Not only is it a beautiful day outside today with spring-like weather, but it is a beautiful day in our world as our Travel Advisor called this morning at 8:39 AM to let us know that she had just received our Travel Approval (TA) from China, which is the final document we need to be able to travel to China to adopt our daughter! We just couldn't be more happy and totally over the moon with excitement! At times, we thought this day might never arrive and now it is here! Praise God from whom all blessings flow!!!
We won't know our actual travel itinerary until next week, but our tentative dates for travel are March 13th thru March 27th with a "GOTCHA" day of Monday, March 17th--WOOHOO!! In the adoption community, "GOTCHA" simply means the day we will finally have Jaidalyn in our arms forever! We will celebrate this day every year and will refer to it as our Forever Family Day--the day we became a Forever Family to our Jaida!
As we reflect on the past year of this journey called adoption, I am reminded of this "step of faith" that God called us to take in our life. On Saturday, March 3, 2007, we took our 3 children to a Christian concert looking forward to spending some quality time together and hearing the music of many of our favorite artists that we listen to everyday on the radio. Little did we know, that this was not the main reason for our presence at this concert. But rather it was God's avenue for opening our hearts up to the idea of adopting an orphan from China. WOW! When I relate this story to friends they immediately laughingly say, "Boy am I glad I wasn't at THAT concert!"
It is amazing to me that God can accomplish His purpose even through the means of a concert with a man and woman walking away from it asking each other, "So what did you think of the concert?" To this man and woman expressing to each other that God had spoken to each of them at this concert, "I have ONE for you." Of course, you can read all about this process in previous posts on our blog, but I still stand in awe of our loving God!
This one-year journey has definitely been a "step of faith." A step into the unknown. This step that God called us into was something beyond our experience, knowledge, and control. When we said "Yes" to God and took that first step into the unknown, the plans that God had for our lives and for our family, slowly became revealed to us. Look at what we would have missed out on had we said "No" to God, not willing to take that step, find someone else. A beautiful little girl called Lu Na Qun! God has given us the blessing of raising this litte girl as our daughter; he has entrusted her life to us...I am humbled.
We pray that God will use our journey of faith to somehow reach out to someone else who may be afraid to make that "step of faith." I promise you, you will not be sorry that you took that step of faith. In fact, you may find yourself extremely blessed indeed!
Friday, February 29, 2008
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Adoption Update
Welcome to our new blog! We developed this blog so it would be a little easier for all of you to follow along with us on the rest of our adoption journey. Hope you enjoy it! I know many of you are just as anxious as we are to have our little girl home and may be wondering "What is the hold up?" Believe me, this has been the most difficult wait of our lives and although we may appear patient, there have been many definite times of total impatience on our part. We continue to trust that God's timing is perfect and we will have our little girl at just the perfect moment! With that said, here is what has been happening since November.....
Our hope was to travel around Christmas, but that would not come to pass. Day after day we had hoped for the arrival of our Letter of Approval from the China Center of Adoption Affairs. Well, the so called average wait of 100 days came and went as did our little girl's 2nd birthday on January 3rd. Oh how we had hoped to celebrate this birthday with her! We just didn't want to miss out on any more of her life! Finally on January 21, 2008, with a wait of 150 days, we got the call from our adoption agency that our Letter of Approval had arrived. They Fedexed it overnight to us, we signed it and checked the box that yes we indeed accept the referral of Lu Na Qun, overnighted it back to our agency, and they overnighted it back to China. Finally, we think things are starting to move forward.
Now, we have an average wait of 15 to 20 days for China to send our final paperwork, the Travel Approval, which gives us permission to travel to China to adopt our daughter. Well, we already know how the averages work for us, they don't! And we have only got 17 to 18 days until the Chinese New Year at which time the China Center of Adoption Affairs takes one full week off for their vacation and celebrations. ANOTHER POSSIBLE DELAY...UGH! You guessed it, no Travel Approval before the Chinese New Year. So, here we are today, Day 37 of our wait for Travel Approval and nothing yet. However, we did receive a message yesterday from our adoption agency that approvals were sent out on Monday from China and they are expecting them any day now, so we will let you know just as soon as it is here!
Once we receive the Travel Approval, our agency will call the U.S. Consulate in China to schedule an appointment for us that will take place at the very end of our trip to China. This appointment is where Jaida will receive her visa, medical checkup, and swearing in ceremony. So, once we receive the date of this appointment, we back our trip up about 12 days and set up all of our travel arrangements. We are really hoping to be leaving somewhere around March 7th, if we can get the consulate appointment date that we want. We are definitely ready to go!
Please keep a copy of our blog address for your reference as you will be able to view it daily while we are in China to follow us on this trip of a lifetime! We will be able to post from China to this blog and will have daily updates and pictures! We also hope to hear from you as you can leave comments on each post we have!
Our hope was to travel around Christmas, but that would not come to pass. Day after day we had hoped for the arrival of our Letter of Approval from the China Center of Adoption Affairs. Well, the so called average wait of 100 days came and went as did our little girl's 2nd birthday on January 3rd. Oh how we had hoped to celebrate this birthday with her! We just didn't want to miss out on any more of her life! Finally on January 21, 2008, with a wait of 150 days, we got the call from our adoption agency that our Letter of Approval had arrived. They Fedexed it overnight to us, we signed it and checked the box that yes we indeed accept the referral of Lu Na Qun, overnighted it back to our agency, and they overnighted it back to China. Finally, we think things are starting to move forward.
Now, we have an average wait of 15 to 20 days for China to send our final paperwork, the Travel Approval, which gives us permission to travel to China to adopt our daughter. Well, we already know how the averages work for us, they don't! And we have only got 17 to 18 days until the Chinese New Year at which time the China Center of Adoption Affairs takes one full week off for their vacation and celebrations. ANOTHER POSSIBLE DELAY...UGH! You guessed it, no Travel Approval before the Chinese New Year. So, here we are today, Day 37 of our wait for Travel Approval and nothing yet. However, we did receive a message yesterday from our adoption agency that approvals were sent out on Monday from China and they are expecting them any day now, so we will let you know just as soon as it is here!
Once we receive the Travel Approval, our agency will call the U.S. Consulate in China to schedule an appointment for us that will take place at the very end of our trip to China. This appointment is where Jaida will receive her visa, medical checkup, and swearing in ceremony. So, once we receive the date of this appointment, we back our trip up about 12 days and set up all of our travel arrangements. We are really hoping to be leaving somewhere around March 7th, if we can get the consulate appointment date that we want. We are definitely ready to go!
Please keep a copy of our blog address for your reference as you will be able to view it daily while we are in China to follow us on this trip of a lifetime! We will be able to post from China to this blog and will have daily updates and pictures! We also hope to hear from you as you can leave comments on each post we have!
Video Clip of Jaida
This video clip was taken in early July by another adopting family, the Fredericksons, that visited the Hefei Children's Welfare Institute where Jaida lives in China. At the time, this family did not know that Jaida was going to be adopted, but they happened to visit her room at the institute. She in not being held by any of the nannies, she is the child walking around the nannies in the video in the pink top and red shorts. At the beginning of the video, she is in the lower left hand corner of the screen and moves around to see what is going on. During the clip, Robert focuses in on her a couple of different times and she appears to shy away. Oh, we can't wait to have her in our arms! Thank you Pam and Robert for this wonderful 40 seconds of seeing our daughter in real life motion! Enjoy!
Monday, February 25, 2008
Our Adoption Timeline
3/3/2007--God called us to adopt
3/26/2007--Great Wall China Adoption Agency in Austin, TX accepted our application for international adoption
4/1/2007--Home Study began
4/20/2007--Drove to Kansas City Immigration Services for Fingerprinting
5/25/2007--I-171H Received (Approval from Immigration to Adopt an orphan)
6/15/2007--Dossier to China (DTC)
6/20/2007--Log-In-Date (LID)
8/20/2007--Our Waiting Child Application is matched with Lu Na Qun!
8/27/2007--Letter of Intent (LOI) sent to China
9/6/2007--Pre-Approval (PA)
1/21/08--Letter of Approval (LOA)
2/29/08--Travel Approval (TA)!!!
3/26/08--Consulate Appointment (CA)!!!
3/12/08 thru 3/28/08--Official Travel Dates to China!!!
3/26/2007--Great Wall China Adoption Agency in Austin, TX accepted our application for international adoption
4/1/2007--Home Study began
4/20/2007--Drove to Kansas City Immigration Services for Fingerprinting
5/25/2007--I-171H Received (Approval from Immigration to Adopt an orphan)
6/15/2007--Dossier to China (DTC)
6/20/2007--Log-In-Date (LID)
8/20/2007--Our Waiting Child Application is matched with Lu Na Qun!
8/27/2007--Letter of Intent (LOI) sent to China
9/6/2007--Pre-Approval (PA)
1/21/08--Letter of Approval (LOA)
2/29/08--Travel Approval (TA)!!!
3/26/08--Consulate Appointment (CA)!!!
3/12/08 thru 3/28/08--Official Travel Dates to China!!!
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