Fundraiser Success!!

This Christmas season someone from our small group (home group) decided that she wanted to make a fundraiser to help save up for our little Jeremy. It was a Christmas cookie sale that she set up. She told people about it from our church and we told our friends. It was all very organized and we made a lot of money. We all are very thankful for all the people who put the effort into helping us bring our baby home!

This Christmas we got the cutest toys for Jeremy. It made me feel so good that people are so excited for Jeremy to come home that they are already bringing him gifts!! We got a kitty cat piano and a little tricycle. Thank you all for the toys! He will love them! Oh yeah almost forgot to mention, me and Julia did the honors of opening the gifts. LOL

One Child at a Time

This is a persuasive essay that I wrote for my English class in school. Hope you like it!

At this moment 500,000 social orphans wait in our foster care systems. Every 18 seconds a child becomes an orphan without parents and every 15 seconds a child looses a mother or father from AIDS. One and a half million children are living in public care in Eastern and Central Europe alone with no one. Over 120,000 children in U.S. foster care are waiting to be adopted. Does this look like an orphan crisis? Yes, it does. I believe adopting orphans is very important. About 143 million orphans are in the world and they need our help. Together we can adopt and save the hungry orphaned
children!

Night after night you climb into your bed and wait for your parents to come and kiss you goodnight. Every child knows a kiss goodnight is very special. It's like a silent "I love you". It is always a big deal. There is some sort of comfort in it. You know your parents will come, so you just wait. Imagine being an orphan. You get into the crib or bed that you share along with 2 or 3 other kids. You don't wait for a goodnight kiss because you never get one. Or maybe you wait but you know deep down it's not coming. By adopting, you can give a child hope. They will be able to finally wait for their silent "I
love you". They will have a family to love and support them. They will feel like their life has meaning and they won't be alone.

Orphans are at risk of becoming victims of violence, exploitation, trafficking and other abuses. Many people are scared or upset about things like this, yet they just sit and don't do anything about it. A way to help decrease the violence and abuses is by adopting a child, so when they get older they won't be involved in these things. If many orphans are involved in these abuses and violence then by adopting, less people will be. When children are adopted their parents can teach them what's right and wrong and protect them.

Adopting is important. It gives a child a home and a family to love and care for them. In reality, adopting a child is probably one of the best things you will ever do in your lifetime!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!

Merry Christmas everyone!

We've had a great Christmas so far. We got up and talked about the birth of the only and only Jesus Christ. Then we went and opened the presents. We all were really happy that we were all together for Christmas, but sad that our little Jeremy wasn't. : ( We were all a little disappointed but we can't wait 'til next Christmas when Jeremy will be with us.

Wednesday night we watched A Home for the Holidays. Oh my gosh. It was sad. I wasn't crying, but my eyes were watery. My mom was crying. All those kids in foster care need a home. It made me feel so grateful for the kind and loving parents I have. I pray one day those kids will be able to say the exact same thing.

Well have to go. Merry Christmas!!!! Wish you all the best!

Steven Curtis Chapman on Good Morning America

Steven Curtis Chapman on Healing After Death of Daughter, New Album - ABC News

This is a video of Steven Curtis Chapman on Good Morning America.

A Home for the Holidays

This Wednesday watch A Home for the Holidays on CBS featuring Faith Hill. This TV special is celebrating the families who adopt and the children still waiting in the foster care systems. Carrie Underwood, Shakira and Reba McEntire are going to be performing live.

Be sure to watch it! It will be awesome!!!

Rockefeller Center, New York City

On Friday, December 4, 2009 my family and I went to Times Sqaure and met friends of ours at Toys R US. They have adopted two girls from China and now are waiting for their 3rd. We have so much fun with their family. Their little girls who are 7 and 6 are so cute! We all get along so well and I love spending time with them. We went on the giant ferris wheel in the store and then went out to eat at this really good restaurant called Tony DiNapoli's. After that we went to go see the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree and then went to the American Girl Store and looked at the windows at Sacks Fifth Avenue. The tree was beautiful and huge as always and we took A LOT of pictures! Here are some of the pictures we took:

I wish I still could go on my Dad's shoulders.

Mommy and Daddy!!! (Janet and Jim)

This is me and my sis. Sister Power!

This is me and my sister in front of some lights that we passed by.

This is the beautiful tree that we went to see. It was so big and the lights were really pretty.

This is me and my family : )

This is the tree and the fountain on the skating rink. It was a nice view looking down at the skating rink and watching the people skate.

We also went to M&M's World. It was so fun!!!!

M&M's World had a lot of M&Ms in all different colors and everything.

Hello Pre-Aproval!

We got our pre-approval! We all are very excited! This is now one more step towards getting our referral acceptance! YAY! It was supposed to take a month but it took us only 2 weeks! We are ahead which is a great thing! Soon we will be getting our little boy! We all hope to see him soon and we pray for him to be treated really good. It could be 3-6 months until we get our travel approval. I hope it will be sooner than 6 months but whatever God wants is fine with me!

On December 3 it was my sisters 9th birthday. She had a great time and we went out to eat at a Chinese buffet (of course!!!!!). We had a great time eating......and for the record.........Julia didn't even eat the Chinese food! She did have dessert though. Haha...

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! We hope everyone had fun stuffing their faces with turkey and all the other great foods. Unfortunately my family was sick so we did not get to visit our family for the holiday, but I am just thankful for sitting on the couch and watching the parade with them. We had fun today and we just cooked our first turkey! It was quite adventurous. We did not get a full turkey only a breast.......but it still was adventurous trying to get it to cook. It took a LONG time. When we finally sat down to eat we had a table covered with food.

As we sat and ate my family and I shared what we were thankful for. We had alot to be thankful for and I am thankful for everyone being thankful. Hehe.......

Have a great Thanksgiving!!!!!!!

Tomorrow is National Adoption Day!

Tomorrow we celebrate National Adoption Day. This day is when lots of adoptions are finalized in the U.S. (particularly for adoptions from the U.S. foster care system). Also on this day, the media will have a lot of attention on adoption. It can be a time when people hear about adoption and think about opening up their homes for these needy children. It must be really exciting for all the families out there that will finalize their process and bring their own sons and daughters into their forever families. Good luck to all!!!

There is a new movie out and it is called The Blind Side. It is a movie about a teenage boy who is homeless. He has no family. Then a family adopts him and he soon becomes a great football player.This story is based on Michael Oher's adoption story. My mom wants to see it REALLY badly. (Not kidding) Sometimes when she watches the trailer she starts crying.I have a feeling it will be a very teary movie.

We will check it out and let you know how it is.
: )

Just Love Coffee

We've signed up for this website to help raise money to build a school for children in Ethiopia. This also helps raise funds for adopting families. We've met Rob Webb, the company founder. He's adopted 2 daughters from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and became aware of the costs of adopting and looked for a way to help alleviate some of this cost for families. He's got this great passion for coffee roasting and you can taste it in the coffee. He told us his favorite blend is the African Skies blend and we agree. This coffee is well worth a try. It's simply delicious - and it's USDA Certified Organic and Fair Trade Certified Coffee besides. It is available either by the bag or as part of the Coffee Club.
http://www.justlovecoffee.com/TheSeacotts

Orphan Sunday

This is what we shared at our church, Oasis Christian Center, for Orphan Sunday.

About 2 years ago God placed the burden for orphans in our hearts. As we prayed and studied God’s word He opened our eyes to the global orphan crisis. If the church is to be fully mobilized to address this crisis, what we need to see is not simply the face of an orphan but the face of Jesus.

God’s heart for the orphan is great. Throughout scripture God shows this. God calls Himself the father of the fatherless. He says He delights in setting the lonely in families, and He asks us to care for the orphans, the fatherless and those who don’t have a family. The greatest thing is we know God loves orphans because we know God loves us. While we were still worthless abandoned, hopeless orphans, God showed us His amazing love by adopting us into His family and giving us the spirit of adoption by whom we cry out “Abba, Father”. We have heard it said “Adoption is the visible gospel”. God desires that we show this love to the world by going out and in the same way caring for orphans in their distress. This is not about us fulfilling our responsibility. This is not, “you better do it or else.” God comes to us as a Father full of love. We are not His children because of what we’ve done, what we’ve accomplished, or because of any merit of our own. God clearly says that He predestined us to be adopted into His family, to become His children “according to the good pleasure of His will to the praise and glory of His grace.”

We are all sitting here today because at some point in our life God has revealed Himself to us and showed us our need for Him and now we are no longer orphans but fully adopted sons and daughters of God. What a sense of security that brings - knowing the God of all the universe loves us so much that he would send his only son to die for us that we would be called his children.

How do we show hope to a world that is so desperate and a world that is truly hopeless. In Matthew 25 Jesus said, “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me. Truly I say to you as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers you did it to me.”

Jesus words tell us that when we look into the face of the orphan or the face of the sick, oppressed, imprisoned or poor we are to see more than their faces we are to see His. We need to be melted by the face of the crucified and risen Jesus.

So how do we respond beyond what is comfortable and easy. If we will respond to the needs of orphans in the same way that God responded to the need of His orphans, by sacrificing His son, then imagine what could start happening. If we respond beyond our own ease and convenience with a focus on Jesus and Him crucified for us. If we responded like a people who have the greatest gift in the world, eternal life through the hardest sacrifice ever made, what would we do? Would we take the path of least resistance or would we throw ourselves before the Lord exulting His goodness and asking Him to show us what our role is. We all have a different part to play. Ask God to have His way with your life and you may be surprised at how He uses you. You may find yourself led to adopt or be a foster parent when you thought you could not. You may find yourself praying and being an advocate. You may find yourself serving in another country. You may find yourself giving beyond what you give now. Or you may find yourself involved with the fatherless children right here in Midland Beach who have been orphaned by divorce or death. We are inviting you to join us as we pray about what steps we can take as the local church to help the orphan crisis and bring hope and the love of Jesus to the least of the least.

The Facts

Got our Log in Date!

We received an email today from the adoption agency saying that we have Our LID from the CCAA (Which is the log in date for our dossier). Our LID is 11/4/09 two days after our dossier was sent in. We were told it would take 4 to 6 weeks to receive the LID. God is so good and in control of all things. We were also told that our electronic acceptence was sent today and we should be receiving our pre aprroval in a few days. We are on the way to bring our little boy home!! A big thanks to all that have been praying for us during the entire process.

Sister Picture!

This is me and my sister Julia.
(Jenna 12-left, Julia 8-right)

An Update

Today we got new pictures of the baby. He was so cute! He was crawling and sitting up which is good. He has two teeth on the bottom of his mouth and his arm is a little longer that we thought. It is a little below the elbow and that means he can do even more with it than he could with no arm below the elbow. Awesome! We also got a video and it is a video of him crawling. He was so adorable! His hair is so wild and it is starting to grow more. It goes in all directions. He is like a little porcupine dude! He is so cute and I cannot wait to bring him home to our family!

Later!

Starting Out

It was a little over two years ago when God decided to move my parents heart to adopting a baby boy. They first started thinking about it after a concert almost four years ago. Then over the years they became more aware of the orphan crisis around the world. My mom and dad soon also became more aware about Gods loving heart in caring for the orphans. After a lot of prayer they started getting more information about the adoption process. In October 2008 they attended an informational seminar with America World Adoption Agency (AWAA). Through the agency they met several couples who had adopted and they shared their stories. There was more prayer and about a month later they decided to take that huge step of faith and adopt a little baby.

At first I didn't really think my parents were serious. Then when they said they definitely wanted to adopt I was really upset. The thought of the new baby made me wonder if I would be kicked out of my parents life. I was totally against the idea. I didn't like it when we talked about it so my parents said they would not talk about it with me until I was ready. Then finally little by little I got used to the idea. Soon I told Mommy and Daddy, "We should do this."

When I was almost excited we were adopting, a new surprise came that we were going to adopt a special needs baby. When my mom and dad explained it, I totally freaked out. They said it was possible we would get a cleft lip or a cleft palate and I hated that idea. Then they also said we might get a baby with a missing limb (or a limb difference). Now after all the discussion of the special needs I didn't want to adopt anymore. Then after a night of a big discussion in bed about how my parents will never stop loving me no matter what, I loosened up about the idea. Another night we had another talk about the idea of getting a baby with a limb difference. Mommy and Daddy explained how those kids can do almost anything. Then I decided it would be kind of cool to have a baby with a limb difference. My concerns still weren't over. I worried most about the idea that Daddy would favor the new baby boy instead of me. After more talking I finally clicked about a special needs baby and soon I got more and more excited. My sister Julia was excited from the beginning. She said she wanted to adopt and it had to be from China (she feels like she's one with the Chinese). We all agreed that it should be from China and that is when we started on the paperwork.

After that in January 2009 we started getting into all the paper work. Then this summer we started going as a family into the city to do more paperwork and then getting good New York pizza. (That is very important for when you go into the city. (Always remember- GET PIZZA!).Two weeks ago we got a phone call from AWAA. They said they had a match and they sent us an email of the pictures. He is SO ADORABLE!!!!!!! He has cute little thin eyes and it was funny to see him in the picture with all girl toys surrounding him. The little baby had a limb difference. As soon as we saw the picture we were all screaming with excitement! Mommy and Daddy said they would pray and think on it but deep down I knew he was the one. Day after day they prayed and we got more and more excited. Soon we finally said yes to him and last week we sent in our dossier to China. It arrived there November 2 at 9:30AM (their time). We were all so excited. We were jumping up and down when we heard it arrived. Now all we are doing is waiting to go pick up our little boy and he is waiting for a family like us to kiss him goodnight. The wait time could be up to 6 months but we know that God will do what He has to do to bring our little boy home to us.

Check with you later!