Britt Meets our Girl in Person in 17 days!!

11:30 p.m. on November 1 in Alabama will be 10:00 a.m. on November 2 in India. So while we are sleeping (well not me!), Britt will be going to the orphanage to meet our daughter!!

 

 2 little gifts for our sweet girl that her daddy will take to her!

He is also taking bubbles, balls, and candy for the other children.

 

 

We have been anxiously waiting to hear back from our agency. They e-mailed the orphanage on October 7 to ask if Britt could stop by and meet our daughter while he is in India. I was SO excited to see this e-mail today...

 

 

 

Our puzzle fundraiser is underway...we are around $4,000 short of being fully funded for her adoption! 

You get a tax deductible letter for giving through Lifesong. You can donate online at https://mystory.lifesongfororphans.org/stories/adopting-daughter-india/ or mail a check payable to “Lifesong for Orphans”. In the memo line please write “Green 6422”, to ensure it is credited to our account. Please mail to Lifesong for Orphans, PO Box 40, Gridley, IL 61744.

 

Lifesong lets me know when checks have arrived so I can add names to our puzzle.

 

Her first monogram! :) 

You can read about her name here.

 

Thank you for all the prayer and support! Please pray specifically that we get the approvals we need quickly (i800, Article 5, No Objection Certificate). Once we have those approvals our case can move to court.

 

 

 

 

 

2 1/2 Years Old

I tried to post this yesterday, but time got away...

 

October 12, 2016

 

Our sweet girl is 2 1/2 years old today.

 

6 months until her 3rd birthday.

 

Only God knows what the next 6 months hold, but I'm praying we will be with our girl on her 3rd birthday. I hate we have already missed 2 birthdays with her.

 

We are so in love with this little girl that is 8,234 miles, across the ocean, on the other side of the world away from us.

 

Every time Matthew sees her picture he says, "I'm gonna protect baby sister!" When we ask if he wants to pray before we eat, his prayer is always the same, "I want to ask God to bring baby sister home. Thank you God for my food. Amen!" 

 

Eli asks EVERY. DAY. when baby sister is coming home. He says she is so cute he can't stand it! Haha!

 

Caleb is excited and ready for her to be home, but he is also old enough to understand all the things we are having to wait for.

 

I am SO thankful that her birth mother chose life for her. Another India adoptive mom put it so beautifully..."She wasn't given a name, but she was so LOVED that she was taken to a safe place...because some precious babies aren't." 

 

If you missed my last blog about her new name you can read it here

 

Our puzzle fundraiser is going on through Lifesong for Orphans...$5 per puzzle piece and your name goes on the back. The puzzle will be hung in her room with all the names showing at first.

 

You get a tax deductible letter for giving through Lifesong. You can donate online at https://mystory.lifesongfororphans.org/stories/adopting-daughter-india/ or mail a check payable to “Lifesong for Orphans”. In the memo line please write “Green 6422”, to ensure it is credited to our account. Please mail to Lifesong for Orphans, PO Box 40, Gridley, IL 61744.

 

Lifesong lets me know when checks have arrived so I can add names to our puzzle.

 

We are so grateful and thankful for those of you who love our family by praying and giving!! Please pray along with us that God's hand of protection will be on our daughter and that He will move mountains and work miracles to get our baby girl home to us soon! Can't wait to see her in next year's pumpkin patch picture!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Puzzle Fundraiser!

To begin, here are some things for our prayer warriors to pray specifically for...

 

1. Quick approval for our i800, Article 5, and No Objection Certificate (we need these approvals before our case can move to court)

 

2. Pray we get a compassionate judge when our case does go to court (The king's heart is like channels of water in the hand of the Lord; He turns it wherever He wishes. Proverbs 21:1)

 

3. Pray we get our baby girl home before her 3rd birthday in April
 

 

Now, to share with you where we got her new name...

All 3 of our boys have a Bible name and a family name, so we wanted our daughter to have the same. Her full name will be...

 

Mary-Lynn Sharles Green

 

Mary, of course, is from the Bible. Lynn is my momma's middle name and my middle name.

My momma and me

 

 

My Nanny's mother wanted her middle name to be Sharles, but the nurses misunderstood her and put Charles on her birth certificate. We wanted to use the middle name her mother intended her to have for our daughter.

Nanny's mother on the left

Nanny, my daddy's momma, in the middle and on the right

 

 

 

 

And just for fun, here is where we got our 3 boys' family names from...

 

Caleb Wayne

Caleb's middle name came from his daddy and Papa (Britt's daddy), my granddaddy also shared the same middle name 

 

Elijah Thompson

Eli's middle name came from Britt's grandparents' last name and his momma's maiden name

 

Matthew Charles

Matthew's middle name is the same as his PawPaw's (my daddy). My daddy got his middle name from his momma, Miriam Charles, but hers was suppose to be Sharles...where Mary-Lynn is getting her middle name from!! :)

And one more story because I just love this!...Obie Thomas Head Sr. (on the left) was born August 28, 1906. My daddy, Thomas Charles Head (as a child on the left, and as a PawPaw on the right), was named after him. My daddy wanted to be PawPaw Head to his grandchildren just like Obie Thomas was PawPaw Head to him. On August 28, 2013 Matthew Charles was born. So Matthew was born on his Great-Great PawPaw's birthday and Matthew Charles was named after Thomas Charles, his PawPaw. I just think that is so neat, and SO God!!

 

 

And now for the puzzle fundraiser...

 

Thank you SO much to Halie Studdard who worked with us to design our picture that we had printed onto a puzzle!

 

And thank you to my awesome husband who worked very hard to put this difficult puzzle together!!

 

 

I modge podged it all together so those tiny pieces can not get lost...

 

So now we are ready to begin...here is how it works...

 

We will hang it up in her room with the back of the puzzle showing at first! It will be a wonderful visual of all the people who have given and, more importantly, prayed to get her home!  

 

Go to...

 https://mystory.lifesongfororphans.org/stories/adopting-daughter-india/

 to donate $5 for a puzzle piece.

 

 

Lifesong has been blessed with partners who underwrite all U.S. administrative and fundraising costs (TMG Foundation and other partners). That means 100% of your donation will go directly to the adoption.

• In following IRS guidelines, your donation is to Lifesong for Orphans. This organization retains full discretion over its use, but intends to honor the donor’s suggested use.
• Lifesong is a 501(c)3 tax exempt organization. Individual donations of $50 or more and yearly donations totaling $250 or more will receive a tax-deductible receipt. Receipts for donations under $50 will gladly be sent upon request.

STRIPE charges an online processing fee (2.2% +.30 USD per transaction). Your donations will be decreased by this amount. You may also send a check payable to “Lifesong for Orphans”. In the memo line please write “Green 6422”, to ensure it is credited to our account. Please mail to Lifesong for Orphans, PO Box 40, Gridley, IL 61744.

 

Thank you!!



A New Name

Lots of pictures and updates since my last post a month ago!

 

My sister and I went to a consignment sale. I just had to buy something for our sweet girl!

 

 

Our agency, Children of the World, had a India Travel Class in Fairhope. It was very informative! I loved getting to meet the wonderful women from COTW and other adoptive families face-to-face!!

Britt with Ms. Pat, Terri, and Mary Beth...such an amazing, Godly family!


On September 16, Ms. Pat called to tell me our daughter's original documents from the orphanage had finally made it to COTW!! We had been waiting 5 weeks and 2 days (yes, I was counting!)

I was SO excited to see this FedEx package sitting at my door 3 days later! There was no new medical information, but we were able to read more on her Child Study Report than the scanned in one we had before. This made me laugh...

Although, I may not be laughing when she and Matthew gang up on me with all their boldness!!


We had an authentic Indian meal made by a sweet lady who grew up in India. Thank you again Sabrina and Roy!

Matthew wanted to stay with Mrs. Sabrina!


Once we had the original documents signed and shipped back to COTW, they started on our i800 paperwork. The i800 is a companion document to the i800a (which we were approved for on 8-11-16). The i800 looks at our child specifically. Terri e-mailed the information for us to proof-read on September 28. Two days later this was at my door...

Praying for a quick i800 approval!! The paperwork made it to USCIS (US Citizenship & Immigration Services) this morning.


Our church, First Baptist Eclectic, had an Adoption Yard Sale for us. We were BLOWN AWAY with how much was raised...$1,138.36!!

Britt found lots of chairs to rest on during the sale. As soon as one sold he would find another one. Hahaha!

 

 

The next day we had Sunitha Joe from Christ Faith Home for Children in Chennai, India with us at church!

She honored Britt as pastor by putting a scarf around him! :)

Sunitha spoke about Christ Faith Home. You can learn more about it at www.christfaithhome.in

 

 

Sunitha brought beautiful items made by the women at Christ Faith Home. I had fun shopping, especially knowing it all goes to support their orphanage.

 

 

My sweet friend, Christie, bought me this Ozark Trail cup. I love it (it's made me drink way more water) and I love it even more with my India vinyl on it...

 

 

Now for the title of this blog...A New Name...

 

In my next blog (which will hopefully be this week!), I will tell you where we got her new name and all about our puzzle fundraiser that we will be starting. So stay tuned...

 

 

This is so, so good! Please take time to read it. I know I needed it...
From Journey (Lifeway) Waiting on God
"But God often forces us to wait on Him to teach us, first, that He doesn't need human means to accomplish His plans for our lives; and second, that we can trust His ways even when they seem strange, risky, and even impossible...(1 Chron. 14) Essentially, God told David not to attack the enemy head-on. Instead, David and his army were to go to the outside of the Philistine camp and wait for the enemy to retreat. The signal that David and his army could march out to battle was the sound of God's angel army marching on the tops of the balsam trees (v. 15). Can you imagine the sound of God's invisible army marching on the treetops, waging war on behalf of David? Friend, this is the same angel army that God commands to go before you, to wage war on the impossible in order to bring about His plans for your life. Will you trust Him? Will you wait for Him instead of taking matters into your own hands? Will you stop assessing your circumstances by what you can see with your natural eyes and instead keep your focus on the One who created the world out of nothing? In 2 Kings 6...When Elisha's servant woke up the next morning and saw Aram's army surronding them, he was terrified. But Elisha prayed that God would open his servant's eyes to see reality. God answered that prayer, and the servant "saw that the mountain was covered with horses and chariots of fire" (v. 17). God's angel army. I think we get restless in the waiting because we can't see God working, so we assume He's completely forgotten about us. But just because we can't see God working doesn't mean He's not. In all things, at all times, God is working for our good."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



God is into details!!

It's been over 3 weeks since I have updated. I keep meaning to and then get sidetracked...

 

As you read in my last post, we got 5 pictures of our beautiful girl on August 14!! We all love looking at them over and over again!! We still have prayer cards. If you would like one please let me know. We are so thankful for your prayers!!

 

On August 15 we got our i800a approval letter!! That was just 6 days after our fingerprinting appointment! So we are now allowed to bring an orphan into the United States.

 

We are waiting on her original medical and child study documents to get to us from the orphanage by snail mail. It's been almost 4 weeks. Praying they get here soon!

 

After that, the next step will be the i800 which looks at our daughter specifically. An i800 approval means we can bring a specific orphan (our daughter) into the United States. But there will still be 2 more things (Article 5 and No Objection Certificate) that will have to be approved before our case finally goes to court in India. We do not travel for court. Once our case passes court the orphanage will apply for her passport and soon after we will travel to India to get her. Still a lot of waiting to do.

 

But here is an amazing God story for you...
 

On August 18th I spent most of my day filling out an application for Lifesong for Orphans (more on that in another post). We had to send an adoption testimony in with the application. I went to my very first blog post to just copy and paste our story. As I was reading back over our story that night God just hit me with this part, "But in early 2014 Britt bumped into an acquaintance from Grace Point Community Church in a hospital waiting room. She told him about Crisis Rescue International that she had just been on a mission trip with...God really began to put India on our hearts."

 

 After some research in things like old Facebook posts and Britt's hospital mileage log we figured out that the not-so chance encounter with the acquaintance in a hospital waiting room was on April 11, 2014. Y'all...our daughter was born in India on April 12, 2014! So around the time our baby girl was born in India, God was putting India on our hearts! This baby has been ours since before she was born! How amazing is our God!?!! I read this quote on Facebook recently, "Before I laid the foundations of the earth, I thought of you and of the days you would live on earth. I planned out the people and the places I would give you." We are SO beyond ready to get our baby girl home with us and I can't wait to share with her just how God has woven her adoption story together!! It just blows our minds!!

 

This past Monday God put another beautiful rainbow in my path! This is number 7 :)

 

 

Caught this picture on Thursday of our boys! I can't wait for baby sister to be added to the bunch! These brothers are just as excited and anxious as Britt and I are to get her home!

 

I like to end my blogs with the things that God is teaching me because I hope He can use it to teach you in whatever situation you are going through...

• "Adoption is costly. It's full of unknowns, scary diagnosis, and loneliness. It's full of paperwork, stress, and delays. Adoption is also full of Jesus. It's full of hope, grace, and promise. It's full of freedom, strength, and love. It's full of redemption. He adopted you and I."
• "It's never easy or pleasant to simply wait, but it is the key to seeing God move on your behalf. Trust, delight, commit, be still, and wait. Your fretting will disappear, and God will bring the victory."
• The enemy will try to limit your praying because he knows your praying will limit him.
• "But there is a WHO beyond the why, and I can tell you He's good, wise, loving, and He withholds no good thing from those who walk in His ways (Ps. 84:11). This is the God I love, trust, and seek to obey."
• Hope is more than wishing things will work out. It is resting in the God who holds all things in His wise and powerful hands. - Paul David Tripp

 

One last thing...We celebrated Matthew's 3rd birthday last weekend! That boy is still talking about his Minion cake!!



 

Please continue to pray that we will have baby sister home with us on her 3rd birthday! She is 7 1/2 months younger than Matthew. We may have partners in crime on our hands! ;)