we have a SON!!!
We are overjoyed to tell you about the little boy we are adopting. His name is Zhou Tian You (pronounced Joe Tian Yo). “Zhou is his last name, “Tian” means sky or heaven and “You” means to protect or bless. He is from Pingdingshan in the Henan province, the same province that Mae is from, just two hours south of her orphanage.
We have decided to name him Ian—dropping the “T” in Tian. He is a very handsome little guy, who seems to have a lot of spirit. He has big eyes, long eyelashes, and he has one deep dimple. His birthday is April 26, so he is 21 months old right now. We are already so in love with him and long for him to be part of our family.
Also, we have prayerfully decided to add TWO children to our family. This time it is our hearts’ desire, if it all comes together, to adopt another little girl as well. The timing and the circumstances are all in God’s hands. We will be going to China this year to return with either one or two new little ones to love and welcome into our family. We hope to travel sometime between August and October.
You have all encouraged and stood alongside us as we brought Mae home. You have prayed for us and have shown us so much love and support. We would love to ask that of you again as we undertake this new adoption process. The paperwork alone is nearly a full-time job!
Before we adopted Mae we had a letterpress business that we loved, but it took a lot of our time. In addition to the letterpress shop, Cody worked a regular, full-time job during the day and Kristen was busy with her graphic design business. We spent our evenings and weekends at our shop printing long into the night. Once we started the adoption process, we realized that we would have to find some margin in our lives to raise our little girl. So, after many hard conversations, we decided to sell our beloved letterpress shop. The proceeds of the sale went to help fund the adoption. We were also blessed with generous contributions from Kristen’s grandfather, who adored Mae.
This time we are attempting to raise, from friends and family, a portion of the cost of the adoption. We will do this in three ways:
- We have designed two T-shirts, one for adults and one for children, that we will ask donations for.
- We are also going to make some items to sell. (If you are “crafty” and are able to make items that you would be willing to contribute for us to sell, we would love that!)
- We have a donate button on our blog for those not interested in a T-shirt or the other items we will offer.
We are asking you, if you are able, to support in one of these ways.
Here are our tees:
We think they are very cool, by the way. Also, we’d love for you to spread the word. We want to see the message of the T-shirts catch on to raise awareness of the significance and the beauty of adoption. God’s Word tells us that we are adopted into his family. How amazing is that!
Above all, we ask you to please pray for all this adoption entails—the details of the paperwork, the specifics on the children, the timing of our trip to China, and, most importantly, for the children waiting for us. Even though we will be rescuing them from life in an orphanage, it is the life they have always known. Their world will soon be turned upside down. But we believe that love will win in the end, because we serve the God who calls us to love.
Thank you so much for helping us be the arms of his love. It’s a privilege for us to answer God’s call.
Psalm 13:5 "I trust in your unfailing love. I will rejoice because you have rescued me."
