Almond Family Adoption: July 2011

Jacob - Our Second Adoption Journey

Welcome to our adoption blog as we invite you to follow along and partner with us in prayer on our adoption journey to bring our son Jacob home from China. We don't know who he is yet, but we know the Lord has already chosen him for us! We can't wait to meet the child which God has picked out for us!

For us this is more than just about expanding our family. This is also a ministry that we feel called to do. It is an oportunity for us to introduce another child to Christ. And, we are commanded in the scriptures to care for the orphans. There are currently over 200 million orphans in the world. Almost half of those are in China alone. Many of these children will never have parents. Many will be turned out on the streets to fend for themselves once they reach a particular age. Many more who have "special needs" will live out their lives in an institution.

God has placed upon our hearts to do our own small part to not only provide a home and family for an orphan, but to introduce them to God's grace and an opportunity for a "second adoption" into His family as well. We hope that you will remember us in your prayers as we continue on our Journey to bring Jacob home.

In Christ's Love,
Ken, Trish, & Ellie

Monday, July 25, 2011

We have our Travel Approval!!!

We did recieve our travel approval from China on 07-11. This is much quicker than we had anticipated since we just got our SCL on 06-27. Praise God!!! Also we believe we have all the funds we need now (unless something we don't know about comes up.) Praise God for His financial provision as well!! We have also recieved our itenary from CHI and we will leave for China on 08-19 and return on 09-01. Based on this we were able to get our International Travel booked. We are now waiting for CHI to get our inside China travel arrangements booked for us.

This is finally becoming real and there is so much to get done to prepare for our trip now! Besides determining what all we need to pack and how to pack it, we now have Ellie's activities to factor in as well. Such as her Classical Conversations homeschool classes and soccer practices.