The past couple of months have been a wild ride!! We have seen God answer so many prayers! We are so happy to announce that today we are officially DTC!! For those outside of the realm of adoption acronyms, this means that our Dossier has been sent To China! This is one of the biggest steps throughout the entire process. At this point everything is completely out of our hands for now and we wait mercilessly for the wonderful workers at the CCCWA offices in China to do their part. This is also often described as one of the hardest parts of the wait because you move from busy, busy busy with the never-ending paper chase to a screeching halt. But it doesn't matter if the wait is a breeze for you or agonizing, any person who has been through the process knows how much we wanted to jump up and down and scream for joy at seeing those 3 letters in our inbox this morning!!
This last few weeks, we have had a few more ups and downs. After we found out that we had been awarded the $4,000 grant, we emailed our agency and asked what was next. They had to first request the money. This organization likes to wait to send the money once the family is within 4 months or less of traveling. Since we weren't DTC yet, we weren't sure if we would be considered within that time frame yet. But since we needed this money in order to be DTC, our agency said they would go ahead and request it. Thankfully, they said that they would disburse the funds now, but that it could take up to 4 weeks for the money to arrive at the agency. Cue the sound of screeching tires in our minds. We were so close, and yet these few words once again put us on edge. The agency needed the money in their account in the next 8 days in order to be able to send our paperwork "as scheduled." Whatever that means, right?! So we did what we could do. We prayed.
Fast forward those 8 days. We woke up that morning feeling a little ho-hum because the deadline had arrived and we hadn't heard anything about the money arriving. We had been checking our email almost first thing every morning just hoping to see something, but for some reason, we didn't that morning. We went ahead and had breakfast and did our morning things. And then all of a sudden, Justin says "Whoa!! Do you see this?!" We had an email informing us that we had been awarded a $10,000 grant from another grant organization that we had applied to. We sat stunned for a few minutes, and let the fact sink in that this meant we were for the most part fully funded for the rest of our adoption! Then the first person to move was actually our son Stephen. He got up, jumped up and down, and said "we are getting this boy!" while I sat there crying.
I immediately emailed our agency and told them the news and they replied back saying that they had the check 2 days before but weren't allowed to say anything until we had been notified from the organization. All we could do was laugh. Because sometimes God is just hilarious in the way that He answers prayer!!!
This was on Wednesday, May 18. Then three days later on Saturday, we woke up to an email that said "Rejection at the Embassy" in the subject line. My heart sank as I read that the Chinese embassy was rejecting 3 of our documents. In order for them to authenticate that our documents were real and legitimate, they have to be notarized by a US notary. Well, because we live overseas, we don't have access to a US notary, except for the Consulate. So back in March we had taken the 7 hour trip to our US Consulate and paid $300 USD to notarize our documents by a US notary. But the new Chinese consulate in DC said that they would not accept any documents that originated in another country, even though they were notarized at the consulate. Yeah, don't ask. It's not even worth trying to explain sometimes. Fortunately, only 3 of our documents were affected by this and they were easily reproducible. I replied to her email and ask if we needed to make a new copy and send them to our Power of Attorney in the States in order for them to be notarized there and therefore become more "legit" than if we had signed the papers ourselves here. Ha! She replied back within a few hours and said that she had heard back from the CCCWA (Chinese Adoption Association) that they would accept the documents as is, notarized by the US Consulate, without being authenticated. YAY!
So here we are, today, May 25, with three big letters hovering in our minds, and for the first time in months we feel like we are finally able to completely exhale. And we celebrate. No matter what lies ahead, because we are sure that there are plenty of other bumps waiting to be jumped over, we are incredibly grateful for today. And this whole thing is finally beginning to seem real.
Wednesday, May 25, 2016
Sunday, May 8, 2016
Mother's Day
Happy Mother's Day! I woke up this morning in a hotel because we are on our way to some meetings. In many ways, it's just another day for our family. But we also love to travel and so it's an exciting time when we get to go somewhere new. When I woke up this morning, we had a message on our phone from Justin's brother asking if we were awake. I happened to be the first and only one up. I don't sleep very well in hotels most of the time. So I replied to his message. He said that they were just so excited for us about the news! The only problem was that I had no earthly idea what the news was. We had a great friend that owns a restaurant in our hometown that had agreed to do a fundraiser for us at her restaurant and we were expecting to hear news about how that went, so that was the first thing that entered my mind. When I asked him what news? He said, are you being sarcastic or do you really not know? Now my curiosity was going crazy. I had just woken up, so I didn't know anything. Well, it turns out that they had received a letter to us from one of the grant organizations that we had applied for saying that they were pleased to inform us we had been awarded a $4,000 grant!!
Once again, I find myself humbled beyond compare before a God who sees and who cares. This is officially, the second best Mother's Day I've ever had. The first best was 7 years ago, the day that my husband and I decided to put Christ first in our lives and do whatever it took to bring healing and restoration to our family and our home. We are so thankful for His provision and how He has taken a situation that seemed like a mountain to us and has tossed it aside more like an anthill!!
Once again, I find myself humbled beyond compare before a God who sees and who cares. This is officially, the second best Mother's Day I've ever had. The first best was 7 years ago, the day that my husband and I decided to put Christ first in our lives and do whatever it took to bring healing and restoration to our family and our home. We are so thankful for His provision and how He has taken a situation that seemed like a mountain to us and has tossed it aside more like an anthill!!
Friday, May 6, 2016
Humbled and Grateful
Just an update for our family's sake and anyone who is actually interested in the process that wants to read our journey, give some details about what it looked like to get here.
We began this journey, as most families do, with a timeline in front of them and high hopes that ours would actually be smooth, unlike most other families that seem to hit huge bumps in the road. HA. First mistake. Actually, we knew that obstacles and hurdles were going to come up, and we have had our bumps. Our wiggle room is getting smaller and our next steps are feeling farther and farther away. We spent the majority of the month of March feverishly applying for grants. We applied for a total of 10 grants. To the unsuspecting eye, that may not seem like a big deal. It's just an application. In one sense, yes, that is true. But the truth is, these applications are almost just as involved, if not more on some levels, as the initial application to begin the adoption process. And while each organization asks the same general questions about finances, testimony, calling, parenting and lifestyle, the questions are worded just differently enough that you have to write your answers differently for each one. While we did copy and paste a lot, it was still a difficult task. But we got them done. We had to step out of our comfort zones and ask for even more references, often having to burden the same people again and again to fill out a reference form. Oh and it needs to be turned in like now. :/ But fortunately, we have some great friends and leaders who went above and beyond to help us out.
The next task was fundraising. The month of April we poured ourselves out completely asking anyone and everyone that we knew and even those that we didn't know if they would be willing to donate an item or service to an online auction that we were hosting. It was a TON of work, but in the end we ended up collecting over 100 items and we were able to raise about $3,500. We also sold T-shirts, which astonishingly brought in almost $900. We are overwhelmed at the generosity of friends and complete strangers!! During this time of fundraising, I think we pushed half of our Facebook followers away and I'm sure we were deleted several times. But that's ok. We also saw God provide in really big ways through people that we didn't even expect and we are so incredibly thankful!
When we started the process, we really didn't think that we would be able to fund raise money successfully. First of all, we lived overseas and so "traditional" fundraisers were obviously out of the question. And second of all, we have spent the last 3 years raising money for ministry and our circle of influence are already so incredibly generous to give to what we do. But we did fundraise and were pleasantly surprised with the success. We could not have done it without the help of our friends and family, mainly our brother and sister in law, who were themselves in the process of adopting. The biggest fee that we have had to date was certainly our agency fee of $6,000, which had to be paid before our agency would begin work on compiling our Dossier packet. This seemed almost insurmountable to us, but through our fundraising efforts, very generous donations, personal savings and an organization that awarded us a $1,000 grant, we will be able to turn that in within the next week! (During our fundraising, we also received our USCIS approval, which was so exciting!!)
The next financial hurdle is a fee of $3,100 that covers the document preparation, registration and authentication. This amount had to be turned in before our agency could actually send the paperwork to China. We had been hoping that this was an amount that they could bill to our family, as they had several fees in the past. But we found out that it in fact had to be paid before they could mail the papers. This is honestly disheartening for us. We have worked so hard for two solid months, and we are flat worn out on fund raising. We know that God is the only one that can make this happen, because He is the only one that has made any of it happen so far. And deep down we know we can trust in His timing, whatever that might be. But if we are honest, we are discouraged because we feel like this just meant more waiting. More time before we could be with our son and he could be with us. We want so badly to be able to send him a message and say Mommy and Daddy are coming! But from where we were standing, already more than a month behind our timeline goal, we just know that we have to surrender our desires to God's sovereignty. We have sent out one last plea to our friends and family, and put on our best face. We are choosing to keep the faith. We still have a couple of weeks. And we know from experience that a lot can happen in a couple of weeks!
We began this journey, as most families do, with a timeline in front of them and high hopes that ours would actually be smooth, unlike most other families that seem to hit huge bumps in the road. HA. First mistake. Actually, we knew that obstacles and hurdles were going to come up, and we have had our bumps. Our wiggle room is getting smaller and our next steps are feeling farther and farther away. We spent the majority of the month of March feverishly applying for grants. We applied for a total of 10 grants. To the unsuspecting eye, that may not seem like a big deal. It's just an application. In one sense, yes, that is true. But the truth is, these applications are almost just as involved, if not more on some levels, as the initial application to begin the adoption process. And while each organization asks the same general questions about finances, testimony, calling, parenting and lifestyle, the questions are worded just differently enough that you have to write your answers differently for each one. While we did copy and paste a lot, it was still a difficult task. But we got them done. We had to step out of our comfort zones and ask for even more references, often having to burden the same people again and again to fill out a reference form. Oh and it needs to be turned in like now. :/ But fortunately, we have some great friends and leaders who went above and beyond to help us out.
The next task was fundraising. The month of April we poured ourselves out completely asking anyone and everyone that we knew and even those that we didn't know if they would be willing to donate an item or service to an online auction that we were hosting. It was a TON of work, but in the end we ended up collecting over 100 items and we were able to raise about $3,500. We also sold T-shirts, which astonishingly brought in almost $900. We are overwhelmed at the generosity of friends and complete strangers!! During this time of fundraising, I think we pushed half of our Facebook followers away and I'm sure we were deleted several times. But that's ok. We also saw God provide in really big ways through people that we didn't even expect and we are so incredibly thankful!
When we started the process, we really didn't think that we would be able to fund raise money successfully. First of all, we lived overseas and so "traditional" fundraisers were obviously out of the question. And second of all, we have spent the last 3 years raising money for ministry and our circle of influence are already so incredibly generous to give to what we do. But we did fundraise and were pleasantly surprised with the success. We could not have done it without the help of our friends and family, mainly our brother and sister in law, who were themselves in the process of adopting. The biggest fee that we have had to date was certainly our agency fee of $6,000, which had to be paid before our agency would begin work on compiling our Dossier packet. This seemed almost insurmountable to us, but through our fundraising efforts, very generous donations, personal savings and an organization that awarded us a $1,000 grant, we will be able to turn that in within the next week! (During our fundraising, we also received our USCIS approval, which was so exciting!!)
The next financial hurdle is a fee of $3,100 that covers the document preparation, registration and authentication. This amount had to be turned in before our agency could actually send the paperwork to China. We had been hoping that this was an amount that they could bill to our family, as they had several fees in the past. But we found out that it in fact had to be paid before they could mail the papers. This is honestly disheartening for us. We have worked so hard for two solid months, and we are flat worn out on fund raising. We know that God is the only one that can make this happen, because He is the only one that has made any of it happen so far. And deep down we know we can trust in His timing, whatever that might be. But if we are honest, we are discouraged because we feel like this just meant more waiting. More time before we could be with our son and he could be with us. We want so badly to be able to send him a message and say Mommy and Daddy are coming! But from where we were standing, already more than a month behind our timeline goal, we just know that we have to surrender our desires to God's sovereignty. We have sent out one last plea to our friends and family, and put on our best face. We are choosing to keep the faith. We still have a couple of weeks. And we know from experience that a lot can happen in a couple of weeks!
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
One Less
Gotcha Day. It's such a weird word for me. It doesn't settle right for some reason, but it's the word that we use. That day when all of your waiting and all of the paperwork and all of the mystery comes together and you get to meet your child and he or she officially becomes a member of your family, even though their picture has been plastered all over your house for months now. But now, it's official. On paper, not only with your signature, but with your thumbprints too. It's a big deal.
There is not a single time that I look at pictures of Gotcha days that I don't wipe away tears. Today was one of those days. I am sitting in the living room of a friends apartment, literally just a few meters away from a family that welcomed a precious little girl into their family today. I'm looking at her pictures on Facebook and just praising the Lord through tears of gratitude.
One less.
It's so easy during this process to get caught up in the paper chase, the money, the waiting, the uncertainties, and the insecurities. All of that is necessary, but all of that aside, this is what it's about. One less child spending another day without a family. One less child who will never know the love of a mother. One less human being who doesn't understand what it feels like to belong to something, to be loved or to be wanted.
One less. Hallelujah, today, there is one less orphan.
There is not a single time that I look at pictures of Gotcha days that I don't wipe away tears. Today was one of those days. I am sitting in the living room of a friends apartment, literally just a few meters away from a family that welcomed a precious little girl into their family today. I'm looking at her pictures on Facebook and just praising the Lord through tears of gratitude.
One less.
It's so easy during this process to get caught up in the paper chase, the money, the waiting, the uncertainties, and the insecurities. All of that is necessary, but all of that aside, this is what it's about. One less child spending another day without a family. One less child who will never know the love of a mother. One less human being who doesn't understand what it feels like to belong to something, to be loved or to be wanted.
One less. Hallelujah, today, there is one less orphan.
Thursday, March 31, 2016
T SHIRT FUNDRAISER
By popular demand, we have decided to re-open our Tshirt orders!!
We pray it will be a huge success because who doesn't like a new T-shirt?
Especially a Super Soft one like this one!
AND especially when the purchase of this shirt is
helping to unite a sweet little boy with his family!
But the cool thing is that this is so much more than an adoption T-shirt.
But the cool thing is that this is so much more than an adoption T-shirt.
This is one that you can apply to any area of our lives.
It's about LOVE.
It's about LOVE.
"This is real love--not that we loved God,
but that He loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins." 1 John 4:10
Let that be what fuels you. Let LOVE be your guide.
Our shirts come in 3 different styles with lots of color choices!!
but that He loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins." 1 John 4:10
Let that be what fuels you. Let LOVE be your guide.
 |
YOU KNOW YOU WANT ONE!!!
Adult Sizes: XS-4XL
Click to Enlarge
|
Our shirts come in 3 different styles with lots of color choices!!
Prices:
Super soft ADULT T's: $20 each
(add $2 for 2XL/3XL).
Super soft KIDS T's are $18 each
Super soft WOMEN'S TANKS are $24 each
 |
Click to Enlarge
|
Check out his work at www.jdreeves.com
 |
| Kids Sizes: M(10/12), L(14/16) Click to Enlarge |
 |
| Women's Tank Sizes: S, M, L, XL, 2XL(+$2) Click to Enlarge |
You can order as many as you want and shipping is one flat rate of $5 per order.
(Or if you are local to the Williamson/Maury County area, you can choose free pick up)
To place a Tshirt Order, please click on the Tshirt order form tab at the top of the page or
click here.
If you would rather make a donation in lieu of purchasing a Tshirt,
please read HERE! to find out how your generosity will
have an impact on Qi Long for years to come!
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
Happy Birthday!
We always try to live our life being joyful in the present.
No matter the situation, our family verse is “Be joyful always, pray
continually and give thanks in all circumstances.” 1 Thes. 5:16-18. But for
today, let me just say that we are ready for next year. Normally birthdays are
fun and exciting times. We love birthdays around here. We love cake, we love
doing special things for the birthday boy or girl and we love celebrating
together the good things that God has done for us. But this year, birthdays,
especially these two, are so much more difficult than what is on the surface.
Justin’s 30th birthday is Friday. We have prayed so hard that we
will be able to send in our Dossier on his birthday. We were worried that we
were going to be sitting around just waiting for his birthday to come around so
that we could officially meet all of the requirements to adopt from China. But
we haven’t been sitting around. We have been working day and literally all
night, praying, applying for grants and doing what we need to do to push this
paperwork along. Unfortunately, our Dossier won’t be ready to send Friday. And
that makes us very sad. A day that we anticipated would allow us to rejoice, is
actually breaking our hearts. But as we have learned so well in the past, if
your heart is never broken, joy wouldn’t taste as sweet. There is so much to be
thankful for. Most importantly, we know that Qi Long is well cared for. He is
surrounded by friends and caregivers that, it seems like, genuinely care for
him. The orphanage director has gone out of her way to serve our family by
communicating with us. That is a priceless blessing that we are beyond grateful
to know, as so many people don’t have that privilege.
When we began this journey, we put everything about this
process at the feet of Jesus and asked him to lead and guide us. While a man
plans his way, the Lord determines his steps. We know the direction we want to
go and we know the things we need to do, and the rest is up to Him.
Qi Long’s birthday was on March 15. He turned 6 years old.
You know how hard it is to watch your kids grow up? It’s really hard when you
are watching him grow up and you haven’t been there for any of his birthdays.
When you realize that he has had 6 birthdays now, without a mom and a dad to
love on him and tell him how special he is and do something special JUST for
him, it is a brand new level of sadness.
But once again, there is still room to rejoice. Hallelujah
that the story doesn’t end there. There is such good news. Just like Jesus
didn’t leave us in our lostness, God has not left Qi Long in his lonliness.
God’s promise to Qi Long is being fulfilled even as I type this message. “I
will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you,” Jn. 14:18. This verse is a
beautiful promise that many claim for the orphans of the world, who desperately
need forever families. But in reality, it is a promise to every believer, who
sometimes looks up at the sky wondering if Jesus is ever really going to come
back. He promised, friends. And even though we may not see what’s going on
behind the scenes, much like Qi Long can’t see how hard we are working to bring
him home, Christ is working on our behalf to bring us home; to redeem us. To
bind up our broken hearts, to give us freedom, to bestow on us a crown of
beauty instead of ashes and a garment of praise instead of despair, to plant us
as oaks of righteousness for the display of HIS splendor! (Is. 61) By God’s
grace, this will be the last birthday that Qi Long will spend without a family.
And only by His grace. And when it is time, when all of the details that we
don’t know about come together and fall into place, in His perfect timing, He
will come back for us and he will bring us all home. Amen!
Happy Birthday Justin and Qi Long! Lord willing, next year,
we will all celebrate together! And oh what a celebration it will be!
 |
| Looks like he enjoyed his cake! |
We were allowed to send him a birthday cake and he was able to have a birthday party with his friends. We also sent him a video of our family singing to him and he was able to watch that on his birthday while he was at the doctor. We pray for God to prepare his precious little heart to be with us, and our hearts too.
Monday, March 21, 2016
Fingerprints
We had our fingerprint appointment today! Because we live overseas, we had to travel to the closest US consulate to do this. Our closest consulate is normally a 3 hour bus ride and a 4 hour train ride away. Well, this time we were able to ride in a van, instead of a bus, and shaved 1/2 an hour off of that leg. AND the train station just opened up a second fast train that leaves in the afternoon making that train ride only 3 hours and 18 minutes! (Normally, the only non stop train leaves early in the morning and we can never make it.) Yay! We love it when things work out in our favor.
It just so happens that the consulate is in one of our favorite cities here, and also the city that Qi Long lives in. While we didn't get to see him, there is just something nice about knowing that he is near....you know, just in case. (I may or may not have tried to shamefully weasel our way in by posting fun pictures of us in the city so that the orphanage director would see we were there and maybe invite us over. She "liked" our pictures, but no invitation. She likes her rules. lol)
It rained almost the whole time we were there, but it was a great trip. We got our fingerprints done, although the machine did NOT like my fingers. After about 4 or 5 tries and it beeping it's angry beep, it finally gave us the happy beep and accepted my little prints. :) We were also able to go ahead and get our documents notarized that will go in our Dossier. Once they travel to America to be authenticated and then back to China. We were a little shocked to find out that getting 6 documents notarized at the Consulate cost us $300 USD! We didn't have to pay for the fingerprints, which normally cost $380 per adult, and we were excited about being an expat actually working in our favor for once. But then that savings was slashed in half by the notary. BUT it could have been worse.
After all of the paperwork matters, we took Little S to see his pediatrician and gave him two big ol shots. He took them like a champ! The nurse called both Justin and I in to hold him down, but he didn't even whimper. The sweet little nurse just kept saying "Amazing!" haha.
Of course, no trip to the big city would be complete without a trip to Papa Johns and it was delicious. This time we had the privilege of meeting up with a family that attends our home church, who happened to be here finalizing their adoption that week. It was so amazing to watch our paths cross and get to spend some time together. Big S totally hit it off with their boys and they had so much fun together. The adults were pretty awesome too, and of course their new princess stole the show!
I realized when all this was over, that I should totally be taking pictures of this process! You know we always take a picture every step of the way of pregnancy. Adoption should be no different! Our little guy deserves pictures of his family preparing for his arrival too! I will do a better job of that from now on! (Even if it is only a picture of me sitting in front of the computer at 1 am with blood shot eyes as I type up yet another paragraph answering "What makes you want to adopt" for our grant applications! :/ )
One more check off the list, one more step closer to Qi Long being in our arms! It's worth every last bit of craziness to get there!
It just so happens that the consulate is in one of our favorite cities here, and also the city that Qi Long lives in. While we didn't get to see him, there is just something nice about knowing that he is near....you know, just in case. (I may or may not have tried to shamefully weasel our way in by posting fun pictures of us in the city so that the orphanage director would see we were there and maybe invite us over. She "liked" our pictures, but no invitation. She likes her rules. lol)
It rained almost the whole time we were there, but it was a great trip. We got our fingerprints done, although the machine did NOT like my fingers. After about 4 or 5 tries and it beeping it's angry beep, it finally gave us the happy beep and accepted my little prints. :) We were also able to go ahead and get our documents notarized that will go in our Dossier. Once they travel to America to be authenticated and then back to China. We were a little shocked to find out that getting 6 documents notarized at the Consulate cost us $300 USD! We didn't have to pay for the fingerprints, which normally cost $380 per adult, and we were excited about being an expat actually working in our favor for once. But then that savings was slashed in half by the notary. BUT it could have been worse.
After all of the paperwork matters, we took Little S to see his pediatrician and gave him two big ol shots. He took them like a champ! The nurse called both Justin and I in to hold him down, but he didn't even whimper. The sweet little nurse just kept saying "Amazing!" haha.
Of course, no trip to the big city would be complete without a trip to Papa Johns and it was delicious. This time we had the privilege of meeting up with a family that attends our home church, who happened to be here finalizing their adoption that week. It was so amazing to watch our paths cross and get to spend some time together. Big S totally hit it off with their boys and they had so much fun together. The adults were pretty awesome too, and of course their new princess stole the show!
I realized when all this was over, that I should totally be taking pictures of this process! You know we always take a picture every step of the way of pregnancy. Adoption should be no different! Our little guy deserves pictures of his family preparing for his arrival too! I will do a better job of that from now on! (Even if it is only a picture of me sitting in front of the computer at 1 am with blood shot eyes as I type up yet another paragraph answering "What makes you want to adopt" for our grant applications! :/ )
One more check off the list, one more step closer to Qi Long being in our arms! It's worth every last bit of craziness to get there!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)