Our LOA is here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today we celebrate the arrival of our LOA (Letter of Acceptance) from China. It is a letter from CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affiars) seeking confirmation from us that we want to adopt Laura. Well, YES WE DO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is very exciting for us and we hope to leave for China February 18, 2008 and meet our little sweet China girl on February 24, 2008. Please pray for a speed Travel Approval from CCAA.

Laura's Brothers Christmas Day 2007

Laura's brothers on Christmas morning 2007. We wish so badly that Laura was already home to be in the picture with her brothers. We will leave the timing to God and pray for her until she's home with us. Doesn't Laura have handsome brothers? Momma sure thinks she does!
Merry Christmas everyone. God bless you.

Granddaddy and Nene Christmas Morning 2007

Grandaddy's Favorite Christmas Gift!

Christmas Eve Pajamas

Christmas Eve tradition at the Lindsey's is for each child to get new pajamas to wear while waiting on Santa during the night.

William's sports the saying, "Oh, come let us adore me."

John's pj's say, "I like Christmas because there is no Ho, Ho, Homework!"

Luke's pajamas don't talk.

Daddy and Mommy love you little guys!!!

LOA is on it's Way

Well, after 102 days of waiting we have found out that we cleared review and our LOA should be issued by the end of this week!!! We are excited, relieved, and just a little impatient. Because of a hold up of 14 dossiers from CHI (our adoption agency) by the CCAA due to an accounting department problem, we will not be able to travel to get Laura until February. We plan to leave 9 weeks from today, 63 days until lift off. We hope to get our sweet Laura on February 24, 2008!!! It will be such an exciting gotcha day after the tremendous wait. What an adoption story our little one has. I can't wait until she's old enough to ask me over and over, "Mommy, tell me about my gotcha day?" Wow, it's so exciting. We have new picture of her thanks to the Reed family who just arrived home from China last week with their beautiful Sadie. However, I have to do a little work before I can post them. If you email me, I can send you a picture by email. So, keep praying that we will have our LOA signed and sent back to CHI by Christmas. Pray for a speedy Travel Approval from CCAA, and pray for our Consulate Appointment to be March 3, 2008. Please pray for these dates to fall into place and ask the Lord for his travel blessings. Thank you for praying for our family and for our sweet little Laura Abigail FuJuan Lindsey. God Bless and Merry Christmas.

Our friends and family had a shower for us today. Laura got some of the cutest clothes and blankets. So many gifts and the fellowship was great. Traci Johnson organized the shower and I appreciate her so much. We had a blast!
The first picture is of Whitney and Cait Rutherford dancing to a lovely song about a little child dreaming about a family. I cried. Especially the part about the parents dreaming of her. The Rutherford girls are awesome.

The second picture is of our family (part of us anyway, the big kids were all out of town) at the beautifully decorated serving table.

The last picture is of Laura's baby book and her poem written for her by CHI when we were matched with her.

Now we have everything we need to go and get her. Hopefully we will get our LOA this week. And off to China next month!!
Thank you to all our friends and family who came today to celebrate our little China girl's homecoming.

Today is Luke's second birthday!! That's right. He's 2!! He had a great birthday party. His brothers helped him celebrate. He got a basketball goal. He loves to play basketball!! Happy Birthday Luke!! We all love you.

The video below is a creation of Angel, an adoptive mom from Texas. This is her annual Christmas gift to the mother's whom have chosen to adopt and give a large part of their life to loving and nurturing children from all over the world.

Laura's picture is in there. You have to watch closely. But mostly, I just want you to see the beautiful children on the video who were fearfully and wonderfully made by God. And listen to the moving words of the music. They ring true to every mom and every child without a mom.

I hope you enjoy Angel's video. She has given us permission to post it on our blog. Angel, you are an angel!

Angel's Christmas Video 2007

Out of the Mouths of Babes

Yesterday, Meredith, Bradley, and I went to see the eye doctor for our yearly exam. Since all 3 of the big people went, the 3 little Lindsey's had to go along with us. Well, Luke decided to be a 2 year old brat and screamed "Mommy" for the 30 minutes I was getting examined. Then, he decided to holler for candy (they had the audacity to hang candy canes on their desk) the rest of our visit and tried to wear all of their sample frames. No amount of discipline would help!

We were trying to get the balance that we owed the doctor and leave asap as everyone was starving, Luke was sleepy, Bradley was aggravated because his turn to watch Luke was difficuly, and I was just wishing that the lady at the computer would figure out what we owed the doctor. Now, I need to interject here that this is not an atypical experience for the Lindsey family!!

The doctor dilated Meredith's PUPILS and they gave him those dark plastic glasses to wear until his pupils were back to normal.

Well, we finally got in the car and as we backed out of the parking lot, John asked, "Dad, why did they dilate your PIMPLES?" We all melted in laughter. All of the stress and aggravation we had just endured was gone and we were so tickled that I almost couldn't drive.

We then went to lunch at the chinese restaurant and had a blast! The moral of the story is: Take everything very lightly because all that really matters is that we love and cherish each other!! (Even when you have to take the entire family to the eye doctor.)

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1112951379

For a great holiday laugh, click on this web address and have a chuckle watching 3 of our little elves do the jingle bell dance!

We got this picture last night from Love Without Boundaries. They are the organization that sends formula each month for the babies of Dingxi SWI. Thank you LWB for this updated picture. Isn't she cute? She has the cutest lips and hands!! I just can't wait to hear her giggle as we snuggle together and I tickle her!! Laura, we are coming soon.

Happy Thanksgiving to all our friends and family. We are on day 79 of our wait and we should be getting our LOA (letter from China seeking confirmation of our intent to adopt Laura) any day now!!! We are so hoping to get it this week. What a great Thanksgiving week gift!!

One of the things I am thankful for this year is the comfort of a warm home with a working heater. We have been on the streets of Dallas giving out coats and blankets to the homeless population and they act like a warm coat is a pot of gold. God help them and keep them warm this winter, we pray in Jesus name.

Another thing I am thankful for is my happy healthy family. God has been so good to us to keep our children well and healthy. Thank you Jesus.

Something else I am thankful for is that I know the nannies and the director of Laura's orphanage love her and want to keep her warm and fed this winter until we get there. We plan a mid January travel and we pray for safety and wellness.

I am also thankful for faithful friends. God has blessed our family with wonderful friends to share this life with and also fellowship with while in heaven. Jesus, you are awesome.

And I will always and forever be thankful for the cross and for the fact that Jesus in no longer there but at the right hand of God the Father!! Thank you Lord for the blessed life you allow us to live.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our family and friends. Have a wonderful day!!!

We are on day 53 of our wait for Laura. And what do you think we are doing? Playing in the big dirt pit Granddaddy dug. Of course! Luke got to ride in the dump truck and he thinks he is so big. John caught a frog and played with it for a while. Then John released the poor frog back to the wild. We have alot of catch and release going on around here! William was more interested in the big dirt clogs rather than wild life. He informed me today that he and Granddaddy are "country boys". As if I was clueless to this fact! The boys had a blast this afternoon playing in the dirt and riding in the dump truck. Isn't that what boys like best?

Meredith left for New Orleans today with a group of men who will be doing street ministry this weekend. He is anointed by God for this ministry.

So, as I pine away for my little China girl, life goes on around here. And it's fun and busy. I can't wait for Laura to be home playing in the dirt with her brothers. I just hope she don't like frogs!!!

(Double click on the pictures to enlarge them.)

Today we went outside to look at the flowers and to our pleasant suprise the hibuscus blooms were full of yellow butterflies. If you will look closely, you will see the beautiful butterflies lazily eating the sweet nectar out of the red hibiscus blooms. Aren't they beautiful? Fall has arrived and with it an anticipation of the holidays. Enjoy God's beautiful creation where ever you are. I know He got as much pleasure out of this beautiful sight as we did. God bless you all. Double click on the picture for a close up view of the butterflies.

We have our LID (log in date) for our dossier that has reached China. We were logged in September 3, 2007 which is much later that we expected. The good news is that we ARE logged in. We are on day 40 of our wait for permission to go to China and get Laura. In the meantime, we had a weiner roast tonight with our cousins. My dad, who is an A # 1 Granddaddy, got his 4 wheeler and trailer set up and took us on a great hayride through his fields. We had a wonderful campfire and great fellowship. We can't wait to take Laura on her first hayride. She's gonna love Texas. We expect to travel to China mid January so by spring time Laura will have the wonderful experience of the great outdoors here at our home in Texas. Thank you Nene and Granddaddy for making this afternoon a memorable time for all of us. We love you!!!!!

Happy Columbus Day!!! Our dear friends in PA got their Letter of Acceptance for Sadie. She lives with Laura at Dingxi SWI in Gansu Province. The Reed family plan to travel in November to bring Sadie home. We are very excited for them. We hope they can see Laura and get some pictures of her. We also want them to give her a hug and tell her that we will probably be there before Christmas to get her. Yes, that is our hope. We are on day 60 of our wait and expect to get our Letter of Acceptance within the next 20 days! We are so excited. We are busy working to save the rest of the money we need to travel to China. I think it's so funny that our little girl is waiting and she had no idea how hard we are working to get to her. And she's worth every minute! Can't wait to have her home to be the baby sister. Please continue to pray for our endeavor and for her safety and health. A basic prayer for Laura is that she has enough food to eat to stay healthy along with the other children in her orphanage. Thank you for your prayers. God bless you all.

Well, no new picture today. No word from CCAA either. Although, it's not time to hear from them yet. I am really lonesome for my little China doll today. I have washed some of her new clothes and folded them for packing. I have been getting her things together that she will need once she is in our care. Planning and organizing for a 2 week trip to the other side of the world with 6 people (plus one when we arrive) is no small task. But it keeps my mind on the trip and off the fact that I miss her so much. Don't worry Laura, we will blaze the trail as soon as we get permission. God is great and greatly to be praised!

Hair Cut Day

Okay, I got lazy. I usually cut the boys hair myself but after the week we have had, I loaded the boys up and drove into town. We went to the barber shop on the square. Randall Whitaker, our town barber, turned our longed haired little boys back into respectable citizens!! A few snip with the scissors and a buzz of the clippers and John, William, and Luke looked as clean cut as an army recruit. This was Luke's first professional cut and he had a blast. He thought getting a haircut was soooo fun. Here is a picture of Luke and Mr. Randall. Looks to me like Mr. Randall has posed for a few of these "first cut pictures" before!!

What a week it has been. We have another week of school under our belt and our house if fairly clean AND the clothes are all washed, dried, folded and put away! We had a little time on our hands so I took pictures of John acting goofy. He LOVES to pose for silly pictures!

We have had a week of healing school at our church, River of Life Family Worship Center, and it has been awesome. Pastor Emmitt Anderson, a guest speaker from Oklahoma, has taught 2 classes each day and we have learned so much. He is anointed by God to teach. The most important thing in life is to love God and love people. If we do that, everything else will line up correctly.

We sold some trees from our tree farm this week and have put that money back for our journey to Laura in China. We are almost ready to paint our new room. I am so excited about getting to decorate Laura and Luke's room. I chose primary colors with lady bugs, bunny rabbits, puppy dogs, and other wonderful creatures God put here for us to enjoy. If only.......she was already home and enjoying life with us. I know, God has perfect timing.

While we wait, we are enjoying watching our little boys grow bigger and our big boy become a man. God has blessed us beyond measure and we can be certain that His love never dies because He is Love.

$485.35!!!!!

What a success! This kind lady found many bargains at our garage sale. At our 2 day sale we made $485.35 and are very happy. Our spring garage sale brought in $600. Thank you Lord for over $1000.00 in garage sales this year. Thanks to everyone who donated and everyone that made purchases. We'll be there soon, Laura!! Hang on a little bit longer!!

Garage Sale Day

Well, the first day of our garage sale was a success. We made $313.00!!! God is so good. We still have tomorrow and it's the BIG day. We are on the city wide garage sale map for tomorrow. I have high hopes. I need to dig out more stuff for tomorrow!!! Did I mention that God is good? We are about 28 days into our wait for LOA (letter of acceptance) from China and I am counting down the days until we take off on that jet plane to get our little caboose. Every penny we make from this garage sale gets us a little closer to our goal. Our Goal......Laura Abigail Fu Juan Lindsey!!!

Wow!! What a day. Our friend, Keith Johnson, and his family spent their Labor Day laboring at our house. We are enclosing our garage to make a 4th bedroom. We have worked on it for several weeks. Keith has a paint/remodel business here in Fairfield. He has spent several afternoons and days off helping Meredith and Bradley work on our new room. We are almost finished making room for Laura. While Keith helped Meredith and Bradley, Tracy (Keith's wife) and I were in the kitchen frying the fish that Meredith, John, and William caught on Friday. We had great fun and fellowship today. Thanks to the Johnson family for ministering to us in this way. We are grateful to you and pray that God blesses your family immensly!!!

Finally!! I am now able to add these new pictures of Laura and her friends. The first picture has many of the nannies from her orphanage, the director, and her friends. The babies from left to right are Sadie, Laura, and Anne Marie. Sadie will live with her family in PA and Anne Marie is already home with her mom and 3 sisters in CT.

The next picture speaks for itself. These little sweeties gather for a picture. I am not sure but I think the last baby on the right has gone home to a family in Australia.

Laura is so tiny compared to the other babies. We can't wait to get our dainty little China doll home. Every day is one day closer to joining her with us. I love getting these pictures but it makes me even more anxious to see her in real life. Luke already calls her Sissy.

This video was sent to us May 15, 2007 by Jeff Kircik. Jeff works with an organization called Packages of Hope. This organization does wonderful work to help the children that live in the orphanages. Jeff was allowed to visit Dingxi SWI. The director allowed Jeff to video our little girls. We affectionately call them the Dingxi Sisters. We hope to be able to allow them to continue their friendships once they are all home in the US. Laura is the first baby in the video. I think it's so sweet the way she tinkers with her nannie's necklace with her little hand. Please take time to visit www.packagesofhope.org and read about the tremendous work of this organization. Thank you so much Jeff for blessing us with a brief glance into the life of our little Laura.

New Pictures of Laura

We got new picture of Laura today thanks to my friend Mary Beth Bruder. She just got home with her new daughter Anne Marie last week. Anne Marie and Laura were room mates at Dingxi SWI. I am unable to post the pictures on my blog (some kind of jpg v. pdf problem) but if you would like to see them I will attach them to an email and send them to you. We are thrilled to have updated pictures of our little chinese darling. Thank you so much Mary Beth!! Please continue to pray for the health of these little children as we got word recently that Dingxi SWI now has 20 special needs babies. Pray for God's provision, grace, and peace upon these little ones and their caregivers.

Please consider donating a small amount to help Laura's orphanage pay for necessary food and clothing for the children. When we go to China, we will need to take $3000 to donate to the orphanage. Your assistance in raising this money is greatly appreciated.

School Days

Hi Everyone!! Welcome to Lindsey Home School. We are in our third week of school now. John is a cool second grader and William is the rookie Kindergartener. Bradley is the soooo cool senior that he wouldn't let me take pictures of him. But here are a few pictures of the Lindsey boys learning the 3 R's. Luke (20 months) is learning his colors by eating colored candy. It's his favorite subject!! Recess is everyone elses favorite subject. Now to unpile the kitchen table so we can move on to my favorite subject.....lunch!

While I have been creating this blog, a few of my boys and my fun loving husband were keeping themselves busy creating a few tracks around the farm!

I can hear them speeding by the window as I type.

Boys are a blast!!

This is the story of how a little (and I mean little) girl from China made her way into our hearts.

Many months ago I had a dream. In this dream, there was a little girl following me around and people would say, " Your little girl is so pretty. What is her name?" I would answer them, "I can't remember her first name but her middle name is Abigail."

A few days later, my husband call me out to his home office and said, "Tonya, I just looked out toward the back yard and had a vision of a little dark haired girl running to me. I said, come to Daddy, Laura........" I just looked at him and said, "Her middle name is Abigail."

And thus, we were convinced that our little dark haired girl would come to us from China. So, we began looking at the Children's House International Waiting Children's list and there she was!! Little Fu Juan from Dingxi SWI in Gansu Province. And when I say little I mean little. She weighed 9 pounds at 4 months old. She has cleft lip and cleft palate. She celebrated her first birthday July 1, 2007.

We knew in our hearts that she would be the little girl that would complete our family. CHI agreed and we sent our Letter of Intent to China Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA) on April 14, 2007. We anxiously awaited CCAA's answer. On May 23, 2007 we got our Preliminary Approval from CCAA saying that we could proceed with the adoption process.

We worked diligently to get our paperwork in order and I would have been lost had it not been for my dear friend Kim Rutherford. She has been through the dossier process 4 times now and she held my hand through the entire process. We successfully completed our dossier and it was received at CCAA August 9, 2007. We are now awaiting our Letter of Acceptance for Laura Abigail Fu Juan Lindsey. Patience is a virtue I might add!!!

God has shown himself BIG throughout this entire process. So far, we have spent over $10,000. Believe me, it wasn't in our savings account because we don't have a savings account. But, we have had every penny we needed to fund Laura's adoption. God is faithful and wonderful and he will see this adoption to it's completion!!!!

This is my first post on our new blog. I am new at this but very excited to be able to post information about our family to share with our friends. More information will be coming soon as well as pictures. Thank you for visiting our blog.