Oh For The Love of Little Boys and Puppies!

Noah just loves these little puppies! He plays with them, chases them, holds them by thier tales and ears...
He can't get enough of them. He calls them "here puppy,puppy, puppy" He lays on top of them. And now they are big enough to chase him back and bite his little toes. And Noah just laughs and laughs. How fun is that? Soon, the puppies will have new families and little boys to play with...but until then...watch out for Noah!

HAPPY EASTER!

HAPPY EASTER FROM THE KERR KLAN!
Easter is by far my favorite Holiday.  I love everything about Easter. It is in spring and all the grass and flowers are starting to appear. New life is in the air. Renewal. Refreshing. And most of all, Easter is a time to reflect and celebrate what our Lord and Saviour Jesus did for us. He removed the veil by becoming an innocent sacrafice. He was the lamb that was slain for our sins, chastized for our transgressions, by His stripes we are Healed, and above all, now we are made spotless and blameless to hte Father. We can have a relationship with God our Father. That is what God wants more than anything. Communion and friendship with each of us:
                      For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For you have not reiceived the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the Children of God: And if children, then heirs: heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ: in so that we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.  Romans 8:14-17

How Awesome is that??? We are adopted by God as his children. We are the Heirs of God! We have inherited from God. This makes me think of my adopted children and how they are mine through and through and they have inherited everything that I have just as my bio children have. How much more have we inherieted from God our Father that we do not even realize??? I hope this post will encouage you this Easter to think about your relationship with God theFather and His Son Jesus, and all that you have inherited as a Child of God,

Blessings

Crazy Love

FYI...this post is in response to Crazy Love at http://www.aplacecalledsimplicity.blogspot.com/  in case you are wondering :0

Sometimes God calls us to do things that normally just do not make sense...or, rather, from a worldly, human perspective does not make any sense at all. Sometimes, there is just a decision or choice to obey or not obey whatever God is calling us to do. We can not always understand why God asks us or calls us to certain things...it is just a matter of obedience, trust, and faith. That is where we are. So here is our story of Crazy Love and our need:
    We are stepping out in faith and trusting that God has the details already figured out :) If you read our blog often then you know that we have 3 bio children-Anna(15), Amanda(11), and JonMarc(7) and two adopted daughters from China Jordyn(10) and Jailynn(7). Our oldest son does not live at home right now, and we are praying for him that He will turn his heart back to the Lord. We also have Noah(2) our precious grandson with us, and Ivy(16) our exchange student from China. So that is a total of 7 kiddos under our simple 4 bedroom roof, Makes for exciting times! Anna and Ivy are exceptional and awesome teens. Ivy has also given her life to Jesus since she has been with us and was babtized. Anna and Ivy both have a Bible study at thier public school to lead their friends to the Lord. Just to brag on them a little.
     Last year in May while I was in China completing Jailynn's adoption Tim and I both lost our jobs at the same time which was quite devestating. My job let me go while I was on leave of absence adopting my daughter one day before my one year aniversary. If I had remained employed I was getting an employee adoption reimbursement of $ 5000. Talk about a convenient layoff timing??. Tim was just laid off due to the economy. Now we did not really share about our needs at the time. We were just trying to make it through each day and adjust with Jailynn. That was a difficult time that I do not like to think about. Anyway, I am a RN so I bounced back quickly and we made it and we are still making it. Tim is still looking for a permament job:however, he has loved being home with the kids and if I didn't know better I would think that was part of God's reasons and how he used it for our good. The kids are closer to their daddy and we have learned what is important and what is not. We moved back to a small town in a DW with cheap monthly bills. Hey, I'm down with that. No shame here in a DW home! Tim and I have always been givers and tithers and involved in church. Although we have not been able to give as much as we like. Currently, We belong to Lakepointe Church and we are active in the adoption ministry. We felt that God called us to join Lakepointe when we moved to TX in 2006 which was also the beginning of our first adoption of Jordyn. She was 8 yrs old when she was adopted and she accepted Jesus as her saviour before she could speak fluent English. Jordyn is like she has always belonged with us and we adore her. Jailynn was 6 yrs old when we adopted her and she is a firecracker!! Very spunky, funny, spicy Hunan girl. She brings more laughter and joy into our home. Jordyn and Jailynn came from the same orphanage and were very close like sisters. Jordyn missed her so much and we prayed that God would open the doors for us to adopt her. In 2008, China made the Waiting Child SN list and that was our open door that we went barging through. God provided miraculously for both our adoptions through our church, grants, family, and friends. We just paid off some of Jailynn's adoption and only owe 5500 more. Thank you God.
God is good. Now, He has asked us to adopt another hunan spicygirl that is also from the same orphanage. I had thought that we were finished adopting but this child has stayed on my heart. I thought that we could not possibly do this again but here we are with our PA and in the paper chase phase. Our need is with adoption expenses. We are planning some fundraisers and saving like crazy. I hope that someone will read our story and consider helping us reunite the three girls and bring Jaidyn home. We are also working on our grandson becoming permament and so we actually have 2 adoptions at the same time. YIKES!!! But I know God is faithful to provide when we step out in faith. And that is what we have done. We are in need of Noah's legal fees of 2000 as well as the funding for our third China adoption. That is all I will say. I know this is long. Thank you for readng this and if we are nominated or recieve any gifts we will be forever grateful because you are helping us save two children. Blessings.
http://halfadozenandcounting.blogspot.com/

http://onemorehunanprincess.blogspot.com/

















Jordyn and Jailynn.

Jordyn and Anna

Anna and Jailynn

Anna and Amanda

Ivy

Noah...needing a haircut.

Sweet Anna

JonMarc

Why are we doing this again? Don't we have enough kids already??

How does an adoptive parent answer the above questions? How can you explain having a heart for the children left as orphans to fend for themselves? How do you explain to someone that you have known for three years that a child you saw in pictures is your daughter? How do you explain the sadness felt at not knowing your child as a baby and the joy of watching thier first steps because you adopted her when she was 8 years old? How do explain how lucky the newborn that just came into the world is because he is wanted and loved by his parents and born in America? How do you reconcile the feelings that you feel over all the unwanted, hurting orphans in the world? I don't know. But, I do know that the love and joy I feel for my adopted children is real and they are just as much my children and meant to be in my family as the ones that I gave birth to. I also know that I had to fight for them to be here just as much as I had to carry my other children in my womb for nine months. I also know that I will fight for this new child as well. Fight through the red-tape of the paperchase, fight through raising the money to bring her home, fight through the convincing of whoever needs to be convinced that she is my daughter...fight through the travel, jet lag, emotional rollercoaster and whatever else comes my way. Because she is born in my heart and she deserves a mother to cherish her and love her as much as my other children.

                                                    Jailynn holding Feng-Feng's hand.

Answered Prayers!!

I am Praising God for answered prayers tonight!
Little Reese and the other adopted children from Haiti are on their way home tonight! Their story was featured on CNN last night and tonight. God intervened and families are being brought together!

Next is our answered prayers.... 

We have PA (Pre-Approval!) for our third Hunan Princess!! Thank you Lord! Can you hear our celebrations?? Jordyn and Jailynn were s excited they screamed in unison and began jumping up and down!The picture below are the three girls together for a brief reunion when we were adopting Jailynn. Feng-feng was so happy to see them. She told Jordyn that she got big and gave her a big hug. God has heard our prayers and the three girls will grow up together as forever sisters!
More to come soon!

Prayer Needed for a Family in Haiti!!

Dear Bloggie friends,
Please read this post and pray for this family as they are detained while trying to get their child and other legally adopted children out of Haiti. The situation is just in urgent need of God to move on behalf of this family and the children. Please pray!
http://debraparker.typepad.com/just_one_girl/2010/02/please-pray-for-this-family.html
http://www.thethackerpack.blogspot.com/

Will you please pray for our situation right now?




On Friday morning, I flew into PAP on an Agape flight. I was met at the airport by two escorts from the orphanage and six children. I was coming to help escort my son, Reese, age two, and five other children home to the United States. We waitied all day at the US Embassy for the last military flight out of there. (It was so wonderful to be with Reese) All of the children were cleared to leave, signed off by the Prime Minister, etc. The flight was cancelled. Big surprise. We were told we could make our own private arrangements b/c there would be no more military flights out. We arranged to have Agape flights fly us out on noon on Saturday. We stayed with the children in a guest house on Friday night.



On Saturday morning, we packed up the kids in a taxi and headed to the airport. Minutes after the taxi dropped us off, we were attacked by an angry mob of men saying that we were trying to steal the children. They tried to take the kids from us. The Haitian police came and detained all of us. It was horrible until the US Embassy got there.We sat on the street with the children outside of the airport for six hours while the Haitian police, border patrol, immigration, and the US embassy had a huge pissing match. It was unbeliveable. Then they took us down to a police station for three hours while they continued to sort things out. Thye let us go, but they took the children from us and they are sitting in a Unicef tent camp. I'm writing this out and I can't even believe that this has happened. I am staying at an international doctor's house. The US Embassy is "working" on it. Actually, I'm pretty sure that Hillary Clinton has gotten involved. It escalated quickly. I know for sure that my senator from MN is heavily involved. My husband is in Florida right now waiting for us to get out of Haiti. He was going to meet the plane on Saturday afternoon!



I am a strong believer and Jesus' supernatural peace is comforting me right now, but my mind seems so muddled that I can barely from coherent words to pray. Will you please pray on behalf of Reese and the other children?

Fun In The Big Texas Snow!

Jailynn's Birthday Pictures

Jailynn's 8th Birthday

Today 2/03/2010 is Jailynn's 8th birthday! The pics are from the summer when we had a special welcome home party for Jailynn and I never got to post them so I will post pics of Jailynn's party soon. I just really wanted to blog this on time :)

I am so happy to celebrate her 8th birthday with her. We sent her a birthday cake in the orphanage but did not get to celebrate with her on her 7th birthday. This is a very special day for her and she is very excited about Her Birthday!

So today I am bringing special cupcakes and party favors to her class and I am going to take pictures of her class party. Then, tonight we will have cake and Icecream for her at home with her birthday presents. Then, Saturday, we are having a party at Nana's with a cookout and playing at the park and more presents. Finally, next weekend...we will drive to Houston Tx to celebrate with my sister and her family. Why so many celebrations for this little girl? Because she has only celebrated her birthday once, in an orphanage with a cake. We sent her a care package with presents, but she did not get to keep any of it because it became orphanage property. So, clearly, such a special and beautiful little girl deserves to have these special parties. I am keenly aware in the back of my mind what my spicy Hunan princess missed out on in her life. She did not have a mother to hold her and feed her a bottle, kiss her hurts away, and rock her to sleep. She was a small baby that learned to survive and comfort herself until she was old enough to use her cute self to charm her caregivers. I do believe that they took good care of her as best as they could, but it is still a lonely place for a baby to grow. As I think back on the times I missed with her it makes my soul sad. But God sent a little Angel to be Jailynn's comfort...her big sister Jordyn. The bond they have is evident every day. Being the spicey girl that she is, Jailynn is a surviver, a comedian, and a charmer. She is s character and she brightens up our life and our family!

Happy Birthday Dear Jailynn!

Jailynn's First Christmas (A little late post)

This was Jailynn's very first Christmas and her first Christmas with Jordyn!

All six of my clan sat on the couch and patiently waited for thier turn to open pesents. They were genuinly happy as they watched each other open thier gifts. This was a Christmas first... usually it is chaos as everyone ope presents at the same timeand paper flies everywhere!

Jailynn was exploring the gifts!

Santa brought Jordyn a DSI...just what she asked for.

Santa brought Jailynn and JonMarc a nintendo ds too!

JonMarc loved his toys from Santa!!

Jailynn loved all her gifts from Santa!!

Before all the presents are opened....

After the presents are all opened...

Christmas was beautiful and we even had a white Christmas morning n Texas. It was a Christmas Miracle. Christmas was so very special. The pictures do not do any justice. We had a special time together and everyone absolutely loved it all. Christmas was very special due to  generous Angel and my sister. I pray a special for them. I know this is about our Christmas together, but my thoughts and prayers are with the people of Haiti. I am even more thankful for our blessings this year and pray for the recovery process for Haiti.