We are going to China

I can hardly wait to bring our daughter home! We have loved her from afar, and now I get to love her up close. I get to know everything about her–even the things that will be hard for a mother to hear. I get to take care of her and love her like she’s never been loved before. Laugh with her and cry with her. Teach her everything she needs to know to be happy in life. I get to see her playing and learning and loving and growing with her family. I get to show her how much she is loved and wanted and needed. I get to show her that we are her family–now and forever.

We are set to travel Monday, January 3rd and returning on Sunday, January 23rd. This is a little longer than we thought but God has a plan. Now it is off to packing, planning, and praising God for this great gift.

WE GOT OUR TA!!!!

We got our TA (Travel Approval) today. After what has seemed like 100 years we are finally headed to China. We got the call today and they said we could join the January group.  Hooray!!! Our agency is trying to get our Consulate Appointment and then we will be able to make our flight arrangements.

Please join us in praying we will get to use some frequent flyer miles and get on the flight that are needed.

We will keep you updated.

Blessings,

Shelly

Officially waiting for travel approval

hey this is Abigail our article 5 will be picked up tomorrow Monday Nov. 22 and then we are officially waiting on our travel approval ya ya ya ya  im so excited that we are so close and getting my sweet sister hope cant wait to tell you more but for now have a .....happy thanksgiving!!

Now What???

First of all, I want to say thank you to each of you who have been praying for our family. We appreciate that so much! We ask that you join us in specifically praying for no delays in the rest of the process.
So, what's next? Since this has been the most common question since we got our letter last week, I thought I would take a minute to try to explain what happens now. OK we have our Letter of Approval (LOA), our paperwork has several more rounds to make before we're given the green light to travel. Briefly, here's the outline:

10/7 we sent our LOA along with our I800 application to USCIS where they will review our homestudy and determine that yes, we can legally bring Hope into the U.S. when the time comes. This can take any where from 2-5 weeks.

Once our I800 is approved, they send our paperwork on to the National Visa Center (NVC) and we wait for them to do their part and say that they will give her a visa to enter the US when the time comes. The NVC process can take an additional 2-3 weeks.

The NVC mails us a copy of the approval, which we will scan/email to our adoption agency. They will forward it on to their staff in China who will deliver it to the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou on the following Monday or Thursday, whichever comes first. The consulate issues what's called an Article 5. Our agency staff will return to pick it up exactly two weeks later and deliver it to the CCAA (Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs).

We then wait for the CCAA to issue our Travel Approval (TA). This can take anywhere from 2-5 weeks, but will hopefully be sooner rather than later!

Once we receive our TA, our agency can then make an appointment with the U.S. Consulate in China (Consulate Appointment... CA) which will be our last stop on the way OUT of China with Hope. As soon as we have our CA, we can make our travel arrangements and will most likely leave 2-3 weeks after receiving our TA.

All together, it looks like we'll most likely travel late December or early January - even longer than I had originally thought. It feels like an eternity from now, but hopefully it will go by super fast. We are so anxious to have her home with us!

For now here is a picture of the care package we finally got to send to Hope.

WE GOT OUR LOA!!!!

Hooray!! We got our LOA (Letter of Approval) on October 4th. I will post pictures later. The wait for LOA is finally over. Now moving on to the next wait. The wait of immigration approval. This should happen within the next 3 weeks. Hopefully sooner.

We are still praying we get to travel before Christmas but it is looking more like January or February but we are getting closer and closer every day.

Waiting Patiently

Waiting Patiently is not always easy to do. I seem to think that I am a patient person but obviously I am not. God is definitely trying to teach me something. I wish I could just learn it and move on. Then I remember oh that is what I am trying to learn.

We are now on Day 86 of our waiting for our LOA (Letter of Approval). The average wait is 50 days and the most it has even been is 188. All I can say is we are getting closer and closer every day to bringing out sweet little girl home.

The other day I was finding myself going to bed as soon as my children went to bed. My husband asked was I ok. I said " Sure but I know we won't receive the letter today because it is too late but the sooner I go to bed the sooner it will be tomorrow and tomorrow might be the day."

Needless to say it is getting harder and harder to wait but God is God. He gave me the verse Romans 8:23-25 that I have read over and over lately.

²³Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. ²⁴For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? ²⁵But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

Fingerprints

HOORAY!!! I have some good news. Our immigration papers were to expire on August 6. I realized this on July 29. It is really no big deal we just had to fill out some paperwork and get refingerprinted. I have been waiting since then to get the appointment to get fingerprinted and it finally came in the mail on Monday.

The date was for September 23. Wow 3 whole weeks. So we decided to take our chances and go on down to the immigration office without an appointment. God is so good. We walked right in and they were so nice and friendly. It only took 10 minutes. This was definitely the fastest thing we have done for our adoption.

Now we are just waiting on our LOA which usually comes between 23 and 100 days. We are at Day 58. It should be any day now. Please pray with us that we get to go to China before Christmas.

School is Starting

This week is the first week of school. With this brings many many emotions. My children our very excited for school to start which is a wonderful thing. The reality is we thought we would have our daughter home by now. We know God has just the perfect timing but it still doesn't take away all the sadness. We know Hope is very far away without her family. We pray every night that she has someone to love on her and tell her about Jesus and most of all we pray that she will come home soon.

We were offically LID (Log in Date) on July 6. The next step is to get our LOA (Letter of Acceptance) which should happen as early as 30 days and as long as 150. The average is 100 days. We are now at 43 days. I am hoping it is 50 days.

Trip to Kentucky

So many of you have been asking about my trip to Kentucky so here goes the story.

First of all our Dossier has NOT even been sent to China, I just thought it had. I get a call from our social worker on Friday May 28 at 11:00 saying my birth certificate did not have a state seal on it from when we got it authenticated. OK I said what does that mean. She said you have to mail it to them and wait for them to send it back. No way was I going to wait another 2 weeks just to get the state seal. So I asked my sweet friend Jennifer if she wanted to go to Kentucky today. She said sure. So off we went.

Before we left I called to make sure someone would be there and what time they closed. They said they closed at 4:30.

We had plenty of time to get there. We left around 12:00 and it was about a 3 1/2 hours trip.

We find the state building. It was very beautiful up on this big hill. We walk up to these huge wooden doors and the sign says push hard. So I push really hard. I could not get the door to open so I ask Jennifer to try. She couldn't either. Jennifer suggested I call the number of the office. I could not find my phone so Jennifer got hers out and opened it. She said Shelly it says 4:32. NO WAY!!!! I did not realize they were on Eastern Time.

We quickly run around the building to see if any door was open. We find these people and tell them our story please please all I need is a state seal could someone please help me.

I think the man felt sorry for me and said let's got see if anyone is left in that office.

When we got up on the 3rd floor there was 1 lady left. The man asked if she could get a state seal for me. She said no all she did was accounting and everyone else has left for the Memorial Day weekend.

We asked if she was sure there was not anyone there. So she went to look for someone. She did find 1 more lady left. This lady asked for my papers and what I needed. She said hold on let me see. I thought this is a really good sign she is looking the papers. She calls another lady who does the state seal and walks her through how to do it. WOW GOD IS SO GOOD!!!!!

She comes back and hands it to me.

I thanks her a billion times and then off to FED EX to get it on its way.

God is so good He already knew that lady would still be there and did not what us to wreck trying to get up there on time. We had just a few minutes of panic as opposed to 3 hours of panic.

As of today our Dossier is still not sent to China but we definitely know He is on the journey with us.

DOSSIER SENT TO CHINA

Hooray!!! We got our immigration approval after many trips to the post office. Our Dossier is sent to China. We are getting closer and closer.

Next step is LID (Log in Date)

Then LOA (Letter of Acceptance)

Now comes the waiting game.

The Roller Coaster Ride

Monday afternoon Abigail went to get the mail and came running to me saying "We got it! We got it!" We got our immigration papers back. I was like WOW that was so fast. I was so excited until I saw what kind of envelope it was in.

It was a big envelope which meant it was NOT the paper I was waiting on. I did not want to crush her excitement but knew it could not be good. I told the kids to go on outside and play I would be there in a minute. After they left I quickly opening the envelope and in the top left corner it said REJECTED. That's all I could see for the moment because tears were streaming down my face.

I knew that it was not really that big of a deal I just needed to send some kind of other paper or something but I also knew it would take that much longer to bring home our sweet little girl. I could not even read the paper right then so I tried to pull it together and take my kids on that bike ride they wanted to go on. The minute the children saw me they knew. I told them it was fine I was just sad because it was just going to take a little longer to bring Hope home.

After I bike ride I decided to look at the papers to see what the matter was and only found it to saw there was a missing paper but what missing paper I could not figure out.

I called the 1-800 # they said to call and explained everything to the lady. She in turn sent me to someone higher up because she could not answer my question. There was a message saying they were open 8a.m.- 8p.m. and my wait time was 20-25 minutes. I decided I would fix the kids dinner and call after that maybe the wait time wouldn't be so long.

At 7:05 p.m. I called back and the message said no one was available at this time please call back between 8a.m.-8 p.m.. Yes you guessed it they were on Eastern time.

So I decided to just to put the kids in bed and go to bed and try again tomorrow. ( I forgot to mention my husband who is NEVER out of town was out of town)

Next morning I got up early, called at 7:10 am and finally talked to someone. Who sent me to the next level. They said I had to email the people in Memphis. I thought great finally an answer.

I emailed the people in Memphis they emailed me back within 5 minutes. Hooray finally an answer about the missing page. But no they said I had the call this 1-800 # . I could not believe it that was the same 1-800 # I had called that morning. Now I was really beginning to wonder what I was going to do. Yes stop and pray!!!

As so it goes on and on and on and on for about 5 hours until I finally figured out that I had to have my new homestudy and old homestudy with the application I could not send it later like our social worker told us.

So off the post office again.

Hopefully this time I will get it right.

What did I learn through all this????

God is good all the time. All the time God is good.

Home Study

Hooray!!! Home study has been updated and approved. As of 9:00 this morning. I just ran down to the agency to pick it up and went straight to the post office to send it to immigrations. Now we wait again for immigrations to update our papers. They said it could be up to 6 weeks. We are praying for 2 weeks. We really really want to go to China this summer. God is good and he already knows the time.

Paperwork

We are going as fast as we can trying to get all the paperwork done. We have hit a few bumps in the road (as all adoptions go.)

First, we can not get our immigration papers updated for China (changing from Hong Kong) until our Home study is approved. Our social worker has finished her part and sent it to headquarters in Michigan and it is waiting for the China social worker to sign off. As soon as she signs off I am going to the agency to pick up the official papers and send to immigrations.

Next bump is our medical papers and blood work has to have been done within the year. We had ours done 1/19/09 so we have to go get all of that done again. No big deal. It just takes time.

Please pray with us that this will all go quickly as we really want to travel this summer so our whole family can go together.

All I have to do is look at sweet Hope's face and all the headache of the paperwork is forgotten. We cannot wait to kiss all over her face.

We know God already knows the best time for us.

Nathan and Abigail are so excited to bring home their sister. At breakfast the other day Nathan said he was just going to walk to China. We said that would be a really long walk. He said he did not care he just wanted his sister home!!!

Hope Meng

Introducing Hope Meng. We got our referral from China last week, PRAISE GOD!! We are now in the process of redoing all of our paperwork and transferring from Hong Kong to China. Many have asked when we will be able to bring her home. Our social worker has told us around September but we are praying for June or July. Since both of us teach it would definitely be more convenient for us to travel in the summer, Lord Willing.

WE ARE MATCHED

WE ARE MATCHED WITH OUR LITTLE GIRL FROM CHINA!

PRAISE THE LORD!!

I WILL POST MORE LATER!!!!!

JUST TRYING TO LET IT ALL SINK IN.