3 Weeks to Fundraise for our Matching Grant!

Blog Readers, Please share!

Okay, I'm feeling the urgency. We have 3 more weeks before our goal date to fundraise for our $4000 matching grant to bring our Katie home from China! As I told you all, we were so blessed to be awarded a $4000 matching grant from Lifesong for Orphans, meaning they will match dollar for dollar up to $4000, what we fundraise through our family and friends. If you would like to contribute, we have been given a fundraising goal date grant of October 21st. Last I checked we weren't even a fourth of the way there! Please share this blogpost through Social Media as you are able (there's a "Share This on Facebook" and a "Twitter" button to the right. :) We are SO grateful for the support!

We know people fundraise for all sorts of worthy causes: anti- animal cruelty, environmental causes, humanitarian efforts, mission trips to orphanages. We are thinking of this as our trip to an orphanage, only we are BRINGING one child home, to live in our home, eat at our table, be welcomed in our community, be tucked in every night, be held when she's crying, and be loved unconditionally as OUR DAUGHTER. She is 100% worthy and will be just as much a Becker as our Caraline Faith is. We feel the Lord adopted us as His children and He deeply loves every child, no matter his or her social status, skin color, or disabilities.

We are stepping out in faith to fundraise the second half of our adoption fees and

if you would like to help us bring Katie home: please know all gifts are TAX- DEDUCTIBLE and 100% goes towards bringing our sweetie home.

You are humbly invited to ...

Give Online-- even $20 helps!

1. Go to www.lifesongfororphans.org/give/donate

2. Select Give to an Adoptive Family

3. Complete online form and fill in "Family Account Number: #4016" & "Family Name Fields: Becker Family"

(Sometimes it is difficult to get the website to work well on a Phone. A computer/ laptop works better.)
*Please note that PayPal will charge an administrative fee (2.9% + $.30 USD per transaction). Your donation will be decreased by the amount of this fee. 

OR

Give by Check

Please make checks payable to Lifesong for Orphans.

In the memo please note your gift preference with Family Account Number: #4016 andFamily Name: Becker, so it would read: "Acct # 4016, Becker Family"

Please mail checks to:

Lifesong for Orphans
PO Box 40

Gridley, IL 61744

Lifesong has been blessed with a partner that underwrites all US administrative and fund-raising costs (TMG Foundation and other partners). That means 100% of your donation will go directly to the need...helping orphans.

Note from LifeSong: 

Individual donations $250 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.

Note: Doug & I will be able to see in our Giving Report next week who gave what, so if you would like it to be Anonymous, I believe you may mark it as such. 

------ We ABSOLUTELY cannot thank you enough!!! 

P.S. If you just stumbled onto this blog, we are adopting a little girl from China who is 3 1/2 years old, completely deaf, and completely precious. Here she is:

and here we are, normal, ordinary, quirky folks:

and we are slowly learning sign language so we 

can teach Katie- although she's deaf, no one is 

teaching her any there.

Here is a picture from a care package we

sent her, with us making the ASL signs

for "Mommy" and "Daddy" so she can learn

to associate the signs with us: 

UPDATE: For those who contribute: 

Our "Bring Katie Home" Keepsake has been started. I had been trying to think up a creative way to thank the amazing supporters we have, both in financially bringing Katie home from China, and ALL those who are watching Cara while we take our Sign Language course, and who help us with fundraisers. Katie will always have this, and will see the names of ALL the amazing community members, friends, and family who believe she is worthy! My heart is so full! Tears! I've been blown away by the response. We've had over 2100 blog views, and dozens have shared this page. Thank you. Speechless. Xoxo

AND since it is "Throwback Thursday". I thought I'd share a priceless video with you... this is the ONLY video we have of Katie at the age of 2 or younger (we have more recent ones), it's only 24 seconds long:

 Video of Katie from March 2012: https://vimeo.com/75524398

Love, Jamie, Doug, Cara... and Katie Becker

Mercy! I cannot compartmentalize forever!

Mercy. Today I spoke with a friend who told me how she would be interested in adopting as well but she knew herself too well and was afraid the wait would be too emotional for her. I explained that I have good days and bad days. Life is rushing by so quickly. I told her how I remembered back in February when we thought we were choosing the other little girl, Qingge, I was sitting in a playgroup. Friends of mine were chatting and discussing sales at Target and nail salons, nothing I hadn't cheerfully discussed before. But I had just heard about the particularly horrible circumstances of Qingge's abandonment and everyone's chatter seemed too much for me. I almost stood up and left the room. It was then I first really learned to compartmentalize it all. Men seem to be fantastic at it. I've often been jealous how well Doug or my boss are able to focus on a task at hand so well despite a stressful day, because as studies have shown, men actually tend to be more skilled at putting aside a disturbing emotion and dealing with it later (or never!) This skill can be good or bad! 

So, the majority of the time I'm pretty good at compartmentalizing everything: I can get things done, focus on my family here and my ministries and my jobs and my endless to-do list. But tonight, I did something I actually avoid doing. I was working on our support letter and this picture of Katie was zoomed in across my whole laptop screen. 

 I stared at her face, her little button nose and sweet mouth and perfect, folded ears-- (they are PERFECT to me) and I started to very quietly cry. I didn't want to bother Doug and I didn't feel like talking about it at the moment. But Doug was sitting two feet away and leaned over to see what was on my screen. He teared up too, and whispered, "We're coming for you soon!" April/ May cannot come soon enough. He went off to bed and I cried in our quiet home for another hour. I'm a mess. And that's just how it is. 

BUT I'm grateful. It's midnight here and in Hebei, China it's noon. I can't see what she's up to, maybe she's sitting down for a lunch of noodles. But I CERTAINLY know WHO can see her. One of my absolute favorite names for God is from Genesis 16:13. Pregnant Hagar had fled into the wilderness, after continually being mistreated by Sarai. The Lord spoke to her and heard her cries. She exclaims, "You are the God who sees me." THE GOD WHO SEES ME! 

The Lord has always seen me. Every moment, through every struggle, He's seen me, even when I couldn't see or hear Him. Since I started following Him, He's never left me or forsaken me once. I believe that He sees Katie too. He was there the moment she was born on January 1, 2010. When there was undoubtedly a gasp in the delivery room when they saw her ears: He was there.

He never left her while she waited, wrapped in that red quilt on March 9, 2010. It was a Tuesday. I was at work a world away in Chicago, in the trenches of infertility, on our last round of Clomid, oblivious that I was going to get pregnant with Cara 11 days later. Six thousand, nine-hundred, and fifty miles away, Katie was wrapped in that quilt outside a village for perhaps many hours until someone found her. I KNOW HE saw her, and His angels guarded her that whole time. That's how I can trust that He sees her now, eating her lunch, just as He sees me crying in my living room. He's the God Who Sees. And that's enough for me tonight. Jesus, be with my baby.

Why in the world are we adopting and other FAQs!

WHY are we adopting? The easiest way to answer this is by a Frequently Asked Questions format...
Questions we have often been asked:

"So, you are adopting, does that mean you're infertile?"
Hmm, that's rather private but sure, we'll answer it! No, we are actually not infertile! We used to be, I (Jamie) used to have PCOS, stemming from my celiac disease but once we discovered I was allergic to wheat gluten, I eat gluten-free and we are now, as far as we can tell, 100% fertile. Here's the part that seems so hard for some people to accept, we are actually CHOOSING to adopt an orphan who needs a family RATHER than trying to conceive. We absolutely, positively believe adoption is really not the right choice for everyone, but we absolutely believe it's a great choice for us and we want to! This was a dream for us. I remember EXACTLY where we were 10 years ago, while we were dating, walking past our college in Chicago, and first expressed to each other that even if we could have our own children biologically, we'd also like to adopt as well.

"But WHY adopt?"
There are 143 MILLION orphans in the world today-- that's 143 million reasons "why" for us. Every DAY 15,000 new children become orphaned. We absolutely cannot help all of them, I know. But we started to search our hearts and realize we could help ONE. Maybe just one. And instead of WHY, we started to ask, "Why not?"

"Why NOW though?" I have many answers to this, and interesting ways God made it clear that He wanted us to pursue this now.  I will leave it at, we felt, "There's no time like the present", and with huge, scary decisions, sometimes it's, "Now or never!"

"Why did you choose international adoption when there's also 500,000 children in the U. S. foster care system?"
Well, many reasons. We love and support foster families and foster-adoption but really didn't feel it was the right fit for us at least at this time for many reasons. I had a discussion with the DYFS officer in our area and we truly are limited by Cara's age. They strongly advise against putting a significantly older/ larger child from the foster system in a family with young children for many reasons and in NJ at least, a birth mom gets the legal chance of getting custody back until around the age of 8, so over 92% of the children available for us to legally adopt would be much older than Cara.

"Why did you choose "China: Special Needs Program"?"
Again, many reasons. Most of you know about their One Child Policy, they have had for decades which has created a major humanitarian crisis. The gendercide is staggering. Because of the cultural preference for boys, when a pregnant mother learns her baby is a girl, many millions of girls in China are aborted just for being a girl and never get a chance at life. About 60% of the children being born in China are boys. Most families have only one child, so an entire generation of sisters, brothers, cousins, aunts, uncles, etc. are missing. An enormous crisis is already underway, as the each elderly person now only has one person each to care for them as they age, instead of several.
As for children who ARE actually born, if they have ANY "special need" for medical care at all, even a missing or extra toe, they are unfortunately often abandoned at birth, because there is no healthcare assistance in China, as well as the social stigma against a visual deformity of any kind. My heart goes out to Xiatong's mother. She saw her severe ear deformities and may not have even realized that she was deaf. Katie Grace Xiatong was estimated to be born on New Years Day 2010, and her mom waited until March 9, 2013, when she was 2 months old, and it was warmer out, to wrap her in a red quilt, with a bottle and a bag of powdered formula, and leave her right outside a busy village, where she hoped she'd be found quickly. Abandoning a child is a criminal offense in China and there are no "Safe Haven" laws as we have here, as far as I understand. Katie's birth mom cared about her, I believe, and perhaps she knew she couldn't afford to help her medically. I am UNBELIEVABLY thankful that she chose LIFE for her, and that she gave US the gift of a wonderful daughter to love!
As for special need orphans in China, their future is very bleak. At the age of 13, they are no longer legally eligible for adoption. At the age of about 15, most orphans are turned out of the orphanages and since all their documents indicate that they are orphans (AND because of their special need), they are usually discriminated against getting a job. Their futures are heartbreaking unless they are adopted. Our Katie was available for adoption for over five months and no one was interested in adopting her but us because of her special need of deafness and ear deformities. The older they get , the less likely they will get a family.

"Isn't this going to be hard on your family and marriage?" Yes. We are not naive. We realistically realize, having watched many friends adopt children with special needs, that this WILL BE the most challenging thing we have ever done. But Doug and I have never made one decision in our lives based on what is or isn't "easy". We've often chosen the road less traveled and we have never regretted it. We do not think of ourselves as extraordinary people but as ordinary people who are strengthened and blessed by an extraordinary God. We believe that "what the Lord calls you to do, He WILL equip you to do", or as a friend mentioned, "God doesn't call the qualified, He qualifies the called". Our ministry here in NJ is a testimony of His goodness and grace to us. We want our daughter Caraline Faith to learn from Mommy and Daddy this principle: that things aren't always easy that are worth fighting for: AND we believe with all our hearts that Katie Grace is worth it!

"WHY is the adoption process from China $35,000?!?!? Who are you paying all that money to? Is anyone making a profit? "
:) Ah, the favorite question we get asked. Well, I'll say this, the whole process is non-profit. The majority of the adoption fees are on the state and U.S. side of the adoption, not China. There is SO much paperwork, legal fees, forms, red tape, applications, education, translation involved it's mind-boggling. BELIEVE me. I'd be more than happy to show you the dollar for dollar breakdown. The $35,000 also includes: our travel expenses, our airfare to China for Doug and I (Cara is staying with my parents in TX for two weeks ), a translator and guide, court fees, document fees, I could go on and on. No one is stuffing their pockets at all. Chinese adoption is a well-oiled machine, but it is an expensive process because of all the paperwork. 

and: "How on earth are you affording this as a pastor of a small church?" 
ALOT of hard work AND a leap of faith!
Friends of ours, also pastors, the Despres family, adopted a sweet girl in 2011 from China and they took a leap of faith. They saved and fundraised and we all saw God provide. That was HUGE for us, we saw that God's plan does not exceed His supply. When we made the decision to pursue adoption instead of conception in July 2012, I (Jamie), decided to become a nanny in our home. I babysat a four year old boy, Joey, for a year, full-time, and it was a journey of faith in itself. That job funded the first $12,000 of our adoption and was a tremendous blessing. We love our Joey, he is like a big brother to Cara, and he started pre-K this week. I start nannying a little baby girl in our home in a couple weeks, as we continue to save.
As for the other $23,000 left in adoption fees!?!? Well, we are PLEASED to announce that we received a $2000 direct grant, from Lifesong for Orphans, a couple weeks ago as well as a $4000 matching grant, meaning they will match dollar for dollar up to $4000, what we fundraise through our family and friends. If you would like to contribute, we have been given a fundraising deadline for that matching grant of October 21st. 

We know people fundraise for all sorts of worthy causes: anti- animal cruelty, environmental causes, humanitarian efforts, mission trips to orphanages. We are thinking of this as our trip to an orphanage, only we are BRINGING one child home, to live in our home, eat at our table, be welcomed in our community, be tucked in every night, be held when she's crying, and be loved unconditionally as OUR DAUGHTER. She is 100% worthy and will be just as much a Becker as our Caraline Faith is. We feel the Lord adopted us as His children and He deeply loves every child, no matter his or her social status, skin color, or disabilities. 

We are stepping out in faith to fundraise the second half of our adoption fees and 
if you would like to help us bring Katie home: please know all gifts are TAX- DEDUCTIBLE and 100% goes towards bringing our sweetie home. 
You are invited to ...

Give by Check
Please make checks payable to Lifesong for Orphans.
In the memo please note your gift preference with Family Account Number: #4016 and Family Name: Becker, so it would read: "Acct # 4016, Becker Family"
Please mail checks to:
Lifesong for Orphans PO Box 40
Gridley, IL 61744
Lifesong has been blessed with a partner that underwrites all US administrative and fund-raising costs (TMG Foundation and other partners). That means 100% of your donation will go directly to the need...helping orphans.

OR

Give Online
1. Go to www.lifesongfororphans.org/give/donate
2. Select Give to an Adoptive Family
3. Complete online form and fill in Family Account Number: #4016 & Family Name Fields: Becker Family
*Please note that PayPal will charge an administrative fee (2.9% + $.30 USD per transaction). Your donation will be decreased by the amount of this fee. 

Note from LifeSong: 

Individual donations $250 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. 

------ We ABSOLUTELY cannot thank you enough for your love and support! Please pray for us and our Katie as it's still about a 7 to 8 month process of more paperwork and red tape until we have her in our arms forever!!! The wait is EXCRUCIATING!!! THANK YOU for your beautiful love and support!

Thank you for reading! 

FINALLY time for an announcement a year in the making!

FINALLY time for an announcement a year in the making!!! WE ARE EXPECTING ANOTHER DAUGHTER! She's 3 1/2 years old, completely deaf, and completely precious, and SO loved! She lives in China and we are Lord-willing going to China to adopt her and bring her home to us FOREVER this April. Meet our princess, Katie Grace Xiatong Becker! We got our long-awaited official Pre-Approval from China today. She doesn't know any sign language yet but we do!!! We started going to a Sign Language class and we live 4 miles from one of the best deaf schools in NJ. Cara is THRILLED to be a LITTLE SISTER and this is our dream come true-- a dream a decade in the making!!!! 

:) Whew, been holding in that secret for over a year, since we made the decision and started saving up! I'll give you the basic timeline and facts and THEN go into WHY in the next post.

ADOPTION Timeline of EVENTS

Winter 2012- Completely weaned off my medicine for my gastroparesis, a condition in which my stomach's digestive nerve became paralyzed because I have celiac ( the medicine wasn’t safe for pregnancy)

May 2012- Got the “okay” from my GI doctor that we could try to conceive Becker child #2

July 2012- Decided to against adding maternity insurance to our policy and instead to follow our longtime dream to ADOPT (see the next post about WHY). Met with our Adoption Agency in PA and submitted application, we decided on CHINA, "special needs adoption"!

September 2012- Started my in-home babysitting of Joey, (a four-year old boy), full-time, in order to save up for adoption. Saved up the first $7000 in contract/ Homestudy fees.

February 9, 2013- Saw 4 year old Qingge’s picture for the first time. Doug and I fell in love with her sweet smile! Started researching arthrogryposis, her condition. Spoke to orthopedic surgeons, interviewed physical therapists and a school, and ordered a detailed report from the orphanage through an interpreter. She was in a wheelchair. 

March 1, 2013- Received the video of Qingge: we want her!, informed 

our Adoption Agency

 that we definitely wanted to request her to the Chinese officials- CCCWA. We officially contracted with both 

our Adoption Agency

 and with our state Homestudy agency

March 2013- Sent out reference letters

March 18, 2013- First Homestudy meeting with social worker

March 25,2013- Discovered that although 

our Adoption Agency

 had asked China for Qingge, another family had somehow intercepted the file and were trying to decide whether they wanted her.

April 2, 2013- Homestudy, social work home inspection

April 11,2013- Found out the other family chose Qingge. We no longer could have her as our daughter. We were HEARTBROKEN and grieved losing her, as if it was a miscarriage.

April 15, 2013- Started online adoption education for Homestudy

May 13, 2013- Found out our Homestudy was almost done BUT the Homestudy agency would not release it until we paid all our post placement fees first- an additional $2500 to save up.
May 22, 2013- Doug's birthday: Jamie first saw a video of Xiatong, a 3 1/2 year old deaf girl, and wept the whole way through the video.

July 2, 2013- Fingerprinted for criminal clearance for the Homestudy
July 2013- started specifically praying for 3 children on the waiting children list: Xiatong, Shane, and Yukun, and asking God for wisdom in which to pursue

July 22, 2013- Paid the last $2500 to the Homestudy agency so they would release the Homestudy, it is complete, drafts waiting on final review
August 14, 2013- We received our signed, sealed, and approved Homestudy (our approval to adopt, from the State of NJ) We immediately asked to read Xiatong's file, which a different adoption agency had, applied for our USCIS approval (approval from the U.S. to adopt), and sent out our application for a financial grant from Lifesong for Orphans. Lol: FedEx/Kinkos was my second home that week!
August 15, 2013- We prayerfully made the HUGE decision to choose to adopt Xiatong specifically and the next wrote up our Letter of Intent to adopt her and we also had our social worker at 

our Adoption Agency

 request that China transfer her file to us.

August 30, 2013- We got confirmation that Xiatong's official file was LOCKED to our family and that we could send our Letter of Intent to China the next day to wait for Pre-Approval.  An hour later, we ALSO got a call that Lifesong for Orphans had expedited our application (which they rarely ever do apparently) and had awarded us both a $2000 direct grant as well as a $4000 matching grant, the highest amount ever rewarded! Hallelujah!
September 11, 2013- WOW WOW WOW! We got our Pre-Approval Document from China. Statistically, there is a 99.5% chance that Xiatong is going to be OUR DAUGHTER! She will be Katie Grace Xiatong Becker. We will now announce our adoption pursuit and start fundraising to finish paying the adoption fees! Our travel to China is estimated to be this April or May, Lord willing!
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