This Adoption journey just keeps getting better

For those of you just joining us. Let me tell you our story rather quickly. We are a family of 5 almost 6 that God set us on this journey called adoption 11 years ago now! We watched and waited and prayed and watched some more as we began to fall more in love with those sweet Asian faces with the almond shaped eyes. There is a lot to all those years of waiting but just know God prepared us in every single way possible to begin the journey we are on now. He built up our faith SO strong that when He finally said "GO" this past summer we did not hesitate one bit! There have been some road blocks along the way even since He said "GO" but we just kept trusting Him to get us through. Some were to the point of "this journey may not be seen till through the end" BUT GOD! Oh when those words appear in scripture you know big things are going to happen!! 

We trusted and we watched Him show off time and time again!! When others said: 

"you aren't worthy enough,"

"this will not happen,"

"be prepared for a no"

"are you sure you really want to do this?"

"I just don't understand why you are doing this."

"aren't you too old?"

"it's really expensive."

"you already have kids"

and the list goes on.... we said God called us to this! Told us with His own voice and reaffirmed it over and over again for 10 years, THIS is exactly what we are supposed to be doing! But still the hurdles came and the mountains looked steep from where we were. We just kept knocking on those doors and jumping hurdles and asking God to move the mountains if this was His Will. Time after time He did just that!! Do we still have a ways to go? Why Yes! But do we trust Him with everything He has called us too? ABSOLUTELY! This journey was never about us or even or sweetheart waiting for her family. Oh we like to think it is, but it is NOT! It is about our faith and our walk and the greatness and powerfulness of a call on our lives. IT is and always will BE about HIM!!! So as another No gets put into a YES in His book we praise Him once again!!

Today after waiting a mere 30 days, others just prior to us have waited 60-90+ days we were told YES!! All of our paperwork went to USCIS (United States Citizen and Immigration Services) to see whether we were a worthy family to adopt an international child. Let me tell you, our past is not perfect in the worlds eyes. We fought tooth and nail to be honest and try and divulge everything we could. There was one thing forgotten and finding that out before we got all the way to immigration both freed us and frightened us. Because that forgetting could have been our NO! And that NO could have been the end to our journey. Sounds simple to fix but it is NOT when you are looked at with a fine tooth comb through a looking glass. Again we are SO thankful that God's answer continues to be YES!

There is always extra paperwork to send to backup what the mistake was. I was tired of paperwork, tired of being exposed, tired of all the judgement. BUT I would do whatever it took to bring our daughter home. So we asked God that if it was His will, that this process go fast and we would loved to be approved and would LOVE not to have to send MORE paperwork in to explain even more of what they already had in our packet. My Spirit was calm as I prayed but as the wait got closer to a possible time that our file would be assigned to an officer I began to doubt. I became afraid and began to worry. Just this morning I asked God to forgive me for all that and He reassured me with one of my favorite bible verses! Jeremiah 29:11 our adoption verse I like to call it!

I had peace after that. It was like He just smiled GREAT BIG at me! I finished up my quiet time and went about my day. Bud had just got home from work and we were talking. I got a ping on my phone that I had an email. Earlier in the morning every ping made me nervous, but this one I didn't think anything about. I hit the button and there in my inbox was the words NBC HAGUE (the dept that handles adoptions for immigration) I clicked on it without even thinking and these words appeared.....Good morning. Your file was approved yesterday!! Have a great day!!! YESTERDAY!! WHAT!!! I expected, "Your file has not been assigned an officer yet, or we need more paperwork or blah blah blah blah blah, but the words APPROVED totally did not register. It took me a whole second to start screaming my husbands name!! He was 5 feet away from me not even kidding! I just kept repeating his name in this sing son voice over and over again!! Ok maybe I was screaming with excitement! He comes over and says what? I said LOOK!!!! And began to JUMP up and DOWN laughing and praising Our GOOD GOD who always has a YES when we follow His plans!! I have been on cloud 9 all day long! It was not just a, "this MIGHT be something you will have a yes on in the FUTURE." It was an ABSOLUTE YES you ARE qualified and you ARE worthy to be a parent to an international adopted child! We just kept praying that their Yes would line up with God's YES and the two collided today!!!! 

We are so thankful that His plans are far greater than our plans! We know what Satan intended for evil, God intended for good!! We will trust Him on this journey as we are one step closer to our baby girl!! This is a huge leap forward and in a matter of weeks our dossier will be ready to send to Ch*na! But that my friends is another blog!! Please continue to pray for our family and for our little girl. She has had a few of her friends adopted in the last few months and I am sure she might be wondering where her family is. We still have tons of funds to raise so stay tuned for fundraisers and ways you can help us bring her home! We are so thankful for each of you following along and praying for us on this journey and for those who have truly stepped up and are walking this journey with us!! It is not easy but it'll all be worth it when we get to hold our sweetheart in our arms and tell her how Jesus got her home!! We love you Ladybug!! Momma and Daddy are coming just hold on!! Please continue to follow along as we give God all the praise and glory and watch this journey unfold. All for Your Glory Lord!! All for Your Glory!!

Lots of love and Ladybugs :)

We have a daughter! Part 2

After getting our girls file in our email and waiting patiently for Bud to get home, we opened up what would change our lives!

We began looking over her file and talking and praying. Our girl was in jeopardy of her file being sent back to Ch*na so we needed to make a decision on all this information given whether God was telling us she was ours or not. The file could be sent back any day and without putting it on hold or locking it in there may be no way to find her again. So we took the weekend, seemed like a very long weekend to me, to decide. At first we discussed in full but then we just needed time on our own and then together and then again on our own to see what God was saying. By Sunday night I was sure she was ours. My beloved however needed more time. He left for work Sunday afternoon and my heart was heavy. I just pleaded with God to speak to his heart and make it clear what His Will was. I truly felt the spiritual battle going on in my heart. Bud promised to pray and just seek what it was the Lord was telling him. I gave him the time needed.

Monday morning rolled around and I needed to get some professionals to take a look at her file. I needed to know what we would be dealing with if/when she was ours. So I got on the phone to specialists and then close friends who had friends with medical knowledge. The weird thing was I didn't care to much about what they said in making this decision. I knew in my heart she was ours. I did care however for their opinion on how we would take care of her when we got home. People always told me that once you know the child is yours, the special need won't matter, and won't be what you see. They were right!!

I got a few answers from some medical personnel, but the info I needed from our local children's hospital was not forthcoming quickly. We knew we were in a time crunch to decide but we were trusting God in all this. Bud was still undecided, lots of things on his heart. By Tuesday morning I just said "Honey what is God telling you?" He asked what it took to lock her file in, I said we needed to decide first if she was ours! That was his way of saying, "Honey I think she is ours." So we called our agency and said please put her on hold while we gather (even more) paperwork for her LOI (Letter of Intent) to adopt her. The clock began to tick quickly we had 72 hours to be sure AND to gather all this paperwork.

Being that we are towards the end of our Home Study there was a few things left to do that we hadn't done yet because of timing. But now all of a sudden those things needed to be done within 72 hours. One place we needed copies of something, their computers were down. Then we called our dr's to see if we could get our medical's and found out (without a prior letter from them) that the practice had disbursed! Just as we thought "OK, maybe she isn't ours" our agency called and said that since we were healthy adults that we just needed a letter signed saying that and could get the medical later, as well as a letter to replace the one needed from the place that the computers were down. Just like that God made the impossible POSSIBLE! Oh how he loves us! I stayed up till late that night filling out these pages of paperwork in order NOT to loose our daughter. Sent them to our Case Worker and fell into bed tired but at peace. I would have to wait till the next morning to see if I had done it right!

Email in my inbox Wednesday morning said "We have sent off your LOI for this sweet little girl" now to wait for PA (pre-approval) from Ch*na saying it was OK to move forward with this adoption and that yes indeed she was our girl! Agency said 2 weeks, so we settled in! We weren't in a hurry but knew waiting was just part of this whole thing. You always seem to hurry and wait. We had another Home Study visit the following Wednesday and spoke with our Social Worker about the waiting. She had recently adopted and said it took the full two weeks to get her PA back, and not to be anxious. I thanked her for her knowledge and her help along the way! We truly are blessed with an amazing Agency and Social Worker for our Home Study! Many of you who have adopted in our area have had the same Social Worker so you know what I mean! She is simply heaven sent! Grateful for her!

The following day I was at a sweet friends house doing what I love to do every week, and Bud was at work driving his long drive home. He happened to call me and asked if I had gotten an email. I said "No, should I've?" He said "You better check your email then call me back." I said "OK? is everything alright?" He said "Just go check!" So I hung up but before I could get to the email I had a voice mail. I clicked on the voice mail and the sweetest voice on the other end of the line said words that would change my life forever and bring me to my knees in tears and praise! My caseworker said "Hi Tammy I just wanted to let you know we have received your PA from Ch*na!! Congratulations you have a daughter!!

I was in tears, I could NOT stop crying! I had prayed for this day for 10 years and just like that they said YES! We knew God had already said Yes but we had to get through her country's list of qualifications! I called Bud (still in tears) he couldn't read his email because he was driving. So of course when he answered he was concerned. He asked, "What happened? Is everything ok?" with anxiety in his voice I could tell he was concerned. I mustered the words through tears and sobs "We have PA!" and the reaction from my husband was priceless! His step of faith just one week prior allowing God to do whatever it was He asked of us, came back with a "THANK YOU JESUS" from my husbands lips as loud as he could! He was so happy and giddy and just kept repeating those words. See what happens when you follow His will! He was not able to be home that night but we celebrated with joy here and Chinese food!!

So without further anticipation and with much joy, may I introduce you to the newest member of our family! Waiting for us to finish all this paperwork and to bring her home!! Our second daughter and our fourth child......Our Ladybug Abigail Hannah.......

 Abby!!!!

The journey has only begun! Please join us in celebrating our good God and all He has planned for us! Praise Him with us for our littlest sweetheart!! We are smitten! We have found out she LOVES music and is very shy and quiet. Once she gets to know you they tell us she is a happy girl. She loves it when people smile and doesn't like it when people are serious! I can live with that! We are a pretty happy family! Sounds to me like she is going to fit right in!!! And Abby makes 6 Tatertots!!! We would love it if you would walk this journey with us! Oh what great things The Lord has planned! Don't miss it!! 

Totally blessed and feeling very thankful!

Lots of love and Ladybugs :)

The Journey Begins!!!!!!!

Boy have I been waiting to say that for a LONG time!

I can announce with such joy and happiness that our adoption journey has begun! I have been praying and asking God for a long time to open doors and show us His Will to lead us down His path! He never ceases to amaze me! Things didn't go as we thought they should in the beginning because...well God didn't want us to go that way. So after prayer and much investigation we have followed His path and are moving full steam ahead with this adoption!!

I love that after 10 years of waiting and praying and watching. God picks the perfect time to say "Go"! This journey will not be without turmoil or frustration. But I know that the end will far outweigh everything we will face in the journey! We literally will hold His promises in our arms! To say we are excited is an understatement! We are over the moon!!

Our application has been sent in, a few fee's have been paid. We have done some preliminary paperwork and it gives us great joy to share with you an adoption term we have learned over the years because now our Homestudy begins! We are.....

which simply means we will begin gathering all the paperwork necessary (and its a LOT) to bring our daughter home to her forever family! God has not revealed who she is to us yet but we will be sure to share that with you as soon as we are able to. There are rules and all! But we are so giddy rules aren't bothering us at all! So come along with us on our journey to bring home our Ladybug!! We are in love with her already and do not even know her yet!! So thankful again for God's timing! Pay attention you never know what He may be asking you to do! No matter what it is just "Do Something!"

Join us on our journey as "baby" makes 6!

Lots of Love and Ladybugs!! :)

The Tarter Family! 

Teresa Bartlinski; What I learned from a Princess!!!

Teresa Bartlinski is a little heart warrior Angel adopted by the Bartlinski family. If you are on adoption blogs, or heart blogs I am sure you have heard of sweet little Teresa. Teresa's diagnosis in the orphanage was terminal. This sweet little one was born with "half a heart". Without proper care in the orphanage she should not have lived. BUT GOD, (don't you love it in the Bible when it says "but God? means He has more planned) had a wonderful plan for sweet little Teresa "Fang Fang". She was in Half the Sky orphanage and they were taking wonderful care of her but they could not give her the care she needed. All Teresa ever asked for was a family of her own, and she was determined and strong willed enough to fight to get that family. Half way across the world, the Bartlinski's heard of Teresa's plight, and was drawn to her. They prayed and asked for guidance, but all the guidance they needed was placed in their hearts by God. They knew little "Fang Fang" was to be their daughter. They were warned that she may not even make the flight home, her situation was so dire. However, those people did not know little Teresa the Princess Heart Warrior! She fought and she made it home with her forever family! Did I mention Teresa has 8 brothers and sisters?! 4 of which were special needs adoptions from China as well. Boy did she have a beautiful family waiting on her!! They all loved her very much! She fought through lots of surgeries and her  health issues were worse than they knew. Not only did Teresa need a new heart, but new lungs as well. A transplant would be critical, but dr's were afraid her little body could not handle a double transplant of both lungs and heart. One day last month God did a miracle in sweet little Teresa!

Her lungs somehow healed enough to be able to have the single transplant of her new little heart! Teresa was excited! She and her family took her packed bags and headed off to the hospital!

Teresa's whole life was a miracle and now they were asking God to do another miracle. Sweet little Teresa needed to have this heart work. 

But that wasn't the case, her "hero heart" was rejected. But Teresa fought on! She was bleeding and needed transfusions and her little chest cavity was just too small. The doctors decided that since her body had rejected this heart that she needed to be added to the top of the donor list again. In the mean time she needed to have her "hero heart" removed and put in the artificial berlin heart. Her Mommy's blog really tells this whole story in detail about all the fighting she did and how strong willed Teresa was. Here you can read the complete story. Her blog is Our Place Called Home. People all over the world prayed for Teresa last Monday when the berlin heart was being transplanted. We knew this could be it, exactly what she needed! Teresa was a Princess! Wore her Princess Teresa crown and ball gowns everywhere! So that day we all changed our profile pictures to something with Teresa on it, or something like this

to let her family know we were all praying and we wouldn't stop fighting for our little Princess and her heart!

Our sweet little Teresa fought and fought but her little body just could not handle it anymore. Teresa rode her  Princess bike without oxygen into the arms of Jesus on July 1, 2013 at 3:23 pm. Oh but she loved her Jesus! She knew Him and had accepted Him into her heart and life when she was just four years old! So Teresa had much joy knowing she would meet her Jesus one day! That day came sooner than anyone wanted. We know that she is safe and secure in His arms and that brings everyone comfort!

Now let me tell you what Teresa has done in my heart! I prayed for this little one for so long and asked others to pray for her as well. I knew she was a fighter! I never met her personally and don't know her parents but through her Mommy's blog and her video's and stories of Teresa I fell in love with her! Never have I prayed so drastically for someone I didn't know or hadn't met. I just felt God moving saying, keep praying! So I did! I am also a member of a group on Facebook that asked for prayers for this sweet one. I have to tell you I just watched God do some amazing things through this little one! Over 5,000 people were praying for her all over the world! Only God can use an orphan to bring together SO many people. It did not matter race, or religion or nationality, we just all prayed! And when Ann told us that Teresa went home to be with Jesus, I cried! My heart was broken. How could someone so little I have never known get into my heart like that? Only through our Jesus! She also put an urgency on my heart about our own adoption. Life is too short, kids need families. Some kids are in dire situations and need us to help them get the medical attention they so desperately need! We cannot stand by and let these children die when sometimes simple medical care is all they need. Won't you join us in advocating for these sweet ones?! Every child deserves a forever family just ask Teresa Bartlinski! See how much her family made a difference in her life, and even more important how much she made a difference in theirs! Imagine what she is doing for the Kingdom! Teresa we "Won't forget about you" sweet one! We love you MORE!!! Your whole life was a miracle!! 

In loving memory of Teresa Bartlinski the Little Princess Warrior who now resides with our King!

Lots of love and Ladybugs :)

While In The Waiting

I guess I have been absent for awhile! Well I am back and instead of catching you up I am just going to go forward. I have decided that I need to put down what God has been telling my heart before I forget. Because we are a very forgetful people. He blesses us, we praise Him, then we forget! We have this awesome God who takes care of all our needs but when we get into this mess of "life", we forget what He has brought us through. So I am going to try and blog as much as possible because I do NOT want to forget His goodness!

The hubby and I are moving in a direction that we truly see God's hand in. He has brought us through some things these past few months that we have been fighting our whole marriage. Just junk, you know the kind, the stuff you THINK you are stuck with. He just got a hold of us and said, it's time to let me have it and move forward in a positive way. Oh how HE loves us!! It's not an easy journey but its one that needed to be done. Is any journey worth doing, easy? It is preparing us for MUCH bigger things!! :)

As you all know we sponsor this sweet little girl Hope at An Orphan's Wish that we are just crazy about. Every time we get an update our hearts soar. We continue to pray that she will find her forever family and that her life in the orphanage will end with a beautiful family to love her. That has been our prayer through everything she has gone through. She is sure growing beautiful!

I had just read an update to my hubby and showed him her updated photo's late one Saturday night and he smiled sweetly at her in that fatherly kind of way, and said she is adorable. The next morning while standing in church our pastor had mentioned that if anyone felt a burden or needed to pray about something to just come down front to one of our pastors. We began to sing our worship music and my family really loves to worship, but something wasn't right with the hubby. He just stood there kind of still and wasn't singing a word. He whispered something in my ear that I could barely hear. He said I think we need to pray for Hope. I said sure but we always pray for Hope. He said "I know just pray with me." Which he is pretty quiet about his prayer life, not one to just bust that out. So him, our daughter and I stood right there by our seats and prayed. But the words he prayed were not just any words. They were direct words from God. Now we are continuing to pray to see where this leads. But the hubby didn't even remember praying these words. Our daughter and I heard them clearly. He prayed, "Lord, I want to pray for Hope, that you would find her family and bring her home to them, I know in my heart that she is our daughter ( my ears perked WAY up and I began to weep) Lord we ask that you move whatever obstacles that may be in the way so that one day we may adopt her...and his prayer went on, he asked in the mighty name of Jesus and we closed the prayer. But he was NOT done! He felt such a burden that he went down front and prayed with one of our pastors. Now you have to know something. He is a quiet man about these sort of things, we talk privately and when he needs to share in Sunday School he does, but he is not one to share something like this unless he is sure! I was so emotionally excited that he got a word from God. He went down front and the pastor he prayed with actually is an adoptive dad himself. Only God friends only God!! They prayed for Hope and all that may entail. God is SO good! We do not know God's plan, but we don't have too. We just have to listen and follow it when he reveals each step.

Adoption has been burdening me a lot lately. The horrible news that came out of Russia broke my heart! So I have felt this urgency, about so many things about adoption. Ever since my hubby heard from God, I have been bombarded once again with things about adoption and so has he. This time feels different. After the storm we have been through and coming out with God's help this feels different. I am praying daily for wisdom to seek His will. That is what we want HIS will. It has been HUGE things everyday for the past two weeks. From people that you would not expect the word "adoption" to come out of their mouths. It makes my laugh out loud at God, going look I can use those people too! He is SO good. Now we have not began anything and Hope is not even up for adoption. But I know my God can and will do what it takes to fulfill His plans. So would you pray for us? That we would just be open to His voice, that He would make things crystal clear as to what we are supposed to do. That whatever He asks, we will step out in faith without hesitation? We will be praying these things as well. I don't know where we are headed, I do know if God is going, we are going with Him!! One step at a time, one foot in front of the other!

Please pray for us and as our story unfolds, we will share what God is doing!

Lots of love and Ladybugs! :)

Help bring two sweet ones home

My sweet friend Stefanie over at Ni Hao Ya'll is having a wonderful drawing and giveaway to help bring TWO sweet baby girls home to their forever family. She does so much work for orphans. She helps with An Orphans Wish and Wild Olive Tee's and has 10 beautiful children and God is calling her sweet family to bring home Esther and Poppy. Hop on over to her special giveaway and see what they've been up to. I hope you can help them out, they are a wonderful family and this is a wonderful giveaway. Help her bring 2 more orphans, orphans NO MORE!!! Go check it out, run don't walk!