Tee's for T

GOOD MORNING~!!

I am so excited to announce the addition of another fundraiser - just in time to help you out with your Christmas shopping. I have spent quite a bit of time looking into possible t-shirts to help us with our fundraising and have finally decided on Adoption Bug's shirts. 

Adoption Bug is part of the Show Hope Ministry which is Christian, singer-songwriter Stephen Curtis Chapman's ministry. This ministry exists to help families with the cost of adoption, and to care for orphans - particularly those who need medical care while still living in orphanages. 

You will now see a button to the right that will link you directly to our t-shirt store. We have chosen six very different designs - most come in regular t-shirt style, women's cut, and children's tees. 

We will receive a portion of each shirt you purchase and for each "Show Hope" shirt you choose (the bottom three choices), a dollar will also be donated to the Show Hope Ministry.

November is Adoption Awareness month. Wear a tee (they are bound to raise a few questions) and let others know there is an orphan crisis that we should all be caring and praying about.  "Show hope" to children all around the world who wish to be chosen and to have a family to call their own. Happy shopping! I'm off to pick out ours!

News...

Guess what? Got a call today...

If you recall a few posts back, I ran through the long list of steps we still have til we meet our new daughter. We are now in the middle of those steps, waiting for one step after another (yes, most are known by initials) of the process in China. At this point we are L.I.D. which means our paperwork has been "logged in" to the adoption system in China.  The "D" stands for "date" which is today, October 9. Sometime during this step, all of our paperwork will be translated into Chinese in order to be ready for our future court date (I had incorrectly thought this was done before it went to China).

The next step is a long one - L.O.A. (Letter of Acceptance) -it can take from 2-4 months and most parents in the China adoption world actually count the days - you sorta kinda need to know your number of days til you receive the next step as you WILL be asked by someone at some point as they are going through or have gone through the process. Sorta like a childbirth labor story - the number of days you had to wait for your L.O.A. is just something you know (tho' knowing me I am likely to lose track). In the meantime, we will receive a bunch of paperwork in about a week - lots of official things to sign. I thought we got the actual referral papers at this point but we don't get that til we get the L.O.A. More immigration application forms will be filled out next week when we get them so they will be ready to send in once the L.O.A. arrives.

Once we have the LOA - and the LOC (the letter of confirmation that we will receive with that), we can send T a care package with our family pictures and gifts!

Praying hard for T's little heart for the time when she learns she will be leaving the home she has been in for so long. Praying too for an easy transition into our family. 

We are moving right along...

Some blog reflections...

HI peeps...I have been reflecting a bit on this blog lately. Why am I writing it? Well, I can't seem to even begin to get into scrapbooking again (oops, wait - I sold most of my stuff), and it is a fun way to keep up with the busy and sometimes ridiculous hilarious interesting happenings with our gang. 

I have been so surprised that many of you are reading and even sharing our blog. Thanks for stopping back again and again. I am excited that you care to follow our adoption and that you have enjoyed reading about our wacky family (and my random thoughts!).

I remember reading a while back that if you want to have a large blog "following," you need to have a niche - something that people can take away - something they can learn or a specific hobby, craft, style, etc.  Since I never set out to have a "following," I haven't really cared about that.

But I am finding that I really want to branch out from just family/adoption news and happenings. Although I could write about some of my interests and current lifestyle things like homeschooling, budgeting for a large family, knitting, crafting, Weight Watchers....I sorta don't want to have to have that be my blog's niche. While I probably will, from time to time, write about these things, it just seems like too much work to have to "choose" one or two of those topics to always focus on and have to keep up with new ideas/patterns/recipes etc.  

So instead, what is my heart passionate about?? 

I have found that lately I have wanted to share my faith - what I believe, why, and why I so much want you all to know Jesus like I do - to know that He loves you and died for you and promises to be with you in all your joys and trials.

 As you must know by now, I have become passionate about orphans - I want people to be aware of the enormity of the issue and want people to know about how others are helping and how they can help. I want to challenge YOU to help in some way.

Over the years as I researched adoption, I have gotten to "know," thru the internet and our Ethiopian adoption, a number of truly amazing families who have done some pretty awesome things in the world of adoption - one family who has adopted 20+ children, another adoptive family who sold everything to go run an orphanage in a country no longer open to international adoption, another woman who was so impacted from her adoption experience that she now single-handedly runs a very popular blog where she fundraises for families and shouts advocates for special needs orphans.

My plan is to highlight some of these amazing people, link their blogs, share their stories. I hope to do a little advocating too of some of the beautiful children that are waiting...just waiting and wishing and hoping that they will be "picked." So be looking for some posts with info about adoption, photos of the beautiful children, and what others are doing to serve in the area of adoption and orphans.  WE are GOD'S solution to the orphan problem. Yes!

The other thing I am passionate about is child sponsorship. For exactly half of my life (exactly), I have - and now my family has - sponsored children. We have, over the course of the years, sponsored 9 children through various organizations. As the years have gone by, we have found that aside from feeding and clothing and educating our sponsored kiddos, we have wanted to make sure that our money was providing the most important gift to our sponsored children - the gift of the Bible and knowledge and teaching of Jesus. That is what led us to Compassion International. 

Sponsor a Child

Among Compassion's several initiatives to address the needs of the poor in third world countries, their sponsorships (and actually all of their programs) are carried out by local churches. The food, education, aid, etc. is given in the name of Jesus (not the government or some social group). This is important to us. The children (and by association, their families) get plugged into a church where they receive programs, Bible instruction, aid, and the love of Christ.

A few years ago, I signed up to be a child advocate (not anything too big mind you - just enables me to set up sponsorship tables at concerts, events). I have done it a few times and it has been exciting to me when a new person takes on a sponsorship - I know how this one decision and commitment will impact this child forever.

So, from time to time, whenever you see this icon, I will be "blogging for Compassion." That post will be highlighting something about Compassion International, child sponsorship, our sponsored kids (we currently have 5), or the needs we can fill to serve and minister to those children living in poverty around the world.


If you are local, you will get a chance to hear a bit more about Compassion and the wonderful sponsorship program - in 2 weeks our church is sponsoring a "Compassion Sunday" - I will be sharing a video, some of my experience as a sponsor, and will have a display table with info/photos of children just waiting for you to say "Yes- I will sponsor you!!"

Well...this was a wordy post...ya still with me??? Off to bed now - it's been a long and busy day and tomorrow promises to be the same.

   

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!

Coffee, Coffee, Coffee...

Oh how I wish I liked coffee...I have always wanted to like it but alas, I am just not a coffee drinker. I like tea...

My whole family drinks coffee. A. Lot. Of. Coffee...A. Whole. Lot. Of. Coffee.

Whenever we get together with the cousins, or our parents, or our sisters and their families, coffee is a main topic of conversation at some point. Coffee is oo'ed and ah'ed over, sought after, bought, brewed, and of course, necessary each morning for anyone to function. My one sister in law has coffee in her email address and has her kitchen decorated in a coffee theme. One of my sisters' dog is named "Latte."
My kids are even becoming coffee drinkers when they can score a cup (yes, don't judge...).

When we adopted three years ago from Ethiopia we were surprised to learn that coffee originated there. Coffee is a staple drink in Ethiopia and coffee ceremonies are a huge part of the culture. We were lucky to have been a part of several ceremonies while were there. Yes, I did try it...sadly, I still didn't like coffee. But boy, my husband did.

Ethiopian coffee ceremony while we were in Ethiopia.

After that trip, John became quite fascinated with the whole coffee process (aw heck, he was before that too). He ordered coffee beans, roasted them on our back porch (I'd pass people in the neighborhood hours later as I walked the dog, and they would say "Do you smell coffee??" Um...yeah).

A year or so ago I read about a sweet family that was adopting an adorable little boy from Eastern Europe who had Down's Syndrome. Their story and struggle to adopt him caught my heart. They were doing a coffee fundraiser - Just Love Coffee. I thought it would be a cool gift for my husband and teens to buy them some Ethiopian fair trade coffee and even some Just Love Coffee T-shirts - and it would help a family to bring home their sweet little boy. They loved their coffee and tees.

Just Love Coffee offers organic, fair trade coffee. Their small company is passionate about coffee (much like my family members...but more) but they are also passionate about helping those in need - non-profits, artisans - and adoptive families.

So I am announcing our 2nd fundraiser - we have opened a store front with Just Love Coffee!!
For every bag of coffee sold through our store, we will receive $5 toward our adoption. Their store offers other items as well - mugs, t-shirts, etc - and we will also receive a portion of those proceeds as well.

This store will be available throughout our adoption process so if you are looking for a gift for the holidays, or just some yummy coffees, just click on our button in the right column which will take you to our storefront and you can peruse the selection.

Need a cup of Joe?

Update on T

"So what's going on with T??"

We hear this often from friends and family. I so wish I knew what our little girl was doing right this minute...but I don't. I just pray for her little self and her heart and that she is well and safe and being loved on by her foster family. We had our homestudy approved by our placement agency (WACAP) a week or two before we left on vacation and at that time our case worker told us we could now ask for an update on T. She had warned us that many times it takes a while to get an update, that you might not get all the info you want, or you might not even get a reply. Every province and area is different in how they handle these requests. Quite frankly, I figured we wouldn't get much info - and I figured it would take a while.

As we were enroute home from our vacation, we got an email from WACAP saying that an update had come in - along with 8 new pictures of T!!! OH HOW I WISH I COULD SHARE THEM!!! SHE IS ADORABLE!!

These pictures are the first we have seen of her smiling (in all of them!). She is so cute and looks very happy. Her update sounds as tho' she is making good progress, isn't shy, loves to dance and help with family chores, is talking up a storm, and is small for her age. She has been in two foster homes since she was found as a newborn - the current one for several years and she is very attached to her foster mother. This news in wonderful and heartbreaking all at once. To know that she is attached is such good news for the future bonding in our family but will mean there will be lots of grieving (understandably) as her little heart leaves the home and family that she now loves. We have to remind ourselves that her new home with us will be forever. Her current situation as a foster child is not permanent - it doesn't lead to adoption. It doesn't lead to medical help and education always. It doesn't lead to a life free from the stigma of being an "orphan."

T's adoption is considered a special needs adoption. T, like so many of the children who are available for adoption, has a minor special need (in our opinion). When we found T on a waiting child list, she was listed as having mild cerebral palsy which only affected her speech. After having several doctors assess her files, it looks more likely that she had hydrocephalus at some point. Although her CT scans are clear now, she has clearly had hydrocephalus in the past (likely from an infection like meningitis, or an injury) resulting in an increased head circumference. She is speaking in long sentences now and seems to be developing just fine - tho' her speech is unclear at times. Many children wait as "special needs" kids with even milder issues (birthmarks, missing fingers, hernias, repaired cleft palates, etc).  These minor things can be considered bad luck for families. Because of the one-child-rule, these children are often given up in hopes of having a child who is more perfect. So sad...(by the way, is there such thing as a "perfect" child?? Don't they all have special needs of some kind? lol).

So where are we now??

Our dossier documents are currently being stamped and sealed by officials in DC and being held at our placing agency while we await some immigration paperwork and approvals. We are one step closer to that as we have just gotten our fingerprinting done in DC for the immigration process (so they can check that we aren't in the national registry of criminals!). Now it will be a matter of weeks to get our immigration approval. After that, our dossier (the packet of many important pieces of paper that represent our family) will travel to China. Several other steps come after that. Our case worker estimates that we will travel between March-May. It all depends on how fast each of the steps take. Several of the steps can take 2-4 months to complete.  At the moment, the trend is that each step is taking closer to 2 months than 4, but in adoption, things can change so quickly....no certainties in this process.

Fundraising

Now that we have passed the homestudy phase, we can apply for a number of grants (my next big project) and can move on to some more serious fundraising. Look for announcements of some of these coming up. Adoption and travel are so expensive. Although we are approved to be able to AFFORD to raise another child - GETTING her here is another story. The adoption process is SOOO expensive. Like, REALLY expensive. We are trying to meet most of these expenses ourselves - selling lots of our things, using retirement money and savings, saving every penny we can. But we do need help to meet the fees and the travel that lies ahead.

We SO appreciate all who have helped us so far with their generous donations to our puzzle. We are asking again that if you are interested in helping, that you consider purchasing a piece, or pieces of her puzzle. We are only about 1/5 of the way toward finishing the puzzle. Please consider making a $10 donation for a puzzle piece. Our chip-in on the right is only available when viewing our blog on your computer (it doesn't show up on a phone browser).

How else can we help?

Pray...pray...pray. Pray for T - she has some huge changes ahead. She will need to leave the only life she has known and she will grieve. She will need to adapt to a culture, language, environment, and family that are strange to her. Some children handle these changes like champs. Others, not so easily.

Pray for us. That we can save more, sacrifice more, and do more to help raise the funds for this adoption/travel. Pray that we can share our hearts to those who ask - that we can share that it isn't us but the Lord who is so great - that it is He who is "rescuing" a child from a life as an orphan without the love of a forever family - not us being nice people.  We said "yes" and "send us" - the rest is His work, folks. This is what He is all about - rescue, redemption, making beauty from ashes -like His rescue and "adoption" of us into His family.

Are you crazy?

 "I’d much rather live a meaningful life than a comfortable one.” Dr. Steven Arrowsmith

So throughout the last four years I have done a lot of blog reading. Initially when we started investigating adoption, I found that I was able to get more "real" info from reading about others' experiences on their blogs. So over the years, I have found some blogs that have taught, challenged, surprised and often echoed my own thoughts. So I have decided that as I come across blogposts that I feel need sharing, I will. This particular article below appeared on my Rainbow Kids email newsletter. Rainbow Kids is an amazing website that hosts a very large international photolisting of older and special needs children who are available for adoption. Many people have found their child on this listing. They also provide personal stories, helpful articles, and resources related to adoption and special needs.

So keep in mind as you read the article below that although some of the numbers and facts are not the same as our family, many of his answers to his questions are similar to what mine would be - especially to question #5. The pictures are from his article...not of our Ting (can't wait to share those as soon as I can!). The other funny thing...he says "we definitely don't want one of those huge, ugly, white vans"...hello...WE have one of those! LOL

Are you Crazy? June 01,2012 / Jeremy Staton When others find our that we are adopting, there are a number of "standard" questions that we are asked. What country are you adopting from? When will you be able to get your children? How long is the process? How much does it cost? Who is your agency? But there is one question that I am asked more than any other. This popular question isn’t asked immediately. It requires a process of 5 questions before the inquirer builds up enough courage to get to the real one. Question #1. How many kids to you have? In case you don't know, four. Infertility is not an issue. It seems that if I wink at Amanda, she gets pregnant. Enough said. Question #2. How many kids are you adopting? After I say two, their eyes grow very large and they pause. I can see their brains working away on the math. They are doing the addition over and over again. 4+2=6. No, that can’t be right. Nobody does that. Let’s try again. 4+2=6! The problem seems so simple, but the solution, the number 6, seems impossible. Perhaps crazy. Question #3. The third question is respectful. What are their special needs?What physical problems do they have? But the answers only complicate the arthimetic. 4+2+special needs= incredibly crazy. Maybe even stupid. Questions 1-3 never provide the clarity they seek. Question #4. Are these two kids siblings? A legitimate question on the surface, but it is only an attempt to try to understand in a hope to avoid the last question. If the 2 kids are brother and sister, then that helps the math make sense. But the answer is no. They aren't siblings. At least not yet. Let's update the formula. 4+2+special needs+they aren't already brother and sister = certifiably insane. Question #5. So then the final question comes. The one they have wanted to ask from the beginning, but were too afraid to. A question driven out of the inability to comprehend what they are hearing. Why? Great Question. Why would you do this? Why do you want to have 6 kids? Why would you have a family of 8 on purpose? Why would you take on so much? Why would you adopt 2 at the same time, especially if they are not related? Why do you want to have a family so big that you have to drive one of those big mega-vans? The answer may seem strange. We want none of those things. We don't want our lives to be incredibly difficult. We never set out to have a family of 8. We never wanted kids with special needs. We don't want to deal with surgery. We don't want to manage wheelchairs and walkers and physical therapy. We don't want to deal with attachment issues. We don't want to add development delay to our list of problems. We definitely do not want one of those huge, ugly, white vans. Our Why: We are doing this because we are compelled to. There are two orphans in this world who need a mom and dad. We are doing this because we can. Yes, there are many other things we can do that would be much easier on us. We could spend more time and money on ourselves. We can do short term mission trips with the intent of easing our conscience and longing for something greater. We could keep going to church on Sunday mornings convinced that when Jesus told us to take up our cross and follow him, he meant sitting in a pew at church. But life is not about arriving at death safely. Life is about giving it all. It is about saying thanks to our God who gave us all by giving everything we can for the good of his kingdom. We will find room for our soon-to-be children in our lives. We will find room for them in our homes. We will try our best to cram them all in our much smaller and easier to drive minivan. We have already found room for them in our hearts. We choose this for ourselves because we choose to love, and we are going tolet God fill in the rest. Question #6. There is one more question to this list. I wish more people would keep going and not stop at #5. I wish they would ask it of themselves. If we don’t do this, then who will? Jeremy Staton runs Living Better Stories at http://www.jeremystatton.com/

God called and we said "YES"

It is with great excitement and humble hearts that we 

 are answering God's call to adopt again!! 

Where is He sending us??

CHINA!!

                                               

Just last week we received our "PA"  (pre approval) from China for the adoption of a little girl we will be referring to here as "T!"

T is a beautiful little 4 year old girl from China. Our agency doesn't allow us to post a picture yet - but trust me, she's adorable! We can't wait to bring her home to be a part of our family.

We now have a new list of things to accomplish in the next six months - Dr. appointments, homestudy, fundraising, and lots of paperchasing as we compile the adoption dossier. Please join us in praying for our little daughter in China. T has some special needs and will come to us with some unknowns (as in any adoption). Please pray for our family as we deal with the expenses and the adoption process - adoption is not for the faint of heart - it can be a brutal game of costs, timelines and waiting!! Our time frame will be about a year. Also pray for our six children as they process the idea of adding another Snell to the crew. There will be many transitions ahead.

We feel blessed and overwhelmed - all at the same time!

 We rejoice that there will be one less orphan

 - one more little child who will know the love of a family and of the God who has loved her all along.

**My blog has been rather private til now - I haven't had it for too long and have never really shared it!! I don't claim to be a great writer or share anything too profound - just some of my thoughts, happenings around the Snell household, and now - updates on the adoption process to our newest daughter. 

More details to follow - background story, answers to some of the common questions about adoption, our first fundraiser, and how you can help us bring our daughter home! :)

James 1:27

I have followed Katie's blog for some time now - found her when I first began our research on Ethiopian adoption. Her story is so amazing - she is such a testimony to truly living the Bible and living God's dream for us - not our own.

Follow her blog here.