We know it has been a while since we have posted, but we are learning with this process, it is often hurry up and wait. We have completed everything required of us to complete our home study, and now we are waiting for it to be finalized with our social worker and working on our immigration paperwork. We went to a wonderful class at the International Adoption Clinic the end of October and gained both practical insight for when we come home as well as what to expect when traveling. We also met with the social worker over the China program at our adoption agency and just loved her. She was so helpful and encouraging. We so look forward to the point where we are matched and can see our sweet little one's face for the first time. What a blessing that will be!
We have very exciting news! Some very dear friends of ours have created a 2013 calendar that is focused on adoption. It contains BEAUTIFUL pictures of adopted children from around the world that they photographed themselves just for this calendar, as well as orphan statistics and prayer points each month for the country featured that month. They have given us the rights to this beautiful calendar to contribute financially to bringing our sweet little one home. We are so in awe of their love, generosity, and support. Thank you beyond words Mark and Buffi! We love you and your sweet family and are so happy to be on this journey with you.
You can purchase this amazing calendar at: https://www.createspace.com/4049601 . Please check it out and order one for yourselves and your friends. They will make a great gift for anyone. They can also be purchased on Amazon at:
http://www.facebook.com/l/1AQHcQ7clAQEHxsZpO_0MJJ12KuKPseXr0uspSqdB4roccA/www.amazon.com/UNabandoned-Calendar-Planner-Adopted-Children/dp/1480252026/ref=cm_cmu_pg__header
The cover picture should be on Amazon soon. We will also have copies available to purchase directly from us.
Also, please check out the amazing book, Miracle in the Land of Wu, written by my sweet friend Buffi. It is a sweet and touching, fictional story of adoption. One guaranteed to touch your heart. It can be purchased at: https://www.createspace.com/3929858 and on www.Amazon.com . This beautiful book is helping them bring their sweet little boy home from China.
Thank you all for your prayers, support, and encouragement.
All our love,
Frank and Tonya
Friday, November 23, 2012
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Yard Sale
What an amazing day! Our God is so great and so faithful! The yard sale this morning was amazing. We had so many wonderful friends help in so many ways. We had 2 entire trucks and trailers full of items as well as our van. It all sold! Really, every last item. I had been trying for over a week to get a charity or thrift store to come pick up the leftovers after the sale, and every one kept telling me no. Supprisingly, when the sale was over, what little we had left we were boxing up, and a man pulled up and bought it all! PRAISE THE LORD! I love to see God show up!
To all of you who helped set up, who donated items, and who stayed with us through the sale, you were a special kiss from God to us. Thank you to all of you! Your love, support, and encouragement is such a blessing to us. We are so humbled to know that our sweet little one has touched your heart so deeply that you would so generously and selflessly help us bring her home. To say "thank you" doesn't even come close to the overwhelming emotion in our hearts. We pray God's abundant blessing over each of you as you have so generously blessed us.
Through this sale, God provided far beyond our human expectations. This was truly a faith building and faith encouraging experience. He never ceases to amaze us!
Blessings,
The Bohlingers
To all of you who helped set up, who donated items, and who stayed with us through the sale, you were a special kiss from God to us. Thank you to all of you! Your love, support, and encouragement is such a blessing to us. We are so humbled to know that our sweet little one has touched your heart so deeply that you would so generously and selflessly help us bring her home. To say "thank you" doesn't even come close to the overwhelming emotion in our hearts. We pray God's abundant blessing over each of you as you have so generously blessed us.
Through this sale, God provided far beyond our human expectations. This was truly a faith building and faith encouraging experience. He never ceases to amaze us!
Blessings,
The Bohlingers
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Home Study and Yard Sale
Home Study:
We have completed our third appointment with our social worker and just have a little more paperwork to do before we can do our fourth and final visit with a social worker at our adoption agency in Birmingham. We have an all day class coming up the end of October at at the International Adoption Clinic at UAB and medical exams scheduled for the whole family within the next 2 weeks. What a busy time!
Yard Sale:
Next Saturday, September 22, and amazing group of friends will be helping us with a yard sale. We will be raising money for us and other families that are currently in the adoption process. If you have any items that you would like to get out of your garage or attic and would like to donate them, please let us know. The yard sale will be at LifeGate Christian Center 1091 Old Railroad Bed Road, Madison, Alabama, from 7am-12noon. Stop by and check out all the great items that will be for sale. Thank you LifeGate for allowing us to use your parking lot and thank you to all our friends who are helping with this sale. You have deeply touched our hearts.
Blessings,
Frank and Tonya
We have completed our third appointment with our social worker and just have a little more paperwork to do before we can do our fourth and final visit with a social worker at our adoption agency in Birmingham. We have an all day class coming up the end of October at at the International Adoption Clinic at UAB and medical exams scheduled for the whole family within the next 2 weeks. What a busy time!
Yard Sale:
Next Saturday, September 22, and amazing group of friends will be helping us with a yard sale. We will be raising money for us and other families that are currently in the adoption process. If you have any items that you would like to get out of your garage or attic and would like to donate them, please let us know. The yard sale will be at LifeGate Christian Center 1091 Old Railroad Bed Road, Madison, Alabama, from 7am-12noon. Stop by and check out all the great items that will be for sale. Thank you LifeGate for allowing us to use your parking lot and thank you to all our friends who are helping with this sale. You have deeply touched our hearts.
Blessings,
Frank and Tonya
Monday, July 30, 2012
Slow and Steady
Our first home study went wonderfully! We have been working on more paperwork so that we can complete our second home study, hopefully in August.
Things feel as though they are going so slowly right now. Paperwork is so daunting. Just when we think we have made some progress, we get overwhelmed again by all we have yet to do. Please pray with us that God will divinely provide time for us to get everything done. It is a daily challenge to juggle homeschooling 3 children, their activities, work, and life's many responsibilities as well as tackle all our adoption requirements. We have just returned home after some much needed rest and time away with family, and have jumped back into school so that we will be prepared to travel to China whenever the call comes. (next spring or summer hopefully)
We press on knowing that God has a sweet little one for us, and that His timing is perfect. Thank you so much for your continued prayers, encouragement, and support. God is so good and has blessed us with so many wonderful friends and family members whose prayers sustain us.
Blessing,
Frank and Tonya
Things feel as though they are going so slowly right now. Paperwork is so daunting. Just when we think we have made some progress, we get overwhelmed again by all we have yet to do. Please pray with us that God will divinely provide time for us to get everything done. It is a daily challenge to juggle homeschooling 3 children, their activities, work, and life's many responsibilities as well as tackle all our adoption requirements. We have just returned home after some much needed rest and time away with family, and have jumped back into school so that we will be prepared to travel to China whenever the call comes. (next spring or summer hopefully)
We press on knowing that God has a sweet little one for us, and that His timing is perfect. Thank you so much for your continued prayers, encouragement, and support. God is so good and has blessed us with so many wonderful friends and family members whose prayers sustain us.
Blessing,
Frank and Tonya
Friday, June 1, 2012
Peace and Progress
God has so graciously covered us with the peace of His presence lately. We have made some progress with our home and great strides in our paper work as well.
Last weekend we completed our online 10 hour Hague Compliance Training! Yeah! Our amazing friends Mark and Buffi Young are also in the process of adopting, and they needed to do the class as well, so we did it together. They actually spent the night on Friday so we could stay up late and get an early start on Saturday. After 10 long hours the 4 of us joyfully printed our certificates of completion. Doing the class with them made it so much more fun and enjoyable than it would have been to do the class alone. Plus, they brought a wealth of information and wisdom to the experience, since this is their second time to adopt from China. We are so very blessed that God has intertwined our lives with theirs. We feel so privileged to be on this journey of adoption with them. They brought their amazing 3 children with them who played with our children. The 6 kiddos played beautifully and had a blast together. They think we should all move in together. I love children!
We have completed reading The Connected Child , which is a great book. We have another book and one more all day training session we need to do with the International Adoption Clinic in Birmingham.
The big news is that we start our home study JUNE 12. So glad that it is finally just about here. We have such peace about the timing of it. God is so good. We are so thankful for the way He orders our steps. Our heart's desire is to stay in alignment with His perfect will.
Please be in prayer for us as we have a sense in our spirits that things are about to really start moving fast. Your prayers, support, and encouragement are such a blessing to us. We daily thank God for all of you who are praying us through this journey.
Blessing,
Frank and Tonya
Last weekend we completed our online 10 hour Hague Compliance Training! Yeah! Our amazing friends Mark and Buffi Young are also in the process of adopting, and they needed to do the class as well, so we did it together. They actually spent the night on Friday so we could stay up late and get an early start on Saturday. After 10 long hours the 4 of us joyfully printed our certificates of completion. Doing the class with them made it so much more fun and enjoyable than it would have been to do the class alone. Plus, they brought a wealth of information and wisdom to the experience, since this is their second time to adopt from China. We are so very blessed that God has intertwined our lives with theirs. We feel so privileged to be on this journey of adoption with them. They brought their amazing 3 children with them who played with our children. The 6 kiddos played beautifully and had a blast together. They think we should all move in together. I love children!
We have completed reading The Connected Child , which is a great book. We have another book and one more all day training session we need to do with the International Adoption Clinic in Birmingham.
The big news is that we start our home study JUNE 12. So glad that it is finally just about here. We have such peace about the timing of it. God is so good. We are so thankful for the way He orders our steps. Our heart's desire is to stay in alignment with His perfect will.
Please be in prayer for us as we have a sense in our spirits that things are about to really start moving fast. Your prayers, support, and encouragement are such a blessing to us. We daily thank God for all of you who are praying us through this journey.
Blessing,
Frank and Tonya
Monday, May 14, 2012
Quick Catch up
We have been blessed to have Frank's parents visiting last week and this week. His dad has been helping us with some home projects. We are so thankful for all his help.
Still diligently working on paper work. We have plans to do some of our online required classes the weekend of May, 25 and 26 with friends who are also in the process of adopting. These classes will probably take most of the weekend to complete, but we are so thankful to have good company while doing them. Hopefully our children will all play well together and us two couples can accomplish what we need to accomplish.
Going to call our social worker TODAY to set up the start of our Home Study. We are so excited! Please be in prayer for us as we finish up this round of paper work, book reading, and classes, and prepare our home. Your prayers are so precious to us.
Blessings,
Frank and Tonya
Still diligently working on paper work. We have plans to do some of our online required classes the weekend of May, 25 and 26 with friends who are also in the process of adopting. These classes will probably take most of the weekend to complete, but we are so thankful to have good company while doing them. Hopefully our children will all play well together and us two couples can accomplish what we need to accomplish.
Going to call our social worker TODAY to set up the start of our Home Study. We are so excited! Please be in prayer for us as we finish up this round of paper work, book reading, and classes, and prepare our home. Your prayers are so precious to us.
Blessings,
Frank and Tonya
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Diligence and Dreams
I know it has been a little more than a month since our last post. We will try not to let it go that long again. Because it has been a while, this post will probably be long. Please read to the end, because The Dream is the best part!
Diligence: We have been working diligently on a number of projects that have not left us much time for blogging. We have painted the living room and hall bath with the help of Tonya's mom. The 1/4 round that goes down between the moldings and floors is standing up in the family room, still needing painting and installation, but we are getting there. Every little bit helps prepare our home for our home study, which we are on track to begin the middle of May.
We are continuing to tackle adoption paper work as well. Neither of us are especially great at paperwork, but we are doing our best. We are currently working on our autobiographies. When we began that project we thought it seemed simple enough, but as we began to answer all the required, leading questions, it has "snowballed" into pages of writing. And we still have more to go. Please pray that we get time to finish these soon, and, even though neither of us are writers, that we will be able to give comprehensive autobiographies that address all the required questions.
We have also begun some of our required reading. We are currently reading The Connected Child. It is a wonderful book! We are learning many great ways to interact with all children, not just our adopted child. Definitely a recommended read for all parents and people working with children, not just those adopting; although it will be a very valuable tool as we parent our child not born into our home.
Neither of us are very gifted at fund raising, but several months ago we began praying that God would give us opportunities to earn the extra finances needed to make this adoption move more quickly. We know He has called us to it, and we trust His provision, so we have been patiently and diligently seeking His will about what we can do in this regard. As always, His timing is perfect. Out of the blue, a few weeks ago, Frank was asked to begin doing home visits for a heart patient 3 times a week. What a blessing!
We have also been praying about starting a home business for close to 6 months now. We just had not received the "go ahead" from the Lord. Everything we considered just didn't seem to be the right fit. About a month ago, Tonya was praying that God would send something fresh and new to us if we were to continue pursuing a home business. THAT DAY, in the mail, we received a house warming gift from Frank's sister and bother-in-law. It was a NORWEX household cleaning kit. It is amazing! You can clean your entire home with tap water, so your home is not just clean but healthy and chemical free as well. It also saves a ton of time and money spent on cleaning chemicals. We felt the Lord say, "Here is your something fresh and new, and it completely fits you. I was just waiting for you to ask me for it." So, Tonya had her first launch party last week, and our home business is in full swing. Please ask us about it if you are interest in learning more.
The Dream: We believe that God is the same yesterday, today and forever. We believe that He still speaks to His people just as He did in the Bible. One of those ways of speaking is through dreams. This beautiful, prophetic dream was given to our darling 9 year old daughter. God loves the faith of a child!
She woke up with a very concerned look on her face and expressed that she had had a dream. Tonya automatically assumed it was a bad dream and scooped her up and said, "Sweet girl, I am so sorry you had a bad dream. Would you like to talk about it?" Our daughter looked surprised and said, " Oh no mommy, this wasn't a bad dream, I think it means something!" She continued to explain that in her dream our family was standing on a bridge over a river. As we were watching the water, we noticed what looked like a log floating towards us. As it came closer, we realized it was a Moses-like basket containing a baby boy, and his name was "Will". We, of course, scooped him up and then noticed another basket floating our way. This one contained a baby girl. No name was assigned to her. We, of course, scooped her up too. As we looked up to see where these babies were coming from, we saw a woman up stream with her arms open wide as though she was sending them purposefully to us. Our sweet daughter looked into Tonya's eyes and said, "Mommy, I know adopting our baby is God's will. But maybe, God has more than one baby for us."
This still brings tears to our eyes and continuous hope and encouragement to our hearts. We know, with out a doubt, that no matter how long this journey takes us, or what obstacles we encounter, we are doing exactly what God has called us to do. And, we will gladly work diligently to receive as many children as He wants to give us, trusting His provision every step of the way.
We apologize for the length of this post, and commit to post more often, even if it must be brief. We continue to ask for your prayers as we take this journey towards God's heart of adoption.
Diligence: We have been working diligently on a number of projects that have not left us much time for blogging. We have painted the living room and hall bath with the help of Tonya's mom. The 1/4 round that goes down between the moldings and floors is standing up in the family room, still needing painting and installation, but we are getting there. Every little bit helps prepare our home for our home study, which we are on track to begin the middle of May.
We are continuing to tackle adoption paper work as well. Neither of us are especially great at paperwork, but we are doing our best. We are currently working on our autobiographies. When we began that project we thought it seemed simple enough, but as we began to answer all the required, leading questions, it has "snowballed" into pages of writing. And we still have more to go. Please pray that we get time to finish these soon, and, even though neither of us are writers, that we will be able to give comprehensive autobiographies that address all the required questions.
We have also begun some of our required reading. We are currently reading The Connected Child. It is a wonderful book! We are learning many great ways to interact with all children, not just our adopted child. Definitely a recommended read for all parents and people working with children, not just those adopting; although it will be a very valuable tool as we parent our child not born into our home.
Neither of us are very gifted at fund raising, but several months ago we began praying that God would give us opportunities to earn the extra finances needed to make this adoption move more quickly. We know He has called us to it, and we trust His provision, so we have been patiently and diligently seeking His will about what we can do in this regard. As always, His timing is perfect. Out of the blue, a few weeks ago, Frank was asked to begin doing home visits for a heart patient 3 times a week. What a blessing!
We have also been praying about starting a home business for close to 6 months now. We just had not received the "go ahead" from the Lord. Everything we considered just didn't seem to be the right fit. About a month ago, Tonya was praying that God would send something fresh and new to us if we were to continue pursuing a home business. THAT DAY, in the mail, we received a house warming gift from Frank's sister and bother-in-law. It was a NORWEX household cleaning kit. It is amazing! You can clean your entire home with tap water, so your home is not just clean but healthy and chemical free as well. It also saves a ton of time and money spent on cleaning chemicals. We felt the Lord say, "Here is your something fresh and new, and it completely fits you. I was just waiting for you to ask me for it." So, Tonya had her first launch party last week, and our home business is in full swing. Please ask us about it if you are interest in learning more.
The Dream: We believe that God is the same yesterday, today and forever. We believe that He still speaks to His people just as He did in the Bible. One of those ways of speaking is through dreams. This beautiful, prophetic dream was given to our darling 9 year old daughter. God loves the faith of a child!
She woke up with a very concerned look on her face and expressed that she had had a dream. Tonya automatically assumed it was a bad dream and scooped her up and said, "Sweet girl, I am so sorry you had a bad dream. Would you like to talk about it?" Our daughter looked surprised and said, " Oh no mommy, this wasn't a bad dream, I think it means something!" She continued to explain that in her dream our family was standing on a bridge over a river. As we were watching the water, we noticed what looked like a log floating towards us. As it came closer, we realized it was a Moses-like basket containing a baby boy, and his name was "Will". We, of course, scooped him up and then noticed another basket floating our way. This one contained a baby girl. No name was assigned to her. We, of course, scooped her up too. As we looked up to see where these babies were coming from, we saw a woman up stream with her arms open wide as though she was sending them purposefully to us. Our sweet daughter looked into Tonya's eyes and said, "Mommy, I know adopting our baby is God's will. But maybe, God has more than one baby for us."
This still brings tears to our eyes and continuous hope and encouragement to our hearts. We know, with out a doubt, that no matter how long this journey takes us, or what obstacles we encounter, we are doing exactly what God has called us to do. And, we will gladly work diligently to receive as many children as He wants to give us, trusting His provision every step of the way.
We apologize for the length of this post, and commit to post more often, even if it must be brief. We continue to ask for your prayers as we take this journey towards God's heart of adoption.
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