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!

Well, whataya know?

I never meant for this blog to turn into an "adoption" blog. I know that sounds funny but I really set out to record the happenings of our family, some of my thoughts, and post a whole lotta photos. I guess in many ways, a blog could save me from my endless guilt for not keeping up with my scrapbooks.

(I am sooooooooo behind in my scrapbooks.)

I realize most of my posts these days focus on our current adoption and while that is good (and at times, the most newsworthy), there really are lots of other happenings here at home. Kids are growing up (way too fast, I might add) and we are in the thick of trying to figure out a new fall schedule - complete with many different schedules, activities, etc.

This morning found me a bit discouraged. I was feeling sorta down as I left the house this morning to walk Moo-shu (the dog). I was feeling like I am behind with household chores - the laundry piles are pretty heinous about now. I am not really prepared for all the subjects I need to teach the 3 that are home this year - 2 are a bit behind in some areas and I just can't decide the best curriculum and way to go with them. 

My kids are whining and carrying on about doing any school at this point. 

But the biggest thing getting me down is the adoption (I know, here I go again about the adoption...). I have felt a bit discouraged - feeling worried about the money and that although we have had some wonderful help from family and friends...worried that it just won't be enough. While many have been encouraging and excited for us, some, have not. I have found myself worrying that what God has called us to do, well, that He won't come through somehow with all the little details and money needs and emotional needs and....well, you get the picture.

As I turned to head home with the dog, I saw it.

A rainbow.

It was over my house and I didn't have a camera.

So pretty and so unexpected.

*** Not the actual one from today but you get the idea.

I even felt a bit guilty when I saw it.

God was reminding me. He's got this thing.

Later in the day, He moved a mountain for us.

Our dossier is waiting for one document to be returned from NY state. We have been waiting for 3 weeks for this document to be "stamped" and sent back to our agency. Our agency had called to check on it and had been told it would take three weeks. 

Three weeks have now passed so I decided to have a go at it. I was told quite firmly that this was going to take 6-8 weeks as they were so behind from summer. At first they couldn't even find my birth certificate (the document in question). I needed to call them back after getting lots more info from our agency with regard to when it was sent, how it was sent, what color envelope (?), etc.

At some point the fact that we needed this for an adoption came up and she told me we could "walk in" to get it which would be faster.

In NYC.

A bit too far from VA...

She put me on hold, and quite honestly I nearly hung up. The phone was silent for so long and I was pretty sure that she and I had become disconnected. I was bumming out that our adoption would now be pushed back at least a month due to one document and the fact that they were behind because employees had been on vacation.

I really almost hung up.

When she returned to the phone she was laughing and giddy and nearly crying. She told me that she had talked her supervisor into doing our form now, since it was pulled out. That because we were adopting (I then told her all about T, and about being a native NYC girl, and about how God had just done a miracle through her), that because of all that, she was going to push us ahead and that she and her supervisor were so excited. (A huge shout out to my new friend, Mrs. Griffith and her boss in NYC!)

They estimate it will be on its way in the mail tomorrow - not Sept 28 (the date she had estimated to me at the start of our conversation).

Well, whataya know?

I get teary just writing this out.

God gave me such a boost today.

Thanks to HIM for HIS kindness to me this day - with something I needed - which seemed impossible -  which was threatening to make me feel even more discouraged.

He sees,
He knows,
He cares.

He is active in the details and in our little concerns and worries.

He is faithful.


*** I have linked this post to a wonderful blog called A Place Called Simplicity as part of Memorial Box Mondays. Click back to their blog to read about others' stories of God's faithfulness.

So where are we??

 Oh my goodness.

We are in the throws of piles and piles of paperwork.. I thought it was a lot last time but 

this is unbelievable. I have been up for 2 weeks, late every night answering essay-type question after question, filling in endless forms, running to the bank for cashier's checks, visiting doctors, notarizing lots of signatures, taking all six kids for TB tests, getting fingerprinted, running back to the doctor for checkups or other immunizations, even getting the dog a recommendation from the vet...(I am not kidding). And that is just SOME of the things I have been doing (life still goes on, as well, in our busy household in the busiest month of the year...).

Tho I have been a bit frazzled lately, I'm glad to see I am  still lookin'  pretty good according to Jemila (in a portrait she made of me). No, I don't typically wear a crown and I'm not so sure my eyelashes or lips are nearly that big either   (Yikes!).

 The first round of paperwork has just been mailed in -  YAY! This will start the homestudy process which will hopefully only take 6-8 weeks. There will be online training classes, home visits, more paperwork, more fingerprinting, it seems endless.

Once our homestudy is approved, we will move on to the "dossier" phase - basically more paperwork, LOTS of notarizing, certifying and stamping by the state governments of EVERYTHING, waiting for clearances, translating, shipment of all the documents to China, and then more waiting.

Adoption requires one to be committed and undaunted by the endless hoops and lists and be willing to  bare it all and be wide open. It is a humbling process...and rather exhausting.

But I am NOT complaining (ok, maybe just a little...).


PUZZLE UPDATE:   33 PIECES HAVE BEEN SPONSORED! YAY!

I have had a couple of people tell me that they couldn't use the Chip-In box. It will only work if you are viewing the blog on your computer. I can't get it to show when I view the blog on my phone. If you are more comfortable mailing in a donation, that's great too! Our address is shown on the original puzzle blogpost (May 4).

We continue to feel blessed and excited to get to do this amazing journey again!