He is CHOSEN. 

Monday, May 8th - It started out like any other day.  Adam and I just had a conversation the night before about how it would be terrible to be "Monday" out of all the days of the week and how Monday gets a bad wrap. 

Little did we know this Monday would be different. 

I got home from running Eliot to school and decided it was time.  Time to CLEAN Anders room.  If I could of rented a bulldozer, it would of made this way easier.  This task also takes a lot of patience.  He is 3....almost 4, but still has a hard time focusing on the task at hand.  There were many times I thought about giving up and finding something else to do, but we pressed on and finished in record time for Anders.  We made space for his little brother to keep clothes and toys.  Someday.   

And then my phone rang and on my caller ID surfaced the Bethany Global Office number. She asked me what I was doing and I had said that I just got done cleaning "the boys" room and how it only took 2 hours.  She told me that was probably a good thing since they had a little boy that they thought would be a great fit for our family!

Disbelief for a moment and then a surge of excitement!

 I waited 30 minutes until Adam got home for lunch.  It was a long 30 minutes.  So, we sat down together and opened up his file and there he was.  A brown eyed, dark haired boy with big, squishy cheeks.   So, this is who we have been praying for.  Happy Mother's Day to me.  I couldn't of asked for more.

We fell in love with this face instantly!

As you all know, we are in the China Special Needs Adoption Program. 

Our son has congenital glaucoma in his left eye.   There is a possibility he will be blind in that eye. 

This took us back to when our first born, Eliot was 9 months old and we were told she was born blind in her left eye.  We won't lie and say we didn't immediately feel sorry for ourselves.  I, especially was mad about it all and didn't understand why God allowed this. We started to educate ourselves on how to parent a partially blind child (and what all came with it.)  It was scary for a time-being, but became second nature before we knew it.  This was all manageable.

We look back and see that God wasn't punishing us, but was preparing us for the future.  He knew our son's story before he was born and knew we needed to be his family.  All a part of God's plan. 

Remember, at the very beginning of our adoption process we invited you all to be a part of OUR STORY.  More proof that He writes pretty amazing stories for our lives.

We welcome with joyous hearts,

Theo Li Minglong Kaemingk

He is loved.  He is wanted.  He is CHOSEN.

Our sweet little Theo!  You are loved!

We chose Theo for his name as it means, "God Given".  We couldn't agree more!  We kept his Chinese given name as his middle name so we can keep his Chinese roots. 

We hope to travel in August to China.  We still have $7,000 we need to raise in order to cover the final costs.  It is important to our family to be paid in full when we go get Theo because we know he will need eye-surgery when we return home.   We continue to have faith that the finances will be taken care of.  

We invite you to our final fundraiser!  Please share this with friends and families! All proceeds go towards our Lifesong Matching Grant.  $3000 will be matched! 

Join us for dinner, dessert table, Eliot's artwork for sale, auction and a slideshow or our journey!  Hosted by our dear friends, the Roth Family!

Dinner and Auction Fundraiser

Sunday, June 26th

5:30pm Dinner  7:00pm Auction

Stagestop Receptions

Exit 48

Thanks again for your prayers for our family and for our son, Theo.  We can't wait to get our hands on him and get him HOME!!!

On behalf of our family, thank you for sharing in our JOY!

Hayley
Mommy of FOUR!

Signed. Sealed. Hoping to be DELIVERED.

This past Thursday, we loaded up the kids in the van and headed off to our state capitol on a mission!  

Our Mission: Get that huge file folder of VERY important documents out of our house before a kid spills something on it!!!
 

 

This is the "dossier".  It has anything and EVERYTHING you ever wanted to know about us. *blush*

For the past 2 months the Kaemingk crew has asked a lot from our friends and family.  Some of you (you know who you are) were asked to write letters on our behalf, find a notary, watch our children so Adam and I could go get physicals and lab work, and make a copy or two (or 200).   We compiled all of this time-sensitive paperwork and had the Secretary of States Office slap a South Dakota state seal on the documents and... off they go in-route to China!  

It was such a feeling of accomplishment and we are so happy this major part of our process is now behind us.

Our little's waiting outside the office while docs are being sealed. 

Most people don't really view Pierre, SD as a weekend get-away, but when your dad (Adam) is "somewhat" interested in politics and works for a senator...well, the kids were in for a history lesson whether they wanted one or not and by George, they were going to enjoy it.  

Eliot's question to her dad was, "Do you think Uncle Adam got his new robot?"  (They take after their mother when it comes to liking history and politics....YAWN... SQUIRREL!)

Eliot's highlight was finding a heart-shaped tile on the floor of the capitol.

 

Anders enjoyed the hotel pool more than the capitol building which pretty much broke Adam's heart.

Stopping by Senator Rounds (Adam's Boss) office in Pierre for a snack.

We have learned that our growing family will need two hotel rooms for future trips.

They are excited to have one more little person to share in future adventures.

Good thing it was a Friday morning and session was out.  Kaemingk kids tend to take over.

Showing off her Chinese "LOVE" support shirt for little brother ;)

The happy crew:  mission accomplished!

The next step in our journey is to simply wait.  The phone will ring one of these days with our son's referral information.  

Continue to pray for our son,his health and care-givers.  Pray for our family as we also await news on a handful of adoption grants we applied for.  Our hope is that they will fund the last chunk of our adoption costs.
 
Adam and I are excited for the next few months and are at peace with God's timing in bringing home our little guy.  Our sincere gratitude to all of you for being our cheerleaders and prayer warriors!  

The Kaemingk Crew

Here's your second chance to put those losing Powerball numbers to use and for a good cause!  We can't promise millions...but we can promise some "sparkle".

In honor of the Chinese New Year, we are having a Red Envelope fundraiser! There are 100 red envelopes numbered 1-100. Choose any envelope(s) you want and donate the corresponding dollar amount. For example, if you choose the # 53 envelope, you donate $53.

If the envelope you want is already taken, you can select multiple envelopes to total that amount. We will be using our YOUCARING site to collect funds. 

Donate Here

Please leave a comment or email with the envelope number you select so I can remove the envelope ASAP (example: "I'm choosing envelope 53"). You can also donate anonymously, if you wish.

Because these are physical envelopes hanging on our wall, I will be posting updates so you know what envelopes are still available. This will also allow you the opportunity to include a special note, verse, or scripture for our son. We will put the note in the envelope and read it to him when he is older.  It will be awesome to share with him how his journey home was made possible by so many people.

We added a fun incentive to this fundraiser!!  Our fall Premier Designs Jewelry Party was also a success and we earned 4 pieces of beautiful jewelry.  Our children have randomly choose 4 envelopes that will house these pieces of jewelry.  If you pick one of those envelopes, you get the jewelry...and just in time for Valentine's day!  Keep it for yourselves or share it with your sweetheart!  Take a peek at these pretty pieces!

ZigZag - Chevron Stretch Silver Bracelet

Stacktastic - Assorted Silver Bracelets- Wear one or all.

Adoration - This is a longer necklace -- it can be worn several different ways.

Harmony - Silver Sideways Cross Necklace

What is the Chinese New Year?
The Chinese New Year, also know as the Spring festival, has been celebrated for centuries and signifies New Beginnings. This is a time when families travel great distances for reunions with large feasts.  CNY begins on February 8th, and lasts for two weeks.

There are many traditions to partake in, one of which is receiving Red Envelopes. Children receive lucky money in RED ENVELOPES from their adult relatives and sometimes family friends.


ADOPTION UPDATE:
Our Dossier is almost complete.  It will be sealed in Pierre and with a few stops along the way will eventually make it to China.  Once there, it will be logged in and approved and we then just wait for our travel plans.  We are on the waiting referral list.  A phone call with our son's file could be a day away or a few months.  But, we are content in the waiting process and know God's timing is unfolding at proper pace.

So, the Kaemingk Crew wishes you great "luck" in choosing your numbers!  Thanks for supporting us along the adoption journey and for being a part of something big.  ;)

Adam & Hayley
Eliot, Anders & Reese

Instead of Building Higher Walls,

Build a Longer Table

I heard another adoptive parent say this today and it took me back.  Tomorrow our little Reesie turns 2.  Her first two years have just cruised on by.   I remember being a sleep deprived mama (Reese was 8 months old) and my sweet husband offered a date night out to eat.  I brushed my hair and put actual "nice" clothes on, free of spit-up and hired a babysitter.  There is something about going out ALONE with your spouse.  You feel like a limb (or two) are missing.  Something doesn't feel right as you pick up your fork, take a bite of warm food and realize that nothing is hanging off your arm.  Adam and I got to have an entire conversation from start to finish, with NO interruptions.  You would think at this moment we wouldn't be thinking of having more children. But then something came out of Adam's mouth.  "I really think we need to re-look at adopting."  My jaw about hit the floor as I had always had that desire and just never thought we could ever afford it.  Adam is the king of spreadsheets and anti-debt, so his fear of taking the leap financially was a lot higher than mine.  So, you can imagine when he started talking to me about his desire to adopt a child, my heart was full. 

Our joke has always been:  Adam wanted two kids and Hayley wanted four, so we settled at four.  We laugh at this but realize it's more of what God wanted for us and for our family than what we tried to control .   We came up with a lot of excuses why we couldn't financially take on this leap.  We would bring up all the things we could do with $30,000.  A few house remodeling projects, maybe a more reliable vehicle, and the list went on.   I just started to stay at home with our kids and wasn't pulling in very much money since my time in the day was spent with our children.  How on earth could we afford this endeavor?  We worked so hard to be debt free so that our family wouldn't have financial strain.  

We put up walls in fear and God took them down.  Every road block will be taken out of the path that leads us to our son. So far every penny has been raised that has been needed and at just the right time.

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. - 2 Timothy 1:7

This past year our design and photography business has had it's best year.  I LOVE working with families and infants and am thankful for the creative gifts I can share with my design clients.  Adam LOVES his new job as well.  He has a great team he works with that are like family members to us.    We have had amazing support in all of our fundraisers (you have no idea how thankful we are!) .  God provided.

We look back at this time last year when our fears were taking control and the "what if's" were pushing us down....that God opened up doors for both of us in our careers, allowed me to stay at home and raise our children and on top of it save and fund the adoption of our son.    God made it known to us that we were CALLED to be parents to a child that needed to be loved and in this we learned humility and trust.  

We are currently working on our dossier.  It's almost done.  We hope to have it ready to go with state seals by the end of January. 

Adam and I were recently placed on the list for China's special needs waiting children.  We could get a phone call any time with a referral.  Please continue to pray for our son.  We know he has been born and is out there.  For some reason his parents felt they could not take care of him or keep him.  We pray for their hearts and are thankful for their decision to give him a chance at life.  

He is wanted.  He is chosen.  He is loved.  He is OURS.

Our family prays many blessings upon you all.  We remind you all that you are a very important part of our life's story.  Thank you for making it such a great one!

God is GOOD, ALL THE TIME!  

The Kaemingk Crew


Upcoming Fundraiser:  Eat Pizza, Bring Home Brother! 

Tuesday, January 5

at 5 PM - 8 PM

Pizza Ranch

South Side by new Walmart. Rapid City

15% of sales and ALL tips go towards our Adoption Fund!  

 

 

Today we got an email that stated that our Home Study was officially approved! We will now be moving onto the next steps in our adoption process, which include:  

• Waiting Child Conference Call ( discuss the special needs of our son)
• I-800 Form (Determine the child's eligibility for classification as an adoptee)
• Dossier (Information about our family that China has requested for international adoption)

I know, we don't even know sometimes what all of this paperwork is or what it entails, but we want to keep it all out in the open so every one of our supporters can see why the process of international adoption can take time and cost so much.  But, we keep praying about everything and God keeps reminding us that we are going the right direction.

We have been blessed recently with some anonymous donations to our Bethany Adoption account.  We have no words, other than "THANK YOU" and we say those words with sincere appreciation.  These donations allow us to move forward with every step quicker than we have expected. This means the world to us.   

Our family wishes all of you a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Adam, Hayley & Kiddos
 

 It's a Wrap!

I admit, it has been over a month since I last blogged about our process.  Some of you may be wondering what is happening in our journey to bring home our little guy.  Well, A LOT.  We are in the stage of massive paperwork, interviews and training hours.  So, it may not seem like we are making progress, but it is happening.  Our home study is in it's final stages of APPROVAL which now makes us eligible to apply for adoption grants!  We will also have a phone meeting with the "Bethany China Team", which will help us better know what specific medical/special needs we can properly care for and parent successfully.  We are pretty excited about the next step and continue to be very hopeful of what is to come. 

We had a special visit from KOTA news station.  KOTA is doing a special at the end of November on adoption.  They interviewed families and agencies about the process.  Our hope is that it will help educate and encourage others in our region to also choose this adventure!!  

As you can see in the picture, Reese stayed to her "true" self.  Never a dull moment in our house.  It will be interesting to see what they edit out.  ;)  uh, probably a lot.

  Shoe Drive Ends!

 

Our fundraising efforts are always in full swing.  After many months of gathering (and begging for) athletic shoes for our Angel Bins shoe drive, it finally came to a CLOSE today, October 23!!  Adam and I stayed up late making sure the shoes were properly boxed and taped.  We then got up at 6:30am to place mailing labels on all of the boxes so they could make their journey to Angel Bins headquarters in Los Angeles, CA! 

Total count of shoes was 600!

We should hear from Angel Bins next week on the total amount raised.  It all depends on the weight of the shoes.  Ah, the suspense!  But even better, think of all the people that will get a pair of shoes that they are much in need of!  ALL OF YOU did this!  We thank you for helping us bless others and for the financial blessing it brings our family in getting closer to our total adoption financial goal!  God is good - all the time!

 

Our cheerful helpers!

  

14 XL Boxes full and 1 Medium Box full -- total 15 boxes!

600 pairs of shoes going to meet their new feet in South & Central America!

The UPS driver didn't know what to think pulling up to a residential pick-up and seeing all the boxes.  He asked what on earth we were sending!  Ha!  He couldn't believe we had that many shoes in our garage!  I am going to give a shout out to my awesome neighbor, Gene for helping load the boxes!  (I am pretty sure the UPS guy thanks you too!) Also, to our dear friend, Margaret who would weekly go to our drop off spots and bring me all the shoes!  That helped me immensely since I have the kiddos in the day. 

We can't tell you what a relief and feeling of accomplishment came over us as we watched that big brown truck drive off with all of the shoes we have been collecting over the past 6 months. 

Check out the video ;)  

So now that the rummage sale and shoe drive is done, what will Adam do with a clean garage?   I am sure he is open to ideas.  Because who actually parks in their garage these days?

The next few months bring more scrambling of getting paperwork done and getting closer to actually getting our referral/match with our son.  Every day closer brings much anticipation to seeing his face.  Thank YOU all again for jumping in with us on this journey and for the encouragement and prayers!  

Blessings to you!

Praise the Lord from who all 

BLESSINGS flow.

Our family and AMAZING friends survived the Rummage Sale Fundraiser!  I know you are all anxious to know how much we raised.  So, we won't hold you in suspense any longer.  Drum roll....are you ready for this?

 $6719.54

Adam and I just laughed together when we counted the earnings at the end of the day.  Our goal was $2-3,000 and that was with hopeful hearts.   AGAIN....the Lord has taught us that when we put our total trust in him and take a GIANT leap of faith, that he PROVIDES for his children.  

Some pretty awesome things happened to us this weekend.  We had people who didn't even know us offer to help bring out stored items to be priced, sorted and sold that we just couldn't get to.  There were people who threw in large dollar amounts to our donation bin who didn't buy anything.  Others shared about their own adoption stories.  By the end of the weekend, we couldn't feel our bodies but we felt very blessed and we could see how many people LOVED our new son.   
 
We want to thank our working crew: (not all are pictured above)
JESUS, Oz & Sandi Hespe, Denny & Wyonne Kaemingk, Adam & Lindsey Bauerle, Gene and Leola Ligtenberg, Kim Nelson, Wes and Kim Roth Family, Shelley Cumella, Kim Hague, Margaret Skillman,  Sarah & Jace Wortman, our extended family at Simpsons Printing, & Cole & Ashley Hektner.

As we continue to get closer and closer to a possible referral please keep our family in your prayers.  

THANK YOU sincerely from deep within our hearts!!!  We DID it!!  GOD is GOOD!
Here we come, China!!

Adam, Hayley, Eliot, Anders & Reese