Christmas Miracle

Our Christmas Miracle has happened!!!
We reached half way for our adoption finances. Thank you to everyone who helped this happen!!

Below is our Christmas Letter we hope you all will enjoy hearing all the Lord has done.

Merry Christmas 2012!!

The Lang Family

We decided because of our exciting circumstances to save money and not send out Christmas cards but to just send out a letter. I almost did not get this done but after this week’s events I just had to share all God has been doing. It has been a challenging but amazing year.

January- We spent time in much prayer as my brother was in a serious motorcycle accident while on duty. I look back amazed at how God spared his life and how quickly he healed and is walking and back to work. God also laid on Sarah’s heart to serve on a short term missions trip to Honduras in the fall.

February- We celebrated many birthdays this month and enjoyed homeschooling, art club, scrap booking and AWANA.

March- Sarah and I went to a Voice of the Martyrs conference and heard some incredible speakers. We took a field trip and went to see sheep being sheared. Pierson is learning to play the guitar and Sarah celebrated her 10^th Birthday! She got her ears pierced.

April- We celebrated the incredible gift of salvation through our Lord, Jesus Christ.

The Lord has been bringing many new friends into our lives and we have been celebrating more birthdays. Someone even turned 80 this year!

May- After struggling with female medical issues for most of my life and having them become more severe in the past few months. I finally decided to have major surgery after the Lord led me to a doctor that could do the surgery a less invasive way. I am so thankful this surgery went well and I feel so much better!

June- We celebrated 20 wonderful years of Marriage! We ventured to a Homeschooling Conference where Sarah got to meet on of her favorite authors and we took a trip to the Franklin Institute.

July- Was full of sadness as we said goodbye to my Aunt who had been battling cancer. She is dearly missed. Soon after God rocked our world by calling us to take a huge step of faith (especially financially) and obey his call to adopt again. We excitingly saw the video of our 5 year old son to be on July 19^th. We all knew the moment we saw him that he was the match for our family. So for all the boys we now have Peter whose name means rock, Pierson whose name means son of Peter, and Cargan whose name means little rock or little Peter. We can not wait to bring Cargan home!

August- Our letter to ask to adopt our son was sent on his 6^th birthday and we are preapproved to adopt him. The paperwork continues to flurry. We started our home study and honestly don’t know if we had a summer at all as we had been buried in paperwork.

September- We began our new homeschooling year as Peter also went back to teach library.  We are excited as my Aunt married a sweet man. We also celebrated the adoption of two precious children into a wonderful family from our church.

October- Pierson celebrated his 8^th Birthday!  The kids had a yard sale in the freezing cold to raise money for our adoption and friends joined us at a Chinese dinner fundraiser. On the missions front, two families we know sold everything they owned and went to serve the Lord on the other side of the world. I was also privileged to share in Sarah’s first mission’s trip to Honduras. It was an incredible trip that taught us so much about the power of prayer. We were also thankful for answered prayer in keeping our family safe during Hurricane Sandy.

November- We spent most of the month passing around sickness and also celebrating Thanksgiving. We had so much to be thankful for. A dear friend had a coffee fundraiser for our adoption and many joined to help us.

December- We excitingly sent our Dossier (packet of original documents) to CHINA!! (Approximately 6 more months to go). We gathered with friends. The kids worked hard to get ahead at school so they could have some time off.  I then shared how we were half way with our paperwork, half way with our puzzle and praying for a Christmas miracle to get half way there financially. God answered that prayer in 1 week.  People gave when they heard, one person sold a very valuable item, others gathered together and had a bake sale and then others gave some more until that Christmas Miracle was met!!!! You can follow our adoption journey at our blog: www.provinceoflove.blogspot.com

God is so amazing! How he can care so much for a little boy on the other side of the world and choose to bless us with this precious life. But there is something so much more amazing and that is He loved us so much that He sent His son Jesus Christ for us. He offers this gift of eternal life through His son to each of us. We can belong forever to His heavenly family if we choose to have a person relationship with the Risen Savior. Our prayer is that each one of you will accept this incredible gift this Christmas.

                                  Merry Christmas and May the Lord Bless Your New Year!

CHRISTmas Miracle!!

God is Amazing!!! An incredible group of woman had a bake sale to raise money to help bring Cargan home. They raised $750!!! Wow!! We also received a gift for $40 which brings us to only $79 from being half way there!!!  We are so blown away by the love and support of all those who have helped. One of Pierson’s friends helped at the bake sale. He was so precious asking people to help his friend bring his brother home from China. We are continually amazed at how God is working in so many lives to help bring our precious son home. THANK YOU and MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

Almost Half Way There!

God is Amazing!

On Monday I shared how we are half way there on our paperwork, half way there on our puzzle and asked for prayer for a Christmas miracle to be half way there financially (needing over 3,500.) It is only Friday and we only need $869 to get to the half way mark!! Wow!!!  We are so humbled and thankful for the people who have given so generously, selling things and sacrificing to help our precious son come home. Thank you!!! We are Praising the Lord and asking you all to keep praying!!!

Love Came Down

A picture of adoption at Christmas

There are many times when I have thought of Joseph, Jesus’ chosen earthly father. While the fulfillment of prophesy came through his family line, Jesus was not his flesh.

Yet Joseph was given the incredible gift to be his earthly father and love him as his own. After divorcing, my mother remarried when I was 2 years old. My step father raised me and taught me what it meant to love a child that was not his own. There are many times when discussing children and adoption that the question of “how do you love another persons child” comes up. Well, love comes down. Just as Christ came and poured his love down on us, God pours down a deep love in your heart that is so full for the child he has chosen. You feel like you have been given the most incredible gift by becoming that child’s parent. It is a love that is strengthened during the longing to hold each other. The waiting causes such a deep ache that pulls you heart strings so tight that they are knitted together before you have ever met. A love that grows so deep that you desire to find a way to pay the ransom to bring them home. Home, where they can learn about the love of Christ and what it means to love Him. Experiencing adoption again through the greatest gift of being adopted into the heavenly family, given eternal love, a love poured down.

Half Way There

Half Way!!

Take a LOOK!!!   Many of you have been helping build Cargan’s Puzzle. Over the last few days some of you have given so generously. Thank you! We have crossed over the half way make on the puzzle!!! We have 380 pieces sponsored. There are so many precious messages and names on the puzzle that will be a forever reminder to Cargan of all the people that helped bring him home. If you are new to the puzzle there are still 370 pieces available to be sponsored. Each piece is a $10 donation and we write one word on each piece. If you want to sponsor a piece in someone’s honor as a gift we can email you a picture of your pieces. Thank you for all who have helped build a little bit of family history for our son as he has none so far. We pray he will know how much he is loved by so many when he looks at this puzzle and he will learn about God’s mighty hand in putting together each piece of his life!

It has been an exciting month. We are half way with our paper work, we are now half way with our puzzle and we are praying for a Christmas miracle to be half way there financially($3,584). If 370 people give $10 we can finish the puzzle and reach our half way mark financially too!! We hope you will come join us on this incredible journey! (Donations can be made at the right in the grey box by clicking on the ChipIn button which will take you to paypal)

Another Encouragement

After going to bed very late last night, I realized I forgot to write about one more thing that God did to encourage us. The Ryland’s family who are adopting (blog on the left side) had posted a video on face book. This video was so encouraging but what was amazing was that as I watched it I realized I knew the parents in it!  This was a family from my church where I grew up that had adopted at that time two boys without arms. This family now in the video has adopted 9 precious children. This family also led the way for others in that church to adopt children with special needs.  As I sat and watched this video, God whispered to me, “See I was planting seeds in your heart for my children way back then”.  This was a huge encouragement reminding me that this is His plan and He will provide to the end. I hope you will go watch the video “I like adoption” at http://ilikegiving.com/

The Power of Prayer Part 6

Hooray!!!! Our Dossier (paperwork) is on its way to China!!! Please pray all these original papers will make it safely there.

Well I thought my Power of Prayer series was concluded not that power of prayer ends but I thought I would be blogging on other topics but as I looked back over the last week there was so much that happened after specifically asking a dear group of woman to pray that I had to share. It had been a hard discouraging week and I asked my Jewels Sisters to pray that the seed of discouragement would not take hold in our home. Not 24 hrs after that request I received an email from a sweet friend offering to organize a 5K fundraiser run/walk. Wow. This offer of help was such a precious gift to us.  We then got our email that our Dossier was sent to China!  We were so excited. This is a huge step in the process we are now half way there. We have about 6 more months until travel. Today as I was reading the Bible verses I John 3:18  “let us not love with words or tongue but with action and in truth” my children found a surprise donation that had been hidden and they brought it to me. I began to cry because here was another reminder that God was with us.  I have been spending time reading scripture about adoption and reading around those passages and it has been amazing how God is teaching me about how we are orphans, spiritually and how He has chosen us to be a part of His family. In John 14:18 He says “I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you.”  When Christ died for our sins and rose again and went to Heaven He did not leave us He gave us the Holy Spirit to live with in us. So as we celebrate this Christmas and think of Jesus in that manger, don’t forget about the gift of salvation that was offered to each of us and if we accept that incredible gift we are truly never alone or orphaned. We belong forever to God’s family. As people are praying and I keep reading God’s truths that seed of discouragement has blown away and I will keep reading to keep it afar. Thank you for praying!!!

American Girl Doll Winner!!!!!

THANK YOU to everyone who helped support our adoption!!

The kids were excited to pick a name today for the American Girl Doll Giveaway.
Sarah put a blindfold on.

We had a special visitor. Batman came to hold the basket.

We mixed up all the names......

Sarah reached in......

and the winner is...

Congratulations Melissa Zeck you have won an American Girl Doll!!!

THANK YOU!!!!