Heading out! Hong Kong, here we come!

Rinnah looking at the amazing view from the Lok’s apartment in Hong Kong

Our wonderful friends, the Loks!

Some of the many apartment buildings in their neighborhood – the population density is incredible.

One of the stalls in the Lok’s neighborhood market

The amazing waffles in Mong Kok

The amazing view out the window at lunch of Hong Kong Island

Some of the many dim sum dishes we had together

They like to make food fun and pretty here

View from Victoria Peak

Another stunning sunrise at the Lok’s apartment

Just about a year ago, I saw a picture of Ethan for the first time, and that started this journey. It’s been a long, long year of paperwork and frustration. For some reason, these adoptions have been much more problematic. We had what felt like constant obstacles and delays, and it feels like a miracle that we are actually in China.

I’m sitting on a train leaving Hong Kong, and headed to Guangzhou in mainland China. We will meet Ethan Long Ning and Anna Ru Xuan tomorrow. To be precise, in 27 hours. Not that anyone is counting of course! But it feels surreal. We’ve gotten very little information about our new children over the past year, but we have already fallen in love. We are anxious to get to know them, and learn how to be the particular parents they need.

With all the delays, you would think that we would have been completely ready to go, but in true Shaw fashion, we underestimated our time. So what felt molasses-slow ended up being a race to the finish to get out the door on time. The kids got a decent night’s sleep before we left, but Nathan and I were up until 2 am checking and re-checking all our adoption paperwork and visas and checklists. Not that it mattered too much anyway – I knew I wasn’t going to sleep and I didn’t! It’s too hard to shut off your brain.

My brother came at 8am and we loaded up our car. We try very hard to pack light, but since the forecast is 95 with 100% humidity and thunderstorms every day, and we have no access to laundry, we know we’re going to be yucky and want extra t-shirts. Add to that the fact that I’m having to guess at Ethan and Anna’s sizes so I’m having to bring extra things for them (and a sewing kit and safety pins in case their shorts don’t stay up!) and a group of 8 (!!) and we have more than we’d like.

We catch our flight to Chicago with no problem. Somehow I feel like I’m home free after all the trouble of getting here! But then halfway to Chicago, a woman a couple rows behind us had a medical emergency. We weren’t sure if we were turning around, but praise God, she was actually seated next to a doctor and he monitored her and she looked much better after a bit. The pilot flew like lightening and we were in Chicago early. We all had to wait for paramedics to take her off the plane, and thankfully she was only a little woozy by that point, but we are just feeling relieved to be here – if we’d turned around we would have missed our China flight.

In O’Hare we hoofed it all the way around to the new terminal and got some Chicago deep dish for lunch – airport style. 🙂 Not too bad. We’ve asked every airline person we’ve seen so far if they can move our seats on the long flight, but everyone just keeps telling us to ask the next person. Even here, we were told to ask someone who was coming an hour before the flight. We had to book so last minute that we had all center seats scattered throughout coach which sounded horrible for a 16 hour flight. I had snagged two seats together when they opened up at one point, but they were on the opposite side of the plane. Finally the magical person showed up. She wasn’t able to get us together, but she did somehow get us one group of three. So we had the girls together but all the way on the other side of the plane, and then me and the boys in the group of three, and then poor Nathan by himself in the middle seat behind us. It wasn’t too bad though – God is so funny. Both the people he was sitting by had connections to ministry, and he enjoyed hearing about that and sharing about our adoption.

16 hours is really long. Like, really long. Eiyiyi. And everyone was excited to pass the time by watching the movies and stuff they offer in the back of the seat on long flights. Except that the TVs worked everywhere in the plane but our section. Yup. And that meant I was with a 10 and 12 year old boy who couldn’t do anything but watch all the other people watching movies and playing games! And even the light controls were tied to the screens, so if the TV wasn’t working, you were sitting in the dark. So no reading or anything either! Fortunately we had our charging bank, so they got out their tablet and played together. Screen time rules do not exist on 16 hours flights! Finally, about 4 hours in they rebooted again and we got our screens working and we were all thankful.

No one slept much. Noah did the best and slept about 4 hours. I got about an hour. I just can’t do it – too much noise and your legs start to hurt so much, etc. I know I’m whining, but about 12 hours in you just want it over! But we all made it, and that was a relief.

When we got off the plane, we had about 30 minutes of immigration, baggage claim, customs, and then we walked out and saw our friends the Loks waving and smiling at us! So good to see them! Their daughter, Chung Yan was one of our son’s best friends for years at school, and they were neighbors of ours. They moved back to Hong Kong about a year ago, and so graciously offered to host us while we were in Hong Kong. We added these few days at the beginning of the trip to let our body clocks adjust a bit to the 12 hour time difference before we were meeting brand-new-to-us children – it seemed a wise thing to do, and also let us have a little cushion in case flights were delayed or cancelled.

The Loks got us to the bus with all our stuff and we rode about 45 minutes out to their apartment. They live on the 26th floor of a 29 floor building and told us their building was “pretty short.” It is something that always strikes me – the population density is amazing here, and there’s no such thing as a single family home. Just high-rise after high-rise. Their apartment is beautiful and looks out at the mountains and water. Hong Kong looks like a fairy tale, really – the extreme green of the mountains plunging into the blue of the water all around, it looks like the mermaid lagoon from Peter Pan. It’s a beautiful city.

We got to their apartment at around 8pm Hong Kong time, 12 hours ahead of home, and had been traveling for 24 hours straight. They ordered food, and we had a great meal of Hong Kong style fried rice, pork, lemon chicken, and a delicious soup with greens. After the incredibly awful (incredibly awful!!!) food on the plane, it was heaven. Toby and Chung Yan were having so much fun catching up, and her little brother is exactly the same age as Noah, so they were having fun too. We just chatted and got everyone a shower (which is no mean feat with one shower and so many people!) and went to bed. They are so kind. Hong Kong apartments are small – even smaller than what we usually saw in New York! But they squeezed us all in and made us feel like family.

I was wide awake at 2am. Thanks, jet-lag! Then 3, then 4, then 4:15, then 4:30, and I finally just got up at 5. The trick is if we can all make it to the evening tonight, we’ll be tired enough (probably!) to actually sleep and then our bodies will be switched. This direction the jet-lag isn’t so bad. It’s really going home that seems to hit the hardest, I’m not sure why.

Grace and Peter had told us their kids usually get up at 9 on a Saturday, but I guess they were as excited to see us as we were to see them, because all the kids were playing together by 6! Their poor neighbors! But they were having a blast. We had breakfast (watermelon, pork buns, mantou buns, toast, and tiny chicken pies) and then everyone got dressed and we headed out to see Hong Kong together! We walked through their neighborhood, starting with a beautiful walkway along the water – just stunning. Visited their market which I thought was enormous – stall after stall after stall of fresh fish and vegetables, and fruits, and Chinese medicine, and then Grace told me apologetically that they only have a small market near their house. It had to be at least 100 stalls. And the fish were literally still jumping on the table, and there were crates of live chickens looking at the newly butchered chickens hanging in the case (poor chickens!!!), so it is definitely fresh! So interesting. We bought little custard pies straight out of the oven – the bag was literally steaming my hand while we were waiting for them to be cool enough to eat, and they were amazing.

Did I mention hot? Oh. my. goodness. It’s about 95 but the heat index is 110 and 100 percent humidity. We have been more attractive at other times in our lives, just saying. We all got out our umbrellas in true Chinese fashion just to get a little shade from the sun. It’s very sunny here, but it’s still hazy – when we look at the mountains in the distance, they are in soft focus. I asked if it’s ever clear (when we were here before it raining constantly and all of Victoria Peak was in a cloud), and Grace said she thought it was clear about half the time. If it ever is, it would be incredibly stunning – it really is such a beautiful city.

We took the subway into the central part of the city and visited the market in Mong Kok. So fun! We just like to look around. Peter bought some waffle thing that was pressed into circles, and you just tore off the pieces. It was like a sweet waffle with a bit of coconut flavor and we were a little like locusts I’m afraid – it was gone in about 2 minutes. You’d think we’d never eaten before! But the food is one of the best things about Hong Kong.

We were going to visit the Ladies Market which is a more traditional street market (Mong Kok used to be, but the government decided they all needed to be storefronts, so it’s changed) but it was too early – they were still setting up. We walked through the side of it anyway, and it’s shocking that the put up the whole thing and tear it down every day! And we saw some of the my favorite “Chinglish” translations on signs! I was sorry they weren’t open yet – I saw one I wanted to buy that said “You strong like Rambo, but you brain is potato.” But then I thought, where would I actually put that in my house? Ha!

We headed down to the waterfront in Kowloon. Hong Kong has four districts, and Kowloon is the peninsula jutting into the water facing the island of Hong Kong. Grace and Peter live in the new development district, and when we come back to fly home after the adoptions, we are staying in the fourth district on Lantau Island near the airport. So we feel like we’ve seen a lot this time.

Grace had made reservations for a dim sum lunch at a restaurant literally looking at the water in Victoria Harbor facing Hong Kong. It was one of the best meals I’ve ever had, even though I didn’t always know what I was eating. Grace ordered everything and told us what was there, and the food just kept coming – I lost track. But it was one bite of everything, which is my favorite way to eat. Taro and shrimp, spring rolls, barbecued pork buns, water chestnut gels, radish cakes, rice wrapped peanut pork, shrimp and pork dumpling, chicken zhong zhi, squid shaped red bean buns (super cute!), and about a hundred other things.

Then they brought out the chicken feet. I had told Grace before that we liked most things, but since we’re American, we are generally a little wimpy about weird meats. I used chicken feet as my example, as in, “I loved everything we had last time, but please don’t make me eat chicken feet.” Well, Noah took this as a challenge. Told me how amazing they were, how I would love them, etc, and it turned into “mom has to try chicken feet.” Then Chung Yan joined in and we were getting out-numbered. Well, you know what? Maybe mom will. Can’t let a 10 year old win! Plus, this whole culture eats them, I can be respectful of that.

And so I did. But oh my. I tried to take a little bite, and it moved, yup, just like a foot. It was exactly like biting into little tiny chicken feet bones. And I am a wimp. And I got the shivers. And pretty much everyone laughed at me, but then I was able to take a bite. Maybe the tiniest one ever, but a bite nonetheless. The flavor was actually really good, but I am not a convert. No, ma’am. And then Toby did it and Rinnah did too (apparently Nathan’s claiming a pass because he tried them once in Mexico and says that counts!), so that’s most Shaws down – check that off the bucket list, I guess! But a certain someone can never again say I wouldn’t do it!

After lunch we took the ferry across to Hong Kong and headed up to Victoria Peak to get the view! We missed this last year because it was raining so hard we couldn’t see anything. Even though it was hot, like surface-of-the-sun hot, we still had such a good time doing this. And I got a much better concept of the island itself. It’s amazingly steep, and you wind your way up and up and up. And so many people. I love visiting cities but only for short times – I start to feel very claustrophobic after a while with all those people touching you everywhere you go.

Like everything else in cities with large populations, it always takes longer than you think it will to get anywhere, and by this time it was late afternoon and all the kids were dragging. The adults were too! So we headed back down and took the bus home. This time we sat on the top of the double decker bus, and that was fun to watch! It was about 45 minutes home. I think where Grace and Peter is is one of the loveliest places I’ve seen, but she said they live “far out” because Hong Kong is so expensive. It costs 1 million USD to buy a 400 square foot apartment! So they trade the commute for lower rents.

Grace stopped at the market to get a few things and Peter took us all for bubble tea. It was heavenly after being so hot! Then we walked the 10 minutes back to the apartment.

Grace told me she was making a “very simple meal” and wouldn’t let me help, but after that very busy day she made beautiful beef and scallions, a potato dish, and a soup with chicken and cabbage and rice noodles and served it all over rice. They really just went overboard to make us feel welcome, and we felt so blessed. It was wonderful to spend time with them, to have this special day in Hong Kong, and to have such a lovely way to distract ourselves from the last few days of waiting to be with our new kids!

By 7 I could barely keep my eyes open (thanks, again, jet-lag!) but I made it to nearly 10 and then crashed. I slept 8 whole hours in a row – something I haven’t done for a month! It was beautiful. Up bright and early at 6 with everyone else, and we got packed up and ready to go. The kids played some more and we had a beautiful breakfast together (sorry, this is all about food, but it was wonderful!). Red dragon fruit, longan fruit which they call “dragon eye,” scrambled eggs with ham, and different buns from the bakery – croissant, “pineapple bread” which isn’t actually pineapple flavored but looks a bit like one, hot dogs buns (like a giant pig in a blanket) and some pizza buns.

Then they got ready for church and walked us back to the subway with all our stuff. We took the first train together and then split up where we needed to change. I got teary when we said goodbye – they were so kind to us! And Noah and Chung Yin, Chung Yan’s younger brother, were like best friends by the time we left, and sat with their heads together everywhere they went. I wish they were still in our neighborhood! But they are coming for a visit next spring, so I’m hoping we will see them again then.

Then we were on our own again. Hong Kong is much easier to navigate than mainland China for us because many things are labeled in English as well. Even with that, though, it still takes longer to figure things out. We did finally find the train station and figure out where we were to be, and we were actually early enough that we got on an earlier train. When we get in, we’ll be met by our guide for our time in Guangzhou, Helen. The plan today is just to check into the hotel, figure out our rooms (we have a bit of a complication with so many of us) and get settled before we get the new kids tomorrow. It’s our last day as a family of 6, and that has hit me all day long. Every time we are walking or changing trains or buying tickets, I’m counting and counting that we have six. And tomorrow, it will turn into 8.

First picture we ever saw of Ethan.

An early picture of Ethan we got with his file

One of the first pictures we saw of Anna.

Picture we got later of Anna – my favorite

Picture we received of Anna and Quinn when we found out she has a foster sister.

A picture we received in an update on Ethan

Anna getting her cake – this is how the kids learn they have a family coming

Ethan getting his cake too – wish these were in focus!

One of the many update pictures Anna’s foster mom has sent, this one with Quinn

We’ve had so many questions about our adoption, so I just wanted to put a little outline of what has happened and now what’s going to happen. Just yesterday evening we got the final approval we needed to actually plan the trip, so I bought our plane tickets this morning, and we are on our way! Here’s where we’ve been and where we’re going:

August, 2016 We see a picture of Ethan for the first time and feel like we’ve been hit by lightning – that’s our kid! We send an email but realize with a sinking heart that he’s with a different agency, and will likely be matched within that agency and we will not be considered.

Early October, 2016 We got an email out of the blue from Ethan’s agency. They had several interested families but felt they weren’t a good fit for him because of the ages of their kids or whatever. They thought we were the perfect fit. Were we still interested? We would have to change agencies. We prayed about it, and knowing they were an ethical agency (they had been on our short list before too, but Noah was listed with a different agency), we decided to switch. You can read more about that here.

October 20, 2016 We submit an official letter of intent (LOI) to China asking to be pre-matched with Ethan. We can do this because he is considered a special focus child because of his age and health status.

Nov. 1, 2016 We are granted pre-approval to adopt Ethan. This means we have six months to complete our homestudy and dossier and submit it to China.

Nov, 2016 – Jan, 2017 We work on updating our homestudy. We were actually finished with everything we had to do in the first few weeks and our social worker was done with the update by mid-December. But first a supervisor couldn’t find the time to sign it because of the holidays, then she did but four words needed to be changed and it needed to be signed again. This took that supervisor 7 more weeks. It was very hard not to be angry. This was our first setback.

Dec., 2017 While we were waiting for the signature, we had also gone through extra steps to request approval to adopt two children at one time. We were granted approval and sent Anna’s file the same day. Apparently there were no other families in our agency willing to accept a child her age (6). We started to pray about Anna, and also to look into her health needs. There were some concerning things in her file, and we needed to research and find out what was involved. You can read more about that here.

Jan 9, 2017 We feel we’ve gotten answers about Anna’s medical needs, and have prayed and feel she is to be our daughter. We submit our LOI to China for her.

Jan 13, 2017 We are granted pre-approval to adopt Anna.

Mid January, 2017 We submitted our I800a which is a request for US immigration to allow you to classify a child from a foreign nation as a relative – essentially approval to adopt a child and have them become a US citizen when they immigrate. We couldn’t submit this until we had our homestudy. Since that had taken an extra month and a half, we estimated we would just barely make the summer for travel before Rinnah left for college.

Early February, 2017. Really hard news. Our I800a was rejected because the US government changed the fee on Jan 1. Since we thought we would have our homestudy in December, we had prepared the packet and had it sitting on my desk with the old fee – we never thought to check it. You cannot just pay the new fee. The whole packet must be rejected and you start over. This cost us 2 weeks and fees to overnight, etc. Now I was scrambling to make up any time I could to get to China before Rinnah was scheduled to leave for college.

Feb 16th, 2017 We found out a few days ago that Anna lives with a foster sister and they have been described as “inseparable, best friends, two peas in a pod.” We are devastated at the thought of them losing each other, but aren’t allowed to bring the foster sister home ourselves. We share the girls’ story on Facebook and it’s seen by nearly 12,000 people. In a miracle, Anna’s foster sister, Quinn, finds a family who live just minutes from ours and they start the process to adopt her. You can read that story here.

March 20, 2017 After an excruciating wait for our I800a we are finally approved. We had prepared our entire remaining dossier while waiting for this last piece of paper needed. I was so glad we did this early because staples fell out of some of our paperwork at the consulate which thereby voided them and we had to start over. We are beginning to feel like this adoption is a fight. We overnight our approval to get it notarized, state certified, and Chinese consulate certified. Even that process had problems when the consulate decided not to accept documents one day for no reason and then FedEx apparently forgot to pick up at the consulate the next day.

March 24th, 2017 We get it back and our dossier is finally sent to China. We feel that we may still make it before the end of summer, but everything will have to go perfectly from here on out.

March 27th, 2017 We hear from China that our dossier is logged in, the first thing that has happened quickly since we started. Now we wait for the translation of our dossier, its approval, and our official match with Anna and Ethan called LOA. The average at this time was 35-45 days. We were praying for 35.

May 12th, 2017 We finally hear that we have our Letter of Approval (LOA) for both Ethan and Anna! It took 46 days. Still praying to make the summer.

May 15th, 2017 We send our LOA with our I800 application back to US immigration. This is telling the US government that now you have the identity of the children you want to adopt and are asking for their approval of those specific children to become citizens. Average for this step is 14 days.

May 26th, 2017 More news, and at this point devastating. Our I800 is also rejected because our agency never informed us of an additional fee for the second child. We are crushed because we had asked them to review everything so we would be sure this wouldn’t happen. I was literally sobbing on the phone. They feel terrible but there is nothing that can be done. We will lose a minimum of another 2 weeks, and possibly up to 5 weeks. I feel that the summer is now not possible and we will have to push back the adoptions and our other children will not be able to make the trip. Rinnah will not meet her siblings until Thanksgiving. We are all heartbroken. Our agency says they will do anything they can to help us get there, but there isn’t much they can do. They promise, though, to get us out the door as fast as humanly possible, but I worry that the cost of flights will be so high that close to travel that we will not be able to bring the kids anyway. When we send the new fee, FedEx loses our paperwork. They do find it eventually, but we lose more days – I am really struggling with the stress now.

June 8th, 2017 After getting a kind officer and overnighting every possible thing and sending him proof of payment from our bank, we finally get our I800 approval. We have only lost 10 days. We are so close, we hope it may still be possible, and it all depends on how long China takes for the last step.

June 14th, 2017 We receive our GUZ number which means we can apply for the new children’s visa interviews at the consulate in Guangzhou.

June 16th, 2017 We receive notice that our case is being transferred from the National Visa Center in the US to the US consulate in Guangzhou where it will be finalized.

June 19th, 2017 Our Article 5 is dropped off meaning our case is in review to make sure that everything is in order and meets Hague criteria.

July 1st, 2017 We have the amazing opportunity to WeChat (Chinese skype) with Ethan! We cannot believe permission has been granted. We are all nervous and they are 40 minutes late which seems like an eternity. The video doesn’t work for us to see him, but he says he can see us. He is so incredibly sweet! He asks us 4 times when we are coming and how long until he can go “home to the USA.” We asked if he got the pictures and letter we sent and he said he did and he loves us! He laughs when we make the dog wave at him. He is just the sweetest boy. We realize he is trying very hard to make a good impression, and he understands the gravity of this – he has seen many children leave the orphanage with their families, and he is ready for his turn! I can tell he is afraid it won’t happen, but he is hopeful. He practices saying all our names in English. He practices saying “mom” and “dad” several times.

July 3rd, 2017 Our article 5 is picked up and has been approved. It will now go to Beijing to the CCCWA (China’s overseeing organization for adoption) to await the final step, travel approval to enter the country. We are allowed to travel 2 weeks later and TA usually takes 3-10 days. We are praying to get approval in 3-4 days so we can travel on the 20th and get home one week before school starts. We also get news that we are going to be able to WeChat with Anna too on the coming Thursday!

July 6th, 2017 Absolutely terrifying day. This morning, CCCWA announces many changes to the China adoption program, effective immediately. One of the new rules is that families are no longer allowed to adopt two children at once. When we woke up, we thought we were two weeks from travel and just waiting for the final piece of paper. Now we do not know if we will even be able to complete our adoptions. Since we are scheduled to talk to Anna tonight, we don’t know what to do – if we tell her we are coming, are we lying? It’s unthinkable. Because China is 12 hours ahead of the US, this news hit when all of China was asleep, so it was impossible to get answers. Agencies were making emergency calls to their China reps, there was a lot of chaos and many rumors. After agonizing hours waiting, we were told that we were likely grandfathered – we were too far along in the process. But it was not actually confirmed until 9pm – 9am China time when the offices opened up again, and only 30 minutes before we were supposed to talk to Anna.

We were very relieved for ourselves but the truth is that the new rules are devastating for many families. Many were still working on their homestudy or dossier, and they will now not qualify and cannot continue. I am very grieved for the children who now will not have families. We are praying that more families who qualify will step up. We are traveling with 6 families we’ve met on Facebook, and after talking we realized only one of the families would still qualify. These regulations are going to drastically change who can be in the program.

We did talk to Anna that night, and it was very sweet. We are very grateful for the opportunity since she had not heard anything about us. She never got our letter or pictures. She knew she had a family, but nothing about us, and she didn’t know about Ethan, something I really wanted her to be prepared for. Our friend, Fanny, came over to translate for us, and we ended up connecting with her foster mom who started sending me so many pictures. She is thrilled that Anna has a family! And Anna was very twirly and chirpy and the epitome of a kindergarten girl. 🙂 She asked to show us a dance she’d learned in school. I don’t think she really understands what is happening, but I’m hopeful that now that her foster mother knows we are coming, she will help prepare her. We should have been very happy after this call, and we were, but I am still reeling from the day. This no longer feels safe and we just want to get there and get them home.

July 12th, 2017 This is the last day our agency told us we could receive TA and still be allowed to travel on the 20th. Our TA is not granted. We are getting nervous as it has been 10 days, and we can’t help but be concerned because of the changes in China. We will have to push back a week, which gets us home only 36 hours before Toby has to go back to school. But, it does get us home. We thank God that with all the setbacks, it is still possible to make it, even though it wasn’t when we wanted to go, and we pray for the approval to come just to know there isn’t a bigger problem.

July 13th, 2017 The very next day, our approval is granted. We are so thankful to have it in our hands! And it feels like God was just making it clear that for some reason, this is the time He wanted us to go. We may never know why, but we are thankful He does! Within 24 hours, we also had our consulate appointment and confirmation that we will meet our children on July 31st, both on the same day.

So now, all that’s left is to plan the whole trip. We leave in less than two weeks, and will be in China for 15 days this time start to finish. We cannot believe we’re making it before school – the last possible week we could go. But God makes the impossible possible, and we can’t wait to meet them and have them join our family!

I’ll be blogging from China, so don’t forget to follow our journey here. 🙂

Okay, you all. This is a big announcement. We are making a new album! It’s my first major album in 5 years, and I am super excited to share the songs with you and to see how God will use this! I’ve needed new songs for a while because my ministry topics have changed a lot over time, but frankly, an album is a huge expense and undertaking, and the music industry has changed so much that we weren’t sure whether we should do it or not.

I basically had to stop and ask the Lord if He wanted this ministry to continue. We really need new music if it’s going to continue, but I’m also looking at two more adoptions, and maybe this is God gently telling me to stop this ministry now. After all, it’s been 11 years.

So I took it to the Lord in prayer, and we prayed hard about it and for a long time. I’ve been praying about this issue for two years, really. And what I’ve come up with is that we are still supposed to be doing this. I’ve written the songs – they are already here. They just need to be produced. Just this past 5 months alone, I counted it up and I have presented the Gospel to nearly 12,000 people. I’m taking 6 months off to get the kids settled, but I already have so many requests for when I come back. And I love what I do.

To be very honest, it all comes down to money. I absolutely adore the creative process of making an album. I love everything about it. I love the writing, the arranging, the production (love, love, love!!). It’s like painting with sound. I love seeing how the songs fill out and the collaboration with other amazing artists. I love seeing what the studio players bring. Okay, I don’t so much love the packaging and design, but I love the people who do it!! But the cost of doing an album professionally is very high. And we have adopted 3 kids in the last two years and been through an open heart surgery with one. It’s the worst possible timing.

I’ve decided to step out in faith in two ways. One, we’re making the album. I feel like God has called us to, and so we will, whatever happens with the money. But two, for the first time ever, I’m going to ask for help. I really don’t want to – it could be embarrassing, it could hurt my feelings, it could look unprofessional. All things I really don’t want. But I realize we are supposed to count on each other. I’m hoping you will want to support our family in this way. And I’ve decided to be humble and open enough to ask.

I launched a Youcaring page to fundraise and am hoping to get half the costs covered – you can find that here. There’s tons of info over there including song lists and descriptions and gifts we want to give to those who support us. I’ll also be updating with the stories behind the songs, and even stuff from China as the fundraiser will be going on while we are in China adopting our two new children, Ethan and Anna. The songs are written, production has started, we just need help getting to the finish line.

Thanks so much for your support!!