New pictures!

We have new pictures of Lincoln! We were so Thankful to receive them during Thanksgiving! Not much else to report, Mounds and Mounds of paperwork....sigh....We did get updated measurements as well. He is 41 inches tall, and weighs 44 pounds!

We found our missing LINK!

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. James 1:27

Most of you faithful friends followed our adoption to Lilly Yin back in 2009. We are excited to announce that we are going BACK to China again to adopt our son Lincoln "Link" Jai Lia Reece Dockery. We are so happy that once again God is allowing us to add to our beautiful family. This is the story of how we found Link.

It wasn't long after we arrived home from China that we knew we would go back. However, we had exhausted all of our funds with Lilly's adoption, and more, and there is no way we could figure out how to make another adoption happen. So we waited....and we saved....and we prayed. We knew for sure that God wanted us to go back, but HOW?

For the past year at least, I have looked at the clock twice a day at 9:11. I kept wondering what that meant. Is it a sign? 9:11. I even started pointing it out to everyone..."Look, its 9:11 again." What could it mean. My oldest daughter finally said,"Mom, I think it will relate with something later, and you will understand the time connection." Okay, whatever....its driving me crazy.

Back to the story. We had started looking for our child. We had 5k saved, and thought that would almost be enough for us to at least get started. We looked at different agencies, and quite honestly were getting VERY confused. We had also looked at quite a few children's files. But how do you know? It is so hard to look at all the THOUSANDS of kids who need homes, and decide which one was perfect for your family. In the mean time, I had also figured out we did not even have the money to get started. Fees for many of the agencies have risen since Lilly's adoption, and we would need at LEAST 6k more than we have, just to get matched and get our documents to China. We felt we needed to at least have that money to work with up front.

So I prayed, and I prayed HARD. I cried out to God for him to show us the way to our child again. I prayed for two things specifically. First I prayed for God to show us the child that HE had picked for us. The need is great, and I could never pick. They all need homes, they all deserve homes. I prayed for God to show us specifically through a date that we would have a connection with. That would be our sign. Second, I prayed for money. We need the money to at least get our documents to China. We are 6k short. I prayed for both of those and then I told God that I was believing in him to show us the way, and I will wait until both of those things were granted to be before I acted. If we waited for years, we will just wait. Any of you who know me know, I hate to wait. I am terribly inpatient, but I was prepared to wait for God.

I guess God being my heavenly father and all, knew just how bad I hate waiting, and that very day, about 2 hours after I prayed he sent his blessing in the form of a miracle. Quite by surprise, just two hours later, I opened an email from Madison Adoption Agency. They had the file of a little boy they had named "Noah" that they were looking for a family for. He had been waiting for a family for a VERY long time. So long in fact they had waived their fees of 6k, in hopes that a family would step forward. As I read the email, I kept saying, "God is that you..." I asked to see "Noah's" file. Imagine my surprise when I opened it to see that his birthday was 9-11. God had just answered ALL of my prayers.

He has to be the cutest boy in all of China. His need seems to be so minor. And when we opened the email with his picture (above in the header) we noticed that he had L's all over his shirt. We are all L's. Just another sign. We would LOVE for you to follow our blog as we go BACK to China for Link.

We still have to find our travel money. We still have obstacles. But we also have FAITH.

Godspeed little man, we are working like crazy to get to you!

Leslee

"And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my arms, welcomes me." Matthew 18:5