For The Least Of These You Did For Me

Welcome to our family's blog. We are the Duryea family and we have seven children. You might be wondering why we chose this name for our blog. Well, to begin with we have three beautiful biological children and three beautiful children from China. I'll share our journeys to China to bring home our beautiful children later. For now, I'd like to share why we chose this name for our blog. The Lord showed me this verse when we were first seeking adoption. The Lord chose to grow our family through adoption. However, the Lord has also opened our eyes to the needs of orphans , especially in China. We consider "...looking after the orphans and widows in their distress..." James 1:17, as a way of life for us, a calling.

As I read through the many stories in our adoption agency's storybooks, there are countless stories that begin with "...after many years of experiencing infertility, we started the adoption process and are now a forever family"

If you are one of the countless couples that have experienced infertility, let me share with you the wonderful way of starting a family and at the same time providing a home for a needy orphan. God loves you and cares about you. "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." Jeremiah 29:11. If you are feeling hopeless, let me promise you that the Lord hears your cries. If you haven't ever trusted in Jesus and put your hope in him, do it now. Your life will be better than you could ever imagine. I never planned or dreamed I would go to China (3 times) and have this wonderful family. My plans surely would have never been as wonderful as they are today.

I had endometriosis for many years, yet I was able to conceive and have three beautiful children. After Sarah was born in 1998, I experienced severe problems and had surgery. However, I was unable to conceive, probably due to the scars left by endometriosis. Like many of you I had emotional scars as well. Even though I already had three children , I still felt called to have a larger family. Many months, tears, and prayers later we considered adoption. I heard about the plight of baby girls in China and the one child policy that left them abandoned. As we were praying about this, David's family in St.Louis was having a first time ever family reunion. I knew this wasn't coincidence, because David's cousin, a single mom, adopted two girls from China. One was 5 years old and the other was 9 months. This gave us the opportunity to meet them and talk to his cousin about adoption. When we came home we saw an advertisement for an adoption seminar in our area. We attended and were ready to start the paperwork to begin our adoption for a baby girl from China. Our lives would never be the same again.

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Off To Beijing

They are now on their way to Beijing! Hooray! Thanks so much for your prayers!

They left this morning from Newark at 7:22am and will arrive in Beijing at 8:08am China time. So really they will arrive 8:08 tonight for us.

Once they get to China, the next couple days they will do some sightseeing. On Sunday, mom and dad fly in to Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan province, which is where Luke is from. On Monday morning at 9:30am their time, they will meet Luke. This is what we call "Gotcha Day"!!!!!! They will then spend the next couple of days doing paperwork, sightseeing, but most importantly bonding with Luke. Then they head on over to Guangzhou, and spend those days working on getting Luke's Visa, sightseeing, shopping, etc. After that, they will FINALLY fly home.

Please pray for safe travel for my parents, to China and from China. Pray for Luke, that the Lord will prepare his heart for all this. Pray that everything runs smoothly in China for my parents. And pray for safety for us here at home. Thanks again!

~ Sarah
posted at 9:05 AM

2 comments:

  1. AnonymousAugust 4, 2012 at 8:38 AM

    I'm praying, Sarah! Thanks for the updated!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousAugust 11, 2012 at 12:36 PM

    Hi David, Laura, and Luke:

    We are all praying for you; we love the pictures that you sent of Luke! He looks so happy! I can't wait to see him! The kids are coming over for dinner tomorrow and I'll have the little ones for a couple of days. Keep safe and tell Luke Grandma and Grandpa love him.

    Love,
    Dad and Mom

    ReplyDelete

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