Court Date

We have our court date!  January 12, 2011.  Praise the Lord for His perfect timing.  We are hoping to travel mid March during spring break so the girls can go with us!  God is so wonderful!  Here is a picture of Jakeb!  Isn't he just the cutest baby boy?!  Can't wait to kiss those chubby cheeks!  We love you Jakeb Jyuan Denson! 

Wonderful Weekend

This has been the most wonderful weekend!  First of all, we drove to Leakey, Texas to visit with and have dinner with Dudley and Mona Henderson.  They are a beautiful couple who have been married for 47 years and have such a heart for the Lord.  We enjoyed great converstion with them and are so thankful that we had the opportunity to meet them in person.  Please pray for them as they are moving to Taiwan to be with their daughter and their His Hands family. 

Secondly, we received the most wonderful video update and pictures of our sweet Jakeb Jyuan!  He is an incredible baby boy and we are so blessed and honored that God chose us to raise him.  He is very loved and will grow up and do mighty things for the Lord.  We so much appreciate Sara and Cristel Hatcher for taking the time to send us this awesome video and pictures.  You can tell that they love these babies very much! 

Hope you enjoy the pictures and video as much as we do!  We love him so much and can't take our eyes off him.  Thank you Lord for creating Jakeb and thank you Jenn for giving him life!  Thank you His Hands for all you do for the Lord and the seeds that you are sowing into so many lives! 



Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing


Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing


Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

Forever Grateful

We are so thankful to our Lord Jesus and to Jakeb’s birth mother for the precious little boy that entered our lives on Tuesday, November 16th. We received the phone call from Holly & Trena around 8:25 in the evening. When we realized who it was on the other end of the phone our hearts skipped a beat and we were anxious to know what they wanted to share with us. They asked us if we were ready to be parents again and told us that we had a son who was born on October 20th. They sent us pictures of a beautiful baby boy only 4 days old. When we first laid eyes on him, we were speechless and tears started flowing from our eyes. He was the most beautiful, breathtaking baby I had ever seen. We fell in love with him instantly. Actually we fell in love with him before we even knew he existed. God connected our spirits with him and his birth mommy. Our hearts went out to her when we learned that she gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. We prayed that God would give her strength and peace as she had to make decisions about her and her son’s future. We are forever grateful to this beautiful, young lady for giving her son life and bringing him into this world. I can’t even begin to imagine the pain that she felt as she decided to make a selfless choice to place him with our family. We decided to name our new son Jakeb (given name from his birth mom) Denson. We promise to love and cherish him forever. We will always honor his birth mommy for bringing him into this world and giving him a chance to grow and to learn about the love of Jesus. We pray that Jesus would wrap His arms around Jakeb’s birth mommy and show her how much He loves her.

Jakeb Denson

It's All About You Lord

Colossians 1:16 (New King James Version)
For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.
 
Jeremiah 29:11 (New King James Version)
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Romans 11:36 (New King James Version)
For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.

Ecclesiastes 3:1 (New King James Version)
To everything there is a season,
A time for every purpose under heaven:

Proverbs 19:21 (New King James Version)
There are many plans in a man’s heart,
Nevertheless the LORD’s counsel—that will stand.

One More Stepping Stone

WOO HOO!  We received our I-171H tonight!  I am so relieved and thankful to have it in hand.  It took UCIS 3 months to get it approved!  Next stepping stone is our referral!

I Surrender Everything to Your Control

I have no words to say.  My heart longs to know the face of our baby.  Lord, I surrender everything to Your control. 

God's Divine Appointment

We received an e-mail this weekend that we believe was a divine appointment from the Lord.
This was the scripture that was shared with us in the e-mail.

"My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,' says
the Lord. 'For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My
ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts."
Isaiah 55:8-9

As you know we have been praying for several years about adopting another baby.
We didn't know when or where but God led us to His Hands last August. We were thrilled to
be placed on their waiting list and started dreaming about the baby that God had
for us. We always imagined having three girls but felt like God was calling us
to be open to either gender. We decided that if and when we received an
application, we would request either and see what God was going to do. Once we
received our application, we started thinking about the logistics of our home
and our family dynamics and decided to request a girl. It was my dream to have
another daughter so this made perfect sense. As the summer came and gone with
all the new babies at His Hands, we were sure that one of them would be ours.
When this did not happen, we prayed and asked God for peace. He then told us to
send His Hands an e-mail to find out if all the babies had families, at least we would
know and have peace as we waited for our turn.

We were so pleased to receive a response as it did bring us peace knowing
that it was not our turn yet. However we didn't expect the question to come up
that they laid before us. This is what they said.

Are you willing to accept a boy if that is what becomes available? We feel this is something that we should lay before all parents. When we receive a child biologically we do not get to choose the sex, God decides this for us. God's plan may be for you to have another girl, but if He chooses a boy, how would you feel?"

Their question sparked something in us and we went to the Lord in prayer.
We feel that God does want us to be open to what He has for us which is a baby.
He wants us to surrender it ALL to Him not just what our flesh wants.
He wants us to trust Him for the very best blessing without putting limits on Him.
With that being said, we are ready to receive a boy or girl from the Lord.
Whatever He has planned for our family we are open and willing to lay it all down bofore Him.

Meant To Be

I Love this song!  This is Steven Curtis Chapman's new video "Meant To Be" for the new Veggie Tales movie. 

I dedicate this song to my beautiful daughters! 

How Has a Child Changed Your Life?

This morning on K-Love they asked the question "How has a child saved or changed your life?"
There were many incredible stories that were shared.  I would like to share how my girls have changed my life. 

As many of you know I am half Caucasian and half Korean.  I was born in Korea and moved to the United States when I was a young toddler.  It was hard for me growing up because I never really fit in and was often teased about my slanted eyes.  This made such an impact on me as a young child that by the time I was a teenager I was ashamed of being Asian and was saving up money to have surgery on my eyes when I became an adult.  Kids use to call me Chinese/Japanese and would ask me questions like "How do you eat soup with chop sticks?  or Where are your braids?"  There were a lot more of those kinds of questions and teasing. 

Six months after Jeff and I got married, I accepted the Lord and became a Christian.  By this time as an adult I accepted who I was and knew that God created me.  As you may already know God lead us to China to adopt our first child, Myellie.  Myellie was a beautiful gift from the Lord.  She was my healing from all the experiences of childhood that were negative concerning being Asian.  When we became Myellie's parents we fell in love with the Asian culture and people.  We desired to teach Myellie about her culture and wanted her to be proud of who God has made her.  Since then we adopted Karlie and again she opened our eyes to the beautiful person that God created.  Both of my girls are proud to be Asian and they tell everyone that they were born in China and are Americans.  God has really put a burden on my heart for the people in Asia.  Many of them do not know the truth about our Lord and Savior and the ones who do know the truth cannot express their love for Jesus openly.  Many of them risk their lives just to serve Him.  I am thankful for God's love, grace and mercy and that He would send me two beautiful girls to touch my heart and to give me such a love for His people. 

First Day of School

 I remember 5 years ago after we adopted Karlie, I was planning and praying for our next child. I remember thinking that it's going to be a long time before we adopt again and that Karlie would be in Kindergarten by then. Well fast forward 5 years. Karlie started Kindergarten today and Myellie started 3rd grade. Wow, I can't believe how time just flys by. I am looking forward to this school year. I plan to enjoy each moment with my girls and look forward to meeting Katelin Hope (hopefully this year). Children are a blessing from the Lord. I am thankful that He has and is building our family through the miracle of adoption.

Labor Pains of Adoption

Today I was listening to K-Love and heard something that really made me think about our adoption journey and the emotional ups and downs that we experience with adoption. Think about what Jesus went through so that we could be adopted into God’s family. He paid the ultimate price and endured dying so that we could have eternal life. He loves us so much that He was willing to go through it so that we could receive the beautiful gift of salvation and be a son or daughter of God.

What are we willing to endure throughout the adoption process to ultimately receive the beautiful gift of a baby or child? I really had to think about this and realized that the emotional aspects of adopting are our labor pains. We fall in love with a baby or child who we haven’t even met but yet are willing to endure a mountain of paperwork, background checks, levels of approval and waiting and more waiting not knowing when your gift will arrive. This doesn’t even compare to what Jesus has done for us.

My prayer:
Dear Lord,
Thank you so much for the price you paid for me to have eternal life. I will be forever grateful that you endured so much pain and ultimately death so that I could be adopted into God’s family. I promise to not let the enemy steal my joy as I wait for your gift, Katelin Hope. I will endure waiting as you endured much more than I could ever imagine! I love you with all my heart and thank you for guiding me through this crazy and exciting life!
Amen

Today I celebrate that Jesus rose again and is alive!

Introduction

Hello Everyone!
We are Jeff, Joyce, Myellie and Karlie Denson. We are a loving family of 4 waiting for our precious daughter and sister, Katelin Hope. We are so excited about God's plan for our family. He has united our family by the miracle of adoption. We have a heart for adoption and are so thankful for God's plan for our lives. We will keep you posted as we learn more information about Katelin.

Brief History of our Adoption Story

Jeff and I have been married for 18 years. When we were first married we wanted to start our family. We tried to conceive a baby for seven years with no success so we decided to seak medical help. We were devastated after finding out we could not conceive children. One night I had a dream that an Asian family was looking for someone to adopt a one year old baby who’s mother passed away. Shortly after the dream, a co-worker brought me an article about a reunion of Chinese adopted children to be held at Seaworld. I immediately called the number listed and attended an information meeting about adopting from China. There were two beautiful babies at the meeting who just came home. I instantly fell in love and don’t even remember what was said at the meeting. I just knew that God was calling us to adopt from China. I remember getting into the car and looking at Jeff and said “I don’t know how we are going to pay for this but I know God is calling us to adopt from China". We stepped out in faith and submitted our application. A month after that, the company I worked for had a huge layoff and promoted me to "Call Center Manager" with a $1000 a month raise and this is what paid for our adoption. A year and half later, we flew to China to pick up our baby girl Myellie. She was the most beautiful and perfect baby I had ever seen and we knew without a doubt that she was our gift from God. Three years later God blessed us with another baby girl from China, Karlie. I call her my little me because she and I are cut from the same piece of cloth. My heart still longed for more children and our family didn't seem complete. We searched and prayed and four years later after pursuing many narrow paths, God lead us to His Hands, Taiwan. We are so blessed and thankful that God is allowing us to adopt again. We are excited about His plan for our family!