stuff from the world's only Derek Bonesteel
After posting video of Ava learning to walk, we watched our old video of Zoe learning to walk, so I thought I would be fair and post that as well.
It's amazing how similar they look at this age. It's also funny how they have similar mannerisms and language skills.
Just a little something I whipped up during Ava's nap.....
We made it. Its 8:30 and we are in our house and all 3 kids are in bed and fast asleep. How long they remain asleep remains to be seen, I'm sure we will be awake at some point tonight. We've been told by friends that it takes 4 or 5 nights to recover from the jet lag. Tonight is night 3 and we're praying for a miracle! Even if they wake up it will be so nice to be at our own house.
Ava lovd her room, and was really loving the crib too, until it was time to go to sleep.
Click to see some more pictures.....
It's 7:18pm on Tuesday March 13 in China (6:18am on March 13 in Houston).
13 Years ago today, Jessica and I were married! We celebrated by going to the Zoo. And the zoo was amazing! So much good video that I'll post when we get back to the U.S. Zoe even held and fed a baby Tiger!!!! I didn't get any photos, but their is some nice video of that. They let you get super close to the animals at this zoo, and we got to see Tigers
So how are Zoe and Alex doing? They are loving China! They want to move here and live in a hotel. A really nice hotel in a really nice, new part of Guangzhou. The part of Guangzhou we are staying in has all been built within the last 10 years. There are no motorbikes, no honking, and everything is very clean and well organized. It is the very opposite of Hefei.
Zoe and Alex have been amazingly helpful at times. They've pushed the stroller for us, held Ava's bottle (although she really prefers to hold it herself), fetched numerous items for us in times of stress, and been very loving towards Ava. It's been
Current time 6:27pm in Shanghai which means its 4:28am in Houston. Just having dinner even though it's almost dawn on our body clock. One more flight to catch in a few hours. Then a one hour flight.
We are at our first Gate and ready to board the first of 3 planes today. First leg is Dallas to Chicago.
We stopped for lunch on the way to Dallas at CFA.
We are super pumped to be taking our whole family to China to get our newest member, Ava.
However, it will be the longest day of our lives. Here's why...
Because of frequent flyer mile seat availability we are leaving from Dallas. We will wake up super early (4:30am) to catch an early flight (6:45) from DFW to Chicago. We have about an hour in Chicago before we board a flight to Shanghai. T
So here is the long awaited followup to our announcement about adopting our third daughter from China. We have indeed, decided to call her Ava, so barring any last minute changes of heart, that will be her name.
What follows is the story of how God has provided for all of our needs. I hope it encourages and amazes you.
International adoptions are expensive. Actually, all adoptions are expensive. I can’t personally speak to the specific expenses for any other kind of adoption. All we know is that for an American family to adopt from China through our agency, the cost comes out to roughly $22,000. This includes the travel costs for 2 people. Since this amount is nearly half of our families annual income, just entertaining the idea of adopting is a matter of faith, or lunacy. Sometimes those two things are relatively similar.
When we started praying about it in the summer of 2010 we knew that the expense would be a big challenge. Last Christmas we decided to definitely pursue adopting another girl from China. Soon after we made this decision we received some extra income that we weren’t counting on, that made paying for the first $11,000 in expenses totally doable! That was awesome.
So in January of 2011 we (mostly Jessica) started doing paperwork, filling out forms, organizing all of our official documents, and all the rest of the stuff you have to do to adopt. By August, it was all finished and sent away, we were approved, and the whole process was...in process.
By this point we had paid out roughly $11,000 in expenses. We were in Colorado on a family vacation, and Jessica reminded me that we would have start paying for the rest of the expenses pretty soon (sometime in the next year) now that the paperwork was done. She was concerned about how we were going to come up with $11,000. We had already talked about and looked into various options for ways to raise that amount, via an online fundraiser. Jessica was feeling burdened about the work to raise the money by certain deadlines. I was relatively laid back about it (I know, this sounds like a lie, but it’s true). I figured we have lots of friends and acquaintances that would be happy to donate to something like this, and we could get 100 people to give a 100 dollars, or some catchy idea like that. After discussing this for a day or two, we prayed about it.
It wasn’t a desperate prayer, or an urgent prayer, or even a very specific prayer. It was simply a prayer acknowledging that we needed help, and we were open to any kind of solution God would provide. Including a solution we hadn’t considered.
The next day Jessica received an email from one of the staff at our church, Cindi Lomax, asking if we knew anyone who was adopting from China and might need help with the expenses. Now, at this point, Cindi did not know we were adopting again. The only people who knew were our closest friends and our family. We kept it a secret for 8 months!!!! Therefore, it was totally random that Cindi happened to send us that email. Yeah, random, totally, wink, wink.
Jessica responded to her immediately, letting her in on the secret that we were, in fact, adopting from China again. She had no way of knowing that we had just prayed about our expenses in the past 24 hours.
We exchanged a few emails with Cindi, where she was a bit cryptic. She was trying to figure out what the Lord was up to. She asked us to send her an email, sharing “our heart” in the adoption process. After that she asked us to send a list of our remaining expenses, which totaled roughly $11,000.
Cindi responded, telling us that there was a family at our church that felt that God was specifically telling them to help someone bring a child home from China. Our church has quite a few adoptive families, and a clear vision for helping families who want to adopt.
However, at the time, our church had an emphasis on adopting from Columbia. So, it was odd for Cindi to hear a family say that they felt like the Lord was clearly telling them to help someone adopt from China.
A little while later she informed us that the family who was looking to help someone bring a girl home from China would help us, and that they would cover ALL the remaining adoption expenses!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We had not dreamed or imagined that someone would be willing to be so generous, or that this would be the method by which God provided.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. Ephesians 3:20-21
We are very pleased to announce that we have been matched with a one year old girl in China!
Her name is Ding Si Xiu - and she was born in Septermber of 2010. She has a cleft lip and a cleft palate. The lip has already been repaired, and we will do what is necessary to repair the palate in the next few years when we bring her back to the USA!
We think we will name her Ava SiXiu Bonesteel, but that isn't in stone yet, more like wet cement.
As best we know, we will be travelling to China to bring her home sometime in March, but that could change as well.
Pictures seen here
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We are thrilled to be matched with this little girl and our whole family is anxious and excited to travel to China and bring her home to be a part of our growing family!
Thank you so much for all of your prayers, love, encouraging words and support!
There is more to this story, and in the next few days I plan on writing it up so you can hear about God's work in our lives and his provision for bringing Ava to our family.
We are very excited and anxious to announce that we will be......
We have been working on the paperwork for the past 9 months, and we are officially logged in with the Chinese government agency that handles international adoptions. It’s been extremely difficult to keep this a secret, and some people in our family have been telling everyone they know (Zoe & Alex).
Therefore, we decided to finally go public with this exciting news!
Here are some answers to some questions we expect to receive….
1. Are you getting another girl? Yes
2. When will you get her? We don’t know. At least 6 months from now, probably longer, maybe a lot longer. We have no way of estimating or knowing until we get matched with a child. However, once we do, we will be sure to broadcast it all over the web!
3. How old will she be? We don’t know exactly, but definitely younger than our youngest daughter Alexandra (Alex turned 4 in June).
4. Will you guys go to China to get her? Yes, eventually, and we are taking Zoe and Alex with us!
5. What will you name her? We don’t know yet, but we are taking all of your hilarious suggestions in the comments.
Obviously we are very excited about this next stage in our family’s journey and we would covet your prayers for the whole process. We are excited that the Lord lead us to adoption and we can’t wait to meet our newest little one.
The Great Sand Dunes are in Colorado, not too far from the town of Alamosa. It is one of the most amazing places I have ever seen. Surrounded by mountains, from this vantage point it looks like we are in a massive desert, or on the set of a Star Wars film. Those black dots behind us are people! I want to go back early in the morning in the early summer and climb these jokers. Click on the picture to see a much bigger version.
Here is some video:
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