We are Immigration APPROVED!!!!!!

Guys, I am blown AWAY!!!  God is so good!  What was supposed to take between 60 and 90 days, only took 30!  We have official permission from US Immigration to bring a child home from China!  This is HUGE!!!!!!!

The next steps:

• I dropped our home study and the I-800A approval off at the NC Secretary of State's office today.  They will certify the Notary Publics' signatures on the documents and I will pick them back up tomorrow.
• Once I review everything one last time, dot the I's and cross the T's, and make our copies, our entire packet will be sent to our Family Coordinator at AWAA.
• They will handle getting the home study and the I-800A approval U.S. and Embassy authenticated for us, and send us our copies.
• Then we are DTC - DOSSIER TO CHINA!!!!!!!!!

Y'all, I am dancing right now!  This is happening!  We are so close!  What started a little over a year ago, as God was working on my heart, is so close to coming to fruition!  We are so close to meeting our son!!!!!  

Once in China, our dossier will be translated and logged into their system.  The official approval to adopt our little guy (Referral Acceptance or RA) can take anywhere between 2 and 4 months (currently running around 2.5 to 3 months), and we will travel 8 - 12 weeks after that!  So, we are looking at traveling as early as Mid November or as late as some time in February.  This is all according to the ranges I have been given.  But God!  He has blown us away at every stage in this journey.  Who am I to put Him in a box?

We have a rocking prayer warrior at our church who, since I told her about our journey in April, has been praying that we would get to him before his 3rd birthday, which is October 24.  When she told me that, I told her that it would be awesome, but that it was was pretty unrealistic.  But for the first time, as I look at all that God has already done in all of this, it seems possible!  Of course it is!  Still unlikely, and I'm not getting my hopes up, but how cool would it be if our Gotcha Day was his birthday?!?!?!?  So please continue to pray for our journey. Please continue to pray for our son.

I have had a few people ask about how the finances are working out.  And again, we are absolutely blown away by how God has provided at every stage.  We have some friends who have paid for 2 adoptions - he's a pastor, she's a homeschooling stay-at-home mom.  When our journey began, I was sharing with her about how the significant financial requirement was pretty overwhelming.  She encouraged us, and shared that for them, every time they needed money, it was there - maybe even just the day before the check had to be written.  Such has been the case for us.  Every time - no matter the dollar amount - He has provided.   As it stands, we will make a fairly substantial payment tomorrow, then another fairly substantial one at our official Referral Acceptance (in 2-4 months).  The money needed for those 2 payments is available.  Prior to travel, we will have to send in our biggest payment yet, which will pay for the visas, flights, in-country activities/food/hotels/guides/etc., and the rather hefty China program fee.  We are excited to see how God will provide for that stage.  It can be overwhelming to think about, but this has been God's story for our family from the very beginning.  We have complete faith in Him to see us through to the end of this part of the journey.

Having said that, stay tuned for information on fundraisers.  We hope to host a few "spirit nights" at local restaurants.  Everyone has to eat, right????  I'll keep you posted as those dates are secured.

Again, thank you so much for praying with us through this journey.  It has, been and I am sure will continue to be, a faith building time in our lives.  We are thrilled that God chose us for this little boy, and we can't wait to have him in our arms.

Moving In The Right Direction

So, after an emotional day the last time I posted, things have been looking up.

We got our packet back from the Embassy on Monday, and it was all done, complete, and ready to submit.  Yay!!!

Our fingerprints were Friday, and that was seamless.  That place and their systems were a bit unreal.  We got there about 20 minutes early, and the room was PACKED full of people waiting for fingerprinting.  We just knew that we'd be there all morning.  But that was so not the case.  They had their processes so streamlined!  It was very impressive!  We were walking out of there at 20 after 9.  It was great!  As we were walking out, people were beginning to gather in the ceremony room for a Naturalization Ceremony.  That was really neat, because we were able to talk to the girls about what was happening and why.  Our AWAA Family Coordinator estimates that we should receive our Immigration approval (I-800A) in about 2 weeks!  Again, way sooner than the 90 window they try to adhere to!!!  Great news!

Today, we received 8 new pictures of our little guy.  Yay!!!  It's so good to see his sweet face!  He looks like he's doing really great!  There were a few pics of him playing in the sand on what looks to be a beach area.  That's awesome!  He should LOVE Topsail!

I am so thankful for each of you!  Your prayers and support through our journey mean so much to us! Keep them coming!!!!

Today There are Tears

Here it is - a beautiful Saturday afternoon in NC, and I am here, sitting in my kitchen, typing through tears.  Things are moving right along with the Department of Immigration.  They've had our application for 2 weeks now and we just received our fingerprint appointments in the mail yesterday.  Fortunately, we were assigned to their Durham office - the other NC option being Charlotte.  So next Friday, we will go get those done and shortly there after we should receive our approval to bring a child home from China.  This is great, because it doesn't look like it will take the full 90 days at this point.  Keep praying!!!

So why are there tears?  Because I'm a girl.  Because I'm a mom.  Because my Type-A personality hates waiting for other people to do their jobs, even if they're doing it well.  I want my son, what can I say?  The US Department of State handled our issue with the unknown signatures and forwarded our packet on to the Embassy.  More good news.  The bad part - that was 2 weeks ago, and we haven't gotten anything back from them.  The Embassy has had our packet for 2 weeks, their process runs about 7 business days, and our return FedEx isn't in the system yet.  Granted, they received it on a Friday, and one of those days was a US holiday (Think the Chinese Embassy closed for Memorial Day??), but, I can't help but be terrified that something is wrong or that something has gotten lost in the shuffle of it all. I'm sure it's all okay, but I just want my son!

We have some friends who travelled to China to pick up their son back in February.  They keep a blog going as well, and it's been so fun to look at pictures of their family coming together with their sweet boy.  But, man!  It also makes the fact that I am here and my son is still there an even bigger reality.  So, today there are tears.  Today, the emotions are flying high.  Today, I am mourning the time I am missing with my boy.  Today, my arms ache a little more than they did yesterday.  Today, there are tears.

Thank you again for all of your prayers.  Please keep them coming.  Love you all!

Somewhere, Out There

So it's been a while since our last update.  We have officially entered into the dreaded "Waiting" phase of our journey.  As of May 4th, we are Home Study Approved!  Yay!  That's a good thing!  Last week I was able to send off the application requesting permission from the US Department of Immigration to bring a child home from China.  That process can take up to 90 days, but according to our Family Coordinator at AWAA, they are turning them around in closer to 60 days right now.  Yay! That's a good thing too!  Once we get our approval from Immigration, we will get our last 2 documents certified and authenticated and then our packet will go to China, referred to as DTC - Dossier To China.  That's a big deal, and I am so excited for that day to come!  Please pray with us that Immigration processes our application as quickly as possible and that we will be DTC very soon.

We had some issues with some of our other paperwork last week as well.  The Chinese Embassy wasn't happy with the signature on some of the US Department of State Certification pages and rejected our packet.  Boo!  The good thing is that it isn't slowing us down at all since we are in waiting for our Immigration Application to process.  I was able to talk with a DOS employee and we think we have it figured out, so I resent the packet to her, she will attach signature cards to the documents in question and send them back to the Embassy to process.  What was crazy about it was that out of 14 documents, the Embassy only marked 3 as being unclear, but they all had the same signature on them!  Who knows.  Anyway, pray with us that this get cleared up, that nothing gets lost in all this shuffling of documents and that the Embassy is able to do what needs to be done and gets our packet back to us before the Immigration Application is complete.

On another note, check out this picture:

My friend, Tiffany, and I took this picture of the moon over the Easter Weekend this year.  We were down at Topsail Beach, and noticed how big and beautiful the moon was that night. She's an awesome photographer, so she was able to capture this great picture way better than the piddly camera on my iPhone.  We had been talking about our adoption all evening, so when I saw this big moon, I couldn't help but burst into, "Somewhere out there....."  Fast forward a month, and here Jodie and I are, in a state of idle waiting.  There is nothing else we can do to speed this process up.  That's a hard place to be!  We have been so hands on and so on top of everything up to this point, but now all we can do is wait.  We wait, knowing that our son is on the other side of the world.  We wait, wondering if and praying that he is being well cared for.  We wait, falling deeper in love with his sweet face as we look at his pictures and pray over him.  We wait, knowing that we have already missed 3 years of his sweet life, not wanting to miss anymore.  We wait.  Last night my Facebook App dinged at me and notified me that Tiffany had tagged me in a picture.  How timely!  Don't you just love God?!?!?!?  While I so want to babysit the Departments of State and Immigration and the Chinese Embassy, pushing them along, getting it all done quickly and correctly and such, there is comfort in knowing that my hands are tied.  I have done all that I can do.  There is comfort in knowing that God has brought us this far, and He will hold our hands all the way to the very end.  There is comfort in knowing that His ways, His timing, His plan are so much more perfect than ours could ever be and that He is able to do IMMEASURABLY more than ALL we could ask or even imagine.  And at the end of this journey, He will get all the Glory!

Sweet boy, I will go about my day today, working and playing, while you are on the other side of the world sleeping under the same moon I will sleep under tonight.  There is comfort in that too.  You are so many miles from my aching arms, yet it is a small world, and I am coming for you!  We will be together somewhere out there - out where dreams come true.  We love you!

Choosing to Trust His Perfect Timing

Well, here we are only 48 days into this process officially, and we are in a holding pattern.  Honestly, this is an awesome feeling!  It takes most people several months to get where we are, so we are feeling great about it.  We have gathered every document we can gather, had them state and US certified, and are mailing them to the Chinese Embassy in DC for further authentication today.  We have completed all that we need to do for our home study and are just waiting on our report, which could be any day now.  On that note, please join us in lifting our HS Coordinator, Rebecca, up in prayer.  She is trying her hardest to get this report finished up for us, but things that take precedence keep popping up, be it work related, a medical thing, or a need for one of her children.  I continue to encourage her (and myself) that God's timing is perfect.  There is peace in knowing that He holds our future in His hands, and that His perfect plan will come together in His perfect timing.

More news:  The girls are finally in the know!!!  It happened by accident actually.  Samantha and I were thumbing through the pics on my phone looking for something.  Georgia needed something, so I set my phone down and went to tend to her.  Sam picked it up and kept looking for that picture, and boy, did she get the surprise of her life!  My sweet sensitive girl put the phone down and went to her room, not saying a thing about what she had seen.  When I finished up with Georgia, I came back to keep looking for what I was looking for and finally found it.  I called Sam in to share it with her and she was all broken up in tears.   We had the sweetest time that morning talking through what she had seen, why we had kept it a secret from them, and all about her baby brother.  She melted when I confirmed that, as long as nothing goes wrong, yes, he is your brother.  What a sweet, tender spirit God has given that one.  She has a love and compassion for people that is so very special and rare.  I believe in my heart of hearts that God will do great things through that child, and I am so excited that I will have a front row seat to watch it all unfold!  We let a few days go by before letting Georgia in on the secret, but when we did, she hit the roof!  Talk about passion!  What a great word to describe her!  She is passionate all the time - whether happily or not  :) .  Now that they both know they are begging for a name.  In fact, at bedtime last night, Jodie and I were given the "assignment" to discuss names later and tell them what we came up with the next morning.  Ha!  Who is driving this ship anyway???  We have told them his Chinese name, but haven't settled in on an American name for him yet.

So, things are progressing.  And though, right now, it seems to be progressing at a snail's pace, we are finding peace in the fact that this has been and will continue to be God's story for us.  He will bring our son home in His perfect timing.  A few ways to pray:

• Our little man is in a foster home in China.  Pray for his caregivers - that they are giving him the best possible love and care.
• Pray for our son - that God will began moving in his sweet little heart even now, preparing him for the transitions to come.  Pray that somehow, our boy will know how much he is already loved.
• Pray for everyone involved in our journey - from our HS and Family Coordinators at AWAA to every hand that will touch every document we send out.
• Pray for Jodie and I - we will need to make a decision soon about whether or not to take the girls with us on our trip to China.  There are so many things to consider here, and it is not a decision we will take lightly.
• Pray for funds- Tax season was a bear for us.  While we know and trust that God will provide in this area, and we try not to worry, it is definitely a source of concern.  Most people have 12 months or more to gather all the funds needed to complete an adoption.  But, so far our journey is looking like it may not take quite that long.  We are putting together a few fundraisers, so keep your eyes open for options to help out if you are so called.

We want to thank all of you for being on this journey with us.  We feel your prayers and are so very grateful for them.  Stay tuned for more!!

Happy Birthday to Me!

What a day today has been!  It started with breakfast in bed from my two sweet girls, was followed by the sweetest card a wife could ever want from her hubby (LOVE him SO!), a great morning with my other 9 kids at the preschool, and some of the BEST NEWS EVER!!!

So as part of the Home Study and Approval process, there is a series of questions that you must answer - kind of an interview on paper.  Depending  on how you answer these questions, the China and/or US Governments may require prospective parents to have a psychological evaluation.  This includes, an IQ test, a personality test, and a clinical session with a licensed psychologist.  Who wants to have to do that?  Not to mention it would cost us an additional $1600 a pop!  But, God is good (yes, I would still know that He is good either way) and we DON'T have to do that!  Yay!!!!!!

ALSO, we heard from our Family Coordinator at America World that China had received our Electronic Acceptance and request to adopt this little man.  AND we were issued our Pre-Approval today!!  The letter they sent is actually dated today - March 25, 2015 - My Birthday!!!  What this means is that the China Centre for Children's Welfare and Adoption has reviewed all the information that we sent them with our request to adopt, and based on all the information that they have right now, are accepting our request and agrees to handle and process our adoption of this particular child!!!  That means that barring something totally unforeseen HE IS OURS!!!!!!

To top it all off, I got a call from our most fabulous HomeStudy Coordinator (who happens to go to my church and is becoming one of my bestest friends :)) asking if we could come early to church tonight to have our first official meeting!!!  Of course we can!!!!!!!

Can this birthday GET any better???????  I pray your day has been as much of a blessing to you as mine has been to me!

All Docs are IN!

Well, we are ready to go!  We have gotten all documentation and filled out all our forms.  Our Social Worker got the last bit of DSS Clearances today!  We are ready!  Our Home Study will officially start very soon!  We will have a joint meeting with our Social Worker, then she will meet one-on-one with each of us, then the home visit.  After that she will write her report and send it off to her boss and to our agency to approve.  Once it is approved, we will apply with US Immigration for approval to bring our boy home!

In the meantime, we are getting all of our other forms and documents certified and authenticated.  What a process!!!!  It has to go to the NC Secretary of State (who has already rejected 3 of our documents), then the US Department of State, then the Chinese Embassy!  Each of them will give each document their own stamp of approval and then send them back to us.  Once we have all of our docs certified and authenticated, the completed Home Study, and approval from HomeLand, we will send the packet (called the Dossier) to China for their official approval.

There is still plenty of red tape between us and him, but it does feel good to know that we are well into the process at this point.  It is nice to know that we are basically waiting on other people to pass the ball back to us.  We do still have a few books we have to read and other trainings we have to "attend" online, but we are marching forward at full speed, and each new item checked off the list gets us one step closer to our son!  Praise God!!!