Waiting for Samuel to Come Home

It's been awhile since my last blog post, I know. While we are working and waiting for Samuel to come home, we are obviously very focused on every day life here. "Busy" doesn't begin to describe my life and although I am incredibly grateful for all God has led me to, I have little time to focus on my personal passions, including writing. ;) Sooooooo... I'm thankful to have 5 minutes today to share just a tad of what's going on.

Where are we in the adoption process right now? As you know, we submitted a letter of intent for sweet Samuel and China issued us Pre-Approval. He is ours, designated solely for our family and waiting for us to come get him. Our dossier (fancy word for our entire life on paper) is in China. It will take a couple months for them to issue us LOA (official letter of approval). So right now, we're in a waiting period. Once our LOA comes, we'll be looking at several weeks that include scrambling and more paperwork before we travel. I'll be sure to update here when we receive LOA. That's a major milestone in the process and always a huge celebration for adoptive families.

We are hoping to receive some updates and new pictures while we wait but this adoption is very different from when we were pursuing Emily. You may remember that Emily was in a special place called Harmony House where we were able to Skype with her periodically and speak directly to her caretakers. Ru was in a similar setting. Both were unique situations that we were very thankful for. Samuel is in a government-run orphanage. While we have been told that this orphanage is one of the better ones in China, we still can't be in direct contact. We can request pictures and information but may only receive one or two updates between now and travel. We'll be grateful to hear anything and will be sure to share with you!

In the meantime, we're exploring some fundraising ideas that may help fund our adoption. We have about $10,000 more to raise in order to bring Samuel home. We know God will provide, as He always has. We have a few ideas and will share them with you as they come to fruition. Will y'all please rally around us and help us to raise the last chunk of change to bring our baby boy home?

One fundraiser that seems to work well is t-shirt sales. We have already placed 2 shirt orders and the response has been great. I recently inquired on our FB page if anyone would be interested in a 3rd order and we feel like it'll be worth it. We will begin taking orders today and will place one big order in a few weeks. This time, we have 4 shirt options! If you didn't get in on the first couple orders, we will still offer the original brown super soft tee. Many of you requested a brighter, summer color shirt so we are adding coral and light blue options. Your 4th option is a V-neck tee in silver. All 4 options will have the original graphic on the front and are the same super soft fabric. Here are pictures of the options (picture of light blue coming soon):

The t-shirts are $20 each. The silver V-neck is $22. If we will be shipping them to you, please add $4 per order. All shirts come in adult sizes XS - 3XL (coral, light blue, and brown shirts go up to 4XL). To place your order, you can pay through Paypal using my email address lauraloman@yahoo.com (or just click on the "Donate" button on the right of this page). Please be sure to enter your color choice with size in the notes, as well as your shipping address. If you'd rather pay with cash or check, that's fine too. You can email me for our mailing address.

Our goal is to sell 100 shirts for this order. I know this is lofty being our 3rd order but we can do it! We would be so excited to meet this goal and be one step closer to bringing home Samuel. If you haven't purchased a shirt from us yet, now's your chance! If you've already ordered a brown shirt and would like a different color or style, we'd be grateful for your second t-shirt order! Another way to help is to share our shirts on FB.

We'd love for you to link in to our journey directly by praying for Samuel and ordering a shirt from us. We'll be sure to keep you updated if we hear anything about Samuel. We'll also keep you posted on our progress in raising the funds needed to bring him home. Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts, for all your support!





"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable-if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me- put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you." (Phil.4:8-9)