New Album and Back to China!

Big news!

Huge things are happening over here, both personally and professionally! It’s a lot to announce in one newsletter, but here goes:

Professionally: We have started production on a new album! All the songs are written, arrangements are done, and production has just begun. I can’t tell you how excited I am to hear how this new project comes out - it’s my first studio album in 5 years. Hard to believe, but I’ve been writing a ton and love the new songs God has given me. But we need your help! With everything that has been going on personally, this is going to be a tough project to bring to completion. I’ve posted all kinds of information about the album, the songs, and how you can help — would you please take a minute to check it out, watch the video, and see if God is leading you to partner with us? I will be updating with videos of the stories behind the songs, updates from China, and also updates on how production is going. We also have some really cool thank you gifts, and information on how you can get your copy months ahead of the national release!

Which brings me to our family news: We are adopting again! But not just one child - two. And we leave in 10 days! We are bringing home Ethan Longning Shaw, an 8 year old boy from Shenzhen, and Anna Ruxuan Shaw, a 6 year old girl from Guangzhou. We will be updating with news from our trip on my blog, so please follow along on our journey, and don’t forget to pray for us!

More on our adoption below and on my blog. Please know that when you support our album, you are supporting our family and our new kiddos too - we can’t do it without you! Thank you for your unfailing support, and most of all, for your prayers!

In Christ,

Jennifer

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Leaving for China!

We leave in just 10 short days to start our adoption trip. We will be in China for just over two weeks to complete the adoptions, and I can hardly believe we are here. It will have been almost exactly a year since we first saw Ethan’s picture and knew God was calling us to be his family, and honestly, much of the process this time has felt like a fight. We’ve had many bumps and delays and difficulties in the process, but God is good, and we are going soon!

I wrote a summary of the journey up to this point on my blog, and I will be blogging the whole trip as well. When we were in China with Noah, so many of you followed along on our journey, encouraged us, and prayed for us, and I will tell you - we could absolutely feel it! There is no reason to think this should go well in country. We are adopting two kids at once, both of whom are older, neither of whom speak English, and who can’t even talk to each other (Ethan speaks Mandarin and Anna speaks Cantonese), and they are leaving everything they know to go to a foreign country with strange people they’ve never met who don’t look like them and start over completely. And they are children. It is terrrifying!

We asked you all to pray so specifically when we were in country with Noah that he would somehow understand immediately that he was safe and that we loved him. God answered that prayer! It made no sense, and Noah was sad and afraid of many things, but not of us. It made all the difference in the world. Would you join us again and pray for us and for Ethan and Anna? We want them to know the love of their new family and of God from the first moment.

I’ve put the link for the summary below, and know that we so appreciate you and your prayers! We honestly couldn’t do it without you!

About Jennifer Shaw

Jennifer Shaw is a Telly Award winning speaker, author, singer, songwriter and five-time Top 40 Billboard artist. Her ministry has been featured by Focus on the Family, Insight for Living, FamilyLife Today, Autism Speaks, Joni and Friends, and many more. Her new book, Life Not Typical: How Special Needs Parenting Changed My Faith and My Song, has brought national attention to the issue of Sensory Processing Disorder.

After being classically trained as an opera singer at the prestigious Manhattan School of Music, Jennifer became a professor of music at Cedarville University before she felt led into her current role as a speaker and in contemporary Christian music. Her testimony includes tragedy and triumph, being both an adoptive parent and the parent of a special needs child, and losing her father to Lou Gehrig’s disease. With the release of her fourth album, Someday, her songs offer hope in any circumstance and also reflect her recent experiences on the mission field in Asia, Africa, Central America and the UK.