Pre Approved!!

We received our Pre-Approval today!!!!!

We came back home from traveling yesterday and I woke up this morning in my usual post-travel state of exhaustion and didn't want to get out of bed. I opened the computer to check my email expecting there to be nothing there, like there never was, so it seemed. My mood immediately changed to elation when I read the subject line, Pre-Approval! I called Justin and the boys in and they came running and together on our bed this morning we read the words that we have been waiting to hear. He is ours and we are going to fervently pursue bringing him HOME!

And now we can finally share his sweet little face with YOU!!

Chen Qi Long

Birthday: 3/15/2010

I know a mama's heart is always biased, but he just has the sweetest face. We feel like he just looks like he belongs to the R family! :)

A few questions that we have asked ourselves and received encouragement about:

1. What is a PA? This is a statement from the government of China that our family is officially promised to this child and no one else can view his file. In a nutshell, we have 6 months to finish our paperwork and submit our Dossier packet to China and then they will go over our information and issue a formal Letter of Acceptance, and after a little bit more paperwork between the US government and China, we will be given a travel date to go pick him up. 

2. What could happen from now until we pick him up that could change our status with him? Can this PA later on get denied? We asked our case worker these questions and of course there are always things that can happen, and she encouraged us that she had never seen that happen. The only time someone would not receive approval after receiving PA is if they were not telling the truth in their original paperwork. People have stopped the process on their own after receiving a PA, but she said it is very rare for someone to have a disruption for some reason outside of their own control. Basically, she told us to relax. Haha.

3. And our really really big question...Since we live nearby, are we allowed to meet him now? We have submitted a request to go visit him. Our agency frequently works with expats and our case worker says sometimes the orphanage says yes, sometimes they say no. All we can do is try and then wait. We are becoming professional wait-ers. 

Complete Joy

God is so good. When we pray, He listens. When we ask Him to speak, He does. He is faithful.

We received the updated special focus list from our agency this weekend. We spent the day yesterday looking through it and as we stopped and read each story, we couldn't shake the feeling that we were somehow "cheating" on our child. It honest to goodness felt like we were setting one of our children aside and trying to find someone else to replace him. It felt horrible.

We spent Sunday morning in fellowship with our friends, like we do every Sunday. We spent the morning praying together over our decision and what it would mean for us and for our future child. One of our friends told us that it seemed like we needed to decide which was more important to us, our life, our job, and our call here in rural Asia or our love and our call to this little boy. Justin and I decided yesterday afternoon that we were done fighting this feeling. Maybe what we had been seeing as a closed door, wasn't a closed door. We decided to allow ourselves a little more time of opening our hearts here. We had spent the last week trying to shut him out of our hearts, but it wasn't working. So we began to talk about what a decision like this would mean for our family. We had come into this journey planning that we would add a member to our family and live life like we had been living. A new life of course, with its own challenges and chaos, but for the most part, no major changes, for example the location of our home. We ended up coming up with a couple of plans, let's call them Plan B, Plan C and Plan D. We figured it couldn't hurt to have enough to make it to Plan Z, right?

This morning, I woke up and decided to do some research. I began looking up information about expats living overseas with children that have special needs and I found some encouragement. I decided to write an email to our good friends who have a huge passion for our job and also a huge passion for adoption. I shared with them our struggles and our confusion and asked them how do you decide between one or the other? They replied back and encouraged us to truly seek the Lord and His heart and to trust as He leads. We know that we are in this town, today, for a purpose. And we need to fulfill that purpose well with our whole hearts. We also know that we are called to adopt, and we also need to fulfill that calling with our whole hearts. And we will worry about what tomorrow brings when we get there and trust God to do the leading.

So this afternoon, as I poured over the Scriptures, asking God to speak to me specifically today, He answered me. I went through many verses in Psalm that proclaim the importance of trusting in Him, our Rock and our Deliverer. And then I ended up in John 15. Such familiar verses to so many of us, especially in our lives for the past 2 years. A theme in our company has been Abide. And I was reminded once again of the importance of abiding in Him and allowing Him to direct our paths. But for some reason today, John 15:11 stuck out to me, and I wasn't quite sure why, but I knew that it was something God was impressing on me. "I have written this, so that your joy may be complete." I opened my devotional that I have been reading through and flipped it to August 15, the day that Qi Long was found. And guess what verse was listed for that day. Yes, John 15:11. Not the whole passage, but just this one verse. And then this is what I read off to the side. "Joy is the experience of knowing you are unconditionally loved." A quote by Henry Nouwen. What more could God want a child of his to know on one of the hardest days of his life? That he was unconditionally loved.

We sent an email to our case worker tonight and told her that we were ready to take the next steps to make Qi Long a part of our family. We don't know where this next year will lead us. He could have medical issues that take us away from our job, he could not. All we know is that he is already so unconditionally loved by us, but more than any one, by his Heavenly Father, who lavishly fills my heart with confirmation in the little details!

Worth It

We heard back from the orphanage and they are standing by what is in his files. They are saying that he does not have what our pediatricians are saying that he has and all he needs is some personal love and attention and that his medical delays will resolve on their own. We also received a video of him which, honestly ripped my heart in two. It's one thing looking at a picture and another thing watching a video of a child playing and being a real human kid. A real human kid that doesn't have a mama or a daddy, or two brothers and a dog. He doesn't have anybody that is there for him no matter what. He no doubt has people that care about him and care for him, but it's not permanent. They go home and change shifts and his life is one big ball of who is coming next? But even though they are confident of this, it is still very hard for us to let go of what makes the most sense. Our agency encouraged us that you don't normally find such drastic differences in the files vs. doctors. But we all know that it happens. Are they lying, do they just not know, do they not have the resources to know truly what is going on with him? Or is it really what they say and it's just all a big coincidence that all of his symptoms point to this? Our realism says, "There is no way he doesn't have this. 2+2 always equals 4, no matter how you turn it. But our hopefulness says, "There's so much we don't know."

It's Sunday. Tuesday will be 3 weeks since we first saw him. Today is 2 weeks since we opened our hearts to the idea that he could actually be our son. And as of today we have spent 1 week trying to let him go. This is not a natural process of the heart. At all. But neither was my own adoption.

It wasn't natural for God the Father to send His own Son into the world to grow up only to die, in order for me to be adopted into His family. It wasn't natural to watch his Son grow up into a beautiful young man whose very breath was only used to bring glory to His Father, just to watch him suffer in agony and pain. None of that was natural, and yet it was worth it. God saw that I was worth it. And I know that no matter what happens on this journey, no matter how painful it is on the way there, in the end, whoever our son or daughter is, it will be worth it.

I am praying these words over this sweet little boy today. "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jer. 29:11

Letting Go

This has been a really, really, really hard week. We haven't been through these kind of emotions in a very long time and they aren't very fun. We were on our way back home Monday and opened our email to find the responses we had been waiting for from our pediatrician. We also received a response from another doctor friend. Both of them shared their opinions on Qi Long's condition, which unfortunately revealed issues what we *thought* were in the clear.

Without going too much into detail, both of our pediatricians feel like he has some serious issues that we were not seeing. A couple of them, his file clearly stated that he did not have. But after hearing from the doctors, all of the signs add up and all of the signals are pointing to the fact that he does.

Going into this process, Justin and I both felt like we would be very open to many special needs that we have seen listed. But the more we thought about it and thought about our job and our family, we realized that as much as we want to, we just simply can't do some of the things that we normally could. First of all, we live in a very small town in East Asia and our medical care is not great. So anything that might potentially need emergency assistance is pretty much out of the question. Of course accidents can and will happen, just as with any kid, but when you know for a fact you are dealing with life and death, it's just not a possibility for us right now.

This diagnosis is literally rocking our world. We have to give our decision on whether we want to keep his file for good, or let it go back into the list for other families to view. And at this point we are really struggling to find our answer. Yesterday, we were all in, and today we have no idea what to do. They never tell you how hard it is to have to think about saying no to a child here. No one tells you about how quickly your heart can become attached to a picture. We all look at pictures of orphans and feel pity, but no one tells you about the grief that you go through in actually considering one of these precious children to be your own. Or maybe they did, and I just didn't listen.

At this point, we aren't quite ready to let go, but we can't say yes yet. There is still a strange small hope that it's not what it seems. But, we are letting his file go back to the list and are begging God to show us what to do. We know that if we aren't the family that was meant to bring him home, that we have to trust God to bring him the right family.

In the meantime, we are still going to send our questions to the orphanage and see what they say and just pray for guidance.

Really Too Fast

So, you remember a few days ago when I posted about that list we got in the email, and how we felt like it was just too soon to be going there, and those 3 faces that we saw? Well, 2 of those faces in particular began to plague our minds this week. We just couldn't get them out of our heads. It didn't help that Justin had put their pictures on his phone and was looking at them any chance he got. So we decided to go ahead and ask for their files last night. It's just information, right? Maybe if we can read more about them, it will help us to know why we are thinking of them so much.

There was this one little girl, 3 years old named Samantha and  this little boy named Jesse, also 3. These were the two kids that we were dying to know more about. But there was also this other little boy named, Wesley. He is 5 1/2 and the very first night we looked through all of the pictures, his big eyes caught both of our attentions and there was just something different about him, so we decided to ask for his file too.

We received them earlier this evening and spent the night pouring over the English translations of their files. We decided to read them separately so that we could process what we were seeing and see if our thoughts and feelings matched up when we were done. After a while, we both looked up and knew that the other had a special one in mind. I know I was praying for his to be the same as mine and I'm sure he was too. And it was. We were both falling head over heels for the one that we almost didn't ask for. Little Wesley had captured us. The other two were still heavy on our hearts, and Jesse even had a video in his file where his caretaker told him to say hi to "mama." If that doesn't rip your heart out I don't know what will. While one of the hardest parts of the adoption process (at least in the beginning) is saying no to one child, but yes to another, we didn't feel a connection with the two that we originally did. But when we looked at Wesley, there was something different. It was almost as if he was already ours.

Before we ever even thought we were close to the point of looking at the children, I had been praying and asking Father to give me very specific confirmations about the child that He had picked out for us. I've always felt bad for my pleading with Him to give me signs, and wondering why I don't ever just trust Him to lead my heart, but I also know that my heart is deceitful above all else and I have to guard it, because it is the epicenter of my life in Him. When I am asking Him for confirmations, it's not that I don't trust Him to speak to me, I just don't trust myself to listen. He knows that I am hard of hearing and He has always been faithful to give me what I need to be able to trust Him with all of my heart.

One of the things that just brought me to my knees was reading the date that Wesley was found. It was very close to a really big date for our family. Two very serious life changes, two different places, with different people...A time when our life and this little boy's life had both changed in ways that no one will ever be able to fully explain to us on this side of Heaven, but somehow, Father was weaving our lives together and I found out about it today.

There were a few other details that poured a little more concrete into my unsteady heart, one profound. Justin and I talked about this boy for what seemed like hours. And we were so shaken by it all. We were hoping that reading these files would help us to let go of these images and help us to focus on the task at hand, but this was exactly the opposite. And it was so fast! Mind you, we JUST received our home study packet (which we were blowing through, yay! but still!!) It just did not fit the timeline we had written for ourselves. We had the option of locking his file for one week while we sought the advice of doctors and any other wise counsel we could find. We had promised Stephen from the very beginning that his opinions mattered and that we wanted him to be a part of this process. So before we went any farther, we asked him for his opinion. We showed him Wesley's picture again and gave him a few details of his story and waited for his reply. Stephen shrugged his shoulders and said, "I'm cool with it." We looked at him and he looked at us and then a smile formed on his face. "What?" he asked. We said, "Really? You're cool with it?" And he said, "Yeah! I like him. Let's do it." Haha.

Now, for that to make sense, I have to include the fact that up until this point, Stephen was the least sold out person in our family. He was excited about adoption. He had been part of the conversation 5 years ago when he was only 4 or so. He has always been on board with giving another kid a family and he wants to be that big brother. But he hasn't been so sold out on the idea of a sibling from China. He worries about the language barrier, and we explain to him that just like we are learning Chinese here, our new child will learn English when they become part of our family. And we talk to Chinese people every day, even though we can't understand everything they say. We can almost always at least talk to the little kids! But something about having a Chinese speaking person as a member of our family has not made him very excited yet. Until tonight. Just in the carefree way that he said, "I'm cool with it," totally blew us away.

SO, with all of that being said, we sent an email saying that we were seriously considering Wesley, now we know his real name is Chen Qi Long, and we wanted to lock his file for the week so that we could continue to pray about him. So here's to finding out what God can show us within a week!

Waste of Time

A couple of days ago, we received an email from the director of the China adoption program with our agency. We scheduled a Skype call with her to go over the specific process of China and she gave us a very good cliff-notes version of what to expect. She explained the difference between China's "Special Focus" list and their "Special Needs" list. The Special Needs list contains children that have milder special needs and this is the list used to make referrals to families once they have submitted their Dossier to China and have received their Log in Date. Most families will be matched to a child through this list and this is the process we are most familiar with based on our reading. The Special Focus list, however, is a list of children that have more moderate to severe special needs, have been on the Special Needs list for more than 2 months, or are in the older child category (over the age of 4.) and you can be matched with a child no matter where you are in the process. She told us that she had added our email to the monthly special focus list and this was really a surprise to us. We had been anticipating the time that we would be able to begin looking at waiting children, but we didn't expect it to be so soon. We got off of the Skype call and Justin was immediately checking the email. I was a little hesitant, just because it was so early and looking at pictures of kids that were waiting, somehow made it all seem so much more real. We have officially begun the adoption process and according to this lady, there is a chance we could see our future child when we open this email. I told Justin it was a waste of time. It was just too early. We hadn't even paid the money for our home study yet. We should wait until after our home study was done to begin looking at that list. In the end, we looked. And there were faces. 3 of them to be exact. And each of us have our favorites. But we ended the night tonight agreeing that at this point in time, this list is available to us so that we can pray. Pray for our process, pray for all of these children, and pray for our future child, whoever he or she is.