2 Corinthians 9:8

Hi Everyone!!

 

On July 6, 2016 our lives were forever changed.  This was the day that we had our first glimpse into the promise that God had for our family in February 2013.  This was the day we saw Emma’s face for the very first time.  Since then we have been working on finalizing paperwork and preparing to travel to China to bring our little girl home.  There is so much paperwork and preparation involved in these final weeks and we have been working diligently to complete these final tasks so that when our travel is approved by China, we are ready!

 

That all being said there is still one area of our adoption we are working on to make ends meet so we are able to travel in either September or October.  I have mentioned in a few blog posts about the financial aspect of our adoption and this is by far one of the hardest things to talk about.  It is not easy to ask for help, especially when it comes to money.  I want to take the time to thank everyone who has donated toward our adoption.  We are so incredibly grateful for generosity and love!! 

 

The financial cost of adoption is around $30,000-$40,000.  As of today, we have spent around $12,000 for our China adoption (this does not include the money we spent when we started the process to adopt from Ethiopia in 2013).  These costs have covered government fees, physical appointments, visa and passport fees and sending our paperwork to China for translation and review.  Currently, we are still around $16,000 - $18,000 short of being able to travel to China to bring Emma home.  These remaining costs will cover our airfare, hotel, and orphanage donation.  While this may seem like a lot of money, we know that God will help us find a way to make ends meet. 

 

“And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.”

2 Corinthians 9:8

 

God has blessed us in so many ways.  We feel so incredibly lucky that He chose US to be Emma’s parents and we are not going to let anything stand in our way of bringing our little girl home.  Today, we plan on going to the bank to get information on taking out a home equity loan to help us finance our adoption costs.  God is helping us find a way to make a way!!

 

We also have been blessed to received a $2000 matching grant with Lifesong for Orphans.  Through your generous donations we have been able to raise $1000 in donations and $1000 in matching grants!!  Because we have a $2000 matching grant, that means we still have another $1000 that can be matched through Lifesong!  This is an amazing opportunity and blessing for our family.

 

If you would like to partner with us financially to help us bring our daughter home, please check out the link below for more details:

Lifesong for Orphans Matching Grant

Or if you would like to make a donation via check:

Please make checks payable to “Lifesong for Orphans. In the memo – note “Ayres/#6091” – this assures it will go to the correct account. Please mail to Lifesong for Orphans, PO Box 40, Gridley, IL 61744. 

Lifesong for Orphans is a 501 c 3 organization and all donations are tax deductible!!!

We want to thank everyone again for their generosity and prayers!  God will make a way to help us make ends meet.  He did not bring us this far for us to fall short.  We are merely God's instruments in His plan to give one beautiful girl a family and a home.  We will continue to have faith in His power and we truly beleive God has a way of making what seems impossible, possible!!

Take Care and God Bless!!!

Our Video for Emma

Hi Everyone!!

We have some very exciting news!!  When our I800 document was approved, our adoption agency had provided us with contact information to two wonderful families who had adopted a child (one of them adopted two children) from the same foster mom as Emma.  We were so thrilled about the possibility of learning more about Emma's foster mom and about Emma.  But what these families gave us was even more of a blessing, they gave us the personal contact information so we could reach out to Emma's foster mom!!!  We feel so incredibly blessed for this gift, because most families do not have the opportunity to see more than 2-3 pictures of their child, and we have the opportunity to ask questions to the individual who has been caring for Emma for the past 3 1/2 years!!  Emma's foster mom is amazing and we love her and are so grateful for the gift she is for our family and for all the information, pictures and videos she has sent us!!!  God is so incredibly good!!!

The reason we want to share this with you is because it is such an amazing God moment in our story.  We can't even begin to describe how awesome it has been to be able to reach out to Emma's foster mom (we call her Emma's China mom), to learn more about her and about Emma.  We have put together a little video we would like to share with everyone from the pictures and videos Emma's China mom has sent us.  To view this video, please click the link below:

A Video for Emma


Currently, we are anticipating traveling early October.  We were hoping for September but we are going to just miss the cut to make this possible.  We are around $16,000 short of being able to fully fund our adoption.  If you would like to partner with us financially to help us bring Emma home, please check out the link below.  We currently have $1300 left in matching donations we can receive from Lifesong.  This is an incredible opportunity for our family. 

Lifesong Matching Grant

Thank you all so much for your love and support!! We are so grateful for your donations and prayers that are helping us get one step closer to bringing our baby girl home!!

God Bless

 

Each day is one day closer...

Hi everyone!

This week has been a very exciting week in regards to our adoption. Our i800 was verbally approved over the phone and the official approval came in the mail, and we received the necessary information to proceed forward with Emma's visa! We have officially completed all the documentation in the USA at this point!!! We are so ecstatic to be moving closer to meeting our little girl!!

Currently we are waiting for an official letter from the NVC so our agency can file all Emma's visa paperwork with China. Once we receive this letter and AWAA sends it to China, our count down officially begins. Typically it takes China 10 business days to issues what's called an Article 5. From there families can expect to receive what's called TA or travel approval within 7-10 days (the average wait). After TA, we would work with AWAA to plan travel - usually around 2 weeks after TA.

AWAA has not ruled out us traveling in September. However, we would need to get TA by September 1st to be a part of the September 15th travel group. It's possible, but cutting it close. It is probably more likely we will be in the October travel group. We hope for September but we know God has everything perfectly planned out in His timing. 

We are over the moon about preparing to meet Emma. I have already set out her clothes and toys to be packed. Travel will be here before we know it and we will be ready.

We want to thank everyone again for your prayers and support. We are so grateful to be surrounded by such amazing family and friends!!! 

Take care and God bless!

One Step Closer!!!

We received some exciting news today!!  Our i800 has officially been approved!!!  Long story short, this form is a petition to classify Emma as an adoptive child and helps with her immigration process.  This approval also helps to get the ball rolling to help determine our travel timeline.  Basically the faster you get this form approved, the sooner you get to travel to China.

Now that we have our i800 approval, we will need to complete what is called a DS260.  This will be for Emma’s Immigration visa.  Unfortunately, we have to wait a few days to get some additional documents before we can file this next round of paperwork.  Sometimes it seems that the adoption process is all about hurry up and get things done so we can wait.  :-P

As far as travel goes, our agency is does not know if we will be traveling in September or October.  The goal is of course September, but we are at the mercy of waiting for documents to be approved by 2 separate governments.  There are also 2 holidays coming up in China, September 15-17 and October 1-7.  These dates SIGNIFICANTLY affect our travel plans because China will not have any government official working during these days.  Considering we have to be in China for over two weeks, trying to plan travel without overlapping with these holidays can be challenging.  At the latest, we will travel to China after October 7^th.

We are so incredibly excited to be so close to meeting our little Emma. We have been blessed tremendously by the out pour of encouragement and prayers.  We are also very grateful for those who have partnered with us financially.  We are still around $16,000-$18,000ish short of fully funding our adoption costs.  The fluctuation is due to travel expenses changing and the change in exchange rate in China.  If you would like to donate toward our adoption costs, please click on the link below. J

https://mystory.lifesongfororphans.org/stories/journey-daughter-china/#.V6j4No07y_R.email

*** Lifesong is a 501(c)3 tax exempt organization***Lifesong is a 501 ( c )3 exempt orgnaization – so all donations are tax deductible.

Thank you so much for your support and prayers.  We are so grateful and feel so blessed!!!

God Bless!

The God of Heaven will give us success!!

Today God led me to read the book of Nehemiah.  It is truly amazing when we seek out our Heavenly Father in praise and prayer, how He answers the longing of our hearts.  Today, I was encouraged in my quiet time with the Lord and wanted to share a few verses that stuck out to me....

"The God of Heaven will give us success."
Nehemiah 2:20

"Don't be afraid of them.  Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons and you daughters, your wives and your homes."
Nehemiah 4:14

But I prayed, "Now Strengthen my hands."
Nehemiah 6:9

God hears our prayers and knows our hearts.  He knows when we are happy, sad, or scared.  All of these feelings are 100% ok to feel!!  But the important part of feeling fearful or sad, is remembering that while its ok to feel this way, it is so important not to stay prisoner to these feelings.  God wants us to reach out to Him and to find peace in Him.  I love the feeling of peace washing over me as I reach out to our Heavenly Father for guidance. 

There have been times throughout our adoption process where I have felt fearful of the unknown.  There is so many questions that are left unanswered and it is easy to become scared.  I believe God not only approves of these feelings, but He wants us to have these feelings.  It is in the place of true surrender to Him, with our thoughts, feelings and actions, that we are able to depend solely on His loving Hand, mercy and grace.  I am so grateful for our Heavenly Father, that He loves me so much that He would take the time each day to lift me up when I am lifting my prayers and praises to Him.  Praise the Lord God of Heaven and Earth for His loving touch on our lives!!

I pray that as you read this, you find encouragement in our Heavenly Father today.  If you are struggling in some area of your life, I pray that you find peace with the one who created Heaven and Earth and the entire universe!!!  I pray dear friends that you know you are loved and you are worthy!! You are fearfully and wonderfully made!!  God desires for you to know Him more and through your struggles, I pray you know that He hears your every plea and sees your every tear.  He loves you more than any thing in the world!! 

Thank you so much everyone who has reached out to us throughout these past 3 1/2 years!  We are moved by your kindness, love and prayers.  We are so grateful for everyone of you!!  We will continue to keep you in the loop as we move day by day closer to meeting our dear, sweet Emma.

Take care and God Bless!!

Emma

Words cannot even begin to express how our family is feeling right now.  We are so incredibly blessed to be sitting here at this moment looking into the face of our little girl.  God has blessed us in so many ways and we are so incredibly grateful for this amazing gift He has given to us.  Thank you Jesus for answered prayers!!  Thank you also to everyone who has supported us and prayed for us, your encouraging words mean more to us than you will ever know.  God has not only blessed us with Emma, but He has also blessed us with amazing friends and family.

At this point we want to share a little bit more about Emma’s name.  It is kind of funny when I think back at ALL the names we had picked for our little girl.  The list is literally a page long.  When we received information about Emma, we discovered that her foster family renamed her within their home.  Emma is not her “Chinese name” but it is the name she has come to know as her own.  All the time we spent searching for the perfect name, God was laughing knowing her name was already selected and a perfect fit for her.  The name Emma means “whole” or “universe”.  I find this meaning so incredibly symbolic as out of all the children in the “universe”, God selected Emma to make our family “whole”. 

So as far as paperwork goes, we are currently working on our travel portion of our paperwork.  There is so much we need to complete before we travel!!  At times the amount of paperwork we need to complete in the short amount of time we have can seem a bit overwhelming.  But it is amazing how God can instantly calm those fears when we reach to Him for comfort.  We serve such a loving and compassionate father!!  In addition to paperwork, we also have a significant amount of money to raise in order to fund the remaining costs for our travel and stay in China.  But we know our Father is faithful and he will pave the way for us financially.  We are so blessed to be on this journey with Him as our guide!!

As we continue forward in the process, I will continue to post "mini" blog posts to help keep everyone in the loop with where we are in the process.  :)

 

Thank you all again for your love and support. 

God Bless!

We would like to introduce OUR daughter!!!!

We are very excited to announce that after 3 1/2 years of waiting, we have officially been matched to our daughter!! On July 6, 2016 we received a phone call from AWAA (our adoption agency) about a beautiful little girl. Due to confidentiality, our agency asked we not share publicly about our daughter until China approved our family for her adoption. So the process began for us to prepare the necessary paperwork needed to submit what is called a "letter of intent" aka LOI to China. In short, this paperwork summarizes that we are prepared to adopt and will care for all of our daughter's needs.  By July 9th we completed this letter and it was sent to China July 11th. Then the waiting began again...

Some families have told us that they have waited for months for approval from China. There doesn't seem to be any indication of why families have to wait, basically it is what it is. However, we feel truly blessed because by July 20th, 9 days after submitting our LOI, we recieved what is called our "letter of approval" or LOA from China. Once we received our LOA, AWAA indicated we were officially permitted to share publicly about our little girl we have prayed for over the past 3 1/2 years.

Now that we have our LOA, we begin the next faze of paperwork to continue forward with our adoption. The first stage is called the I800 which is submitted to the "United States Citizen and immigration Services" or USCIS. This paperwork is necessary so our little girl can become a US citizen when we bring her home. There are a few other steps we will need to complete and the waiting process begins again. Once all of this paperwork is completed and approved, we will get what is call TA or travel approval. It is at this point we will begin the travel faze of our adoption!!!

Our agency estimates we should Travel around mid September or mid October. This all depends on how fast we receive our upcoming approvals. There are a few Chinese holidays (September 15-17 and October 1-7) that will also affect our travel. We are beyond excited to see the end of all this waiting and look forward to bringing our little girl home!!

Again due to confidentiality, we can't share very much about our little girl but what we can share is that she is a beautiful gift from above; we will have her home before her 4th birthday and her name will be Emma Capri Ayres. For those of you wondering, Emma and Evy will be 9 months, 3 days apart in age. :-)

As we continue on in our journey, we will continue to keep you posted with our progress. We also ask for your prayers. We have a lot left we need to complete before we are able to travel, both paperwork wise and financially. We know in our hearts God will provide both emotionally and financially!!  We also ask for prayers for Emma, Jaxon and Evelynn as their lives are about to change forever. Lastly, please pray for all the children of the world waiting for families and for families still waiting for their child(ren) to be forever home, for their continued strength and courage. This process is not easy but it is entirely 110% worth it!!

Thank you all for your continued prayers and support!!

God bless!!!

Lifesong for Orphans - Matching Grant

July 6, 2016

Hello Friends and Family,

Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

As most of you know, our family is in the process of expanding by two little feet.  Three and a half years have passed since God had first laid the idea of adoption heavy on our hearts and so much has changed since we began the process back in February 2013.  When we first began our journey to adopt, we felt God had called us to adopt from Ethiopia. Therefore, we began the paperwork and 8 months later we were on a waiting list to adopt a little girl from Africa. However, two years into our wait, God brought us to a crossroad where we could continue on our path to Africa or follow His lead. Because we know that God’s plan is ultimately greater than our own, we decided to follow the path God laid before us and we began the process of switching our adoption to China’s Waiting Children List. Currently, we are around number 5-7ish on our agency’s list to adopt a little girl…our little girl. Our agency anticipates that our waiting time could be as little as 6 months from the time we submitted our paperwork to China before we are matched with our daughter. We anticipate and prayerfully hope that we are traveling before the end of the year.

While the wait is hard, we know that every day that passes means we are one day closer to bringing our little girl home.  We know God’s timing is perfect, He knows where our little girl is at this very moment and He has His ever loving eye watching over and protecting her.  There is such great comfort in knowing that the Creator of the Universe is watching over our little girl and will continue to do so even after we are holding her tight in our arms. 

Needless to say after three and a half years, we are incredibly excited to see light at the end of the tunnel of our journey to bringing our daughter home!!!  But while this is a very exciting time for our family, it also has the potential to be a very stressful time as well.  The devil is always lurking around, waiting to devour and destroy.  As we face mountains of additional paperwork, prepare our hearts for leaving our two children in the USA while we travel to China and plan our trip to a foreign country, it would be easy to become frightened and scared of the unknown.  If we allow the devil to intervene in our hearts and minds, the process of adopting can seem downright terrifying and impossible.  But we know that with and through God, all things are possible.  God has called us to this path and we know that He will lead the way as long as we trust in His ultimate plan and look to Him for guidance.  As we continue forward, we are asking for our family and friends to partner with us in prayer for our family; for strength, courage and continued faithfulness in Him.  We also ask for prayers for our children, both here in the USA and our little girl in China, who are about to have their lives completely turned upside down, that they feel God’s comfort and peace.  Lastly, please join us in praying for all adoptive families and for the orphan crisis around the world.

Over the course of these past three and a half years, we believe God has grown us as a family in so many ways.  One of the biggest areas of our lives affected was our faith.  We have learned firsthand that God calls us to be more than comfortable in our lives.  In fact, sometimes He calls us out of our comfort zone and wants us to trust that He will make ends meet.  We have found that when we truly surrender to Him in all areas of our lives, He will bless us more than we ever imagined.  As I mentioned above, we are prayerfully hoping to travel to China in 2016 to bring our little girl home.  Currently, based off our adoption agency estimates, we are around $23,900 short of being able to fully finance our adoption (this includes travel expenses).  Because we had initially begun the process of adopting from Ethiopia, most of our fundraising efforts in the past were depleted.  While this may sound discouraging, we are holding onto the hope and faith that God will help piece together the financial aspect of our adoption.  God has already been working miracles and we are excited to announce the most recent blessings we have received from our Heavenly Father.  Through the Grace of God, we have recently been blessed to be selected by Lifesong for Orphans to receive a matching grant for $2000 from Family Christian Ministries of West Michigan!! Therefore, every donation we receive, Family Christian Ministries will match in donations up to $2000.  Will you please consider making a tax-deductible donation to help us meet this matching grant and bring us closer to being able to bring our little girl home?

If you would like to partner with us financially:

*Please make checks payable to “Lifesong for Orphans. In the memo - note “Ayres/#6091” - this assures it will go to the correct account. Please mail to Lifesong for Orphans, PO Box 40, Gridley, IL 61744.

-Or-

*Another option is to give online. Go to www.lifesongfororphans.org/give/donate.  Select “Give to an Adoptive Family.” Complete the online form and fill in Family Account Number: 6091 and Family Name: Ayres 

Thank you for loving us, we are among the richest people in the world with all the relationships we have and the community of people we belong to who displays the Splendor of Jesus.  We can’t wait for our family to all be together!!

For the Glory of Jesus,     

Nic, Nicole, Jaxon and Evelynn Ayres

Lifesong has been blessed with a partner that underwrites all U.S. administrative and fund-raising costs (TMG Foundation and other partners). That means 100% of your donation will go directly to our adoption.   In following IRS guidelines, your donation is to the named non-profit organization. This organization retains full discretion over its use, but intends to honor the donor’s suggested use.   Individual donations of $50 or more and yearly donations totaling $250 or more will receive a tax-deductible receipt. Receipts for donations under $250 will gladly be sent upon request. Lifesong is a 501(c)3 tax exempt organization.