70 days!

We have 70 days to go until April 1, when we will hopefully be submitting our Dossier to China!! 

Please pray with us as we wait for Father to provide the finances needed for that next big step in the process. 

In the meantime, here are some pictures we received a couple of weeks ago. Wednesday, January 13, to be exact. We had woken up feeling pretty chilly and aggravated because our power had been off since dinner the night before and it was still not back on when we got up. But as I was checking my messages on my phone, it started to ding. A lot. And as I looked, my frustration melted away with the joy I saw on this little face.

Joy is what we have been praying for him. We sent a package to him and in it we included a hat for him and all of his friends in his class. I was in bed cuddling with all of my boys and we were able to look at these pictures together and pray that we are already making a difference in Qi Long's life.

We also sent a picture album that contained a few pictures of our family, including all 4 of us wearing a hat like we sent and a note and a few other things for him in the package. We don't know if they gave it to him. We don't know if they even told him that the hats were from us, but either way, he knows that someone cares for him enough to let him have a new hat and for that we are thankful. We can't wait until we get to snuggle him up in the bed with us.

Just 70 days until we are one giant step closer to that day!

Thank you for your love, support and prayers!

Blessings of the Internet

The internet is notorious for being a dangerous place. It is full of lies and deception and downright evil. But in some cases, it is also a place where hope and joy can be found. We had one of those days last week.

We are members of a Facebook group for families that have adopted or are in the process of adopting from Qi Long's specific orphanage. We are newer members to the group so as we were scrolling through the posts and reading threads from the past, we noticed a picture of a boy that was sitting in a classroom that looked just like Qi Long's class. Through more investigating (aka stalking), we found out that it was his classroom and that the little boy is being adopted by a family that lives about 2 hours or so from our hometown. I was so excited and immediately emailed her and started a connection there.

This is probably our favorite. Why?
He is eating a cookie. From Subway.
A chocolate cookie!!

As we kept scrolling down, we just started looking for pictures that might have some clue about our son. We hadn't even thought about searching for pictures of him, but we were in all out bloodhound mode at this point. We ended up finding him in a video of a little girl's birthday party, and we hit the jackpot and found a website that hosted volunteers at this orphanage and he was in several of their pictures. We were able to find pictures all the way back to 2013.

 As we got to the bottom of the page, and refreshed our Facebook feed, there was a new post by a family that was currently in China and had just met her son that day. We found a video on her facebook page from a few months ago and lo and behold, those big brown eyes were looking back at us, sitting right beside his friend in the video. So, we were also able to connect with her. She even took a couple of pictures for us when she went to visit the orphanage with her little boy.

It is so exciting to see two of his friends going to families. And both of them are very close to our hometown and we are hoping to be able to get together in the future. I hope that will be a priceless gift to be able to give to these boys, continued contact with the friends, really the brothers, that they have grown up with.

And that's not all!! Almost a month ago, we had found a guy that has devoted himself to collecting old newspapers from China. This might not seem like a big deal to most, but to adoptive families, it can be the only link they have to their child's past. In China, when a baby is found abandoned, they are required by law to post a finding ad, describing where and when they were found and any other information they can give. This ad must run in the paper for several months before they are officially considered "abandoned." This man was able to find Qi Long's finding ad and he sent us the picture of it on Monday. So now we have a picture of his precious little baby face. It's a huge piece of his puzzle, and something that I will treasure.

Qi Long at about 5 months old

This is such a hard thing to process. As I look at this picture, it's so hard for me to fathom what the situation could have been for a mama to let go of this face. My heart crumbles when I think about it. So many questions, so few answers. All I know is that, whatever the reason, I can only trust that the Father has only good planned for Qi Long and for his Birth Mommy, and for us. I am so thankful to her for giving him the gift of life, and I hope that I can honor her in the way that I raise him.

Today, I am thankful for the internet. And I am not ashamed to be a stalker! :P

90 Days!

Today, we officially begin our countdown to J's 30th birthday! You don't normally hear of people counting down to a 30th birthday, but for us, being 30 means we are eligible to adopt from China. The exact rule states that both applicants must be 30 years old at the time the Dossier is submitted. So we have been working to get up to that point, so that on April 1, we can have that packet in the mail.

Before April 1, we have 4 parts to complete.

1. Homestudy: We have been working since Oct. 8, on this. Our paperwork was for the most part completed at the end of November, but because of the business of Christmas time, we were not able to meet with the case worker until January 1. Now, that is complete, but we will still be waiting for 2-3 more weeks for that to be finalized.

2. US Dept of Immigration: Once our home study is finalized, we will apply with the USCIS for approval to adopt from our government in America. This approval is generally the last document that you will be waiting on in order to submit the Dossier.

3. Document authentication. All 11 (I think it's 11. Don't quote me on that.) documents that are contained in your Dossier packet must be certified, notarized and authenticated by the US government, and then stamped with a final seal from the Chinese embassy stating that they are true and valid documents. This takes time with lots of back and forth work with important documents usually in D.C. Fortunately, our agency takes care of all of this for us, so it's not necessarily a stress for me, but it does equal time and money.

4. And finally the 4th part is money. We have to submit our agency fee (ours is $6,000, not including the cost for immigration and document authentication, and other fees already paid) in order for them to process our Dossier and get it in the mail for us. So even if the time works out and our packet is ready before April 1, if we don't have that money ready, we will still be waiting.

There are many grants available, but there are a few problems with grants.

1. You have to have a completed Home Study in order to apply for a grant.
2. Most organizations that provide grants only process their applications during specific time frames, for example, once per quarter, and they issue their grants all at once for that time period. The average grant application process takes around 90 days.

SO...I know that is probably a lot of boring information for most of you, but for those of you who are interested about the process, there you go! This is where we are and the goals we have in front of us for the next 90 days. I don't know that I can call them goals because a large percentage of these 4 parts don't actually include our involvement. I guess I should say this is our prayer points for the next 90 days.

Because this is so boring, here is a little thank you for making it to the end!
(Hint: Click Twice)

This was the day that we visited QL at the orphanage.
As he turns around he keeps an eye on his dad back there by the door.
What we would give to know what was going through is little mind that day!

I KNOW, RIGHT?!

In the meantime, if you have any ground shaking fundraising ideas, please share! We would love to hear about ideas that have worked well for you, or an idea that you would be interested in participating in! Click here to see our Puzzle Fundraiser!

Home Study

We had our Home Study visit this Friday and Saturday. I can't think of a better way to ring in the New Year than to check off one of  the major to do items in our process!

Because we live overseas, our visit was a bit different. She arrived on Friday around 2:30pm and stayed through Saturday around lunch. Stephen had been sick this week and Sean, who has been an amazing sleeper for several months, had all of a sudden started having tantrums around bedtime and in the middle of the night, so we are all a little tired, aka cranky, and I was a little worried about all of that! But we were blessed to have our friends here who were able to watch the boys for us for the Friday night portion of the interviews and trainings.

Most of the questions that she asked were the same questions that we had already answered in our Home Study paperwork, but people always speak and write differently, so she said she likes to get both perspectives and then write from the combination of the two. So the questions were things we had already thought through. Some of them were hard to remember what we had said, but it was a way for her to get the best picture of what we truly felt. She asked us questions about how we met, how we decided we wanted to adopt, and a general overview of what our family life looks like. Then she went through training that was required which answered many questions about what to expect throughout the adoption process and beyond, with a lot of information about attachment and bonding, as well as some struggles that you might see come up.

Saturday morning she came back and we had a little bit more training left to cover and so we did that while the boys were occupied with a movie and then the more stressful part came when she interviewed J and me separately. This is when we got more in depth about our autobiographies that we had already written and she asked us more personal questions about our childhood experiences, our values, our strengths and weaknesses, and more specific questions about parenthood. Again, all of these questions we had already had to think through in our paperwork, but it's definitely harder when you are on the spot and you don't have a delete button. Ha.

Then she did our home inspection, which was very relaxed. She didn't bring out a white glove or anything like that. She basically just checked for safety features: no knives, chemicals or medicines in the reach of children. Do you have smoke detectors, fire extinguisher and locks on the doors? She got to enjoy a private tour performed by our boys, with each of them pointing out their favorite parts of their own rooms. Little S made sure to show her every single stuffed animal he has and Big S showed off his utility knife that he got for Christmas. I'm not sure he really understood the idea of a home study. HA! She talked with Stephen about what he liked to do and what he thought about the adoption. He told her about home school and made sure to include the fact that "we haven't done school in a really long time!" Thankfully, it's Christmas break and I have an excuse!!

Overall, we are happy that it is done and we can keep moving. It feels good to have that off of our shoulders. But more than just checking it off of the checklist, the home study really is a valuable resource for us as adoptive parents. Our case workers truly are here to help us. They WANT us to adopt. They are here to encourage, to answer questions, and to calm fears. Yes, they have a job to do to make sure we can provide a safe and loving home for a child, but your case worker is so much more than that. I truly encourage anyone who is on this journey, to take full advantage of the wisdom your case worker has to offer. And while you have her stuck in your house, ask as many questions as you can think of. Don't be afraid to let her know that you don't have all of the answers.

So now, you guessed it...we wait. She will take a few weeks to write up the report and then send it to us for review and then to a different case worker to be finalized. Once we have a finalized copy of the home study, we will be ready to fill out our application with the US Dept of Immigration to be approved to adopt by the good ol US of A.

Happy New Year and prayers for a blessed 2016 to you all!!