God's Faithfully Providing!

Some very exciting news to report!!! Since starting our adoption, we have applied for many adoption grants. This process is long and required a lot of help from some of our amazing friends, who wrote reference letters and did phone interviews (THANK YOU!!) We'd been declined almost all of our applications until this Fall, when we were awarded a $2,500 matching grant from God's Grace Adoption Ministry! This was a HUGE blessing and couldn't come at better timing for our family. I mentioned this in a previous blog, as we began our fundraising efforts. Well - GOD is faithful to provide once again and we were able to raise funds with generous donations from family and friends totally $2,600. After the matching grant amount, the result is a $5,100 donation towards our son's adoption!!! PRAISE THE LORD!!!

And, even more good news......

We were still waiting to hear back from one final application - when we got the news that we are being awarded a $3,000 grant from Katelyn's Fund Ministry!! A few weeks ago, we were notified that we had been selected for a phone interview with their board. We were so blessed by the phone interview, and so encouraged by their board taking the time to encourage and pray with us for our adoption and other needs in our family. About a week after the interview, I got a phone call that they felt the Lord leading them to award our family a $3,000 grant. Tears poured out of my eyes and I once again, was reminded of God's faithfulness! Here is the website for Katelyn's Fund if you're interested in checking it out! http://katelynsfund.org/

It still feels like a dream that we were awarded $8,100 in assistance towards our adoption. Not only the grants, and donations from loved ones, we've been amazed at how God has provided additional opportunities for income for Steve and I to help with adoption expenses. This truly is God demonstrating to us that he is providing for what He's called us to do. We still have a long ways to go, considering total adoption costs - but we are convinced God is going to continue to provide!!

Lastly, we haven't gotten any recent updates regarding our son. In Korea adoption, this is good news - since they only contact you if something comes up at one of his well checks. Although, what I wouldn't do for an updated picture of our little guy. The last one we received was his 8 month pic and considering he's got his 1st birthday on Feb 25th - he's likely changed quite a bit!! The good news is, that soon I won't have to wonder how he looks and I'll get to have him here and see every milestone and watch him grow for the rest of our lives. Waiting is hard, but God is faithfully giving us peace and comfort knowing that this wait it temporary and absolutely 100% worth it.

We hope to know more about estimated travel dates by the end of the month!

Thank you for your continued support!!

Waiting for our sweet boy

Hi all! It's been a terribly long time since I've updated our blog, so thought I better! I'm still getting the hang of this blog site, so when I think of updating it - I put it off, since it seems to take me so long. I imagine the more I do it, the easier it will get.

Anyhow! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas season and New Year! Our family has been busy the last 2 months. We're all settled back home, after our 6 month commuting adventure in Sioux Falls! The kids are back in school, and we're back to a normal routine! Ahhhh, the wonderful consistency of a routine is so refreshing!!

We've had a lot of inquiries regarding our little guy, and unfortunately haven't had a lot of information provided to us the last 2 months, but I will share what we have. Since my last blog, we haven't received any updates on Seong. In Korea they do monthly well checks for baby's, but don't provide those to parents unless there is something they'd like to bring to our attention that may have surfaced at a well-check. We received his 8 month well check in October, because he had a small birthmark on his back they wanted us to be aware of, which is nothing of concern. We were just excited to get a peek at our baby's update! So, since we've gotten no updates since, means there's nothing to report. In this case, no news is good news.

We're also getting asked often when we will be able to travel to pick him up. To be honest, we have no idea yet. See, in Korea there is a limit on the number of Visa's and immigration clearances that they allow each year for children leaving the country to be adopted internationally. This was not always the case. Unfortunately, a small - but loud minority group of Korean adoptees, who have strong feelings against international adoption, and feel the Korean children should be left in Korea - have lobbied the government to try to stop Korean adoptions all together. To appease the protesters, the government decided to put a yearly cap on the number of children leaving the country each year. This may have been a wise decision, if adopting orphaned children was something common in Korean culture, but unfortunately it's not. In Korean culture, if someone is interested in adopting one of these children, it is done in secret and often the mother will fake a pregnancy to give the impression that the child is her biological child. So, you see - there are so many children in Korea that need homes, and they're simply not getting adopted through the Korean system, by Korean families. Which is why the children are being opened up for international adoption. This may be much longer of an explanation that anyone would care to read, but we've had so many ask us, "Why is the wait so long, if you have matched families that are ready and willing to take the children?" The reason is political and it's extremely unfortunate for families like ours, and children like Seong. We're ready for him, he's ready for us - yet we wait.

In 2010, the number of allowed Korean adoption visa's reached it's cap in April. So, anyone who was matched with a child after April would not be allowed to travel to pick up the child until after the new calendar year, 2011. This would include us, since we were matched in September. Now, what we don't know is how many families are ahead of us to be granted travel papers. We know we're 6 months down the list, but that doesn't mean it will be a 6 month wait. What we're hoping, praying for is that we travel in 2011. This should be the case, but our agency will be able to give us a better idea by the end of February.

In the meantime, we wait and pray for our precious baby daily. We're so excited for him to be here. It was especially hard at Christmas, knowing that he's across the world and we so desperately want him here with us now. We are continuing to trust God daily for protection, as tensions are rising between North & South Korea. We're praying for peace between the nations, and trusting God to keep our little guy out of harms way and completely protected.

We were able to mail our first care package to Seong in December. We are allowed to send 2 total. The care packages we send are in gallon sized ziplock bags, so we found that not much fits! We sent him a blanket (that I'd been sleeping with for a couple weeks), 2 disposable cameras for Mrs. Gong to take pics with, and a little chewable photo book of the 4 of us. I'd love to send him a package every week, if I could - which is probably why they put a limit on it! We'll wait a few months before sending the next one - I can hardly wait already!

We'll continue to keep everyone updated on our travel timeline. The sooner the better for us, but we also know that God is lining everything up and it will all work out in his perfect timing!

Thanks for taking the time to read this LONG entry, hopefully it gives a little more insight into the process we're in and the need for prayer!

Waiting is tough...

Hi all! It's been a while since I've updated on things, so thought I better! It's been almost 2 monthes since we accepted our precious little Seong Chan Cho's referral. I never imagined waiting would be this hard! I feel like he's ours and should be with us already!! I understand waiting is part of the adoption process, and I know he's in good hands...just wish they were mine. We got an updated today on our little guy. Korea is very good at communicating with adoptive families and do monthly check-up's on the babies. We learned today that Seong is a whopping 20 pounds, eating solids, crawling, plays peek-a-boo, pulls himself up to furniture, and is imitating speech sounds! As a mom, each of these little milestones brings me such joy and I can't wait to celebrate the MANY milestones ahead with Seong.

We've had lots of questions about his name. We are still working on his "American" name, so we're referring to him by his Korean first name, Seong. I'm thinking it's going to be hard to change it, since he's "Seong" to us already. We're praying for the Lord to give us direction regarding this decision. We definitely will keep part of his Korean name, just haven't figured it all out. So, for now the extended family is referring to him as "Baby McIntosh"!

We have had a great response on our Dinner & a Movie card fundraiser! Thanks so much to all of you who've participated! If all the cards sell, we'll have raised $700 towards adoption costs!

We also received an answer to prayer, in the form of an adoption grant. As many of you know, we've applied for a number of adoption grants. Many of you have written letters of reference, or agreed to be listed as references - and a huge thank you goes to those who've helped with these!! We received a $2,500 matching adoption grant from God's Grace Adoption Ministry. They have agreed to match our fundraising efforts, up to $2,500 - dollar for dollar!

Lastly, we're coming to the close of our commuting to/from Sioux Falls, SD. We've been back and forth since June, and we've been homeschooling the kids during the process. I'm excited that they'll be back in school in two weeks! They both can't wait to be around their friends and back in a classroom! Homeschooling has been a wonderful experience, and an answer to prayer during the last few months. I have an entirely new admiration for families that home school!!

That's all for now! We're looking forward to giving lots of new updates about our little guy and thank you all so much for being so supportive to our family!!!

Dinner & a Movie Card Adoption Fundraiser

Are you interested in supporting adoption and get great discounts at the same time?

Our family is selling Dinner & a Movie fundraising cards to help raise funds towards our adoption costs and help to bring home our little baby boy from Korea. The Dinner & a Movie card cost $10 but quickly pay for itself in the form of savings to you! And, for each card purchased, $7 goes directly towards adoption costs!

Here's how it works: the fundraising card purchase allows you access to a savings website, with a unique login code provided on the back of each card. After logging in, you search for deals based on your zip code. Click on the offers and print your coupons! (To give you an idea, we can access 204 offers using our Champlin zip code!) The offers can vary, some can be printed multiple times, others are allowed to be printed once per month, some are for online sites. The cards are valid for one year. If you'd like to preview the offers in your area, log on to www.enjoyaccess.com using the guest login code: 550-guest

To name just a few, here are a few of the discounts available with the card:

• Target.com 10% off all online purchases
• Buca Di Beppo $10 off $20 purchase
• AMC $6.50 tickets
• Gap 20% off entire purchase (this offer valid until 10/31)
• Buffalo Wild Wings 5 wings free with purchase
• Aunt Annie’s BOGO
• Ann Taylor Loft 20% off entire purchase
• Office Max $15 off $50 purchase
• Michaels 15% off entire purchase
• Dominos BOGO
• Sears.com $35 off $300 purchase
• 15% off Lillian Vernon online purchases
• 15% off orders over $100 on Kohls.com

Additional discounts at Papa Murpheys, Quiznos, Culvers, Dairy Queen, McDonalds, and many more!

If you are interested in purchasing a card, please message me! Payment can be made thru Paypal, or a check can be sent to us, and your Dinner & a Movie card will be mailed and I will email your your login info as well.

Thanks for taking the time to read this! Please feel NO obligation to purchase a card, just putting it out there for those who may be interested! Feel free to share this with anyone who may be interested!

God Bless!

Jerra & Steve McIntosh

Our Baby Boy!

Today is a really exciting day for our family!! We have accepted a referral of a beautiful, precious baby boy from Korea!! Words can not even describe how wonderful it was for us to receive the call from our social worker, with the news about this amazing blessing. After much prayer, we both knew that this was our child. Of course, we wanted to shout it from the rooftops, but rather we've been very busy the last couple weeks working on acceptance paperwork, having medical reviews, compiling lots of needed documents, and much more. Now, that the paperwork is done, we've been given the go-ahead to share the news, along with pictures of our little blessing!! Baby McIntosh is almost 7 monthes old. He was born Feb 25. His Korean name is Seong. We'll working on his new name, and will be using part of his Korean name as well. He is currently living in a foster home, which is the picture of him with his foster mama. We pray daily for Mrs. Gong and her family, who are caring for our little guy. We anticipate approximately 7-11 months still before we can travel to bring him home.

Our kids are so incredible excited about their new baby brother! They picked out a new blanket for the little guy, and we're working on other fun things we'll that get to send in a care package soon. Is it too soon to get him in a Vikings jersey??! (J/K!)

We would ask for continued prayer support, for the remainder of our journey until this little sweetheart is home with us. I'm already growing inpatient, but I know and trust that God's timing is always perfect. I believe that God is filling in the gaps, providing everything this little one needs. We're so honored that God has entrusted us to be mom and dad to this precious little one.

We're also believing for a huge miracle financially, so if anyone has any good fundraising ideas, feel free to let me know! God has led us to adopt, directed the timing, the child, and is also providing the funds needed to make this dream a reality. He is faithful!

We'll keep you posted as we receive more information about our little guy!

Thanks for all your support!

Season of Change

Well, it's been FAR too long since I've last updated our blog. We've had a busy few weeks, and I've let this get farther and farther down my to-do list. Where to start?

Our adoption is still moving ahead steadily. We're 3 monthes into our wait for a referral,

so we anticipate another 3-4 monthes before we get that exciting phone call. With some of the changes being made in Korea, we will then have to wait up to a year before we can bring our little guy home. We're trusting God that it will be HIS perfect timing. We had a few bumps in the road the last 2 monthes with paperwork and immigration, but God has smoothed out each and every one as they've come up. Steve and I went to a CIS (Customs Immigration Services) appointment last week to have our set of federal fingerprints taken. While I was sitting there waiting, I was reminded of how fortunate we are, and all that we often take for granted as citizens of this free country. I sat surrounded by people who were nervously waiting while CIS officials were updating visa's, green cards, and prepping immigrants for their citizens tests. I leaned over to Steve and we talked about how thankful we need to be for the rights we have. Our right to adopt, being one of them. We're continuing to complete grant applications, some of our paperwork delays caused us to have to wait on many of the applications. So, I'm back at it. Not my favorite thing to do, but nonetheless, it's important and I'll continue to plug away.

On another note, we've also had an work opportunity come up for Steve in recent weeks. He was contacted by a company that he worked for years ago, and asked to be part of a restoration project on a cathedral in Sioux Falls, SD. I must say, we were pretty surprised that he was being scouted from another company, especially knowing that several of their employees were currently laid off. After much prayer, we decided that he would do the Sioux Falls project,but since the job will last the next 6-7 monthes, we would stick together as a family and do this together. I can't say this was a very easy decision, but the Lord reminded me how important it is for our family to stay together. We just call our home a "mobile home", since WE make the home, not the dwelling we live in. So,

we got a little apartment in Sioux Falls, and we commute here Sun-Thurs, and we come back to the cities on the weekends. We're into our 3rd week now, and I am amazed at how easy it's gone. (I know that it's the grace of God!) The kids and I are really enjoying our days together, since this is the first summer in 6 years I haven't done daycare. It's a summer of parks, picnics, pools, museums, and we're having a blast! And, the kids LOVE seeing their Dad each night, rather than him living 4 hours away from us.

Bruk has headed to Washington DC for the summer, and he's hoping to visit his family in Ethiopia for a few weeks as well. We miss having him around! He's staying in the family though, and when school starts, he'll be staying with Steve's parents. Rhett especially misses his "big brother, Bruk"!

Well, that's a very nutshell-version of the latest happenings with our family. We're excited for what God has in store!!

While I'm Waiting Song