My Misshap

Well, last I wrote, we were on step 8 out of 15. Step 9 on my timeline says "2 weeks", I am sad to say I have been on that step 4 weeks already and my '2 weeks' hasn't even started.....

So, on 4/21 I got the new home study by FedEx and I had my papers ready to go as soon as the home study came (I had to get it amended because of the move). This is a sampling of the papers I had to fill out before sending in this step 9.

I was so proud of myself. I had all of these papers ready, the label printed, and actually asked the FedEx driver to wait so I could run my package right back out to him. The package was received that Tuesday, 4/24 and so should start my 2 week process. This is when Home Land Security checks out JH to make sure he is legit and can come in our country. Well after the 2 weeks, I emailed to see what was the hold up. Turns out I did not send in the $385 fee associated with the supplement 3 form for the address change to the I800A (Is your head spinning yet? MINE IS! My brain does not work through papers. I make a list, lose the list, and then when I find the list, I am often surprised that I took care of something on my list).

Anyway, my dear social worker, who is Chinese, had to explain the English document to me. "It says issued, okay that means they have sent it to you already".

God bless her having to translate the English letter from the Government to me. So, when the pink paper arrives, I can send in the payment. That was on 5/12. The pink paper came 5/13, I wrote the check and Fed Exed it that same day. It arrived 5/15 to Texas. The officer said if I could show proof of my payment in my checking account she would push me to the next step before waiting for the Government to tell her I paid. That was generous of her.

 Every day I am checking. This morning 5/23 the check is pending. I immediately take a pic of it and send it to the officer. Hours later they write back, well, our name is not on the pic, so they can't prove it is our account. I print a statement (that is the only screen that has our name on it) and our cycle goes from 21st-22nd. So of course the pending withdrawal is not on the statement, but I circle the last 4 numbers of the account and send it in hoping it is proof enough. So I am still on step 9 out of 15. And I have been here since 4/21. SO disheartening. This is the first time I was holding up the process.

Although I am mostly distressed about it, there is a faint whisper reminding me, "God's timing is perfect. He is not surprised by this misstep. He knows what He is doing, and it is better than what I have planned. "

And just incase I am to despair, I am reminded of His faithfulness. A former student who now lives in Texas (Land of this Home Land Security Lock Box) made shirts in Chinese and English for us to wear, and a gift to give his foster parents. The package arrived with this precious picture of her children who prayed over our shirts before sending them.

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose"  Romans 8:28

Life Came at Us Fast!

So much to write, so little energy.

• Dossier was logged in to China on 2/23/17. We are now awaiting a match letter to our specific son (30-45 days is average wait) and then we will apply to immigrate him (I800)

• In late January, my generous sister and brother in law, forwent an investment house opportunity so that we could buy it. The owner's generous and thoughtful family named an extremely affordable price, which in turn really made a house like this a reality for our family.

•  I like to refer to it as "the time God dropped an amazing house into our laps for an even more amazing price" or "the time we moved and got 3 extra living spaces and 4 full baths for almost the same price we sold our old house". Or "Another time when God did more than we could ask or imagine!"

 (This is a before picture)

• We signed the contract in February and will the generosity of our family were able to buy it on March 1st. (They bridged a loan for us with funds they had access to).

• The last month has been a blur. Our families have worked tirelessly, literally until their hands are bleeding trying to help us clean out our new house (part of the amazing price is the owner just walked out. Leaving all of the contents. From amazing paintings and furniture to expired medication and soap from 1985) and settle us in. My mother in law worked herself to the bone for 18 days and kept our lives in motion. My parents spent countless hours at our old house painting and repairing. A team a friends painted, helped us move, helped us with our garage sales.

• Our old house went on the market on Thursday and we had 11 showings and 2 competing offers by Saturday. We close on May 5th so we can pay back our first loan and apply for a real mortgage.
• Still sorting and settling and going back and forth.
• No real conclusion....gotta run.

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!

Lifeline

Update:
Mailed I800A on 12/9
12/19 got an email from government that our "invitation" to be finger printed would come in 7-10 days by mail.
12/26 NOTHING in the mail. NO mail service today. I am SO anxious to get the invitation. We really want to walk in on Wed or Thursday (2 hours away) but we cannot without the invitation. Praying it comes tomorrow. Please. After we get printed, it takes 3 weeks to get the approval.

(Our interpretation of Homeland Security investigating us.)

I am on some closed Facebook groups about adopting older kids from China. They are SUPER helpful! I think of it as a lifeline. Often there are SOS messages sent out saying things like, "I am in country, my child is crying, we are exhausted...." and then always 20-40 encouraging messages written back. I always come up with something encouraging to write, because I just imagine the mom sitting in the hotel room, panicked, hitting refresh, looking for some help. I also pray for the families, since Jesus can actually meet their needs.

On this group I met a woman I will call EH. I could tell by her encouragement that we were of like mind. She actually traveled to China in October to meet her 2 year old son she had been matched with. In the back of her pictures I saw several of the kids that were hosted at the same time as our little guy! Kids I knew by name! She was in his town and at his school! I immediately contacted her to see if she recognized him. She didn't. Well, she is traveling in the next week or two to get her son! She has graciously offered to bring a little care package for Jude. I got a letter translated and mailed it to her with a small album of wallet sized pictures (that I got from the sale of the century), a small bagged lego set, and car that he left here. In the letter I practically begged that he jot down a quick note or something to hand back to EH for me. This is the second letter we have sent. The first letter we emailed, also with pictures on it. We heard it was received in China, but never got a response. We asked for an update and we got this picture and a video of him coloring. Unfortunately he says nothing in the video. I'm not even sure he knew it was coming to us. Of course in my EH letter I mentioned the video so he knows we saw it. We have still been advised not to give him adoption hope, until we are farther along in the process, but we were sure to mention how much we loved him and missed him.

(This is the picture we got last week)

I would pay $100 to know what he is thinking. Does he miss us? Does he want to be adopted? Does he even think about us?

On the Facebook group, often there is an older child who is really afraid about leaving China. We get these SOS messages asking for prayer that the child will take a leap of faith and agree to be adopted. Children 10 and older are asked. Man that must be hard! For everyone involved. It is like an arranged marriage. So vulnerable to leave everything you are comfortable with and go to a foreign land with strangers who are committing their lives to you! I think about how comfortable I am with mediocrity. Sure, things could be better if I put in the
 effort or took a risk, but it is so much easier to be content with lukewarm/comfortable. I settle for good instead of God's best.

I see this with Perry's old job. He didn't love it. It was a great salary (we know that now but didn't really appreciate it then) and a good company, but he had no advancement. It was just a job. Something he didn't ever feel he was great at. We were content. Lukewarm. God had bigger plans. He pushed us out and for awhile we were miserable.

I liken it to the story of Joseph, the beloved son of Jacob. Brothers got jealous, beat him up, threw him in the pit. Man that pit must have been miserable! Smelly and seemingly hopeless. Then he goes through some more ups and downs. I mean there are some hopeful parts of his journey, then, BAM! Accused of something he didn't do, back to the pit, prison. Ultimately the King of Egypt promotes him out of the dungeon and into power. In doing so, the Lord uses Joseph to save His covenant children. The lineage of Jesus! All of that had to happen so God's people could have the best! The Lord provided for ME by sending Joseph to the pit!
This is so encouraging. I worship that same Lord! He too allowed us to wallow in the smelly pit! After a season He gave us something better! By walking this journey we found Jude. (We are currently trying out an American name really hoping we can agree on it soon and I can start referring to him as that. We of course will keep his Chinese name, by will give him an American first name so he has options. PS- it is NOT Jude).
Also, Perry really likes his current job! There are State holidays, he enjoys his coworkers, he is getting really good at the job, good benefits, he loves having a cubical, and looks forward going to work!
One thing is for sure. I know that I do not KNOW how hard this is going to be. But I also know my Lifeline. And I know we can trust His plan for our lives, no matter how smelly it is at times.

Adoption Outline/Timeline

I haven't written much on the blog, because frankly, adoption paperwork and life have been time consuming. We have been moving along, although each step has so many sub steps.
Many people ask where we are in the process. I am going to attempt to explain it.

1. Initial application to both a home study organization (ABC Carolina Adoption) and placing agency (Living Hope Adoption Agency). Tons of papers to fill

2. Pre-approval from China to pursue JH for adoption

3. The Home Study- This took 3 days set aside for meetings (we had fewer because this agency did a home study for us 3 years ago), doctor physicals for all of us, criminal background checks, outlining all of our finances, DMV driving records, child abuse clearances, 3 letters of reference, including one from a teacher vouching that we take care of our children, finger prints, and $2000.

4. The social worker first met with us at the beginning of October and turned in her draft to ABC on 11/7/16. I was amazed at how fast that was, but then there were the revisions, fine tooth combing, additional psychological evaluations, Thanksgiving holiday, signatures needed, approval needed, financial paper reconciliation down to the cents, notarizing, Living Hope approval etc. for it to finally be complete.

5. Home Study RECEIVED in the mail YESTERDAY 12/9/16 at 3:30pm

6. I 800 A- is basically the US saying that they approve us to immigrate someone. So we apply for this approval (hence the A in the form) asking them if we have permission to adopt from China. We must send them an official copy of our home study, our birth certificates, our marriage certificate, and about 10 pages forms filled out. Oh and $890. They will invite us to come get our fingerprints taken in Norfolk to make sure we are not terrorists or human traffickers. When they send us our approval letter that is the final piece of our dossier puzzle.

We mailed our I 800 A last night at 6:14pm same day we received the HS. This process will take about 5-6 weeks.

So that is how far we have come. This is the step we are on. Now we wait for Homeland Security to invite us to the finger printing. Please pray that we can get the finger prints done in 2016. Perry has a personal day that will not carry into 2017. We will need every single one of his vacation/personal days to travel to China.

WE ARE HERE

FUTURE STEPS:

7.Submit Dossier for translation to Chinese Consulate in NY.

 Once the I 800 Approval paper arrives- we will submit the Dossier. The Dossier contains, certified copies of our birth certificates, marriage certificate, physicals from doctors, financial information, employment verification letters, copies of our passports, 2 new passport pictures for visas (I assume), 6 family pictures, home study, and criminal background clearances.

Our Dossier MUST be submitted by 3/13/17 because of the dates on all of our forms have to be less than 6 months old.

8.Letter Seeking Confirmation (LSC) or Letter of Approval (LOA)- China confirms our match with our son JH, and sends us LOA giving us official permission to adopt him. This could take 1 week- 3months!)

9. Final Immigration approval (I800) 2 weeks

10. Receive GUZ number- 2 or 3 days. The next few steps have to deal with him being granted a visa. The visa will be placed in his Chinese passport and as soon as we touch down on US soil he will be a US citizen.

11. NVC Letter- 1-3 Days after the GUZ. Confirms that the National Visa Center has forwarded our caste to the US Consulate in Guangzhou

12. Article 5 Drop-off- 10 business days until pick-up. The US Consulate in Guangzhou prepares the paperwork for the visa. Then will be submitted to China by Living Hope so we will be granted travel approval.

13. Travel Approval- 1-3 weeks. China extends an invitation to us to come on over and get him! We have to do it within 90 days of the invite!

14. Consulate Appointment- 1-2 days. After Travel Approval (TA) Living Hope schedules an appointment for us at the US Consulate in Guangzhou to complete the final paperwork necessary for the visa. Once we have this appointment, we begin making travel arrangements. Our social worker from Living Hope said to plan for $15,000 for the travel! That includes: flights for 2, hotel, 2 meals/day, guides, in country travel (train/plane), province and orphanage fees, and legal fees.

15. WE FLY TO CHINA FOR 2 WEEKS

16. You meet us at the airport upon return to celebrate with us!