A Family For Julianna

This is Julianna.  She needs love.  She needs a family.

Little Julianna is 2 years old.  She has some pretty serious and complicated heart defects.  She's had two surgeries and will need another.  Her prognosis is unclear.  She breaks my heart.  It is so sad to me that because her condition sounds so scary this child will most likely wait a very long time for a family to come forward for her.   If they ever come at all.  This little girl needs a mommy and daddy to love her through her journey.  No matter how difficult it may be.  Could it be you ????   I have her entire file.  I'd love to share it with you.  There is a very recent update in it.  Please, somebody, please !!!!

Pearl is Real

How do you come out and say we NEED help

except to just come right out and say it?


We need help.

We were not looking for Pearl

and really thought when we came home with Mia 

we were done.  We wanted to be done !!!

God had different plans!!!

I had been looking at our agency's special needs list searching for a child for my friend who was interested in adopting.  I found Pearl and two other little girls for HER and asked our agency if they would send me the files so that I could pass them along to HER. Our agency coordinator emailed me back with the other two files, but said that Pearl was already on hold for another family.  I was so glad to hear that a family had stepped out in faith to adopt her.  I thought her heart condition sounded really scary and I was relieved that a family somewhere was willing to go through that journey.  Two weeks later, our coordinator emailed me Pearl's file saying that the "family who had originally accepted her, had to back out.  Would my friend be interested in her file now?"  I don't know if you can understand this if you haven't ever felt God move in your heart, but at that moment, I knew.  I felt that same "catch" in my heart that I had felt two times before.  I ignored it.  I sent the file on to my friend who was still looking.  Pearl's age and her special need was not the right fit for their family.  So I sat with Pearl's file on my computer for almost a week.  I sent it to everyone I could think of who might be willing to adopt.  I ask people to pray that God would speak to her family.  Her file always came back to us.  And then, Bobby and I, in a time of total surrender to God's plan for our lives, accepted his calling to be Pearl's family.

There were and are many reasons why we could have said no...

in the world's view it didn't make sense to adopt again~

Mainly.....

there is no extra money with two adoptions and medical expenses from Mia's dental surgeries and pending surgeries.
There is no extra money when you have five children.

Many people would say that should tell you something right there,

but how do you tell God no?

We just couldn't.

And we couldn't live knowing God had a daughter for us in China

and we left her there.

All we know for sure is that Pearl is real. 

She is not just a grainy picture.  

She is not just a waiting child on a list.  

She is not just one of 143 million.  

She is a little girl.  Who needs love.  Just love.

We have that to give....

We know and believe it is God's will

no matter how ridiculous it seems to us and others.

This little precious girl needs a forever family

God placed her in our lives and in our hearts.
We will walk in faith.
Even when it doesn't make sense.

SO as hard as it is, we are asking for help...

1. Please pray for us and the provision we need to get to Pearl and bring her home.

2. Maybe you don't feel the call to go and adopt but want to help us,

we would appreciate a donation by clicking our Donate button! (located on the top right of this blog.)

3. Maybe you have ideas for fundraising we haven't thought of~
4.  If you have a blog - please post our story on your blog 
and grab the donate button as well.

Will you pray about a way you can help???

When we finally accepted this call for Pearl,

we both said it will take a God sized miracle for us to adopt her.  
We have already seen him work in miraculous ways.
Won't you be a part of this miracle???

It our prayer that God bless you all

with every good and perfect gift from above!!!

(James 1:17)

Ephesians 3:20-21

Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine,

according to His power that is at work within us,

to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations,

for ever and ever! Amen.

This Guy.

I'm so proud of this kid.  He has been the best child a parent could ask for since the day he was born.  We had not a clue how to be parents when he was born.  We just figured it out as we went.  You know, "fake it til you make it".  Somehow despite our lack of parenting skills, Trey has turned out to be an awesome young man.  I just have to share this story.
He has been mentioning that he needs some new shoes.  We've been putting him off.  Unless your toes are showing new shoes don't really fit into the adoption budget at this point  Anyway, at a youth rally he recently won $100. 
When he came home and told us he won the money I said, "Great!  Now you can buy yourself some new shoes."  But no, he had already thought about it.  He had already decided to GIVE THE MONEY AWAY.  His small group is raising money for a clean water project and he gave it ALL to their fund.   Trey doesn't get alot of extra "wants".  None of our kids do, so for him to make that decision is so impressive to me.  He said, "Mom, when I thought about it I realized I have shoes, I may not like them alot, but I HAVE shoes.  There are people who do NOT have clean water."  They need water more than I want shoes."
Dear Lord, Please help me be more like my son every day.

The photo was taken as we got in the car to head to his small group.  He never had a second thought about his decision.  He smiled all the way there.

Precious Pictures

I recently received an email containing pictures of Pearl.  They were taken during another child's birthday party at the orphanage in July 2010. Pearl is on the nannie's lap in the yellow shirt. In the second photo she is the one whose chair the nanny is pushing in. The mother of the birthday girl (in the green and pink) sent them to me.  I am so glad to see that Pearl was healthy enough to be participating in the party.  Pearl's orphanage is  part of Half the Sky. Lainie was in a Half the Sky orphanage as well and we believe it is one of the reasons that she came to us developmentally on target and obviously well loved.  I love the nannies faces in the picture here.  Their faces show how much they love and care for the children.  We are so thankful for this glimpse of our girl having a good time. 

We just finished our home study and mailed in our I800A to US Immigration.  Now we wait for our fingerprint notice, followed by our approval letter.  Then we have all of our documents (about 13 of them) certified by the state and the Chinese consulate.  Then, we are ready to mail our dossier to China.  After that we will wait, and wait, and wait for our letter of approval and our travel approval.  What does all this mean?  I'm hoping it means we travel early to mid spring - but timelines vary so that is just a guess.  I'm praying I don't miss Trey's 16th birthday on April 17th, but I have peace in knowing that God already knows the day and time I will see Pearl and his plan is way better than mine.

My dad is traveling with me and Bobby will be staying home with all the kiddos.  If I weren't so terrified of flying I'd definitely be thinking I got the better end of the deal.  I'm looking forward to spending the time with my dad and while we have plenty of family and friends who volunteered to take care of the kids so Bobby and I could both travel, we felt it best that one of us stay behind with the them.  It was also the best decision financially for just one of us to go.  From this point forward the rest of our expenses will have to come from fundraising.   More details on that later.....

Hope everyone enjoys their Labor Day.  We will be hanging out here trying to reorganize after the two weeks of back to school chaos that has totally dishelved us.  Everyone is happy though.  Jillian made the middle school volleyball team, Lainie only cried the first two days of kindergarten and now she LOVES it.  Will loves his teacher and Trey just ordered his class ring.  Me - I'm just trying to keep up !!!  I am getting used to my new teaching position but it is a bit like being a first year teacher again.  Hopefully soon I'll be able to settle into a routine that doesn't involve working 12 hours a day at school.  All that being said, I am thankful to have a job that I love and there is nothing else I'd rather be doing.

Only 173 school days until summer vacation is back !!!

Pearl's Name

We have finally reached a decision for Pearl's full name.  We are keeping Pearl as her first name.  It is just such a sweet name and God used her name to send us so many confirmations, that no other name seemed to be as appropriate.

Her middle name will be Alexandra in honor of my brother whose middle name is Alexander.  He has always been great with my kids.  They all think he is super cool and he is so good with them that it is perfect for Pearl to have part of his name.

So Pearl Alexandra JinZhu Barbee it will be !

This is my brother, David, and Lainie walking back to the beach house after spending time at the pool.  Poor David is carrying all of our junk and pulling our wagon of stuff.  He is so good to help me out when we are together when all he really has to do is be responsible for himself.  You're a great brother David.  Thank you.

Is it really over?

It seems summer evaporated right before our eyes.  What happened to those long lazy days I was envisioning?  Now already school supplies have been bought, bookbags packed and closets organized for school.   I thought I'd do lots of blogging, but just like the other things I planned, it didn't happen.  What did happen though, was lots of sleeping late, doctor and dental appointments, beach trips, field trips, and staying up way toooo late.  All good stuff.

Now school begins and summer officially ends.  Back to routines and schedules and all that jazz.  Part of me is ready for a little structure. I wonder how long that will last. 

Here are a few snapshots of our summer.  More adoption updates coming soon..... I promise.

Our beach trips this summer were awesome! 

We went once with my parents and again with Bobby's big ole family!!! 

Visiting the Barnacle with my parents is a favorite beach trip tradition.

Hanging out with all of the cousins during the Big Barbee beach trip is fun for all.

This was during the Pictionary game.  The oldest guys are so sweet to hang with the little ones.

Lainie is our beach girl.  She loves every minute and she will now ask for the next 365 days when are we going back to the beach? 

Will is surrounded by girl cousins... but he doesn't seem to mind. 

They all have a great time together.

.

We had fun at home too.  We did some tie dye.....

had friends over.....

and spent lots of time playing with Cole.

This guy spent lots of time driving us around he has his permit. Wow.

And so hard to believe this little one will start kindergarten in a few days.  She is so ready. 

 I just can't believe how fast she's grown.

  Stay tuned for more updates.  I'm really going to try to do better. 

More adoption updates coming.

Pretty Pearl

Introducing our beautiful daughter Xia Jin Zhu.

Pearl at age 2.

Pearl in April 2011.  Age 3

She is 3.5 years old and is waiting for us in China. Her Chinese names mean "Pretty Pearl" and since that name was so sweetly chosen for her in China, we've decided to keep Pearl as part of her name. Not sure yet if it will be her first or middle name, but our agency did refer to her as Pearl, so it does have significant meaning to us.   This is what her orphanage had to say in describing her.  "This is Pearl, a young girl who suffers from a heart defect, and is delicate, but is quiet and sensible and adorable."

The story of how we came to this point is yet again a story of God's moving in our lives. I'll be sharing it in pieces here in the days to come. One of the smallest, yet largest confirmations of all, came on May 16th. This was the final day we had to decide whether or not we would adopt Pearl. I opened my devotional book that morning and the title was: Mother of Pearl. It talked all about how pearls are formed and how the Bible talks about their value. We emailed our agency that day and began the paperwork.
I'll admit, even after we said yes, I was still a bit caught up in what it was going to cost us, financially and otherwise, to bring her home. Then, just a few days later, a dear friend reminded me of the parable of "The Pearl of Great Price." She sent me a wonderful devotion containing this parable. That is what brought about my blog post on May 31st. I think it is fitting to repeat some words from that post here today.......

The Parable of the Pearl of Great Price” Matthew 13:45-46.

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.”


Pearls in the ancient world came to represent the supremely valuable. Why would a mercant sell everything for a pearl? No doubt because he was attracted to what he thought was the greatest treasure he could possess. Discovering God's kingdom is like stumbling across hidden treasure or finding the one pearl of great price. When we discover the kingdom of God we receive the greatest possible treasure -- the Lord himself. Selling all that we have to obtain this incomparable treasure could mean many things -- our friends, job, our "style of life", what we do with our free time. . If the Almighty is your gold and your precious silver, then you will delight yourself in the Almighty (Job 22:22-23). Is the Lord the treasure and delight of your heart?

We will walk this journey one step of faith at a time. Totally trusting that He will be by our side every single step of the way. Our only desire is to bring Him glory through the journey. We are grateful for all of your prayers and encouragement along the way.