure likes to take his sweet time outside sniffing EVERYTHING before he wants to even attempt to go. So enjoy the pictures. They are a little bit of everything we have gone through the last three months.

Spring and Easter 2010

I apologize for being missing in action for two months. Life is so busy at times. I sat down many times to update the blog but laziness and being tired or running after my very active almost 3 year old won out and I'm forcing myself today to sit still long enough to update in case anyone still reads this blog. I hope you do. I'm going to be better in the future about updating.

Anna is doing wonderful. She is growing so quickly. We are now caught up to the size she is supposed to be for her age. When we got her 14 months ago she was wearing 6-9 months now she is in 3T. Can you believe it? Time flies when you are having so much fun.

Over Spring Break we took a mini vacation to Memphis. We went to the zoo. Which if you live anywhere around there I recommend it. It was very interesting and well done. We had a ball. We also got some good ole Memphis BBQ. We could eat BBQ all the time. So some of the pictures are of that trip.

We stayed around here for Easter and had a relaxing couple of days although I really miss having a lot of family around and definitely miss Memaw's big meals with every around the table enjoying each other's company. Maybe next Easter. There are some big changes in the works for our family and we are excited....NO I"M NOT PREGNANT. It seems like whenever I say I'm excited about something that is what people think. That is all I'm going to say for right now. Please pray that God will reveal His perfect plan for our family. More to come later on that one :) .

We are truly blessed by our sweet girl. She amazes us more and more by her intelligence and love of life. She is truly one of the happiest people I know except when we are working on speech. Please pray that God will loose her tongue and she'll really start grasping how to make some very important consonant sounds. I know she is getting frustrated trying to communicate and we are too trying to understand. She has come a long way but she still has a ways to go. So I guess that is all for now. If you haven't read the "ONE YEAR" post be sure to scroll down and see the awesome miracle God performed on our sweet Anna Banana.

OUR BIG MIRACLE-One Year Gotcha

Today we have had our sweet Anna Banana for one year. Hard to believe. So many ways she seems like she has always been here. Other ways it seems like yesterday we were in a conference room in a hotel in China waiting for our sweet miracle to arrive. Then crying happy tears as she came in the room and was handed to me. I'll never forget that sweet moment. I wanted to share with y'all that read our blog the big miracle God performed in our lives over the past year. It is long but will be well worth the read. SO here it goes:


We received our referral for Anna August 2008, and she was special needs. We have always made public that she was cleft lip and cleft palate. Well she had another special need that we didn't tell very many people and that was that she was Hep B positive. We kept that private because we had talked to a few physicians and they told us that a lot of people are uneducated about Hep B and sometimes children with Hep B can be ostracized and made fun of, or people are afraid to be around them because it is contagious disease. Children are now immunized for it at birth so they cannot get it but those who have not been vaccinated could although it would be hard. So we didn't tell anyone except our family. We actually didn't tell them until we were home with Anna. We had to wait 6 months to travel to get Anna and the whole time we prayed that the referral paperwork was wrong, that she didn't have Hepatitis B..it was NOT.

We took Anna to an International Adoption clinic in Birmingham once we got home with her in March of 09 where they tested her for everything including Hep B; and a couple of weeks later we got a call saying she indeed had Hep B and not only that but it was very active. They told us we needed to start seeing a pediatric gastrointerologist. I started heavily researching and talked to some sweet ladies who had adopted children with Hep B and they gave me a peace saying it was a pretty easy special need to deal with. Basically in their child it was something they monitored every six months by having blood taken and that was all they had to do at that point.. For 75% of people with Hep B it stays dormant and they live a long live but for the other 25% it is active and attacks the liver causing liver damage, possible transplant and even early death. We prayed and claimed that Anna would be a part of the 75% who lived a long life. We then met with a Peds GI doctor locally and she told us basically what I explained above and that right now they would monitor Anna's blood and if they saw that it was staying active they would refer us. Hep B is a disease that children NEVER clear, they are NEVER healed from it. So we left that doctor's office having a peace that Anna was a part of the 75% that would always have it but that it wouldn't affect her and she would live a long life, be able to get married, and have children. In September, it was time to have her blood tested again. We waited and about two weeks later we got a call from the Ped GI office saying that they were referring us to a specialist in Birmingham. The doctor here wouldn't meet with us and told us we needed to take the referral and go because she felt like she didn't have the therapy/treatment Anna would need; and if she needed a transplant they would be able to do it at this hospital....TRANSPLANT?????? We started freaking out. We thought she was fine. Surely this nurse didn't understand and she even admitted so on the phone so we waited for November to meet the specialist. In the meantime our pediatrician saw us and I told him everything that had been going on with Anna's Hep B and he told us he didn't understand why we were being referred already and he would call the GI doctor and see. He called us right before we left for Birmingham and told us this was basically a visit to meet the specialist and start building a relationship with him so we went thinking all is well.......

Well we were wrong. We met with him Wednesday before Thanksgiving to hear the worst news we could possibly hear. According to this specialist, Anna was not part of the 75% but a part of the 25% who would need a transplant and would probably not live a long life. He told us that her viral count was in the millions, her liver enzymes were up which meant there was liver damage already. We were FLOORED and shocked and devastated. He took blood then and told us he wanted us to come back in 6 weeks to do a liver ultrasound so they could see the extent of the damage to her liver. Also he was going to talk to some other hepatologist and get their opinion about what would be the best course of treatment for Anna and what medicine she would need to start on....neither medicines would cure her but one of the medicines would hopefully bring her numbers down so she possibly could live a long life. But the specialist wanted to make sure we understood that the path we were on now was not good.

Needless to say we cried and cried and cried over the next 6 weeks. It definitely put a damper on our first Thanksgiving and Christmas with Anna. So we went back January 6th scared to death but trusting that whatever lay ahead God would get us through. We first had the ultrasound and the technician took pictures of everything in Anna. I was worried sick wondering why it was taking so long. We then had over an hour to wait to see the doctor. My mom met us there to be an emotional support fearing what the doctor had to say. Well in walks the doctor and he says "I don't know how to explain it but she doesn't have HEP B. " He asked us "Do you pray?" We started crying and laughing and I kept saying "GOD HEALED HER" Scott than said, "Well we have done research and understand that the viral load can fluctuate and get low," and the doctor looked at Scott and said "You don't understand her viral load is ZERO" "She doesn't have Hep B anymore!" He said he has never seen this before and he can't explain it. We just kept telling him Our God healed Anna. He agreed but said he wanted to run two more test on her and that is what they did a few weeks later and do you know what CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN.....HER BLOOD IS CLEAN!!!!!!

God cares, God heals, God loves us beyond what we could ever imagine. As much as I love my sweet Anna Banana- God loves her more and MAN AM I EXCITED TO SEE WHAT GOD HAS IN STORE FOR OUR MIRACLE GIRL. God is good.

Almost a Year-11 Months

11 months down one to go till we have had Anna Banana for an entire year. God is so good to us. We quickly went and got Chinese tonight because it is so stinkin cold. We aren't use to this type of cold in Mississippi. So cold and no snow. It isn't right. It is supposed to stay freezing cold for the next couple of days so we won't be doing a whole lot this weekend. Just enjoy being a family of 3 and snuggle together.

I mentioned a couple of post ago about an issue that I didn't feel at liberty to discuss but seriously needed prayers for peace and wisdom. Let me tell you we serve a God of miracles!!! He performed the biggest miracle we have ever experienced and gave a blessing we did not expect. God is so good. I wish at this time I could give more details but right now I can't. However in a couple of months I hope God gives me the freedom to fully explain how GREAT our God is and how He is so loving toward his children.

If you don't know the Lord or if you are going through something hard and hopeless please take it from someone who has been there. God is alive, He cares and He loves you more than you can ever know. He cares about your problems and He is working ALL THINGS FOR HIS GOOD!!!

I can't thank our Heavenly Father enough not just for Anna but for the MAJOR MIRACLE he performed. God is soooooooooooooo Good!!!