New blog for travel!!!!

We are on our way!!!!!! We have a different blog for travel as Blogger seems to be blocked in parts of China right now so we will use this blog designed by Sarah Neville
http://pandalily.com/miller

Come visit us over there as it will be quite a wild ride!!!!!!!

Details!

I am humbled beyond belief...down to every last detail, God has provided! We leave Sunday at 6am for Beijing!!!!!!!!! Our guide in Beijing is the liason that has been doing the legwork to make all of this happen and get Georgia home! I get to hug her and thank her for all she has done for our girl! Not only that we get to hang out with her for 3-4 days, just the grandma's and I, how is that for royal treatment????

Our in country part of the trip is pretty much unknown to us right now...there are many moving pieces that I cannot put on here. Honestly I am amazed at how much people are working to get Georgia home. We are literally flying in blind at this point! Not sure how many days in Beijing or Nanning or Guangzhou. But I do know that we will fly home with Georgia...
......and get this! On her second birthday our little girl will: become a US citizen, meet her Daddy, Big sister and Big brother AND start healing her heart! Her flight lands right on time to make it to her echocardiogram!

To top it all off, the Scripture I read this morning was this:
"God makes everything happen at the right time. Yet none of us can ever fully understand all He has done." Ecclesiastes 3:11

Good thing I got new snacks!!!!!!

Because we are going to China!!!!!! The details are still being worked out but we will probably fly out Saturday or Sunday. Please keep praying as there are a TON of little details that have to fit just right. Our agency is waiting until tomorrrow to book flights just to make sure of the timing. And you want to know the coolest thing? I have been telling God that I really want to go and get Georgia ASAP but also I know that the grandma's would really love to se Beijing and the way it works out is even though we are travelling later, we will be in Beijing for probably a few days! How amazing is that?????

Exposure

I have been dwelling on the idea of exposure for quite some time. I am not talking about popularity or getting noticed I am talking about a different kind of exposure. Before kids, Doug & I used to do a lot of rock climbing ( now we take the kids but that is very different). In the climbing world the term "exposure" is something very different , it means being way up high on the very edge of a cliff or up on a sheer rockface. Whenever we were looking for a new climb the thing I loved the most was a climb with exposure...I say that I loved it the most but if I am honest, it was also the thing that I was most scared of. I loved the feeling of being up high, seeing things that almost no one in the world saw but....I also usually wanted to pee my pants and at least once had to be talked down by Doug while I screamed (a bit dramatically) "I don't want to die!!!"... but I always came down feeling more alive and wanting to do it again. Some of my most vivid memories are still from those times of "exposure".

For awhile now, I have felt the Lord bringing up the idea of exposure. I feel like there is always this tension in my life. So much of me aches to surround myself with comfort, familiarity and everything that is safe...to not stress or encounter discomfort. But this journey to Georgia has challenged that desire because honestly, in the times in my life where I have most achieved this "comfort" is when I least saw God....for me the nagging companions of comfort were doubt and feeling like God was a million miles away....and now, back to tonight where it feels like the winds of the unknown are whipping all around me, where I literally do not know what tomorrow brings and a big part of me wants to scream dramatically "just make it stop!" ... you know what? I feel close enough to God that I could almost reach out and touch His face. I FEEL His presence and know that He is carrying me and I know that there is no other place that I want to be.

A longtime mentor of mine once said that where she wanted to be in life was on her knees before Christ and that in order to do that she needed to be doing something bigger than she was. I wonder how many times I have missed those opportunities because I caved in to the beckoning comfort?


I just rediscovered this Scripture:

Ephesians 3:14-21 (The Message)

"My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all Heaven and earth. I ask Him to strengthen you by His Spirit - not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength - that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite Him in. And I ask Him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you'll be able to take in with all the followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Chrit's love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its lengths! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.

God can do anything you know - far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us"

A possibility!!!!!

Pray, pray, pray!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OK, so last night I was so bummed that I started the book I was going to read on the plane, unpacked part of my suitcase and ate all of my snacks for the flight, how's that for pathetic!!!!! Well, I didn't even check email first thing this morning because I was sure we would not be travelling. I finally did and got an email from our agency saying there is a possibility that we could make it work and that they are putting flights on hold for us!!!!!!!! I do not know what day they are holding them for or how much notice we will have but there is a possibility that we are going to China in time to be there on Friday!!!!!!!
Please, please pray!!!!!

Keeping that chin up.....

I just got an email from our agency. They found out that there was a mess up with the US Consulate in processing our paperwork and when they told our agency that it had been processed, it had not. There is a slim chance that China will be able to process our TA this week but most likely not, seems like it would take a miracle for us to travel this week. I do not know when the next group leaves but I do know that this means we will miss Georgia's 2nd birthday, be in China for Parker's 4 th birthday (without him) and that I will miss Ravenna's first day of kindergarten because I will still be in Seattle while Georgia recovers...also that I will most likely be away from the kids for about 3 weeks. I do not know how to walk this road and could use a lot of prayer...

Nothing today

Well....no TA today. Our agency is working on finding out exactly where the TA is and if it has been mailed. They have been amazing and are truly doing everything they can to get our girl home. There are still options on the table and we will know more tomorrow.
Could you please pray for:

* More than anything that the Lord's will be done. Everything in me aches to go and get Georgia home and start getting her heart better ASAP but I know that the Lord's timing is perfect.

* For that TA to show up! Or at least that we would know for sure where it is exactly.

* For Georgia's heart, that it will remain stable and that she will not get any more illnesses while waiting.

* For our hearts as we wait. I feels kindof like when you have been treading water for a long time, like I have very little left but I am fixing my eyes on the Lord!

Thanks so much for checking in and for your prayers and comments, they really are an encouragement to us right now!

The tale of two Sundays

I have a story to tell of how intimately the Lord has met us on this journey...I still do not know all that it means and have honestly taken awhile with the first portion before sharing it but feel like it is a big part of what God is doing so I do want to share.

Throughout the 3 years of this adoption journey there have been a few songs that have been really pivotal to me. They are not new songs or songs that I have heard in church but songs that are on a worship CD that my friend Abby made for me for Christmas back in 2002. I just happened to be sorting CDs a few years ago and came across it and it has been in my car cd player ever since (my poor kids know every word and will probably need therapy because of the repetition someday!). These are the songs that I have gone back to over and over when I have felt like my heart could not make this journey one more day. They are the songs that I have wept to, begged God to and been able to re-focus on the fact that this journey we are on is led by the Lord of Compassion over and over.

So we head in to church last Sunday and the first song played is one of those songs...and the next songs? The other of those songs! Then came a new song all about God's mercy to the poor and hurting...Doug and I wept as we sat with the pictures of our little Georgia on our lap praising God and begging for Him to make a way for us to go and get her. Then next they quoted James 1:27 which is this:

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress"

I have hesitated to write about this because I do not want it to come across wrong. I do not want it to come across as if we are some high and holy couple...we are so completely far from that...we are just a couple with bruised up knees from begging God to lead us where He wants us to go. I share this because the God of the Universe knew that it was excatly what we needed to hear. I honestly did not understand it at the time and if I am really honest, it kindof freaked me out. I felt more like I was trembling in my soul than anything else. I spent all week rolling it over in my mind and praying about what it meant. Friday evening I finally started to understand.

The Lord knew that we needed a signpost for the storm of doubt that we were about to head into. He knew that the TA would not come on Friday, knew how close to slipping my hands of faith would come...and knew that this was what I needed most.

_______________________________________________________________


So jump forward to this Sunday. I am such a weak and fickle person who once again was at the end of all that I could endure. The whole morning getting ready for church I had to keep excusing myself from the kids to close the door and go and cry. My heart aches and longs to hear tomorrow that we will be able to travel. I honestly was dreading church, not because of anything to do with our church but because I did not feel like I could make it through the service without being an emotional wreck (which actually would have been ok to the other church members). I just didn't know if I could pick myself up afterwards.

I didn't notice this at the time but the kids were actually helpful in getting dressed and ready for church. I got to dress Ravenna as a girl standing up and helping instead of as a "kitty" crawling around meowing, Parker's shoes slipped on with no wiggles, and the kids got themselves in the car even before I was ready...that never happens! Anyhow, we had a few extra minutes so I decided to go and get the mail since it had been a few days.

When I got to the Post Office I noticed two packages from New Day Foster Home in China (this is an amazing foster home that I have been in contact with but it is not where Georgia is). Inside the packages I found this: each had a necklace made in Jingdezhen (the city where Ravenna was born), each necklace was made out of red beads with black tips that looked strikingly like ladybugs. Honestly when I first held up the little red bag I thought that I was holding a bag full of ladybugs. For those of you in the adoptive community, you get how powerful that is. For those of you who are not, I am not sure where it exactly started but the ladybug has become a symbol of Chinese adoption and when you see ladybugs it is supposed to mean that you will meet your child soon.

Now before anyone starts to think that I have lost it, I know that this is just a myth and that it does not hold weight in Scripture or anything like that. But I do know that it was just what I needed, a tangible way to hold on another day. It reminds me of this Scripture:

" For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in Heaven and on earth derives it's name. I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and high and long and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all fullness of God."
Ephesians 3:14-19


I do not know what all this means but I do know that tomorrow as that phone rings, no matter what the outcome is, whether we travel in a few days or it take longer I trust that the Lord will walk us through it.

God is God

I am sitting here drinking a smoothie that Doug made for me (lovingly topped with a Double Stuff Oreo to make me feel better) and wanted to write about a few things.
Last night I was reading through part of Isaiah and came across this in Isaiah 40:

"Lift your eyes and look to the Heavens:
Who created all of these?
He who brings out the starry host one by one,
and calls them each by name.
Because of his great power and mighty strength,
not one of them is missing.

Why do you say, O Jacob,
and complain, O Israel,
"My way is hidden from the Lord,
my cause is disreagarded by my God?"

Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
The Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and His understanding no one can fathom.

He gives strength to the weary,
and increases the power of the weak.

Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall.

but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
They will run and not grow weary,
They will walk and not be faint."

Whether we travel on the 30th or a long time from now the truth still remains. God is God and He loves us. He has chosen Georgia to come into our family and He knows the perfect time for that. It does not mean that the wait will be easy but I does me that He has and will give us the strength to see this through. It will be easy to praise God on the day we get Georgia, like opening a gift but I want to praise God just as much right now.

Looks like it will be a long weekend...

I just got an email from our agency saying that they had expected our TA today but it did not come....it will al come down to Monday morning and if the TA is there. Please pray for:

* Georgia's health, that her heart will remain stable
* For our peace of mind, to trust that the Lord's timing is perfect
* For that TA to be here on Monday


Hanging on tightly,
Shannon

Please still keep praying!

We still do not have our official Travel Approval and are supposed to be leaving in 6 days! Please pray for us as we anxiously (ok...biting off nails and eating everything in sight) waiting...it is not easy! Trusting that the Lord's timing is perfect...

Habakkuk 2:3 (The Message)
"This vision message is a witness
pointing to what is coming.
It aches for the coming - it can hardly wait!
And it doesn't lie.
If it seems slow in coming, wait.
It's on it's way, it will come right on time."

To my sweet Georgia Mei...

It all started with a dream...

God woke me up in the middle of the night and I heard "pray" and saw a picture of Ravenna holding Parker's hand and he was holding a little dark haired girls hand...I did not know what it meant. The dreams came over and over, and I prayed....

Guess who was conceived at about that time?

"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb." Psalm 139:19

I told your Daddy about the dreams and we began to pray together, what did this all mean? For months we asked God to show us His will in this and finally, when we were ready we called our pastor and he confirmed that he thought God was calling us to adopt.

Guess who was born that same week?

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."Jeremiah 29:11

We began the paperwork to adopt, met with our social worker, the doctors and all of the important people. We prayed and prayed for our little girl. that she would be protected and surrounded by love.

Guess who was growing more beautiful each day?

"Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all of your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight." Proverbs 3:5-6

As we waited for a referral, a certain heart condition kept coming across my path, it was one we had not considered. It came across my path so many times in one day that I finally asked, Lord are you wanting us to add this to our list? The next morning confirmation came from 7 emails of families whose kids have this condition. I emailed our agency asking to add this condition. 30 seconds later the phone rang. It was our agency saying that a baby girl with this condition had been added to the Waiting Child list at the EXACT SAME TIME that they had read my email.....

We had found our daughter!

"God sets the lonely in families." Psalm 68:6

"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." James 1:17

We have prayed for you as you experienced sickness, floods, lost paperwork (you didn't know this but we did), and also earthquakes. We begged the Lord to move every mountain in front of us and He has, the Lord has kept you safe. My precious baby there is something so special about you and so many people are praying for you. Hold on because I will be holding you in 10 days!!!!

"The mountains melt like wax before the LORD, before the Lord of all the earth." Psalm 97:5

Blessed be the name of the Lord!!!!!!

Could you pray?

Hi...I'm here again asking for prayer. We are still waiting on our Travel Approval, until we have it we cannot book flights or know for certain that we are travelling on the 30th. I am packing and planning as if we are but am also struggling with quite a bit of anxiety. I am trying hard to keep focused on The Lord and His perfect timing. When I pray I feel like He whispers the word, "cling" and I am doing my darnest to cling like crazy....but I am feeling weary. Could you pray for us to have the faith to hold on?

For any who are interested....

In my last communication with the orphanage I was able to ask if there was anything that they need that we could bring. Their answer was a digital camera so that they can do their monthly reports and updates for families more easily. Right now they are taking pics with a normal camera, getting the pics printed, scanning them and then emailing them. This takes a lot of time away from caring for the babies AND means that adoptive parents have less of a history of their child.
If anyone is interested in helping out with this we are trying to raise money to buy a camera in China (so that it can be serviced there if they have problems). Email me shannon_miller72@yahoo.com

Thanks!!!!

What God has done!!!!!

Ok...I only have a few minutes but want to share. The Lord continues to humble me. Last night I was literally a puddle of tears and Doug held me while I blubbered. I just didn't feel like I could take the wait even one more day....and then when we were done talking I walked to the computer to find those 9 precious pictures (see post below)!!!!!!!! But it doesn't stop there......


Just a few minutes ago I got an email from our agency saying that we should plan to travel on the 30th !!!! Yes of July, as in two weeks from now!!!!!!!! We do not have our Travel Approval yet but they anticipate it in the next week or two!!!!!!!! I cannot believe that we are finally at this point and cannot wait to hold my little girl on August 2nd!!!!!!!!

Safe!

I am heading out the door but just got word that the orphanage is safe and that the flooding is not close to them!!!!!!!!

No news,

is good news right???Or that is what I am telling myself. Our agency is trying to make conact with the orphanage to make sure they are alright. Thanks for your continued prayers. I am SO ready to have our little girl here and to deal with all that comes as she is in our arms instead of having her half a world away facing unknown dangers.
Again please keep praying for:

* Georgia's safety during the flooding and the safety of others.

* For Georgia's heart. This is a tough time of year with heat and humidity which I have read can make her struggle worse. Please pray that she is somewhere cool and that her heart is stable.

* For quick travel! All we are waiting on is travel approval but paperwork can get held up for unknown reasons at this point, please pray that China grants approval quickly.

* For peace in our hearts as we wait to hear news. The longing to make sure she is ok is something that I can not even put into words.

Thanks so much for your support once again!!!!

One prayed for little girl needs prayer again...

We just got back from 5 amazing days of camping and I will write more later. I came home to an email saying that there is widespread flooding in Georgia's province, 75 people have died and there is a possibility that her orphanage has been evacuated. I do not have any firm information yet but please pray not only for Georgia but for the orphanages in this province that are already trying to do so much with so little.


* Please pray for God to take care of Georgia through this and keep her heart stable.

* Please pray for all the orphanages as well as those who have lost their homes or loved ones.

* Please pray for quick travel for us to go and get Georgia (we know all of our paperwork is approved and in China now so we are just waiting for travel approval).

* Pray for peace over our hearts as once again we cling by our fingernails to God's promises.

Heading out with my favorite munchkins!

I'm heading out for a 6 day camping trip with these adorable kids and my sweet honey! Hopefully I'll have great stuff to post on Tuesday!!!!!

God's electric ball

Ok...so no new news on this front but God has been teaching me something for a couple of weeks so I wanted to share. I am a visual person so here goes another picture! Have you ever seen an electric ball....one of those that looks like a steel ball with electric current zapping around it? We had one in high school science class. Every time I touched it my hair would stand on end!

Well, one of my all time favorite Scriptures in Hebrews 4:14-16 (hang with me, this is going to come together):

"Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the

heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our

weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as

we are - but was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with

confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need."

The reason that this is one of my favorite Scriptures is because of the description one of my professors gave. He said that it means that since we know that Jesus was tempted by everything, felt all that we felt, and died for our sins....we do not have to enter His throne room timidly. He said that we can fling open the doors, run and jump into the lap of our Daddy King. It is in the shelter of that loving throne that we find mercy, grace and the strength to go on. I love that picture dearly.

Now back to that electric ball (which has some technical name like the Vanderhmphbaugh ball or something Doug told me). For some reason lately I have pictured my life like that ball. There are so many things zapping about, really feeling like there is no way to control them...so many unknowns that we just cannot control and really are not supposed to: Georgia's heart, the trip to China where we could be quarantined because of swine flu, leaving Doug & the kids behind and how the heck am I going to make it even one day without them, how to prepare for Georgia's open heart surgery, living in a trailer on Children's campus, helping our other kids through this stuff...all these things swirl around daily in my head flickering like those electric currents.

The other day I ran into someone who I had not seen since right after we got the update in May that said Georgia was turning blue and having rapid breath. I came up to her with a big smile on my face because she is someone I truly am happy to see, and she asked, "How are you?" to which I respond, "really great!(and I meant it)" and her follow up questions was, "How is Georgia, is she better?"...and it caught me by surprise. I found myself tongue-tied because, no, she is not any better and we have not heard anymore, but truly at that moment I also was "really great."

That was a week ago and it has set me to thinking, how is it possible to be really great and to deeply struggle that my child is halfway around the world struggling. And the picture God gave me was that crazy electric ball. You see, when I stay tucked in, next to God in the shelter of His throne I feel truly "really great" but when I inch myself out a bit I go all haywire in those currents that zap around.

I was telling all of this to Doug the other night (Lord bless him for listening when I make so little sense) and he told me that on the Vanderwhozeewhatsit ball it really works that way, the closer you get to the center, to that steel ball, the calmer it is until it is absolutely still right up next to it...but on the outside, your hair stands on end.

And this is the other Scripture that keeps popping into my head. Psalm 61:

"Here my cry, O God,

listen to my prayer.

From the ends of the earth I call to you,

I call as my heart grows faint;

lead me to the rock that is higher than I.

For you have been my refuge,

A strong tower against the foe.

I long to dwell in Your tent forever,

and take refuge in the shelter of your wings."