A Connection Made By God - Leads To A Mom Whose Cup Overflows!

Where do I start? Thanks to the amazing young woman above pictured with my daughter Olivia I sat in a puddle of tears this week with a heart overwhelmed by the goodness of God. I have to admit this time around has been hard not seeing as many photos as I did with Grace. But this day God over did himself. This young lady and her mom found me on a yahoo group. Alicia is her name and she just came home this month from spending 6 weeks at Eagles Wing with you guessed it, my daughter Olivia! She was about as excited as me to connect with Olivia or as she knows her Gao Jing's momma. Alicia connected with my little one right away and found it hard to leave so to come home and find out who her forever family was had her overwhelmed as well. Truly a God thing!

Not only did she live with and love on and play with and spoil my little girl she was also the photographer during September and October so has photos and videos that she has shared with me...I tell you photo after photo that I saw and video after video my heart was swelling folks! I was falling more and more in love with her.

So let me share with you some of the photos and then I will share the videos later and a little bit more about the personality of my little Olivia through the eyes of Alicia, one of God's angels sent this side of heaven!

This is Olivia wearing the outfit we had in her Halloween Care Package. Alicia got to give it to her. Olivia does not yet know she has a mommy and daddy. She thinks this was from her American sponsor and was very excited opening it. About a month before we travel, Donna at Eagles Wing, will tell her all those boxes that came were from her mommy and daddy that are coming for her. She will also read her the letters we wrote her and share with her the photo album. Donna can't wait for that day, but her best interest right now is for Olivia (she is another one of Olivia's angels) and knows to tell her too soon would be too confusing and cause her to be too anxious.
Alicia took Olivia and a couple other kids out for ice cream. It was tough to find in China but she was determined. From the looks of Olivia's face I would say she liked it!

Is that a beautiful smile or what?

My silly girl

I would say she is gonna fit right in our family wouldn't you?

Beautiful - and I think she likes that bear

Look at that gorgeous smile!

Of course it wouldn't be a picture from China without the peace sign and a bowl of mystery food

Crazy, silly girl

Jiaozuo Orphanage

Jiaozuo Orphanage

Jiaozuo Orphanage

Our Ministry Is Now Up and Running

I wanted to let you know that our ministry website is now complete and I wanted to
invite you to go check it out, take a look around. You have heard me share my
heart, passion and what I believe God’s call on my life is related to reaching
out with a message of hope. I pray it will touch you in some way and speak to
you right where you are at.

www.oaksofrighteousness.info


We will have our first women’s retreat March 30-April 1, 2012. We are so excited about it
and all God has in store. If you are interested or know someone who would be
blessed by it, please sign up or encourage others to sign up soon. You can now
register and pay through pay pal via our website to hold your spot. We are
wanting the retreat to be personal, intimate time and are therefore limiting
registration to 22 women. We will also be doing a second retreat later in the
fall, October 2012.

Let me know if you have any questions as you take a look around and please be praying for us
we embark on this journey of faith.

Blessings,
Dawn Fisher

Its Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas!

Well I actually took NO pictures at Thanksgiving, instead I just enjoyed the time with family and it was great! I so enjoy this holiday because we just get to "BE" with each other. Then me and my mom and sister hit the stores on Black Friday at 5:00am. It is annual tradition and we have so much fun. We enjoyed shopping, good food and ended our afternoon with pedicures to tend to those tired feet. We also laugh til it hurts! I love my family. Even managed a girls night out Saturday night with a good friend who was in town from Florida so us girls had to take advantage of that. Our weekend is coming to a close but not before we did our decorating for Christmas. The Fisher house is now all decorated. We get to sit back and just enjoy it now - my most favorite part! I will tell you though this year was the first time I didn't put any, did you hear me - NOT A ONE - ornament on the tree. The kids did it all themselves! Grace was very into it this year - it blessed this momma for sure. And Guy did a great job of getting all the lights up outside. I love this time of year!

Jonathon was the one who started it all when he asked if he and Grace could decorate the tree - of course was my response!
The he even went outside and helped dad

One of Grace's favorite parts - putting the hooks on the ornaments and handing them off to be hung - Jonathon loved this because we hate to put hooks on.

Her response here - the sun is in my eyes - (when the flash went off)

Oh course what is decorating the tree without taking a candy cane for yourself

About half way in Christian decided he would help

And right before they were wrapping it up Logan joined as well

Not to shabby I would say they did very well....

Final Care Package On Its Way

Olivia's final package is all together and will be on its way to her this week just in time for Christmas! Next time we bear gifts we will do it in person! Wahoo!

It has been a busy second half of the week with all our LOA papers and the second set of papers for Travel. So all documents are completed there and notarized. Now just to get our certified check this week to wire our orphanage fee and doctor to complete form releasing Grace to travel with us and these will be mailed to our agency this week too!

Still seems a little weird to me that my oldest, Jonathon, is working. All his training is complete and he is officially flying solo. He really seems to like it, but I am not seeing him so much. He has worked all weekend and was in bed by 8:30 last night exhausted and knew he had to get up and do it again today. He likes life guarding though and is really excited about earning the money and it gets him out from behind the xbox with all that spare time so think it is a good thing. Just missing him some...

Can you see three little, but amazing letters - L-O-A!!!!!!!!!!!

WAHOO! Today is an amazingly wonderful day! We got a call this afternoon from our agency and we got LOA! Wahoo, big celebrating here. This is one HUGE milestone in our waiting journey for Olivia. This was a 56 day wait from being logged in to China on Sept 21 to today, formally receiving our LOA!

What this means is that China is officially accepting us to be Olivia's parents!! For those that are unfamiliar with the process, this is one of the biggest steps in this process.

So at this point it looks like we should travel to China in February. Less than 3 months away!

A MUST WATCH!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otUn6LmXYd8&feature=player_embedded

Watch this video please. It will touch the depth of your heart I guarantee you. It was shot at Eagles Wing where Olivia is at. It is a message of hope. I am so thankful God has placed her at such a wonderful place to wait for us. I am so thankful even now he has called forth his destiny, his hope and his TRUTH over her!

An Oldie But Goodie..

Eagles Wing where Olivia is, just got through raising money to provide Christmas for all the eaglets. Each child will get called by name to come sit on Santas lap and talk to him and then will receive a gift picked out just for them based on their interests and needs. This was a shot they posted of Olivia last year after receiving her baby stroller. I can't wait to have her home! I am so thankful though until then she is receiving the love of the ladies like Donna at Eagles Wing.

Congratulations Logan on Making A/B Honor Roll

Logan was so excited and worked so hard this quarter so A/B Honor Roll was well deserved. He was actually only 1 point away from A honor roll with a 92 in Math. Way to go Logan! It was also a nice short week for the boys with two days off, Election Day and Veterans Day.

It was a very busy week. Mommy celebrated a birthday (the 7th, I was born on election day so my Mom always thought I would be a politician....sorry mom, it just wasn't in the cards!)

Logan is fighting impetigo...this kids is killing me with his picking and picking and picking..did I mention he was a picker. It lands this boy infections like impetigo and staff infections. Any suggestions for how to stop a 10 year old boy from picking I mean from scabs, to bumps, to his nails and a thumb sucker still so hands are all the time in mouth...bless him if we could break this it would be some real celebrating!

Christian went for 2 week followup on his broken collar bone. It is healing, but still not healed of course. we are looking at 8 more weeks until restrictions are released. He is dying to get out on that baseball field again. It will take 2-3 years for that collar bone to be healed completely - crazy!

So yes we have had our fair share of doctors appointments and orthodontist visits and so on and so, life as we know it.

Jonathon has finished his training and Great Wolfe Lodge and will formally be flying solo as a lifeguard this week. He seems to really like it. He is my control freak, bossy child - the oldest. Not sure where he gets it from...ha! So anyway this is the perfect job for him. I said oh my you get to pace the place and call people out all day and blow the whistle and tell them what to do - perfect job for you. You get paid to tell people what to do and to require them to obey the rules. He laughed oh yeah, I have power and I like it...oh my!

Basketball season has started and Logan had his basketball clinic this morning. So won't be long and we will be on the sidelines cheering him on.

And yes we are STILL WAITING ON LOA FOR OLIVIA...TODAY IS DAY 52 OF OUR WAIT.....I just know it has to come this week. Stay tuned you will know as soon as we do...believe me I will be letting out a big scream!

11-11-11 - God Bumps

So if you will remember in a post a couple months ago I talked about how God had shown me 11-11 everywhere on the clocks, you name it for a bout a year and half. I didn't know what it meant but knew as long as it was it had to have some significance. I let it go and resolved that if God wanted to tell me he would in his timing.

Fast forward to a couple months ago as I set down to write Olivia's prayer out for her prayer quilt square. As I began to type I heard God say, "are you ready for me to tell you the significance of 11-11". Are you serious of course I am? He told me to flip to Isaiah 11:11. To summarize it says "I will stretch my hand out a second time to the land to reclaim the remnant of my people". Okay here this....he knew I needed to know that I know that I know that Olivia was ours and that she was part of God's plan. He needed me to know that I know that I know. But he couldn't' reveal it to me then it would have made no sense. Hear that "word" a second time to the land - our second adoption to China...Now a remnant I knew meant a small piece. I thought oh a small piece of our family we are claiming her, He is bringing her home. God so oh no honey, look up remnant...aer you ready for this? It means 1/6th. She is our 6th child!!!! I was literally weeping like that big cry where you can't breath, totally overwhelmed at the goodness of God.

So here we are today 11-11-11. I knew this but for the moment had forgotten. It was today that Kelly and I went to the fabric store to get the reset of the fabric I needed to bring to the quilter for Olivia's quilt. We are picking out fabric and I go to get it cut and pay and the notice wow it gotten crowded and a line up here quick, I said something to the lady at the counter as she was ringing me up. She said yes it is 11-11-11 oh yeah I remembered. Interesting I thought the day I buy the rest of her fabric for the prayer quilt...I just smiled. She said and you are buying the fabric at the 11 o'clock hour - wow I said, (she had no idea the significance) and we are doing a sale for anyone who buys fabric on 11-11-11 in the 11 o'clock hour - they get 11% off. Are you serious? God has such a sense of humor. Of course I shared our story, she was overwhelmed with what she called goosebumps, I call Godbumps.

Finally Getting Around to Posting the Rest of Halloween Photos

So Grace celebrated her first Halloween as a pre-schooler with friends. She enjoyed lots of goodies and a fun time. You can tell below the story is "interactive"!

Halloween we enjoyed with a couple friends. She loved the whole concept.