About Mackenzie

Mackenzie's birthday is March 16, 2008. She will be just over two years old when we bring her home (yikes!)

Mackenzie has a heart defect called Tetralogy of Fallot. This means that there a several things wrong with her heart, and she will need to have surgery when she comes home.

Associated with her heart problem is something called microsia. she is missing one of her ears, and will most likely have corrective surgery on that, as well.

She's the most beautiful little girl I have ever seen, and I am so happy she's mine!

Mackenzie is currently living in Shaanxi province in China, and we have heard good things about the Children's Welfare Institute that she is living in.

According to the file we received, Mackenzie's a deep sleeper, and her favorite food in congee, which is a type of rice porridge. How cute is that?!

Please pray for our daughter. Pray that she would stay healthy and well cared for until we can get to her. I know these next five months are going to be tough on us!

The Story

It all started a few weeks ago...well, actually, the seed was planted last summer.

We were growing discouraged with the ever-increasing wait times for our Taiwan adoption. You might recall that we began our Taiwan adoption on account of the wait times for our China adoption? Yes, I recall that, too. Oh, the irony! Well, they say if you want to make God laugh, then tell Him your plans. God's perfect plan all along was for our China adoption to be completed first. About six months ago, we made the decision to switch our China adoption to special needs. We had talked about it for a year, and decided that, yes, that was the way we should go. We switched agencies a couple moths ago, and were switched to special needs then. At this time we still felt like our Taiwan adoption would come first, and then we would proceed with China.

however, a couple of weeks ago, we had a conference call with our case worker, and several others, and they confirmed what we had suspected. The wait for our Taiwan adoption would be delayed 6-8 months more. They felt it in our best interest to move ahead with our China adoption. We talked it over, and realized that we were both ok with that! So we decided to move ahead. Things happened very quickly at that point, and a few days later, we saw our daughter's face for the first time. I felt drawn to her right away, like it was meant to be. I sent her file on to Josh, and the next day we found out that she was ours if we were interested. We were! On Monday night we called our case worker, and accepted the referral. Now we wait for China's approval! We are hoping to travel in late July.

Thanks, everyone, for your prayers and support!

I'm Gonna Be a Mommy!

That's right! We have accepted the referral of a little girl! In China! Can you believe it?!

Her name is going to be Mackenzie An-Feng Billigmeier. An-Feng is her Chinese name, and we just like Mackenzie. We will post pictures when we are allowed to. It may be a while, as China has rules about when you can put pictures of a child on the internet. Just trust me, she is a cutie!

I will give you details soon!

A New Path

God has re-directed us. We are stepping out in faith on a new path. Stay tuned for more details, I will share them as soon as I can!

The Season of Love

I love Valentine's as much as any other holiday, but I do try not to go overboard in the decorating for this one, since it's not such a huge holiday. I just add some little touches, and I must confess, pink is my favorite color, so I especially relish the decor for Valentine's!

Risk

All of us at one time or another have taken a risk in our lives. Some are so big that you feel as though you will be crushed by the weight of it, and some are so small that you might not have even realized you were taking it.

Life in general is a risk, because if we fall, if we fail, we know it will hurt.There will be pain, and sometimes the fear of that pain is enough to keep us paralyzed, immobilized and afraid to move forward. When I look back on my life, on the risks I have taken, I can see some that were successful, and some that ended in pain. But when I look at the risks I have taken, whether successes or failures, the constant in all of them is that I see God. I can see God in our successes, and I can see God's hand, holding us and protecting us through our failures. And that is what gives me the strength to keep taking risks. Not seeing or knowing the future is a scary thing, but I know who holds the future. The road ahead may not always be a comfortable carefree road, but I know that as we walk it, we are not alone. Though we may feel powerless, and out of control, we are never alone.

Anyway

People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered,

LOVE THEM ANYWAY.

If you are successful, you win false and true enemies,

SUCCEED ANYWAY.

The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow,

DO GOOD ANYWAY.

If you are honest people may cheat you,

BE HONEST ANYWAY.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight,

BUILD ANYWAY.

If you find serenity and happiness people may be jealous,

BE HAPPY ANYWAY.

Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough,

GIVE THE WORLD THE BEST YOU"VE GOT ANYWAY.

In the end it is between you and God,

IT WAS NEVER ABOUT YOU AND THEM ANYWAY.

-From a sign in Mother Teresa's children's home

A Heart of Twine

February is very nearly upon us! I love this time of year (except for the cold, mind you), and I love decorating for it! Reds and pinks, hearts all over, romance in the air, what's not to love?

I saw this idea for the twine heart wreath on a crafty blog, and thought I would give it a whirl. I cut the heart out of foam, and wrapped the twine around the whole thing, gluing as I went. It took MUCH longer than the hour I thought it would, but I am quite happy with the result!

Twenty

Twenty months.

Thank you for everyone's thoughts and prayers! We appreciate your support immensely!

Why 2010 is Stupid

So far 2010 is not my favorite year. I had much different plans for how it was going to go, and what it would look like so far. Most of those plans had to do with our Taiwan adoption, and how things would go oh, so perfectly.

We found out right before Christmas that there may be some issues with our orphanage/agency in Taiwan. During a conference call in January, right after Christmas, we were told that, yes, delays are likely, and that they would let us know in February something definite, so that families who are still waiting could start to make decisions. Basically, what it looks like right now is that there will be delays, which they are saying will be 6-8 months, but that our orphanage will not be closing down, they will just be implementing some changes.

One of the questions we have heard so much from people is why don't we just switch to another country? Everyone knows someone who's adoption from Korea, or Vietnam, or any other country really, that went "super fast".

The answer is no, not really. We could, if things went south with our orphanage, find another country, or orphanage, however, in adoption you don't just switch around, and no adoption is "super fast". There are always unknowns, and ups and downs. Also, if we did switch, we would be starting over. At the beginning. With an 18-36 month wait. And we would need to switch ALL paperwork over. No thank you!

When a family signs on with an adoption agency, they sign on with a specific country, and they wait. Sometimes they wait, and wait, and wait. And that is where we are at. We trust our adoption agency, and we know that we are in good hands with them. We are quite close to the front of the line, and once our orphanage starts referring children to families again, we are confident that things will move quickly. Also, we are not the only ones waiting. There are some families who have been waiting much longer than we have, and our hearts go out to them.

For now, we wait, and we focus on doing things that we enjoy, and making 2010 a better year than it started out to be!

Happy New Year!

It's the start of a new decade! What will this new year bring? I am hopeful and excited for good things. What are you all hoping for?

Glory to God in highest Heaven,

Who unto man his son hath given;

While angels sing with tender mirth,

A glad New Year to all the earth. -Martin Luther

The Frozen Tundra

The Monday before Christmas we left this:

for the frozen, cold west.

It was even colder than what we left, but we were excited to be with some cuteness!

This cuteness:

And that pink cuteness were so fun to visit and spend the holidays with!

I hope everyone had a fun Christmas holiday with the ones they love!