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. ;)

Update

So I have had a lot of people ask me recently where we are at in our adoption.  

Currently China has all our paperwork in hand and we are considered "paper ready".  Basically that means we are recognized as adoptive parents.

Now we wait on the adoption agency.  We are basically in a "take a number" kind of a line.  The program we are in about 90% of families are asking for the exact same child that we are, 0-2, female, minor to correctable special needs.  The agency only gets so many files released to them to match with families.  

So say there are 20 families ahead of me and they only receive 5 files, then I still have to wait for 15 more files to be released before they get to me.  Files come randomly, sometimes in large quantities and sometimes just a few.  So in a nutshell it's a waiting game.  A very HARD waiting game.  

A year ago from this week is when we started exploring Adoption.  Some days it feels like just yesterday and others it feels like its been a life time.  I can't wait till we get that phone call telling us a file is going to be sent our way.  Until then we will just pray for our little girl that she is well looked after and that God holds her in His arms until I can hold her in mine.  

And to keep us busy during the wait we will raise funds to pay that $25,000 bill that will come when she is ready for us to come get her.  As you already know I sell Origami Owl but now I've recently added Jamberry to the resume.  ALL commissions will go directly into our Mei Mei account.  

We also plan to run some more fundraisers as soon as the holidays pass.  Some things we were thinking about doing is a concert, BINGO, Restaurant fundraiser.  If you have any ideas that could help us get closer to our goal I am open to any and all suggestions!  

I would like to also take a moment to thank ALL of my friends and family for being SO supportive.  We could NOT do this without out all of you.  We are continuously blessed day after day by you, so thank you for being great!

We have our LID!!!

Last Friday 8/29/14 we got an email telling us our Dossier was on it is way to China (DTC) it made it to China on Tuesday 9/2/14, and yesterday I received an email with our LID (Log In Date) 9/4/14!!  That was super fast, I know some who have had to wait a month to get it and ours was 2 days!!

Feeling so much excitement and anticipation for the road ahead of us.  Now the prayer is that God hand selects our baby girl and puts her in our path at just the right time.

Until then, we will raise money to go get her.  Onto the Amazing Race!

Dossier to China

I keep updating facebook but forget about writing it in my blog.  I will get better..... I hope.

The whole family took a trip to Chicago last week.  I was so very excited to receive my I-800a papers in the mail so I could travel to Chicago before work started up.  August 11th, my birthday, I spent sitting in the Chinese Consulate.  I loved being there!  We were one of the only white folks there and we were admist a handful of little babies running all around.  One little girl came up to me and said "hi", I said hello back but I was a bit dramatic.  I responded in a way as if this little girl was Mei, Mei, minus tears. LOL  I'm pretty sure I scared her father.  HA!

    

We received our Dossier back Fed Ex this Tuesday 8/19/14.  We immediately went to our funds and started pulling them all together.  The bill this time around is $6,200.00.  I have now spent all of our Mei Mei savings on this step plus we had to use up all our savings and emergency account money to pay this bill and we still end up short.  No worries though we were able to scrape up some more other places to just make the bill.  Waiting on funds right now to be transferred into our account. We were going to send our Dossier in to the Adoption Agency today but decided to wait one more day for the funds to show up.  So tomorrow we will send this lovely package off to McLean, VA. where it will be translated into Chinese.  

Now I understand a lot of people do not fully understand what is going on and most of the time I'm not sure if I do either.  But I will try my best to educate you so you will have a better understanding.

Our Dossier (big giant file of a ton of paperwork) will be sent into our Adoption Agency tomorrow (8/22).  They should receive it Monday morning, will translate it, and then send it off to China on Friday (8/29).

Once it arrives in China they will look it over and Log it into their system.  Basically saying we received your file and it is now in our system.  They will then recognize us as someone who wishes to adopt from their country.  We will then be notified and be given a "Log in Date" also known as a "LID".  

After we receive our LID is when the real waiting begins.  Even though it seems as though we have flown through this process so far, that really means nothing in the grand scheme of things. After we receive our LID we wait on our referral.  (Referral = Child's file).  This can take anywhere from a couple months, to years to get our first one.  I have emailed my Family Coordinator and asked her for some clarification on the wait.  Hopefully she can shed some more light, and I pray that it is more closer to months than years right now.  From what I understand once you receive your LID you get "in line" and you have to wait your turn before getting referrals.  

My prayer is that we will get Mei Mei in God's timing but if he see's fit would he please move mountains so we don't have to wait 2 years.  

That's about all I know right now.  I do know once you say yes to a child there is paperwork and more waiting for Travel approval (TA).  

So if you're reading this right now then that means you stuck with me through this whole blog and I thank you for supporting us during this big event in our life.  I appreciate ALL your prayers, kind words, encouragement, gifts, donations, and general support.  You all are a blessing to me and my family.  

Now onto selling the crap out of Origami Owl and Fundraising like a beast to raise $25,000.  That's our next bill.  Yikes!  Completely worth every penny.  :)