YAY One step closer...

YAY YIPPEE YAY !!

We have been eagerly awaiting this next phase of our adoption and it is finally here! We are now -

What is that??

Well, DTC stands for "Dossier to China" which is the next step in our adoption process. All of the many forms, background checks, letters of recommendation, homestudy, fingerprint and immigration approvals, photos, birth certificates and basically everything about our family, have been stamped by our government, translated and bound together and are on their way across the Pacific Ocean headed toward the China Center of Adoption Affairs (CCAA) to await an LID - "log-in date" - the day the dossier is officially logged in to their system.

So what happens now?

As far as I know, here are our remaining steps:

1. Receive our LID (log in date) (I think this takes a few weeks to a month from DTC).
2. Receive our official referral of T which we will sign/notarize and then send back to the agency and then to China.
3. Await our LOA (our official letter of acceptance from China). This can take 1-5 months to arrive (averaging around 60 days). Once we receive this, we sign, copy and return to the agency.  It is at this point that we can formally announce our new daughter here on the blog and share all her sweet pictures!!
4. Now we will file another immigration form (I-800) - this takes about 3 weeks til approval. The approval gets sent to the National Visa Center.
5. The National Visa Center will now send their approval to the US Consulate - this takes a week. A week after that, we should receive a letter saying that step is complete.
6. We send that letter off to our agency in WA who delivers the letter to the US Consulate in China. China then issues an "Article 5" in 2-3 weeks stating their pre-approval for an immigration visa for Ting. Our agency picks up that Article 5 and takes that to the CCAA (are you following all these initials???).
7. Once the CCAA receives our Article 5, they issue our TA (travel approval) - this takes about 2-4 weeks.
8. Once we have our TA, our agency will arrange all our travel details and we must travel within 90 days to meet and bring home our daughter!!!

Phew... did you follow all that???? I didn't even list out all the steps that got us to the DTC (we have been working on all of those steps since April!!).

Yes, adoption is not for the faint of heart. Pregnancy and childbirth were hard but this is hard in a whole new way!

Still wondering what you can do to help? (quite a few of you have asked). There are several ways:

1. PRAY! We are still fundraising (will be til we head to China), still have fees to pay and the looming travel costs. Pray for T who doesn't know about us yet but will soon. She has been in her foster home for as long as she can remember. This is going to be such a change for her - and will be very difficult. Please pray for her little heart to handle the changes ahead of her. We are excited that soon we will be able to send her a care package with a photo album of our family and some gifts.

2. BE A PIECE OF OUR PUZZLE! I am happy to say that we have over 200 of the 500 pieces we need to have our world puzzle totally sponsored. Thank you so much to those of you who have already sponsored pieces. It's easy - each piece is $10. You can pay using PayPal (see the top right hand bar of this blog - the "chip-in" only shows up if viewing this on your computer - not phone). Or you can send me a check or purchase pieces in person. Many of our friends and family have bought a piece for each member of their family. Thank you to all of them for this gift - your names are all listed at the bottom of the blog. My family is getting excited for the day that the entire puzzle is sponsored and we can put the puzzle together!

3. BUY SOME COFFEE! We are currently selling coffee as a fundraiser for our costs. See the right hand bar of this blog for our Just Love Coffee Storefront. We are selling a number of different yummy coffees and receive a portion of all the purchases.

4. PRAYERFULLY CONSIDER HOW YOU CAN HELP WITH THE ORPHAN CRISIS. My hope is that our story will inspire all of you to learn more about a crisis that is very easy for us to ignore or assume is not our responsibility. The statistics estimate that there are between 143 and 210 MILLION orphans world-wide. Not our problem? - not so. God speaks many times about our responsibility to care for the fatherless and the poor. Can you even imagine not having a family or parents? Not having a home and the love and security of a family to help you in this life? Please, pray how you can help. Pray for these children, sponsor a fatherless child, help a family you know locally who is adopting. Perhaps God is nudging you to do more - perhaps he is nudging your family to look into adoption. Please, do something.

4. CHECK BACK WITH OUR BLOG FREQUENTLY FOR FUTURE FUNDRAISERS! We are hoping to do a few more fundraisers as time goes on. At the moment, we are applying for some grants with some wonderful organizations who assist families who are following God's call to care for orphans. So again, I am swamped with more paperwork...it never ends...lol

Thank you all for the encouraging gifts, notes, comments and love. We can't tell you how humbled and grateful we are!