Mary Jewel Powell

 With overflowing joy 

and hearts filled with praise to our Lord, 

we would like to introduce you to our daughter,

Mary Jewel Powell.

She is 17 months old and waits for us in Shanghai, China.

Oh, baby girl.... how we have prayed for you!!!

On Friday, March 22, Joe woke up at his usual 4 am and discovered an email we had gotten from our social worker, Karla, at around 11:00 the night before.  Subject:  Are you guys up?  The Powells?  Up at 11:00 at night?  Nope.  

But with an email like that from Karla, it didn't take us long to wake up!  We emailed her back and let her know we were excited to hear from her (we knew it could only be one thing!), and that she could call us back that morning.  I had gone to bed the night before a little down.  I had no hopes that we would receive a call the next day and the next shared list was due to come out on Monday (would have been our SIXTH shared list).  (I've shared more about my feelings about the shared list in the blog entry (previously written but never published) posted below.  I was NOT excited about it.)

We both headed off to work giddy with excitement, but a bit hesitant, cause we'd been through this before.  We knew this would be a day of lots of prayer and MANY decisions.  

Karla mentioned that she had a meeting to step into first thing, but that she'd send the file around 8:45.  Those first 45 minutes of my day were a blur.  Actually, the whole day was a blur..... I know I taught something about decimals..... but I was a mess.  Right around 9:00, Joe called to say the file had come through.  My students were in the room across the hall, so I was in my classroom alone.  I turned off the lights, pulled up my email, and, with Joe on speakerphone, saw my daughter's face for the first time. 

Oh, me.  I had braced myself to read through her file and discover things.... medical needs, delays, etc..... that would scare me to death.  Like I said, we had been through this before and it is NOT easy.  But my earnest prayer over the last few months has been ONE thing:  Lord, when it is HER, let me feel YOUR peace.  And Lord, I'm gonna need you to make it REAL clear that she's our girl.  

Can I just say how precious our Lord is?  He was so sweet to answer that prayer.  We had reviewed a couple of files before (see previous post), and there was ZERO peace.  None.  But this time?  As soon as I began reading through her file and looked at her face, I felt a peace wash over me that I can't explain.  I was calm.  I was happy.  I KNEW.  There was absolutely not ONE doubt in my mind.  Our precious Heavenly Father had made it VERY clear to me.  PEACE.  Oh, I'm so thankful for that peace!!

Joe and I talked for several minutes, then decided to give ourselves until lunch to pray separately and just soak in the enormity of this moment.... and then at lunch, we'd call Karla and accept this referral.

At 1:00, Joe and I talked to Karla and told her that this was our Mary.  This put us into a flurry of paperwork (the clock was ticking and we only had until the next day to submit our LOI.... Letter of Intent).... but again..... there was PEACE.

Joe went on with Jack Friday night to Camp Transformation with our youth group while Max and I stayed home. Joe is the paperwork whisperer, I tell you.  That boy can fill out a form and have it submitted before I can blink.  I'm so thankful for that, too!  The ONLY hiccup we encountered was not being able to find Joe's passport photo to scan. Passport?  Got it.  Just no extra pictures.  So he left Camp on Saturday morning, raced to the Rite Aid for new pictures, and we officially sent in our LOI for our baby girl on Saturday evening around 5:30.  

 I spent Friday evening printing off every piece of information we'd received on our girl and started studying her file.  I want to know EVERYTHING there is to know about her.  I've memorized her timeline of events, studied her medicals, and laughed over her descriptions.

Here are some things we know about her:

* she has a good appetite

* she is not a picky eater

* she likes to smile at the strangers

* she likes to play with the toy 

* she will "slide" over in her walker to grasp a toy

* she has a round head,  shining big eyes, and long eyelashes

*she is happy if teased or held

* she will wave goodbye and clap hands

* she has strong curiosity (I love that one!)

* she is quiet and obedient 

And our FAVORITE two things:

Her birthday, October 22, was our Log-In Date.  We were officially logged into the system in China on her first birthday!!

AND...

her given Chinese name has the initials JR.... and since we're a family of M's and J's.... we love that she has that connection to us!  

AAANNND....

her given first name in Chinese contains the word "Ryan" in it!  That's MY maiden name and Jack's middle name.  Again, a fun connection to our baby girl!

Once LOI is submitted, it usually takes two weeks for PA to come.  That's the Pre-Approval from China that you are matched with this particular child.  Well, I guess China thought we'd waited long enough.  Cause we woke up this morning to ANOTHER email from Karla saying that we'd received our PA!!  Just three days!!!

So what's next?  Well, we're in yet another waiting room.  This time, we are waiting for our LOA....Letter of Acceptance.  The average wait for this lovely document is 60-90 days.  We'll see..... Once we get LOA, we're about 8-10 weeks from travel.

Oh my!  It's getting good now!!!

Thank you so much to all of you who have been so faithful to pray with us and for us.  We have ABSOLUTELY felt those prayers.  Our God is SO good.  He was good when we were waiting.  He was good when we were sad.  He was good when this all felt like just a dream.  And He is good now on this very happy day.

He loves us.  And He loves our Mary.  

Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work in us, to Him be the glory.

Ephesians 3:20