getting closer...

It seems like every day there’s a new baby belly photo posted from someone on facebook. It’s the only time that women love to document their expanding stomachs and share about their food cravings. Those nine months of intense joy, fear and excitement are a journey we have yet to experience, but our “pregnancy” road has also been crazy and wonderful in a way all its own.

My belly hasn’t bulged, but we feel like we’ve grown in so many ways through this adoption process. Our patience has been tested, our determination challenged and our faith strengthened as we’ve walked through each step. The first application we filled out was on May 10, 2010, so our “pregnancy” has already lasted over 18 months - I’m way overdue. The incredible joy we've experienced hasn't come after seeing an ultrasound but rather after successfully getting a document notarized or completing another form. We’ve felt fear as we were interviewed, and had our house tested to assess our qualifications as parents. Nursery preparation is underway, but the closet is still bare, as we don’t know her age, size or special needs yet. We’ve humbled ourselves as we invited our family and friends to help us raise the nearly $26,000 in funds needed to pay adoption fees. Morning sickness? Not so much. But, sleepless nights wondering if we forgot a signature and might have to re-submit an entire government application, has happened more than once. Our daily prayers are for her health and safety but also that she is feeling loved by the orphanage workers. We pray for her long-lost mother, who must have found herself in extreme circumstances to let go of this beautiful little girl. And we give thanks to God that we will be so blessed to love her, and become her forever family.

Our “pregnancy” has been longer, and filled with more uncertainty and unpredictability than we could have imagined. Our nine months is actually going to be over two years by the time we hold our baby in our arms. But we’ve been told that this joy we are anticipating will be more than worth the wait, and we believe that with all our hearts. We long for that day when we don’t guess at her size, dream about her face and wonder what her name should be. God has our perfect little girl already picked out for us, and we can hardly wait to give birth to our new family.

Please continue praying for the remaining months of our journey, and for our daughter as well. At this stage, we are just waiting to be matched with her, and go through the final stages of our adoption. Please prayerfully consider helping us with the last push for finances - we just need $4,255 to finish paying our fees. Finally, THANK YOU for all of your kindness, prayers and support through this adoption process. We are so incredibly blessed by all of you.

Rollin', Day 4

Looks a little unstable, but at least it would be a soft landing!

Rollin', Day 3

What's not to love about a bike full of flowers?!

Rollin', Day 2

You think you're carrying a heavy load?!

Rollin'

I decided this week that it might be fun to share some of the more interesting photos we see during our daily life here in China. You can find just about anything rolling around on wheels over here.


Seriously haven't seen one of these since I played my Huey Lewis and the News cassette tape back in 1985. Awesome.

camping in china

As hard as we've tried...we just can't seem to find that same 'out in the wilderness' feeling on our camping trips here in China. This weekend we ventured to a nearby, very large lake to try and find something simple and quiet for one night of tent living. It started with just 3 couples, but the further we drove, the more people & cars we had to stop and wait for to join our party. Our final numbers were 10 adults, 4 children, 6 tents. The drive was nice - right along the edge of the water, well maintained road, blue skies above. We dipped in and out of small villages and finally began to stop at a few spots where one of our friends had said 'he knew of the perfect spot'. Turns out, there were about 4 of these spots to choose from, none of which came close to our idea of 'perfect' camping. Jon and I like to be fully self-contained when camping - all gear fits into our backpacks, we park the car, and walk into the woods at least one hour, so we can't hear cars & don't see people. This trip was not that kind.

Each time we saw our self appointed "group leader's" car brake, we held our breath to see where he was taking us next. It was basically a series of beach-side, drive-in campgrounds that were filled with people frolicking in the water on a lovely Saturday. The kids in our party wanted to swim, so we landed on the busiest beach, chock full of people, blow-up toys and grilled Chinese meats. We parked our row of cars snugly between the road and the sand, within 6 footsteps of where we stuck our tent stakes in. All 6 tents fit neatly at the edge of the parking lot, just barely on the sand. Between honking cars, passing tractors and excited people, it was not the peaceful spot we had dreamed of. HOWEVER, when the sun went down, our crew began to trail off to bed, and we hopped into our cozy Marmot tent...all I could hear was the sound of sweet waves hitting the shore as I drifted off to sleep...and then a big truck roared by.

whirlwind

it's amazing how quickly time goes by. we looked forward with so much anticipation to coming back to visit friends and family in the U.S. and just like that, it's already coming to an end. We started off in Rochester with the Cookmans for two weeks, headed to Minneapolis to visit friends for 4 days, visited some family and the beach in Florida for another 4 days and are currently in PA maximizing our time with the Kuerts and Bogaczyks. In just a few short days, it's back to MN and then on to Kunming. We have loved every minute of our visit and will miss everyone here when we head back. however, we also miss our friends in China and look forward to getting back into the flow of life there once again.

Easter Funnies

I guess it’s probably not a bad thing, but this was one of the most non-traditional Easter Sunday’s we’ve experienced in awhile. To start, we schlepped 3 dishes, on our scooter, in the rain to church on Sunday morning to meet the requirements of our Easter potluck at the international church. The service was incredible - powerful worship, adrenaline filled speaker and great fellowship with our brothers & sisters from all over the world. And then we started the lunch line, with lots more people than there were dishes. Although we prayed for the food to multiply like the loaves & fishes, we were still left with a few spoonfuls of lettuce and white rice by the time we hit the start of the line. As we leaned against the wall with our near-empty paper plates chatting with our friends, we figured at least we will get a good taste of some desserts, right? After Jon was recruited to ‘guard’ one dessert table as it was set up, we began to worry about the level of enthusiasm from people wanting to get their sweets on. In the end, we did each get a cookie for dessert, so that was nice. Then Jon and I came home & made ourselves some ‘Easter’ egg omelets.
The thing that struck us about this day was that we walked away remembering the service more than anything else. Often we walk away from Easter and remember most fondly the food, the chocolates and the marshmallow bunnies. This year really allowed us to focus on our communion with the Lord and celebrating his powerful resurrection, which really is miraculous.

The Puzzle is COMPLETE!

THANK YOU to all of our Family & Friends for helping us get this whole puzzle sponsored! You sponsored 300 pieces of this puzzle at $20 each, and many of you even gave above that. We have raised an incredible amount of money towards our adoption, and we are so grateful for such loving, generous people in our lives. Our daughter will never forget all of you as she sees your names written on this puzzle. Thank you so much again.

March Madness in China

I'm not talking about our brackets here (although Jon suffered a severe hit with Duke going down), but the kind of madness that we've been having this month over here. We've been searching for a new apartment, which is positively hilarious in China. Every single place we've looked at makes a freshman guys dorm room feel like paradise. They haven't yet caught on to the idea of 'staging' a place to make it more appealing. Instead, we walk in to pools of soy sauce on the floor, random items left behind by the last tenant and dust piled up like MN snow drifts. Needless to say, the real estate agents are so excited to help us, that we regularly get a chance to see apartments that don't even come close to meeting the requirements we've told them we want. "We're looking for a clean, un-furnished apartment, with 2 bathrooms." Agent: "Oh, okay, let's go see these two places we've got that are suitable for you." The first one has dust piles in every corner, smells like a dumpster and has 1 bathroom. Strike 1. We are polite and say something like "Thanks, but it doesn't quite have what we are looking for...", and we move on to the second one. There is soo much furniture crammed into this place that we can hardly walk anywhere! We're talking full living room set, full bedroom sets, large Chinese vases, random kitchen table set and tons of other junk. Not exactly UN-furnished. Still, we find the humor in these moments and give our best foreigner smile and positive attitude to the agents, thanking them so much for their time.

After many days of seeing places that make us cringe, we happen upon an agent who has helped other foreigners like us find a nice new apartment. She's very kind, and says she understands the kind of place we are looking for, and she has one that sounds just perfect for us. We don't get our hopes up too high as she walks us through a beautiful neighborhood, filled with cherry blossoms, sunshine and amazing landscaping. We arrive at a building in the back of the complex, hop in the elevator and go all the way up to the 18th floor, the top of the building. As she turns the key in the door, we catch a glimpse of a place that makes our hearts smile so big. It REALLY was clean! It REALLY had 2 bathrooms! It REALLY had no furniture. AND, it had an incredible view of the mountain we love to climb.

So last weekend, we sealed the deal on that place, and are so excited to get ourselves moved over in the next month or so.

In addition to that madness...we've experienced some other mad goodness this month:
~ We've raised nearly $9,000 towards our adoption! This is an insane amount of money, and we feel overwhelmed at the generosity of our family & friends.
~ We have FINISHED one big step in our adoption process! This month, we wrapped up our Home Study process, which is one very large step now behind us. We are moving on to Immigration Forms and gathering our Dossier.
~ We both had birthdays this month, and celebrated by taking a couple days away at a beautiful little guesthouse near Dali. You can see below that we were surrounded by a peaceful village atmosphere - it was a great escape from the busy city life in Kunming!
~ And another wild thing happened this month...STARBUCK'S began construction on their first shop in Kunming. Yes, we are very, very excited. Please consider increasing your support by about $20/month so we can indulge. kidding...

Adoption Puzzle Update: We're Over Halfway There!

We're so thrilled to share that our puzzle fundraiser is more than halfway there! THANKS to everyone who has participated so far, and become part of our daughter's story. It has been really cool to write the names of our family members, old friends and even many new friends on these puzzle pieces. God has brought these funds in from so many different amazing places!
BUT...we aren't done yet! Would you take a minute to share our chipin link & invite everyone you know to buy a puzzle piece to help us reach our $6,000 goal? We know we can do it with your help.
Here is where puzzle pieces can be purchased:
http://kuertkid.chipin.com/kuert-adoption
Thanks so, so much! We love you guys!

shock and awe

We were standing on a friend’s 11th floor balcony at about 12:02 am on Chinese New Year amazed yet again at the sight and sound of approximately 5 of the 6 million giddy people in our city shooting off fireworks together. There are not many non-Chinese people who get the chance to experience what we did during those 40 minutes of constant explosions and we’ve had the chance twice...pretty awesome. If you have a 50 by 50 list of things to do (aka: bucket list), this should be on it. While it gives you an idea, this video seriously doesn’t do justice to Chinese New Year Kunming Style. Enjoy!

Be A Piece of our Little Girl's Puzzle!

We could use your help to raise $6,000 towards our next step in the adoption process...so we created a way to not only allow you to be a part of raising funds, but your name will also be a part of the incredible visual reminder to show our daughter how God provided a way for her!

Here's how it works:
When you sponsor a piece of the puzzle for $20, we will write your name on the back of a puzzle piece. As pieces are purchased and the puzzle comes together, our daughter will not only have a beautiful picture on her wall, but a reminder of all the friends that came together to help her join our family.

To reach our $6,000 goal by March 1st, we only need 300 friends to buy one piece each!

Buy your piece of the puzzle through our ChipIn! account on the right!