New Blog/Website with photos of Clara Li!

We have a new and improved blog/website thanks to the help of our friends Craig and Laura McClellan. Check out photos of Clara Li!

PhippsAdoption.com

Happy Birthday, Clara Li!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SWEET PRINCESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh baby girl, how I wish that I could squeeze you and celebrate your life with you today!! I am so thankful that God created you just the way that He did and that He has put you in our family. I know that you are perfectly and wonderfully made and I love you so deeply and completely having never even met you. My heart's desire since I very first saw your picture was to have you home before you turned 2. Well today is that day, sweet girl, and God had a different plan. I pray for you that you feel safe and celebrated today. I pray that someone will hold you close today and that you will feel special. I pray that you will receive the gifts that we sent: I pray that your blanket will keep you warm, that your new panda bear will give you something to hold and somehow comfort you when you are lonely, I pray that as you look at the pictures of your new family that you will not be scared and that you will know that we love you, and I pray that your hair bow will make you feel beautiful. I pray that you will love your birthday cake and that you will make sweet memories celebrating with your friends and nannies.

We have named you Clara Li. You are named after your mommy and it means clear or light. We felt like it was an appropriate name for you because God has been more clear about us adopting you than he has ever been at any other time in my life. He has used so many people to bring us to you, and I cannot wait to share with you all the stories of His faithfulness. Sweet girl, you have been such a light to our lives and have brought us so much joy before we have even met. I am so thankful for your life and that you were perfectly, beautifully, wonderfully meant to be!! It is such a joy to be your mommy and I love you so much!! But more importantly, sweet girl, Jesus loves you perfectly and I pray that you will feel him holding you. You are a dear, precious gift and I absolutely cannot wait to hold you and get to know and delight in all the details about you that make you you. .Clara Li Elizabeth Phipps!! Your brothers and your daddy are waiting to blow out the candles on your birthday pancakes. .they are so excited to celebrate you too!! We are coming for you sweet girI!!! We miss you little one. Much love to you, Mommy

Another Yard and Bake Sale at Fellowship Bible Church Back Barn, Nov. 5 - 6

It has been a while since Amy and I have posted on the blog. We have both been super busy, both with the adoption and in the rest of life. I'll let Amy give a more robust update, but suffice it to say that God has been really good to us! We have completed our end of the paperwork and now we are just waiting on the Chinese government to complete their end, so we can be "officially" matched with our little girl. Please pray that this happens sooner rather than later. On the fund-raising front we have we have raised around $10,000 through a few local sales and personal donations... praise God! We will be having another Yard and Bake Sale at the Fellowship Bible Church Back Barn on November 5 - 6. If you would like to donate items or to volunteer to help out with the sale contact Amy at aphipps7@gmail.com. Thanks to everyone for your continued support!

Garage Sale

We are having a yard sale/bake sale this coming friday/saturday June 25-26th and could really use your help!! Our adoption journey has progressed really fast and we have $2250 of immediate expenses to keep progressing towards our daughter. We need volunteers to work the sale, baked goods/donuts/hot dogs to sell, and lots and lots of your stuff that you don't want anymore. The sale will be in Spring Hill at Carol Schmid's house, 2981 Buckner Lane. The times of the sale are as follows: Friday afternoon, June 25th 4pm-7pm (we will sell hot dogs and hopefully catch people coming home from work), and Saturday morning, June 26th 6am-12pm. We will also need help Friday morning to organize and price the stuff. You can drop off your items to my house (1822 Portview Dr.) or Carol's house next week. Also, let us know if you need our help picking up your big items. Jonathan will have a truck Wednesday night and Thursday morning for picking up items. Please help us spread the word!! Thanks so much for your help in advance!

Sons and Daughters Album

Amy and I recently attended the Next Conference in Baltimore with a group from Inversion. It was a really good weekend for us as a couple plus we got to work on Adoption paperwork between sessions... good times!

While there I purchased the new album by Sovereign Grace music titled "Sons and Daughters". I think the folks over at Sovereign Grace write some of the most Christ-centered, God honoring music out there, and we have been listening to this album quite a bit since the conference. It just so happens that virtually every song on it is about what it means for us to be adopted in Christ by our Heavenly Father, thus the title "Sons and Daughters"... providential timing for what we are experiencing right now as a family. Anyway, you can purchase the album at the Sovereign Grace site or download it from iTunes... I highly recommend it!

The boys

Several of you have asked us about how the boys have reacted so I thought I would share a few stories. Haddon was actually with me when I first saw her picture, and he asked me who the little girl was. I told him that she was a little girl who needed a family, and we needed to pray for her. He said immediately, "mommy, why doesn't she come and live with us?" so precious!! It was during Hayes' naptime, and he didn't mention anything else about it until Hayes woke up. When Hayes woke up he said mommy show Hayes that baby girl. When I showed Hayes the picture, he just looked at me shyly and kissed the computer screen!! :) That was about a month ago, and just recently I put a picture of her on the refrigerator, and Haddon asked why his baby sister was on the refrigerator. .ha!! :) It had been a month since he had seen her picture and he saw the picture for only a brief period. .crazy what their little minds remember!! We spoke more with them before our home visit with our social worker because she needed to talk to them about it. Now they ask every time we leave the house if we are going to get their little sister!! We went to the doctor today to get some immunization records and they both cried on the way home because they thought we were bringing her home from the doctor. Their love for her is so sweet, and I pray that the wait will be as short as possible. It is so hard for them to comprehend time! They have started including her in their imaginative play, and it has been a joy to watch them bond with a little girl on the other side of the world that they have never met! Thank you Jesus for encouraging me through my kiddos!! :)

We are Adopting - The Background to our Story

We wanted to let you know that we are pregnant with a chinese toddler!!! :) Although we are early in the process, the Lord has shown himself to me more through this process than in my entire life, and we wanted to share the story of His faithfulness with you.

God started growing adoption in our hearts at the beginning of our marriage, and we have been blessed to know many adoptive families. We started praying through adopting our third child about a year ago and were sure six months ago that now was the time for us to begin the adoption process. There are many different avenues of adoption, and it was very overwhelming at first. We were paralyzed by the options and were encouraged by many people that the first step was to decide what type of child we would be pursuing (what gender, what nationality, etc). The problem with this is that we had already prayed, and we were open to the next child God had for us whoever that child might be. Since it is difficult to pursue an agency before you know these things, we decided to meet with the children's pastor at our church to seek some godly wisdom and clarity on our next step. After discussing our situation with our pastor, he gave us the name of a sweet lady in our church to talk to. I eagerly called Suzanne (the sweet lady), and she was very willing to meet with me but was perplexed as to why our children's pastor had recommended her rather than an adoptive family. They were interim-care foster parents for babies waiting on their forever families, but had never adopted. We decided to meet anyway, and I am so glad that we did because God had big plans for our meeting.

As we shared our stories, we connected on so many levels and had such a wonderful time getting to know each other while sharing our hearts for caring for orphans. I shared with her our adoption journey, our openness to the baby God would have us adopt, my background in pediatric physical therapy, etc. At the end of our conversation she told me she felt the Lord nudging her to tell us about a Chinese little girl with special needs that had been in her prayers for the past 8 months!! At that moment, I felt as though our meeting made total sense, and I could see God's timing all over it. There are so many things about our meeting that are divine to me..the timing of our meeting, our inability to pick an agency, our openess to any child, my background in PT, our earlier desire to adopt from China. It immediately felt like a very large hug from my Savior who cares so deeply for me. Suzanne and her family were sure that they were to advocate for this little girl in some way but weren't sure what form that would take. They had been thinking about adopting her but didn't have a clear answer from God yet. Both of our families, at that point, began openly and honestly praying for God's leading and clear direction, and we recently found out that they felt as though we were to be her forever family. Since that time we have been pursuing her with all our might. The Lord has been so sweet and has affirmed us on each step in the process. There are so many stories of His faithfulness that we can't share online.

At this point we cannot speak of our little girl by name or show her picture on any online public forum (our blog, facebook). We apologize, but we will communicate more details as soon as we can. In the meantime, here is how you can pray.

Please pray:

1. That her file would be released from China quickly so we could be officially matched with her.
2. That we would have discernment in how to raise the money to bring her home. We will need about $23,000 total. We weren't expecting the process to go this quickly ,however, and we will have over $3000 due in the next couple of weeks for our immigration fees and to start our dossier process. . .ahhhh!!!
3. For our hearts as we yearn to have our baby girl safe and sound home with her forever family that loves her so much!!!

Thank you so much for loving us and for being a part of this journey as we eagerly wait for our little girl!!