Happy Birthday Jada!!!

While we're still waiting on travel approval from China and still waiting for firm travel dates to China, today we celebrate Jada's 1st Birthday. For some reason, tonight my heart & mind is focused on Jada's birth mother and so many other women in her situation. If you could watch the first minute of this VIDEO, you'd have a better idea of what many women in China are going through everyday.

Sometimes its tough to know that our joy and the answer to our prayer is the product of a tragic situation halfway around the world. As we found out when we had Jada's Biography translated, Jada had some personal belongings that was described as "her necessities" left with her when she was found. That indicates that the parents were aware of the situation. They felt they had to do one last thing to provide for her before letting her go.

I think I can speak for Brandi and say that our first priority is to raise Jada to be all that God intended her to be. Also, we consider it our duty to provide her a loving home in honor of what her parents had to go through. We do not take this situation for granted.

So, we ask that you would please lift the families in China up in prayer. Because we know that God loves the mothers of those orphans. We know that God sees the heartbreak and the pain they go through. We know that if we were hurting, we would want someone to stand in the gap for us and intercede in prayer. We would want prayers for comfort and peace in our hearts, prayers for healing of the hurt caused bygiving up the child we created and carried. We can criticize the culture and question their motives all day or we can give the mercy and grace that we have been given. Brandi and I choose mercy and grace.