Article in Daily Corinthian, March 18, 2012

Some people have asked me to post the article in the Daily Corinthian.  A special thank you to Angela Storey for writing the story & the Daily Corinthian for publishing.

You can also see it here:

http://www.longroadtochina.org/blog.html 

Valentine’s Day Cards for GiGi

It’s been a crazy busy year already & time is flying by!  The adoption is moving forward & GiGi will be with us before we know it!  Things got delayed with our holidays & China’s holidays so maybe we are back on track.  It still looks as if it will be a few months before we are headed to China.  We Cannot wait to hold our daughter & to bring her home!!!!!!  With time approaching quickly, we need to get on the fundraisers for adoption fees/traveling fees/medical fees/etc.   

Today I posted on my Facebook 2 Pictures of cards.  This will be our fundraiser for Valentine’s Day.  It will be here in 13 Short days!  We have the following card types:

* Valentine's Day to wife designs
* Valentine's Day to husband designs
* General Juvenile Valentine’s Day designs 
* General Valentine's Day designs (includes sweetheart & to the one I love)
Basically, we have something for everyone; I think there are 50 designs.  The cards have a retail price printed on the back of $2.50.  These cards are thick and of nice quality.  We also mail them to the name/address you provide with a note saying that you have helped support an orphan home with this card.  The shipping stamps are Valentine stamps & they will have cute return address labels with a return address from Cupid’s Castle.

I know most of you purchase cards so please consider getting them from us to help pay fees for GiGi.  Adoption is not cheap & adoption fees are expected to cost us between $35,000-$40,000.  This does not include GiGi’s medical expenses.  This is something we were called to do & we believe it is our mission.  We know if God has called us then He will provide the way!

You can get cards on a donation basis.  You can mail your check to:

Phil or Niki Smith

P.O. Box 332

Rienzi, MS  38865

We hope to have another PayPal address set up tomorrow so you can send the donations through PayPal  Please, please help pass the word along & share this message.

Tell:

Friends

Church

Co-worker

Classmates

Neighbors

Etc. 

 Would you help this fundraiser be a success & help bring GiGi to her forever home?  Everyone LOVES getting a card in the mail to feel special -even your children & spouse(Please make sure not to forget our service men/women).  We also have religious card & will post more details on them soon.  We are very grateful to each of you for your support! 

So, NOW I WANT MY GI GI!!!!

Wow, it seems like forever ago that I sat at this desktop and wrote about what was going on with the adoption! Truth be told, there was a large block of time that the wheels of progress seemed stuck in the mud. When that happened, the craziness of life seemed to continue (as it does), and I was carried away by the thousands of things that seemed to always need doing. Somewhere along that road, I l...ost focus on what I was doing and my calling. Gi Gi was lost in the shuffle, as were other people that I love.

Luckily, my eyes have been opened. God has little reminders for us along the way. When Niki Suitor Smith told me she had found Gi Gi on a website, I thought she was reaching! LOL! I mean, there are countless orphans in China. Couple that with the number of orphanages, and what are the odds? Plus, I hadn't seen an anywhere close to recent photo. How could she even be sure? Well, to get to the point, when she showed me, I knew. I was knocked off my feet! It was a feeling like nothing else! I don't believe that us finding her was a random thing. I need my inspiration back and when I saw her, I remembered what I am doing. It is easy to get a little lost but God will bring us around if we do a little searching. Niki, never lost faith or forgot what we were doing. She was always searching, reading, praying, working. God is using her as a light for me to find my path. I forget how much I have been blessed. I wish every guy could know what it is like to find the one God made for him. I take that for granted. I got the trophy wife the first time around- so, I'm a little spoiled.

So, NOW I WANT MY GI GI!!!!

Phil

UPDATE!!!

Nervousness. That strange looking word probably best describes my feelings the last few weeks. My personal code typically dictates that I will be carefree and not allow stress to take over; but, man, it has been one of those weeks!!! Colt fell, hit his head, and had to be hospitalized. The doctors ran a CT, EEG, and MRI (everthing came back ok, but he still suffered a concussion and is having to deal with all of the fallout from that- dizzyness, headaches, mood-swings, etc.) Macy Jade has a sinus infection and feels bad. It is pretty stressful to have on child in the hospital and have to take the other one to the doctor. I totally realize that our woes are small beans compared to what others are going through, but that doesn't make it any less stressful. Niki is sick and trying to keep everything together, running on almost no sleep in 4 nights. All of these things make me nervious and stressed. Another thing lurking in the back of my mind the last few weeks is "what if the whole adoption thing falls through?". Believe me, it happens. I love my little girl and I want to get her ASAP. But really nothing was offical. It was totally up to the Chinese government to accept or reject our family as a suitable home for Gi Gi Dahl. And as I mentioned before they don't have to accept. So much was riding on all of the work done to get us to this point. "Should we have done this differently?" "Do all of the numbers line-up?" "What about the wording of this or that?" I think God knows when we are doubting ourselves and he knows the correct timing and order of critical things. I have felt all along that this is our calling and we are following his will for us and on Wednesday Niki got an email from the agency. CHINA RECOGNIZES OUR FAMILY AS THE ADOPINING FAMILY OF GI GI DAHL!!!! Friday, we opened the mailbox to find a packet that on the front page read: Congratulations on your new daughter! At that moment peace filled my soul. We now must finish some paperwork in the States and will soon get the honor of traveling to China and stand before the Courts and getting our little girl. In a way, I feel that one phase of this journey is coming to a conclusion, but the most life changing is just begining. Please pray for us as we travel on.

Phil~

 

God is unbelievable!!! We are So excited!!! :0)

Phil and Niki Smith are proud to announce that they are zealous parents of an 18 month old girl!!!!!!!!  :0)
What can I say, but WOW!  God is so Great at all times, but we are in awe of Him right now!  Our entire family is SO happy!  Her name is GiGi Dahl (silent h - pronounced Dall; not everyone seems to be familiar with this name) Smith.

GiGi is 18 months old and was abandoned when she was 5 month old in the bathroom entrance of a plaza.  She has been in the orphanage since. She has been diagnosed with Scoliosis and is missing a few ribs.  Dr. Marta (our pediatrician) says her scoliosis is moderate.  LeBonheur Children's hospital (about 1 hour from us) specializes in this and does a surgery with titanium rods for children with scoliosis. And every 4-6 months, the rods have to be lengthened since children grow so quickly.  GiGi also may have to have a titanium rib placed, but we will really not know exactly what all she will need until she gets here to the U.S. They sent x-rays and pages of medical information, but until a doctor her can see her and look at x-rays done here they don't know for sure.

GiGi's diagnosis is a little more than we had originally planned on taking with a child & we were going to adopt 2 children with one trip. After many, many prayers GiGi is our child! Since she will possibly  have several surgeries a year, we will  not adopt another child at this time due to time and possible extra finances associated with her medical. I know not everyone understands why in the world we would adopt a child with medical conditions like this and it's not for everyone. A lot of people praise us for what we are doing, but we honestly don't see it as that big of a deal to adopt a child like GiGi. She is our child  and we all take care of our children. It's not exactly a choice and sure you want your kids to be healthy in all ways, but it is our calling and she is our baby girl. We have been blessed with 2 biologically beautiful healthy intelligent children and now blessed with a child born in our heart!  We always wanted to adopt a special needs child that can lead a normal life with the needed medical intervention -> surgery/medicines/therapies/etc. that we can provide for her. This child will be no different than Colt and Macy Jade are to us  now with our love, care, etc..  Did I mention  - We are all excited! 

We still have to get all our information translated in Chinese and wait on approval from the Chinese government to invite us to come get her. This is the HARD part! How do we leave OUR child in an orphanage for months? It breaks our hearts!!!  Colt and Macy Jade cried for her!   However, we knew that we would have to wait on her when we started the road to adoption and it's not in our hands!  Our adoption agency told us that it would likely be 3-6 months before we travel to China to get our GiGi angel once our Dossier is completed - we are so close to being there!  PLEASE PLEASE pray for GiGi!!!!  We cannot stand the thought of our child in an orphanage, but we have no other choices!

I'm so very proud of Colt and Macy Jade!  They were the very first ones to claim her as "ours".  Macy Jade came to me asking about her baby sister.  I tried to explain that at that time we were still in prayer to make sure she was our child.  Colt overheard and demanded she was his baby sister too!  I think this was the answer to our prayers speaking the loudest!  They had never claimed any other child as "their sibling".   They immediately loved her as they do each other even with only seeing her picture!  They talk about her all the time and pray for her each day!  Macy Jade has asked for a Chinese babydoll for her birthday.  She said it would be her GiGi until we were able to physically get her!  Macy Jade explained how she would take this baby doll around and sleep with her to feel closer to GiGi!  They are amazing kids and I know GiGi has wonderful role models to follow in their footsteps!  She is going to be so rotten! 



I think GiGi will fit in perfectly with our family! I've never seen our kids so emotional and immediately in love as they are with her! They HAD to have a picture where they were on the page and GiGi was on the page so they cut and pasted picture of them and GiGi on a page.  I cannot post pictures of her on the web yet until we get clearance from the adoption agency.  Her little face is just precious; we love her so much- of course we do; she is our child! Macy Jade said "Oh mommy she has my nose!" :0) How could she NOT be our child??? We love her; we love her; we love her!!!!!  Praise be to God!  THANK YOU! and Thank you to all of you for all of your prayers!  Please continue to pray; we would LOVE to have GiGi before the year is over!  What better Christmas gift????

I wanted to share to you all our excitement!  Thank you for all of your support!


Love In Christ!
Niki

^"Then were there brought unto him little children, that he should put his hands on them, and pray: and the disciples rebuked them.  But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.  And he laid his hands on them, and departed thence."

Matthew 19:13-15 (KJV)