Soon We'll Find Out

Still waiting, friends!

In our last post, I talked about how the wait for us is nothing compared to our little one's and others like them all around the world that wait for a family. I try to not lose sight on this, and forget who this is all about (which is not us).

Still, I'd be lying to say the wait isn't getting to us.

We wake up and go to bed with it on our minds. We dream about our little one -- even our kids dream about them as well! We. Are. Constantly. Thinking. And. Dreaming. About. It.

It quite frankly boggles our minds that we're still waiting. But we have to hold patiently firm to the truth that God's sovereign, and His hand is in this.

Lately I sense God whispering in my heart "Soon you'll find out why you've been waiting this long.." Really that's just fact in this phase of the process -- of course we'll find out why we've been waiting this long when we see their face, but whether or not there's extra meaning behind all of that -- we will see. This heart-whisper though gives extra peace in the waiting.

If you've been praying for us -- thank you so much. Feel free to e-mail us anytime with questions, words of encouragement, you name it (I believe there's a place on our blog where you can do that - if not, comment asking for our e-mail).

I'll leave you with this, and pray maybe it impacts your heart like it has mine::

"When I grew up in the orphanage it was Christians who came and built nicer buildings. Christians who bought us beds, clothing and provided money monthly for food. It was a Christian, who wrote a letter in a shoebox, who first told me I was loved. It was the Christians who met all my physical and material needs in that orphanage...

But it was also Christians who neglected my biggest need. Children in orphanages don't need more money, nicer buildings or better clothes. I am not an orphan because I lost my home or provisions. I am an orphan because I lost my parents. I needed a mom and a dad. I needed a family. Christians treated all my temporary symptoms of need but never cured my long-term disease of being orphan. I am still an orphan."

-A quote by a 30 year old orphan who aged out of an orphanage where he lived his whole life, spoken at the CAFO Summit 2013-

Remember Beau from the last post? He's still waiting. Please pray his family sees him! He has a grant for his adoption, and a family can be matched with him even at the start of their adoption process since he's "Special Focus." https://waitingchildinfo.com/2014/10/01/beau-2/ There are *so* many other children listed on that site as well if you poke around. The least yet most we can do for these children is to pray.

Our Waiting Is Nothing Compared To Theirs

12 weeks exactly this day our paperwork was sent to China.

While this waiting is tough for us -- it's absolutely nothing in comparison to the wait our little one and others like him (or her) are having to endure.

You would probably agree an orphanage is no place for a child like I always have -- but it wasn't until soon before we started this process that that reality really sank in. When that reality truly sinks in, you feel no other option than to do something about it.

Would you want your baby sleeping on plywood? Eaten up by scabies as they lay on plywood? Failing to thrive from malnourishment because they haven't received surgery for their cleft palate? Laying in bed so much and so long that the back of their heads are completely flat? Never going outside four walls? How about being told that in four months you'll age out at 14 years old and never be able to be adopted after that? Never knowing the love of a mother and father? Never kissed goodnight? Rocked slowly to sleep? For every month a child is in institutionalized care, they are set back at least 3 months developmentally due to neglect, lack of stimulation and one-on-one attention, and other general care. I'm sure you agree that if this isn't okay for our own children, this is not okay for any children. Here and abroad.

Adoption from China (and internationally in general) has fallen to the lowest numbers recently. According to the last recorded data, in 2011, Americans adopted 2,587 children from China -- sounds like a lot, right? That is still just 2% of all the children in institutional care in China alone, and hear this:: just 0.4% of all the orphaned children there!

As of last month, there were around 2,500 children in China alone with paperwork prepared to be adopted on the Shared List (this does not include children's whose files are agency-designated). This is a very very small portion of all of China's orphaned children. But nonetheless, these children still wait. They wait because they are older. They wait because they have "special needs." Needs as little as having a malformed ear. Needs as little as missing a finger on one hand. How is it that we can't find 2,500 or so families for these children? While that number seems large, it's so entirely small considering how many people right now in the US there are with the love and resources to take in one of those children.

Please take a moment and visit this following website that advocates for waiting children in China (and other countries). https://waitingchildinfo.com/

The least yet most we can do is PRAY over each of these faces. Don't be surprised if your heart isn't further moved for these children. As you sit and stare at their faces, your heart will be changed.

Here is Zachary. He's the sweetest lil guy who has microtia of one ear. He's only 1 1/2 years old and perfectly healthy -- just missing hearing in one ear. https://waitingchildinfo.com/2014/10/01/zachery/ Could you open your heart and home to sweet Zachary? Don't let the cost of the process scare you off. So many have completed adoptions starting with absolutely no funds. God places the lonely in families. God's heart is for the orphaned. HE will make a way.

Here is Beau. Beau has stolen a piece of my heart!! Beau is SO precious! Just check out his videos! His "need?" Repaired cleft lip, and currently unrepaired cleft palate. Couldn't you see sweet Beau just smiling with that stellar smile as you kiss him goodnight or good morning??https://waitingchildinfo.com/2014/10/01/beau-2/

Please pray over these children. Pray and seek ways you can help these children. Whether it be by sponsoring one or more each month by just paying $30 or so. By advocating for them. By fostering. By helping and encouraging a local foster family or foster children. By giving towards other families' adoptions. Or last but certainly not least - by considering adopting yourself.

While waiting in this process is at times grueling, it is nothing in comparison to THEIR waiting. 120-140+ million children's waiting. Oh God, please have us see these children as YOU do. Each one is worth DYING for. Worth. Dying. For.

We Yearn To See Your Face...

Oh Friend...

It's a little disappointing to be here again to say this...

But we have no news. I had hoped we'd have the best news yet to share with you by now.

I couldn't let our blog sit silent for more than a month, so I figured I'd just come and share my heart with you.

It's been 8 weeks and 5 days exactly since our dossier was sent to China.

And last I heard - our social worker checked in with our agency almost five weeks ago and was told they thought we'd receive our referral "soon." Our latest agency update showed they received very few files from their orphanage partnerships that month, so that could explain the waiting.

So now to share my raw-and-real-heart with you..

This process is a lot of "hurry up and wait." You rush like crazy to get paperwork done, then just wait. And wait. Then rush again. And wait again. And when the waiting is longer than you expected, your heart can't help but feel there is something wrong (even if there's truly no reason to feel that way). I've recently asked God, "Was there something on our medical needs chart we were supposed to check off??" My heart felt pulled toward a particular need many months ago, and for reasons unsaid, we just couldn't bring ourselves to check the need off. To think we may have written off a need God may have been leading us to is painful to think about -- after-all, we yearn to please our sweet Lord and to be in His ever-perfect will, and we know all-too-well that in order to do that we must lay down our fleshly-desires and pick up His. Sometimes though? It's just overwhelmingly hard to figure out which ones are ours and which ones are His...

And friend, it's honestly a little tough to see others receive their referrals or exciting updates while we're just over here banging our heads against the wall wondering when we'll ever be called. It's also tough to see sweet little guys with other agencies waiting -- and boy are there are so many! I see them waiting, and I think, "WHY ARE WE WAITING if there are so many lil guys WAITING?!"

I know you're probably wondering, "If there are SO many kiddos waiting, what's taking so long?" There are many children waiting with our agency currently, and many waiting with other agencies, as well as on the 'Shared List'..but my assumption has to be that there are no children that fit our family's profile currently designated with our agency. There is a great need for families to step up and open their hearts and homes to these children. The more families there are, the wider the net is for varying needs -- in the end placing more waiting children in loving families.

So how can you pray? Thanks for asking. :-) Here are a few ways:::

• Please pray that we have peace and discernment when reviewing the file we're referred. Please pray that the first file we will receive will be *our* child's file. While I know it happens, we just don't want to have to turn down a file because we feel their need(s) are too much for where we are currently. We pray and hope we have immediate calming discernment when we open their file.
• Please pray over the grant applications we have submitted, and will continue to submit. Being awarded any of these grants would help us cover some of the biggest upcoming fees -- overall helping to take some of the financial load off of the process.
• Please pray for our little one. We may not know who our child is yet, but God does. Pray that He comforts and provides for their needs while they wait for us, and we wait for them.

If you've read this post this far -- thank you! And thank you for praying. You have no idea what your prayers mean to us. Like I said in an earlier post -- there's no doubt in our minds that prayers have carried us this far in the process. 

And lastly, I hope we have AMAZING news to share with you in our next post!! We're hopeful we will so STAY TUNED!! :-) 

Picture below:: Check out the sweetest lil figurine our daughter made and placed in her dollhouse -- she said it's me holding our "China baby." :-)

8 Months of Praying, Dreaming & Hoping

I'll just cut right to the chase...we've got no news.

No referral.

Nada.

This is part of the process that gets a little tougher.

And this is the official wait in the process.

The paperwork is out of our hands. There's even less control than before. And the unknowns are a little more painfully obvious.

One month ago today our paperwork was sent to China. And eight months ago today we officially began the process.

We know without a doubt we'll receive our little boy's (or girl's) file eventually, but the whole "It could come at any moment; today, tomorrow, a week from now, or even two months from now" -- that is just tough.

Every time the phone rings my heart stops. I run over to pick it up to anxiously see who it may be. If it's a local number, I'm hopeful it could be our social worker. But nearly every time it's just a telemarketer, or someone telling me how to save on life insurance. I've literally told the phone "Unless you've got a picture of our baby, DON'T CALL!" Don't worry -- I only spout my craziness at recordings, not actually people. :-) 

We are ready to see who our child is. We've officially been in the process for 8 months now as of today exactly. 8!! We are ready to finally get a move on everything and be on that plane to China!!

We haven't done anything to prepare our little one's room yet. (Our son will be moved to what is now the guest bedroom. And our little guy/gal will take over his room -- which M is totally cool with.) We were waiting to prep both rooms once we were matched (plus we need to know for certain the gender). But lately? I've been itching to get his/her room started! And passing by the baby section at stores is killing me. Not that we have the money to really buy stuff (the struggle of adopting is that, well, you're financially drained at a time you would *love* to be buying all the cutesy and precious baby stuff -- this is when you're even more thankful for hand-me-downs, thrift stores, and Once Upon a Child).

So it's been one month since officially waiting. And who knows how much longer. And so we continue to pray, dream, and hope. While we're very anxious to see his (or her) face, we also know that will make the waiting even tougher, and the wait to get on that plane to get him/her will be excruciating.  

Our little one...you are so loved already. We pray for you. We dream of you. We hope for you. And as the saying goes...
"We'll hold you in our hearts until we can hold you in our arms." 

Paperwork Is On Its Way To China TODAY!!!

We are D-T-C as of today!! This is common adoption lingo that means "Dossier To China!!"

Your dossier [daw-see-ae] is basically all your paperwork compiled together that is given to the Chinese government (namely the CCCWA [Chinese Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption]). As you heard me say before, this is a laundry list of documents (e.g. police clearances, family application letter, data form, financial status document, passport copies, family and home pictures, your homestudy report, Homeland Security (USCIS) approval, birth and marriage certificates, medical exam doctor reports, etc. All of these documents go through intense scrutiny (just like we have) and had to be state-certified by the Iowa and Ohio Secretary of State, some have went through the San Francisco Chinese Consulate for authentication, and others went to the DC Chinese Embassy for authentication [any documents that are used in China must be legally authenticated through either the DC Embassy or at any one of the Chinese Consulates here in the States]).

This is a MAJOR step in the process!! Why? Because we are *finally* going to be "logged-in" by the Chinese government as prospective adoptive-parents. We will be eligible to receive log-in-date files. We will *hopefully* receive our "log-in-date" a week or so from the time we are DTC (today). We will then be seriously considered for future files and could receive our child's referral at literally any time. We'll try to remain as patient as we can, and trust that all will pan out in God's timing.

A few sweet friends have asked how they can pray. Here are the main ways you can pray (which we appreciate it so much!!)::

• Pray that we receive our child's referral the *first* file our agency presents us with. Pray we have peace and discernment when reviewing the file -- ultimately to know whether they are the right child for us, and more importantly -- if we are the right parents for them.
• Pray for our little one. Whoever they are, wherever they are. Pray for their protection and that their needs are met. That Jesus will hold them and meet their needs until we're able to.
• Pray over our adoption-related expenses and fees. It's no lie this process costs a ton (the children themselves do *not* cost anything, but unfortunately this multi-leveled-and-faceted-bureaucratic process does). So far, we've paid over $9,000 in cash for fees/adoption-related expenses thus far. $9k is a lot of money, but we still have a (big) ways to go. As you can imagine, these costs can seem insurmountable. And this is the craziest-leap-of-faith we've ever taken -- but we are trusting in God's provision in this process.

Thank you for praying!! I cannot tell you what it does to my heart to hear sweet friends tell me they've been praying for us and our Little Stump. There is no doubt in my mind that prayer, even if just one-two-or-three people are praying, has carried us through this process this far.

So here we are. Finally DTC. Finally!!! Little Stump, we are coming for you. I can't believe we're this much closer to you!!

APPROVED! (i800a/USCIS/Homeland Security)

WE ARE APPROVED! Approved for what might you say?! TO ADOPT! If you remember from the last post, with our homestudy in hand we applied to Homeland Security (specifically the US Citizenship and Immigration Services dept) to officially adopt, and we were fingerprinted last Thursday (they must fingerprint you to finish processing your application). So lastnight, Billy opened some mail and there our approval notice was. And yes, he was watching me as I smiled ear-to-ear. Before this, we were approved so-to-speak from our social worker, agency, and we had already met all state level pre-requirements, but now we are *officially* approved to adopt by the federal government!

This was the very last piece we needed for our dossier (the paperwork that gets sent to China)!

In fact, it was the most important piece.

Also -- we're approved for one or two children (in the one millionth chance our agency would refer us twins or "foster siblings").

This approves us to adopt in general (the approval notice gives what ages we're approved for, as well as the various special needs outlined in our homestudy report). When we accept a referral or match for our Little Stump is when we have to apply again to adopt him/her specifically.

As of now, our other dossier documents are being processed by our agency (they are getting certified through Iowa and Ohio's state secretaries, and going through the Chinese Consulate in Chicago for final authentication. Authentication is basically just legalizing the documents so that they can be used in China (no way around that).

After final authentication, our documents can be sent off on their merry-lil-way to China, and oh how that will be a happy day!!

We've been on this journey already for six months, so we're so ready to have those papers in China, let me tell you. :-) 

ONE BIG STEP CLOSER! 

Romantic Fingerprinting Date for Your Hub's 30th?

(((Some of our paperwork with Little Stump's first piece of room decor:: a globe pillow)))

Me to FedEx man early yesterday afternoon:: "Those papers are my babies...sorry if I sound a little paranoid about them making it there."

Then I leave feeling less-than-confident in the FedEx man. A result of either paranoia, or genuine concern? You tell me. :-)

I mailed out our dossier paperwork [the paperwork that goes directly to China] to our agency today! They will begin getting them all appropriately state certified and authenticated -- basically China-ready.

So I get home after leaving FedEx, and immediately check tracking. Check again. Then sigh in relief that I at least see that it's in the system.

Then I immediately wonder if I have an important piece of (adoption) mail waiting in the mailbox. I let the dog out the back door, then go to the mailbox to check. Nothing there. Go back to the door and realized I'm locked out, and the backdoor is locked too. I knock on the door, kids aren't to be seen. I go to another window and knock. Nothin'. Go to another window. They see me and let me in.

Let down a wee-little seeing nothing in the box. I wasn't expecting anything too exciting, just a notice from Homeland Security showing me they've received our application. Just a receipt notice. (Why is this stuff important? I800 approval (through US Immigration and Citizenship) is the very last piece we need for our dossier before sending to China. The fingerprint appointments are the last step in the I800 process before getting final approval. Most people see approvals very shortly after their fingerprint approvals. After we get final approval, we'll still need to get that piece authenticated at the Chinese Consulate in Chicago, then it will all be "China-ready.") :-))

A bit later during dinner, I notice our mailwoman rolling up to the mailbox. It's 5:45..a little late, so I thought it was a little odd. I think..."I wonder..nah. Probably nothing. Oh bananas, forget it..I can't wait." So I throw my coat on again, go out the front door (this time propping the door open), go to the mailbox, and what should my wondering eyes appear? Not one, not two, but FIVE precious pieces of mail, my dear! One receipt notice! Ontop of that, several pieces giving us fingerprint appts set for next week! NEXT WEEK!! SAY WHAT?! That's super quick. Lightening fast. Yes, yes, I'll take it!
I told you dear reader, those papers -- they're gold. Golden!

So, starting this process I was hoping we would have our paperwork logged in on China's side on Billy's 30th birthday or very shortly thereafter. But, I guess we'll just have to settle for a romantic early-morning fingerprint date at our USCIS office instead. <3 :-)

I received an e-mail from a sweet friend of mine in the morning that said, "Have a beautiful day!!! I am praying for your little one!" ...I certainly had a beautiful day. :-)