The Cook's Adoption Journal - i.e. Journey To Emma Grace

Welcome To Our Journal

We are Jeff, Ginger, Caleb (age 10), and Emma Grace (age 3). We welcome you to our website. We began this website so that our friends and family could follow our adoption journey to Emma Grace. We continued our website so everyone could follow the happenings of our family and once again the Lord has led us to adopt an Asian angel.

Our adoption journey began in November of 2004, when we began to discuss adoption as a way to add more children into our family. We went to an informational meeting at Bethany Christian Services in January of 2005 and came away from the meeting with the domestic adoption packet. It wasn't long before the Lord showed both of us that He wanted us to adopt internationally and from China.

We began the "paper chase" in February and soon were emersed with paperwork, physicals, homestudy interviews, criminal background checks, trips to Nashville for fingerprinting, and much, much more. After many months of hard work, we were excited to have all of our paperwork completed & sent to be translated into Chinese.

We were thrilled to have a LID (Log In Date) of 8/31/05 and began counting down the months until Emma Grace would join our family. Even though the "wait time" between LID and receiving our referral continued to draw out, we constantly reminded each other that the Lord put us on this path of adoption and in His time we'll receive our referral.

We received our referral of Emma Grace on November 30, 2006, just one day after Jeff's birthday. We were thrilled to finally see the picture of the daughter God had chosen for us. We continually praise the Lord, "Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!" 2 Corinthians 9:15.

We felt led by the Lord in the fall of 2008 to once again begin praying about adoption. In April of 2009 we announced to our family and friends that we would be adopting again but this time from Taiwan. Even before our announcement the Lord was already at work. One of our prayer requests was that the Lord would show us which adoption agency we should use for adopt Sara Elizabeth. Bethany Christian Services who we used for Emma Grace didn't do adoptions through Taiwan. We were pleasantly surprised to get an emal from Leah stating that just that week that we had made our announcement, Bethany had incorporated an agency out of Kansas City who did adoptions from Taiwan. Bethany would begin adoptions through Taiwan. Leah wanted to know if we wanted her to inquire on our behalf and we answered "Yes". We are so thrilled to once again be working with Bethany as our adoption agency. Isn't it great that God answers our prayers!

Even though the adoption process is a little different in Taiwan; all of the same forms in regards to physicals, homestudy interviews, criminal background checks, reference letters, and much more were the same.

We are so excited that our dossier arrived in Taiwan on September 22, 2009 and we now wait. We are reminded in scripture of what the Lord says in Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." We appreciate your prayers during our journey to Sara Elizabeth!

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