We are excited to introduce to you our little Jia Xiang,
whom we will affectionatly name Joshua Kenneth Zittle!
The name Joshua means "God rescues."
We first met little Joshua while looking through the profiles of
children in China's "special focus adoption program."
The children in this program are those who have
moderate to severe special needs, and who have not been considered
by any families in over two months of their being listed.
China passed a law in September 2010 allowing families
who are still waiting on their original adoption
to adopt an additional child using the same dossier,
as long as one of those children is in the "special focus program."
While looking through the profiles of these precious children,
the face of a little 22 month old boy stole our hearts.
His estimated birth date is Aug. 22, 2009.
At only several days old, he was found abandoned
at the entrance to a mall in Pingdingshan, Henan Province.
He was found to have abdominal distention
and was close to dying due to severe intestinal obstruction.
As a result, an emergency surgery was performed
on him to remove some of his colon.
He had a second surgery several months later.
His special needs are post-operative congenital megacolon,
a cyst on his left kidney and six toes on each foot. :)
We are overjoyed that we have been approved by China to
adopt him, and we absolutely cannot wait to bring him home!
(Although we know that a wait is imminent...3-5 months.)
We are grateful to the Lord for the opportunity to give not one child,
but two children, a forever family who will love them unconditionally
and raise them to know Jesus.
We must raise another $15,000-20,000, in the next few months,
but we trust that God will provide all the resources we need.
We cannot allow the fear of finances to keep us from following
God's call on our lives to adopt this little guy.
We also know that although he has special needs,
God will equip us to care for him and meet those needs.
Braden has been praying for his “little ‘brother-sister’
from China” for close to a year now,
and he loves to carry around his stuffed panda bear
who he has affectionately named “China Bear.” Now that we have a face to one of our little china babies,
he enjoys watching the video of Joshua, and often prays,
"Thank you, Jesus, for my little brother."
