Happy Chinese New Year to Us!

On Wednesday, I checked a spreadsheet of adoptive families and their timelines. Three families got finger printed the same day and received their notice in the mail 1/23.

Okay, well it was 1/25, mine should be coming any day. On 1/26 I decided to call. Turns out, our "application just arrived on the officer's desk, and he had a stack of I800 priority cases on top".

So sad.

Not to mention, our adoption agency has trained 2 social workers during the time of our adoption whom have left. The one remaining faithful social worker is carrying all the weight and oh yeah.....so sick, she could go to work the end of last week. Pray for her! Endurance, health, and a careful eye.

Officer Lawrenz did say I could email him a FedEx label so that when he did get to it, it would arrive more quickly. So Friday, 1/27 I figure out how to make the label and low and behold the nice officer calls me from Kansas to ask a clarification question and then to tell us we were approved!!

He received the label I sent and should be overnighting it to Pennsylvania soon for the last piece of our dossier puzzle.

We started step 6. on 12/9, we are a couple days away from being on step 7!

Last night, we went to my friend, Judy's Chinese restaurant for our annual Chinese take out meal, our way of celebrating Chinese New Year, and a way to make sure Judy still remembers me.

And today, the most special thing happened. Through a Facebook connection, another mom realized that her son (adopted years ago) had the same foster parents as Jude! Although the boys were never in their care at the same time, this family went back in April on a heritage trip and got to meet them. They brought Jude with them to the orphanage to visit with their former foster son. See that precious boy in the background!?

My favorite quote from my FB conversation

" The foster mom specifically spoke out the wish for your son to be adopted. It was the first time adoptive parents came back to China to meet with them and so valuable to her. She saw first hand that 'her' sweet boy was loved on".

Did you read that?! Although the foster parents are very loving (mom stays home, dad owns his own printing business) the mom wants what is best for Jude.   Look at Jude's sweet foster parents! The boy was adopted 7 years ago. Man, that is going to be a tough goodbye! Seeing their sweet faces does give me a new appreciation for all they are doing to stand in the gap for these precious children. A dear former student of mine is helping create a special gift to give these 2 dear people. People whom I can never really repay for loving our son.

Oh, what a treasure to peek into his Chinese world, and what a blessing that the mother actually voiced twice that her hope for Jude was a forever family.  

Look at the timeline: April this family visits the foster family, meanwhile in America, we start thinking about hosting. We commit in May, he comes in August, we send him back with an album from our adventures, hopefully soon he will know we are coming for him and his foster mom's wish will be realized.

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR TO US!

Snow Day = Answered Prayer!

For awhile I have been praying for a Mandarin speaking friend who lives close to us who would be willing to help us communicate when we first bring home our son. I am praying that this person would have children who speak Mandarin and our son would be able to play with them to maintain his Mandarin (assuming he has positive associations with the language and would like to keep it). As a language teacher, I would love nothing more than for him to be a well attached, loving, bilingual American.
Although race and language have never before been a qualification of mine for friendship, I am interested in our son having positive role models who look like him and with whom we can share the parts of his culture that he would like to maintain.

Today, I took our children and the 3 kids I babysit to the library because this is our 3rd snow day! I actually saw 5 of my friends and their children stroll in, coincidentally with the same idea! It truly was the highlight of my week visiting with adults while my children read books!

Anyway, Anna had a Chinese classmate from 2nd grade named Henry. She went to a different school in 3rd grade, so they lost touch. We always remembered him, because in 2nd grade he would hug her and then tickle her arm pits. For years we have fondly referred to him as Tickle Pits Henry. Well, he has grown up and when she walked by him in the library and he said, "Hi Anna!". And there sat his adorable little sister and his friendly mom! Just like any good mom would do, I went over and introduced myself to my new friend, Judy! Although slightly embarrassing, I thought, "moms would do anything to help their children", this is my answer to prayer.

We chatted for 30 minutes! She lives less than 1 mile from us and now Henry and Anna are in middle school together. They speak Mandarin!!! And she is connected to the Chinese community and was so very friendly.
She and her husband own a Chinese restaurant in Bon Air. Because all blog posts need a picture, I took a screen shot of her restaurant because, she is my friend and I'm happy to advertise for her. We exchanged contact information and when she said to her daughter in Mandarin, "Say hi to Auntie" I was both in awe that I understood her and touched that she referred to me with that term of endearment.
Feeling so incredibly blessed how the Lord is weaving our story. Thank God for this snow day!

Finger PrintED!

Last update we were on step 6 of 16. Still there although we have made a bit of progress within the step. Mailed in the I 800A asking for an appointment time on 12/9. Many weeks of mailbox stalking and

our invitation letter arrived 12/31 with an appointment date of the following Friday. Thankfully, Perry realized that he could carry one personal day over to the first week of the year, so he was able to use it after all.

Yesterday, 1/6 we got the finger prints done and now are waiting another 3 plus weeks for the approval to come back. That approval letter is the final piece to our dossier.  Our invitation was for the one day a week that I do not work! It was for 8AM and my dear mother came over at 5:15am so we could drive to Norfolk. We got there 45 minutes early. We were the first in the door at 7:45, security, paperwork, finger prints and back in the car at 8:20!
No traffic, no weather, no problems! Today, 24 hours later, there is at least 5 inches of snow between us an Norfolk! Thankful it all worked out!