We got our TA!!!!

Yesterday morning 03/13/15 we got a call from our Family Coordinator telling us that they received our TA!  Jordan and I were walking into Target when I got the call.  I hung up the phone and we started hugging, jumping up and down, and gave each other a kiss right in front of the main doors while people were walking in and out.  HA!  I'm sure they were thinking we were crazy!

I'm not going to be posting our travel dates on my main facebook or my blog because I am not interested in a lot of people knowing when we will not be home.  Even though someone else will be here I'm just not comfortable with it.

SOOOO happy, we are going to get our little girl!!!!

I have to say that God is good, His timing is perfect, and it is all to His glory!

Chinese New Year

Yesterday was the start of the Chinese New Year.  To celebrate a part of Mei Mei's culture we decided to take part in a Chinese New Year celebration.  We had some dear friends of ours over (also known as our framily) and celebrated the new year.  

We started off our evening with a little Origami.  We successfully made hearts and not so successfully made dragons.

We then after spending WAY too much time on the dragon decided to make dinner.  Had to play some Chinese New Year music to continue in the celebration.  A little dancing while cooking never hurt anyone right?

We ordered out some Sweet and Sour Chicken, and egg rolls from the local Chinese restaurant.  Then I made some homemade Chicken Fried rice and Melanie whipped up a batch of Longevity Noodles.  A custom Chinese dish that says the longer the noodle you get, the longer life you will live.  Our noodles were pretty long!  The food was delish!

We also attempted to eat all of our food with chop sticks.  It was quite entertaining!  

Our meal wouldn't be complete without fortune cookies.  We attempted to bake homemade ones.  Carter was the master chef but unfortunately I fear I had given him a bad recipe because they failed miserably and tasted nasty.  Oh well we tried.  We DID have fun writing fortunes for our cookies.  This fortune seemed appropriate, we mine as well dropped it on the floor because the taste was so horrendous.  

Luckily Jordan didn't know we were making homemade fortune cookies so he picked up a bag at the Chinese restaurant.  So we shoved our homemade fortunes into the yummy tasting cookies and had a blast opening them, eating them, and reading the fortunes.  

After the meal I gave all the kids their red envelopes filled with Gold Coins, dollar ones and chocolate ones too!  We had Oranges on the table and HiChew candies.  

To finish off the celebration we sat around and played a game of Chinese Checkers.  

We had a really fun evening full of celebration.  Can't wait for next year to celebrate with our baby girl!  

Round the Corner

On Thursday, 2/5/15 I submitted our DS260 forms.  That will probably mean absolutely nothing to you unless you have adopted internationally before.  So let me sum it up, that is our LAST piece of paperwork we have to fill out before we travel.  I have filled out form after form after form this past year.  Mountains of paperwork from passport applications, to adoption forms, to immigration paperwork, and visa applications.  We have had things Certified, Notarized, and Authenticated.  And this, this DS260 form was the last piece to the puzzle.

This DS260 form gets us our last document needed to travel, it's called an Article 5.  I'm not sure what an Article 5 does, but one thing I DO know that it does is say; YES you can come to China to get your baby girl and for that the Article 5 is my favorite form right now.

Currently we are waiting for our Article 5 to be dropped off at the US Consulate in China.  From there they will approve it and send it over to the CCCWA where they will approve it and we can officially set up our Consulate appointment for when we are in China. Then we will be issued our TA (Travel Approval).  Once we get our TA we will be contacted by our adoption agency to give us our official travel date.

Please be in prayer with me that we travel before March 28th.  In order for this to happen it would totally have to be a God thing.  But I have learned to not put God in a box and to let God be God.  We will travel when it is best for everyone I know this.  However March 28th is Isaac's birthday and he will be turning 12.  What that means for us is that he will be considered an "adult" and we will have to pay for another adult fare.  So if you would join me in praying for God to be gracious yet again and allow us to go before that happens.  Or at least the trip booked before they charge us adult rates. My bible study today said to pray persistently, so I will be continuing to do so!  :)

I am getting so anxious.  Anxious to hold my precious girl in my arms.  To stare into her deep brown eyes and tell her over and over again that I am absolutely in love with her.  I cannot wait to tell her how God worked in all of our lives to bring us together.  That she was divinely picked for us and that God loves her SO much.  I want to introduce her to all her family and our friends.  I want to show her her very own bedroom with all her own toys, clothes, and gifts people so graciously blessed us with.  I want to take her to the Zoo and show her what a Giraffe looks like and buy her some dip n dots!  I want to take her to the great lake and let her feel the sand squish between her toes and the feeling of the cold water rush over her.  I want to read bible stories to her and sing songs of praise.  I look forward to the days where we can take walks in the warm summer air and eat Popsicle's.

I long for the days where I see her and her brothers playing kitchen and beauty shop.  The boys have already informed me that they cannot wait for this either.  I want to see the way they look at her with the love in their eyes that I already see when they look at her picture but rather in the flesh.  And to see her stare back up at them.

I want to see her snuggled fresh from a bath in her Daddy's arms as Jordan reads her a story about  princesses, puppy dogs, or Doc Mcstuffins.  To see her look at her Daddy and know that she is safe whenever he is there.

I cannot wait for the days where she will know that we love her.  That we are hers and she is ours.

Those days are just around the corner.

So while I wait for those days to come I will continue to rejoice in the Lord and the blessings He has given to us.  And having a baby shower to celebrate her life with family and friends will make it that much sweeter.  Can't wait to celebrate with you all!

In Waiting

Immigration forms have been submitted.... check!

Agency paperwork filled out.... check!

Visa applications filled out.... check!

Now we wait............................................................................

Waiting on Isaac's passport for his visa, waiting on our I800 approval, waiting on letters to come via snail mail, but above all waiting to see our daughters face in the flesh.  Waiting to hug and kiss her.  Waiting to tell her that we love her.  Waiting to see her smile, or cry, or get angry, or any other emotion she may produce.  Waiting to hold her sweet little hand.  Waiting to hear her voice.  Waiting to hold her and tell her how much God loves her and so do we.

Waiting is hard, very hard.   You think the wait before you get your referral is hard, and it is, but in all actuality the wait after you see your child's face and know who they are, and where they are and you are trapped many miles and many approvals away from being with them.... that exceeds the emotions you felt before.

The range of emotions you feel are far and wide, but if I had to sum up all the emotions into one word I would have to say longing.

I completely surrender my longings to Christ and ask Him to give me peace during this waiting time.

Isaiah 40:31 - but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

Lamentations 3:25 - The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him.

Psalms 130:5-6 - "I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning."

Micah 7:7 - But as for me, I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me.

Introducing Mei Mei

We are so excited to finally be able to post this blog entry!  Although her name will not be revealed quite yet, you CAN see her beautiful face!

Meet our little girl.

The Lord must want her here as much as we want her here because we received our EA on Thursday afternoon and this afternoon we received our RA.  That is crazy fast!  My family coordinator said she even couldn't believe it!

She is 25 months old, she walks, talks, and is potty trained (whoo hoo!).  Her file tells me that she is extroverted, energetic, and healthy (whoo hoo!).

She is average in size and will probably come home wearing a 2T or 3T to give you an idea of how big she is.  I can't wait to spoil the crap out of her!  Whoo hoo!

I am absolutely in LOVE with her sweet little face and am over the moon excited about China giving us the privilege of being her parents.

My family coordinator told me that we are estimated to travel mid March to mid April so that means we need to get moving on making this baby shower a reality!  So March 1st at 3:00 p.m. is when we will be celebrating her beautiful little life!

Give Praise to the Lord, proclaim His name; make known above the nations what He has done.  1 Chronicles 16:8

I give him ALL the glory! 

We Got Our Referral!!!!!

So the title of this blog is correct.  Yesterday at 3:17 p.m. we received an email with our referral.  (Referral = A child's file to review)

But I MUST give you back story so you can see how God's Mighty hand worked through all of this.  

I have always been one to struggle when I read.  I am an excellent reader however not the best at comprehending and I get lost in the text. I have to return to the beginning and re-read the same text about 5 times.  It gets exhausting so reading becomes daunting and I avoid it.  This includes the Bible.  I try devotions, verses of the day, and reading plans and I do okay with that, but it's not enough to sustain me spiritually and I know this.  

Well I found this awesome devotion book by Beth Moore called "Whispers of Hope".  It is a devotion book and at the end of the devotional it gives you specific things to journal as a prayer to God.  I was faithfully reading and journaling my very specific prayers.  Two things I was praying about specifically was that in God's perfect timing that he would reveal Mei Mei to us, and also since He says to present our requests to Him and be specific, that if it was okay with Him that He would allow us to bring her home before the end of the current school year.  (Isaac REALLY has his heart set on introducing his class of two years to his baby sister and I really wanted him to be able to do this.)

During this time I received multiple messages from God.  I had a dear friend of mine Robyn tell me she had a dream that God was moving his hands working on shuffling things around to get Mei Mei to us.  Then I started seeing all this exciting movement in my Adoption support group and through emails from my agency that files were coming in large quantities which is not normal at all.  I had no idea where I stood in line and so I messaged my Family Coordinator.  She told me that my original wait time went from a year down to six months from my LID.  (9/4/14)  I was sooo excited I couldn't stand it!

Then the holidays approached and life became busy and I foolishly stopped doing my daily reading/journals.  Everything went quiet.  I had become convicted about abandoning my time alone with God and had decided to start back up. Then on Sunday Jordan gave a message at church that re-lit the fire beneath me.  

First day back to work after vacation (this was yesterday) I planned to wake up at 5 a.m. and spend my alone time with God before the hustle and bustle of the day began.  5 a.m. came very early but I still dragged my butt out of bed and put pen to paper and journaled out my prayers to my God.

Later in the day I was talking to my boss Marianne on the phone about work related stuff and towards the end of the call she asked me how the adoption was going.  I told her good but that China was shut down for a week and today was their first day back.  I said I probably wouldn't get a call today but maybe next week or the following.  She asked me what my specific prayers were and so I told her; Gods perfect timing, and before the end of the school year.  She informed me that she would pray right when she got off the phone for those specifics.  We hung up and about a minute later I got a text from her that her daughter wanted me to know that she was also praying that we would get Mei Mei before the end of the school year.  

I left the room and was fiddling around with some stuff in the classroom next to my office when I heard a buzzing noise.  I had heard my phone vibrating from my office, that was crazy in itself that I could hear that!  So I ran in and saw it was a call from VA.  The only people I know who would call me from VA was my agency.

Me: Hello.  
Kelcey: Hi Dusty.  It's Kelcey from AWAA.  How are you today?
Me: Really good if your calling me for the reason I think your calling me for!!!
Kelcey: I am!

She proceeded to tell me about this little girl they had waiting for a family to adopt her and asked if I would want to review her file.  Of course I said YES!!!!!

At 3:17 p.m. yesterday we received her file via email.  I called Jordan and we decided that I should come home so we could review the file together.  But I can tell you that even before I opened the email that I knew she would be our baby girl because Gods fingerprints were ALL over everything.  

I got home and we reviewed the file as a family, us and the boys.  Everyone is SO excited!  We sent her file to the International doctor and she gave us the thumbs up and so did our social worker.  So last night I stayed up and wrote up the official acceptance letter and sent it over to Kelcey and told her YES we would like to adopt her!!!!!!

I can tell you that legally I am not allowed to share her picture or any details about her online until we get our RA (Referral Acceptance from China).  Sorry I know you were probably on the edge of your seat wanting these details.  

I will post more in the coming months but it looks like we are looking to possibly travel in the Spring.  That's not guaranteed but its the estimate.

So thank you to all my friends and family who continue to lift us in your prayers we ask that you don't stop!  She will be here before we know it!  Eeek!!!!

Pray for specifics:  That she is watched over well and is safe and healthy.  That the paperwork from here on out goes smooth and the Referral is accepted by China.  That the remaining funds can be raised in order to travel.  Thank you!!!!!

Praise The Lord! Praise God in His Sanctuary; praise Him in His mighty Heavens! Praise Him for His mighty deeds; praise Him according to His excellent greatness!! Psalm 150:1-6 ESV

Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness! Psalm 115:1 ESV

Some Unexpected News

So earlier last week I received an email from my family coordinator that had encouraged us to talk to anyone interested in adopting to give her a call.  Come to find out there are more kids who need adoption than they have adoptive parents.  

I wrote my FC and asked her what that meant for us.  She told me that my original estimated time frame of 12 months has been pushed up to 6 from our LID date!!!!  That means we are looking at getting our referral around early March instead of September.  

After we receive our referral and say yes to it then we head into more paperwork and hopefully short after bring our baby girl home. 

So we have about 6 months to fund raise and sell Origami and Jamberry  like crazy so I apologize in advance if I annoy you. ;)