USCIS

Our I-800A packet was mailed off today! So excited to have this next ball rolling!

It's going to be a busy next few weeks, but this is one business matter that I welcome with open arms!!

Here are a couple of pictures that were sent to us by our guide that took us to visit Qi Long for the first time back in December. She was there with another family and she thought enough of us to take a picture and send it to us. I was blown away. What a sweet thing to do!!!














He gives me butterflies!! (Daddy is so ready to dress our boy for himself! haha)

Mountains and Valleys

Mountains and valleys are both beautiful places.

On the mountaintop you can see what seems like the whole world laid out before you and the possibilities are endless. If you are on a mountaintop, you most likely have just climbed that mountain and the adrenaline is making you feel like you can conquer anything that comes your way. Nothing can shake you. The sun is shining on your face and for a moment you can almost reach out and touch heaven. Nothing is impossible on a mountaintop.

In a valley, however, you have a very limited view. You can only see the mountain in front of you and without the right perspective, it can feel isolated in a valley. When the sun goes down behind a mountain, it gets cold in a valley. And you might even begin to wonder and hope for what lies over that mountain in front of you. 

But if you take a step back, you will see the beauty, the awe and the grandeur of that mountain. You will feel how small you are against a mighty Creator and find yourself in the perfect place of humility to truly receive His grace and joy. With the right perspective.

We are blessed to live in a place where we get to experience these differences between mountains and valleys in a very real way. And it brings new insight to the circumstances in our lives that we classify as mountain or valley circumstances. I am reminded of the familiar passage in Ps. 23 where David sings to us about our Shepherd who makes us lay down in green pastures and leads us beside still waters. That sounds so peaceful and refreshing, right? But let's think about it. We often separate the part of this same passage that talks about walking through the valley of death from this first part of peaceful still waters and green pastures. But it's actually the same place. You will never find still waters on a mountaintop. Water on a mountain will always be moving. Will you find green pastures on a mountaintop? This beautiful place with green pastures and still waters that refreshes our souls, is in the valley of death!

Perspective.

When we began this process, we hit the ground running. We received our home study packet on Oct. 8 and we got to work, sending in paperwork the very next day. By November 24, we had all of our paperwork turned in, minus our health checks and we had approval to wait for a little while to do those so they didn't expire. We were feeling really good about things and even though we have to wait until Justin's 30th birthday on April 1 to turn in our paperwork to China, we knew we needed that extra time to apply for grants and get our account with the adoption agency in good standing before we can submit those papers anyway. We had heard of so many people with so many bumps in the road in a never-ending paper chase, but we had also heard of people that just zipped and flew right through the process with little to no snags at all. We were really praying for the second option. 

But once we turned the paperwork in, the waiting started. The first wait was really out of anyone's control because it was the holidays and things slow down drastically around the holidays anyway. Our sweet case worker actually traveled to our house on New Years Day and did our home study in two days. But then somewhere between the time of her sending in her first draft and today, time seemed to stop. We have been waiting for a long time to see a final copy of our home study, and our case worker has been emailing every day trying to find out why it has taken so long. And we are excited to say that the final hard copy was placed in the mail yesterday and should be on it's way to the next step very soon.

Before I go further I want to say that things could be WAY worse. The other day we read about a lady whose paperwork had been destroyed in the mail. Like completely destroyed, illegible, couldn't even tell which document was which. It could be way worse. And we still have many opportunities for it to get worse. So I am very grateful. But still a little frustrated.

We are still waiting to actually receive a copy of the home study in our inbox, so that we can begin applying for grants. We received our next bill last week and we need to have $9,000 in about one month, so that we can hopefully meet our goal of sending our papers off around April 1, so we don't have to make this sweet little boy wait any longer than he has to. We are ready for him to come home!! Most grant agencies take longer than that to process applications, with many of them only awarding grants every quarter. So we are praying hard for God to lead us to the exact grants that He wants us to apply for. If you would like to donate to our adoption fund, you can click  HERE  to find out how. Please pray with us for these next few steps.

1. Mailing application for US Immigration approval for us to adopt.

2. Fingerprint appointment at US Consulate.

3. $6,000 due to continue to the next step of compiling our Dossier documents.

4. $3,100 due to authenticate and process those documents and send them to China.

In all of this, we are praying for the grace to see the beauty in the valleys of life and allow our Shepherd to refresh our souls in the way that only He can. Thank you Lord for still waters.

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!!

This is Christmas...

My heart always feels like it is going to explode during Christmas-week every year. Like, literally explode. The week leading up to Christmas Eve night and Christmas morning is always so full of excitement and love in my family that I just want to cry. I love the anticipation of it all. Especially having been overseas for the last 3 Christmases, we have learned to experience, to DO, and to feel Christmas in such a different way. And my heart overflows.

Christmas Eve is my FAVORITE night of the year. But this year, I can't even wait until Christmas Eve to talk about it. As I sit here in the quiet and watch the twinkle of the lights on the tree, I just want to cry tears of joy. Every year, Christmas does this to me, but this year, it's even more. This year has rocked our world, in an unbelievable way.


Because this year, I look up from the tree and look at the family pictures that are hanging on the wall. And in addition to the most precious faces in my life, this year we have a new face. One that shakes me to my core. And the amount of joy and love I feel over a child that I don't know ONLY comes from a God who says THIS is what it's about. This is my joy being made complete in you. I never thought that my heart could love even more than it already does. I have two of the most amazing little boys that a mom could ask for and a husband that, hands down, is better than yours. Just kidding. (But not really.) And the very depths of my heart are beyond grateful. But I sit here amazed at the expansion of my heart and whisper prayers of gratefulness all over again. Grateful for His grace in my life to get me this far. Grateful for the blessings He gives. Grateful that he would choose me, a most unworthy recipient of His love.

I didn't write the following, but I stumbled upon it the other day on Facebook and I bookmarked it because for the first time, the words I was reading made my feelings make sense. I wanted to share that with you today. I hope it blesses you as much as it has me. You can see the original post by Jason Johnson here.

Christmas is the story of a good Father going to extravagant lengths in order to adopt those who have been separated from Him.

It is the celebration of God seeing the plight of His people and responding with the greatest gift of love this world has ever known - Himself. Not merely for us or near us in theory, God now put on flesh and became one of us in humanity - entering the darkness and brokenness of our story to bring us a brighter and better one in Him.

GOD WITH US  In what we now know as the Christmas story, scripture consistently speaks of the incarnation, the act of God wrapping Himself in the flesh of an infant child, in beautifully vivid and forever-altering terms. The apostle Paul, in Galatians chapter 4, writes: "When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons." 

At a predetermined, specific moment throughout all the course of human history, [before even] ("...when the fullness of time had come"), God looked down on the plight of His people and decided right then, at that very instance, He would step out of His glory and enter into the brokenness of our humanity. He would not strut into this world on a throne but would crawl into it through a manger, being born in humility, in poverty, and in relative obscurity so that He might bring fullness to the empty and belonging to the lonely (...God sent forth his Son")

The significance of His name, Emmanuel, meaning God is with us, could not be overstated. God is not somewhere. God is not over there. God is not out there. God is here, with us, among us, one of us. He is in our story. He has seen us in the plight of our brokenness and met us exactly where we were, placing Himself beneath the rule of judgment over us in order to rescue and redeem us out from under it ("...born under the law...to redeem those under the law") God is with us. Nothing will ever be the same.

TO MAKE US HIS OWN  The intended outcome of Christmas was clear - for God to bring into His family those who had been tragically orphaned from Him (...that we might receive adoption). No longer isolated. No longer orphaned. Now adopted as dearly loved sons and daughters.

At Christmas we remember the lengths God has gone to call us His own. He has not loved us from a distance, but has thrust Himself fully into the brokenness of our story to bring us securely into His forever family. He interceded on our behalf, at just the right time, to make us His own. In the gospel God says, "I see you where you are and I'm coming after you!" This is Christmas - the crescendo of that emphatic declaration.

ADOPTION: AN ECHO OF THE CHRISTMAS STORY The gospel of our adoption, making its vivid debut that night in Bethlehem, acts not only as the emphasis behind why but also the model of how we as those adopted into the forever family of God are called to forever give our families to those who need them. Christmas is ultimately the story of God stepping into our darkness in order to bring light into it. It, above any and all other motivations, compels us to do the same on behalf of the vulnerable, marginalized and orphaned in this world. It is impossible for us to truly celebrate Christmas without considering both its implications for us and its expectations on us - to do for them exactly what God has done for us through Jesus.

In light of the gospel and the story of Christmas we can no longer remain on the peripherals of the plight of others, but must, at just the right time, meet them where they are by interceding on their behalf. Their brokenness no longer just theirs, but also now ours. An old story forever being rewritten by a new one. A better one. A brighter one. Together.

Adoption begins with our willingness to step foot into darkness, not merely to pull a child out of it but to bring light into it. This is exactly what Jesus did for us and what we are therefore compelled to do for them. We do not strut into their stories with a cape on our back but crawl into them with the Cross on our shoulders. We are not the rescuers, but the rescued. We are not the heroes, but on every occasion seek to point to Him who is. Our Hero has come. Emmanuel. God is with us. Nothing will ever be the same.

In the end, the echoes of Christmas in adoption beautifully reverberate in forever-altering terms. A taking on of one story and writing a new one. A better one. Together.

Nothing will ever be the same.

This. Is. Christmas.

I hope you all have a very, very Merry Christmas. Please take some time to simply be still and allow the joy and truth of the Christmas story soak into your spirit. You won't regret it.