What does the Bible say about adoption?

As I read through the Bible this year, I made a note of each reference to the orphan.  I want to share as a reminder of God's heart for the widow and orphan.
Happy New Year!!

Exodus 22:22-24 Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan.  If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry.  My anger will be aroused, and I will kill you with the sword; you wives will become widows and your children fatherless.

Deuteronomy 10:18-19  He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing.  And you are to love those who are aliens, for you yourselves were aliens in Egypt.

Deuteronomy 14:28-29  At the end of every three years, bring all the tithes of that year’s produce and store it in your towns, so that the Levites (who have no allotment or inheritance of their own) and the aliens, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns may come and eat and be satisfied, and so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.

Deuteronomy 16:10-11  Then celebrate the Feast of Weeks to the Lord your God by giving a freewill offering in proportion to the blessings the Lord your God has given you.  And rejoice before the Lord your God at the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name-you…and the aliens, the fatherless and the widows living among you.

Deuteronomy 24:19  When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it.  Leave it for the alien, the fatherless and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.

Deuteronomy 26:12  When you have finished setting aside a tenth of all your produce in the third year, the year of the tithe, you shall give it to the Levite, the alien, the fatherless and the widow, so that they may eat in your towns and be satisfied.

Deuteronomy 27:19  Cursed is the man who withholds justice from the alien, fatherless or the widow.

Psalm 10:14 But you, O God, do not see trouble and grief; you consider it to take it in hand.  The victim commits himself to you; you are the helper of the fatherless.

Psalm 68:5-6a A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.  God sets the lonely in families…

Isaiah 1:17 …Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.  

Isaiah 10:1-2  Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless.

Jeremiah 5:28  Their evil deeds have no limit; they do not plead the case of the fatherless to win it, they do not defend the rights of the poor.

Jeremiah 7:6  If you do not oppress the alien, the fatherless or the widow and…then I will let you live in this place…

Jeremiah 22:3 Do no wrong or violence to the alien, the fatherless or the widow…

Job 29:12  because I rescued the poor who cried for help, and the fatherless who had none to assist him.

Job 31:17  if I have kept my bread to myself, not sharing it with the fatherless-

Zechariah 7:10  Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor.

Malachi 3:5  …I will be quick to testify against …those who oppress the widows and the fatherless…

John 14:18  I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.

Ephesians 1:4-5,14  In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will.  …you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God/s possession- to the praise of his glory.

Titus 3:7 …so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.

James 1:27  Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by this world.

I John 3:1  How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!  And that is what we are!

I praise you, Lord, for your heart for the orphan and adopting me to be your daughter, a daughter of the King of Kings!

Mailed in our new LOC

We received our revised Letter Seeking Confirmation yesterday from China and we mailed it to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services.  We are so thankful to be done with that (hopefully) and moving forward again.  If the Lord is willing, we should travel in about three months.  We now wait for an approval from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services which takes about three weeks.  We will keep you posted.

New LOC has been mailed from China

I received news that our new Letter Seeking Confirmation has been mailed from China today.  We pray it arrives soon.
Thank you for your prayers!

dissapointing news

We just found out that there is a problem with our paperwork that the US citizenship office is reviewing.  Two names were misspelled and they have told us we must request a new Letter Seeking Confirmation from China.  We are heartbroken.  This should delay our traveling about a month or two.  Why does it have to be so hard!?!  I have prayed that God would go before our paperwork and correct any mistakes we missed.  I am having a really hard time right now, asking why, why, why...  
It's just so hard to believe it has to be this hard!!!
As I was fussing, crying and praying earlier, my Lord spoke to me through a song that came on the radio by Matthew West.  The lyrics went something like this...

You must think I'm strong,
To give me what I'm going through.
Forgive me if I'm wrong,
but this looks like more than I can do,
on my own.

I know I'm not strong enough to be everything I'm supposed to be
I give up, I'm not strong enough
Hands of mercy, wont you cover me?
Lord, right now I'm asking you to be strong enough,
strong enough for both of us.

well maybe, maybe that's the point,
to reach the point of giving up.
because when I'm finally at rock bottom, that's when I start looking up

I am broken, You are God.
You are strong when I am weak.
I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength
And I don't have to be strong enough.
Lord, right now I 'm asking You to be strong enough for the both of us.



I've also been praying the lyrics of this beautiful song for the past few months, Blessings, from Laura Story...

We pray for wisdom, your voice to hear
We cry in anger when we can not feel you near.
We doubt your goodness, we doubt your love
As if every promise from your Word is not enough.

And all the while you hear each spoken need
Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things

What if your blessings come through raindrops?
What if your healing comes through tears?
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know your near...
What if trials of this life are your mercies in disguise?

This Christmas I will be praising God for our beautiful daughter and that He has brought us this far and for what is to come.  And at the same time, I will be mourning that we will not be together this Christmas and for the two years we have missed of her precious life.  He is faithful and He is always good!

Merry Christmas!!!

We received our LOC!!

On Tuesday we heard from ACGI that they had received our Letter Seeking Confirmation from China.  A very sophisticated form from China written in Chinese and English basically seeking to confirm that we want to adopt the precious baby girl we already said we want to adopt.  This is what we have been waiting on since September 1st.  Praise the Lord!!!  So, since Tuesday we have been very busy gathering and anxiously filling out all the forms that are to be mailed in with the signed LOC.  Because of the typo I previously made, I was so worried that I would make another error and that we would be delayed again.  Tonight we will sign this form and overnight the package to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services and then we will begin gathering some more documents to be mailed to China.  Then we wait again to hear back from the US and Chinese governments.  We should travel to China in about three months.

Thank you so much for your prayers. This waiting has definitley not been easy, even though I keep telling myself that I better enjoy this time while I can still sleep through the night!  I had a dream a couple of nights ago that she was here in the US and we took possession of her here.  It was very sudden and unexpected, like a phone call saying, "meet me at ..., I have your child for you."  In my dream, that first night, I couldn't get her to sleep and I was so tired and she was so tired.  But she wouldn't go to sleep that night or the next day.  When I woke up I was very thankful for the rest I was able to get in my comfortable bed that night.

We are so excited to have reached this step in our journey!! Thank you so much for keeping up with us!!