To Contact us in China

Our intentions are to post from China so check the blogspot often. If you would like to contact us in China send an email to..... geerfam@yahoo.com or go to the profile window & click on contact us. I am not sure how often we will have access to our emails, but we will try & I cross my fingers it will work.

Thank you does not seem like enough!

Our family has been blessed by so many people that thank you seems so insignificant. Family, friends and people we don't even know have gone out of their way to make us feel loved and help us get closer to bringing Grace home. Thank you to those that made monetary donations to the boys travel expenses & to the orphanage supply fund. We currently have $500 to buy supplies for Graces' orphanage in Hunan to help those left behind. Thank you to the Thompson's, Irwin's & Kuske's for giving my boys jobs to do so they could contributed to this family endeavor. Thank you to the Walsh family for taking their weekend to help us have a yard sale & helping in many ways. Thank you to the Louritt's for too many things to count. Thank you to Little Chapel of the Hills for the donations to the yard sale and for opening your doors to the spaghetti supper. Thank you to those that helped with the supper. Thank you to Sarah, Ben, Jeff, Karyn, Janelle and other youth who's Godly examples of acts of service is something I am thankful my kids will have to look up to for years to come. You all pitched in and helped with out being asked! Thank you to the Fogle's for all your help in so many ways! Thank you to Mom & Dad! Thank you to the Conner's and the Russell's. Thank you to everyone who bought bracelets and thank you to the 4-H club for selling them! And thank you to all of those who have kept us in your prayers and encouraged us through this journey. Please keep praying, we aren't home yet! Lots of changes are headed our way & we continue to covet your prayers. If I forgot anyone, please forgive me. I can blame it on "pregnancy" hormones! We are very blessed!

We are on our way to China!!!

Here we come Gracie! We recieved our Travel Approval January 20th after only 65 days! We are leaving Feb. 5th for Hong Kong, arriving Feb. 6th then it's on to Changsha in Hunan on the 7th. Grace will forever be part of our family on the 8th staying in Hunan until the 14th. We then travel to Gaungzhou on the 14th then back through Hong Kong on the 18th towards HOME! Phew! Now we need to pack!

God IS Faithful!!

It is with a grateful heart I can report we recieved a$3,000 grant today. That amount will be a great help in reaching our final goal. I thank everyone for their continued prayers for our financial situation and for blessing us in so many other ways. Daniel, Nathan & Matthew still strive to reach their goal of earning their own travel expenses so we can all be blessed by their going on this 16 day trip with us. And they continue to add to the $400 for orhpanage supplies. They have 3 appointments next week alone to do odd jobs for generous friends!! Please continue to pray for Gracie!! We should know by the end of next week when we travel. Talk about cutting things close!! :)

Our Travel Approval Should be on the Way!!!

We found out today that we are in the next group of 6 families to get their travel approval! We expect we may know when we travel by the end of next week. The boys have raised $400 so far to help those left behind in Gracie's orphanage. This amount will actually buy quite a bit in China! We have covered over $10,000 of adoption related expenses with the final bit of travel expenses remaining. Please keep us in your prayers though as we had some things fall through on the financial end and are struggling to come up with the final funds needed to bring Gracie home. God's hand has been so obvious in this whole process and He is faithful. He will show us a way. Gracie is waiting! Thank you for praying!!!!

Her Lip is Fixed!! January 5th 2006

We received an update today. Nothing much has changed except her lip is fixed! She will still need surgeries to fix her palate etc, but the repair looks wonderful!! No one including our agency knew they were fixing her lip. But I'm glad they did! We are praying God will continue to watch over our little Grace. We received our preapproval that we can adopt Grace from China in December and we are awaiting our Travel Approval which should come any time. Right now we wait, and not so patiently. Our time is taken up with fundraisers to help pay for travel to China. Our trip will take about 16 days and we all plan to travel. Daniel, Nathan & Matthew are also raising money to buy supplies for Grace's orphanage to help those that are left behind. Thanks to everyone for their continued support and prayers.

New Pictures! November 14th 2005

We received a written update today along with new pictures dated 11/11/05 so she is 13 months old in these pictures. The update says her nickname is QueQue (Choo-Choo), she is not scheduled for lip repair surgery, she is not sick very often, she likes to be held, gets along well with other babies and is walking with help. She looks very very mad in these pictures. Which is ok, because I think you need to be tough to survive! Her new name will be Grace Elianna. She will be a reminder of God's Grace to us and Elianna means "God has answered".

We said yes!! November 11th 2005

After much prayer as a family and much research on the medical road we have ahead of us we sent our Letter of Intent (LOI) to China to let them know we can't wait to have her as a part of our family. These are the rest of the photos we were given at this time. They were taken 6/6/05 so she is 8 months old at the time of these pictures.

Referral Photo - November 10th 2005

After we decided to open our home to a child with a special need and changed over the the Waiting Child Program our agency, Chinese Children Adoption Agency called us with the information about this little girl. Her Name is Yong Dao Que and was born on 10/01/04. She has a cleft lip and palate and is living in an orphanage in Yongzhou, China.