How great is our freedom

We had a fantastic sermon today in church. One of our pastors, Pastor Dave, spoke about freedom. He made an excellent point in saying that for us to truly appreciate our freedom we need to know the depth of our potential bondage. His main focus was about our freedom in Christ and used Paul's words in Romans 7:24 to illustrate the magnitude of sin. In Romans 7 Paul writes about the inner turmoil that takes place with his sinful nature. He writes, "Why do I do the things that I do not want to do, but yet do not do the things I know that I should." In verse 24 he writes, "What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?"

All of the many times that I have read this verse I honestly had no idea what body of death meant. After conducting some research on this term this is what pastor Dave concluded. At the time that Paul was writing many different empires had very creative ways of execution. All of them are gory in nature and I won't gross you out by mentioning them, but one way was called Body of Death. (Let me warn you about this next part. It is a little stomach turning.) I forget who used this form of execution, but this is how it went. If a person was sentenced to death, they would take a very long rope and a corpse and place the corpse directly in front of the condemned so that they were face to face. They would then wrap the rope around the two many times so that it was tight. The condemned would be forced to live this way 24/7. After many weeks the condemned would finally die. It was a horrible, painful and gruesome way to die.

So let's go back to Paul's writing, "Who will rescue me from this body of death?" Paul was in such turmoil about his fleshly nature -sin nature- that he compared it to the body of death. In meditating on this for awhile I think he was right on the mark. Sin is the corpse that will enslave, and without the freedom of Christ, be the cause of our spiritual death. But then , and this is my favorite part, Paul writes in 25, "Thanks be to God-through Jesus Christ our LORD." Just writing this makes me cry. Can I get an AMEN!

Although I didn't know it at the time, I was suffocating from the weight of living for myself and allowing my desires rule over me. God saw me in my pit and when I finally called out to Him, he rescued me. He cut the ropes that bound me to my death sentence so that I could be free. If Christ has set you free you are free indeed.

Kids in the corn

Here are Amelia, Joshua and Abigail standing in the corn field behind Mammy's and Pa's house. Ever since I was eight until my early 20's this has been my view outside the back door.People keep talking about developing that area someday, but I hope they don't. At least while my mom and dad live there. Not every kid gets to walk in a field of corn.

Hi All

Here is a picture of Amelia and her new bike. She has named it Flicka after the horse on the movie of the same name. By the way that is a really great movie.

Amelia is in love with horses and asks us at least once a week if we can get one. I won't tell her this, but I have thought about it. With gas prices, riding a horse drawn buggy might not be a bad idea. The Amish do it.

My Super Man

This is my Super Man!

I call him my Super Man because there are not to many things that he can't do. Like the real Super Man who had a weakness, David has one too and that is cooking. He loves to eat it, but he is not to skilled at making it. When Daddy cooks I will hear the kids cheer and say, "Yea! Pizza!" I guess that that is another way we are a good match.


In this picture David is teaching Amelia how to fly.
I think he needs a little more practice.


Hug your man today.

Jenny

Time Line

Hi All,

After sharing our exciting news I have had a couple of people ask, "So when do you go pick him up?" I thought that I would write today and include a time line. This is going to be a little rough because I am not sure that I understand it fully myself, but here it goes.

Now that we have accepted a referral these are the next steps.

First: We need to make an addendum to our dossier. We have been cleared by our government to adopt a child with special needs of the age of 0-12 months. Jonathan is now 16 months and so David and I with the help of our social worker will work with the immigration office to make that change.

Second: Our dossier will be sent to China. Then after the CCAA (China) receives all of our paperwork our dossier will wait an undetermined amount of time before being transferred into the "match" department. Match means that we have been matched with a child.

Third:The CCAA will then issue a Letter of Seeking Confirmation from Adopter to us via Holt. This letter basically asks, "Are you sure you want the little man?" Holt will mail this letter to us via Fed. Express. We will then sign it and return it to Holt and then they forwarded to China.

Fourth: The CCAA usually issues travel approvals 2-5 weeks after receipt of the confirmation letter. After Holt receives our travel approval they will schedule our appointment at the US Consulate (I think in China.) and notify us of our travel dates.

Fifth: I am a little foggy on this part, but I think that this is when we buy tickets, pack and prepare to meet our little Jonathan. The time between that we receive our travel dates until we actually travel I am not sure, but again I think that we will be leaving around Novemberish.

Oh I almost forgot. During this time we need to raise funding. With everything going on I keep forgetting that part.

Have a great night.
Jenny

We Have A Son!

Hi All,

Well yes it is true we have a beautiful 16 month old son named Hong Jun Peng. His name means Red Truthful Drum beats. I looked that up today. His American name will be Jonathan Junpeng Lotspeich. We are so in love with him already. Today at lunch the kids were not eating their rice because Mom put something "weird" in it. I told the kids, "Did you know that Hong Jun Peng eats rice all of the time?" Joshua thought for a second and then said "Hong Jun Peng, oh yea, that's my brother." Needless to say he is an amazing surprise. Just last Friday we received our dossier back from the Chinese Consulate after being authenticated. On Monday we sent our dossier to Holt, our adoption agency. From there we were expecting the "normal" routine of Holt sending our dossier to China and then receiving a Log In Date from China. From there we would wait what we thought would be a least a few months before receiving a referral of a child.

This is what actually happened.

We sent in our dossier to Holt on Monday. On Tuesday I went to my Concerned Women For America meeting. Near the close of our meeting David called me on my cell. This was unusual because David never calls unless something happened. Now I am thinking, "Brace yourself, one of the kids got hurt." David says, "Are you sitting down? You better sit down for this." He sounded excited so I wasn't too alarmed. Then he said, "I just got off the phone with Beth Smith from Holt and she says that they have a little boy for us." From there the rest of the day was filled with waiting for the email referral and speaking to doctors about his condition. His left foot is a club foot. After MUCH prayer, we decided to proceed with little Hong and see what the LORD does. Well you know the end result and we could not be more joyful.

With all of the additional paperwork that still needs to be done we estimate that we will travel to China around Novemberish maybe a little later or the way things are going, a little sooner. Well thats about it. Please keep us in your prayers. There are still many, many things that need to be done before China.

Jennifer

P.S. The other day I was having a low mommy day. I was losing my patience with the kids and really having a low tollerance day and thought, "Why did God call me to be a mommy to another little one, I have a hard time with my three." At that moment He spoke to my heart and said, "I do not call the equiped, I equip the called." (Your thought for the day)

Hey Everybody,
Well it is a Sunday evening at 10:00 and I have some time to sit and write. One perk of David being on a back shift I guess. Last week was a pretty big week for us in our adoption process. A week ago last Wednesday we sent in our dossier to the Chinese Consulate in Chicago to have all of our many documents authenticated. Our dossier has taken us some where around five months to work on and in it is everything from all of our certificates, birth etc, to medical information, federal background checks, fingerprints, and government certificates that took months to acquire. Needless to say putting it in the mail was a little nerve racking. Finally on Saturday we received it back with the official Chinese authenticated seal on every document. I was relieved. Now Monday morning bright and early I will be mailing it once again to the Holt office in Oregon. From there they will spend the next week or two looking it over to make sure everything is perfect and then they will send it to Beijing. After this we wait for a referral of a child and raise funding.
On a personal note, there have been many times in this process where I feel like a person walking around in a dark cave and scared of the unknown. It is at that point that my Jesus reminds me that He is my guide and He knows where we are going. There is nothing like the comfort and peace that only God can give. Let me close with a scripture because it has sustained me for the past few weeks. Philippians 4:6-7 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace that transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your mind in Christ Jesus.

Sleep Well

New bike for Amelia

Today was a very exciting day. We went to Mam and Pa's house to mow the grass (they are on a cruise) and from there went to Capp's Bike Shop to pick up David's and my bicycles. They were in desperate need of a tune up. For the last month we have been needing to get Amelia a new bike. She is growing so fast. So we have been praying about it asking God to help us meet our need at the price we can afford. He is so faithful. While we were at Capps we once again looked at the used bikes and there it was, a purple and yellow 24 inch girls bike. It needed a little TLC, but after we bought it Capps tuned it up and Daddy detailed it out. Now it looks like new and Amelia LOVES it. She is so fast now that it is hard to keep up with her. Amelia always names her bikes. Because she is so fast David and I suggested that she name it Danica after Danica Patrick the female race car driver. Well that's about it. We have VBS tonight and I have to make supper. A picture of Amelia and her new bike will appear soon.

Hey I just created a blog!!!!!

Hi Family.

It is June 9th and I am thrilled that I just created a blog.

I am going to try to add a picture. We will see how is goes.

Yea I did it!

Here is a picture of us at the Omaha Zoo. Daddy needed a little help pushing the stroller up the hill. Abbey is taking a nap. The night before was our first taste of a hotel room. Needless to say we were all a little tired. Lucky girl.

Well, I guess that is about it. Have a great day and don't let gas prices get you down. Think of it as opportunity faith building.