Our Winter Wonderland

Skiing at J-J Ranch

What's Wrong with this Picture --that would be a tree limb...
That would be the offending tree...
Board Games by Candlelight
Watching the snow fall...and fall...and fall...

My husband and kids have wished for a white Christmas every year. They have always thought I was a bit of a scrooge for saying that a white Christmas would really actually be inconvenient and make everything more difficult. I could say that I was right since two weeks of winter storms canceled every Christmas party and program we had planned, we lost power for three days and had a tree poke a hole through our ceiling...but I think I have to admit that despite all of the cancellations, changes and inconveniences, it was a Christmas season to remember. Being out of our routine allowed us more quiet moments to reflect on why we celebrate the birth of our Savior. Canceled programs and activities gave us extra time together as a family. We had a candlelight dinner for our elderly neighbors. We did things differently. We rescued a stranger in the snow and ended up hanging out at K-Mart with her until 10 p.m. on Christmas Eve. My kids spent hours working hard to shovel snow, deliver firewood to neighbors and drag fallen tree branches out of the yard. We learned that a four wheeler makes a good ski-tow and our driveway a nice ski slope. We learned to be thankful for electricity, heat (we don't have a woodstove...yet) and running water (our well doesn't pump water without electricity...) and were reminded that many people live without these comforts every day. I discovered that sorting socks by candlelight is almost like playing solitaire, but it is difficult to distinguish navy blue from black. We all learned that traditions are fun, but an expendable part of celebrating Christmas. Christmas is about remembering God's mercy and love in sending His son.

DTC!!!

DTC!!! For those not familiar with adoption acronyms - that stands for Dossier to China. That means we finally have all of our official documents completed, notarized, certified, authenticated and sent in a nice thick bundle to China. We have moved from waiting for a review and approval from the US Government to waiting for a complete review and final approval from China. We anticipate this step will take 3-4 months at which point we will receive an LOA - Letter of Acceptance and return an RA - Referral Acceptance to China. Once that is done, we will wait for our TA - Travel Approval to come from China, that takes 2-4 weeks on average. Our actual travel dates will then be determined based on when our agency gets CAs (consulate appointments) for our assigned travel group - probably 1-4 weeks later. Our agency sent our dossier to China on December 23rd which was a wonderful Christmas gift to us. There was a great deal of effort by many people to make that happen. A USCIS officer finally took pity on our long wait and helped us get our approval processed quickly once she had reviewed it. Our social worker stayed up late one night to make changes to our home study and got it out on a fed-ex priority mailing the next day. USCIS sent it back to us priority fed-ex, but it was scheduled to arrive the day of the first winter storm. We didn't find out until it had already been sent that priority delivery in our area is not until the end of the following day. Fed-ex was able to mark our package to be held at their local office and miraculously was able to catch it for us before it got on the truck for the day. We intercepted it when the office opened, drove through the snow to Salem to have it notarized and certified at the Secretary of State and sent it fed-ex to a courier in San Francisco. She had to make two attempts to hand deliver it to the Chinese consulate, but retrieved it Monday and sent it fed-ex to our agency in Virginia. It was supposed to be delivered by 10:30 am, but was delayed four hours due to weather. Despite the delay, our agency China coordinator managed to put it together with the other dossier pieces we had sent the previous week and get it out the door on its way to China before she left that day and the office closed for the rest of the week! It has taken much time and effort. We are very thankful to have our documents on their way!

Christmas Update

This post is for those of you that we don't see often and like those Christmas letters where people tell you what they did for the past year. For those of you that have browsed this blog already, you know the biggest news of the year is pursuing the adoption of a six year old boy in the NW corner of China. In the upper left corner of this blog is a link to a page describing the miraculous circumstances that have led us on another adoption journey. (Note, this will take you to a different blog.) Here are some updates on the rest of the family --



Anna - is now 4 years old, but she would like to be 40 so "she can get married, have a driver's license and be in charge." She likes to believe that some day she will be big and her siblings will be small and she can babysit them and be in charge. However, she is beginning to understand this will never actually happen and she will always be the youngest, so she is starting to make plans to be in charge of their kids when she is an aunt. She is a smart, sweet, determined little girl. She loves talking (about anything and to anyone who will listen and answer her multitude of questions), singing, pretending to play instruments, pretending lots of other things, wearing lipstick, drawing pictures and putting them in envelopes, hanging out in her brothers' room, going anywhere mommy is going, playing with her friends, carrying around her "greenberry" (the little green calculator that she thinks looks like daddy's blackberry), calling people on her cell phone, telling stories about China and bossing around the dog. She is such a special blessing to our family. She keeps us on our toes and makes us all laugh and smile. She is excited about having a brother come from China and is making all sorts of plans for what she will do while Mommy and Daddy are in China. She prays for her brother in China every day that God would heal his arms, keep him safe from earth quakes and tornadoes and help his papers get done.



Mark - is now 7 years old. Our red-headed wonder is still full of energy and ideas. Mark has never liked to do things in a conventional way and is always thinking of some creative, out-of-the-box idea of how to do things. After the first 3-4 years of his life, we finally stopped saying "the other kids never did that..." This little boy is bound to make a creative and unique impact on the world. About a year ago, he began campaigning to learn violin. We gave him a violin for Christmas and he has now been playing for almost a year. He is also playing piano. He loves to draw and play games. He likes to get through his school work as quickly as possible each day so he can do more interesting things. He played soccer and will soon be on a basketball team for the first time. He loves to play in the yard, jump on the trampoline, ride bikes and roller blade. Despite his fierce determination and energetic personality, he also has a very tender side. He is very patient with his little sister and enjoys keeping her entertained (most of the time). Just today, when he perceived some stress in me, he made me a card that said "to Mom from Mark, in times of stress, remember God has a plan." We are hoping that Mark will be able to go to China with us. Mark began asking to adopt a brother not long after we brought Anna home. He has faithfully prayed for him. We think Mark will be able to put Li Meng at ease. Li Meng may not understand our language, but two little boys can play and communicate without knowing the same language. They are very close in age and size. Mark is a bit nervous about going to China, but we know he will love the adventure.



James - is now 10 years old. He is still our sweet, sensitive, sensible and responsible boy. He is growing very much and becoming a great help around our home and property. He often helps dad with projects and does little repairs for me. He has become my official "AV Man" since I can never remember how to turn on our TV or DVD player. He is also usually in charge of starting our books on tape. He loves doing those types of things. He is also very helpful with his younger brother and sister. Anna loves it when James is in charge of her. She pretty much keeps herself wrapped around his little finger and he would do most anything for her. James has been taking drum lessons for a little over a year. In August, he broke his arm when trying out someone's skateboard. He had to take a break from drums and asked if he could start learning piano with his good hand. We were surprised by his interest in piano, but let him have a try at it. He has been playing ever since. He loves soccer, basketball and tae kwon do.



Sarah - just turned 13 years old! We always knew it would happen and this was the year she finally became a bit taller than Rachel. She is still very creative and artistic. She would love it if her school day consisted of art, drama, music and crafts with her younger siblings. She is so good with little people. She is always thinking of creative projects and activities they will enjoy. Last year, she really enjoyed playing Mary Lennox in a musical version of The Secret Garden. So far this year, we have not signed up for any drama opportunities, but she has been enjoying being part of a speech club and apologetics group. She has been continuing piano and guitar lessons. Recently, she had her first opportunity to play her guitar along with other musicians leading worship. She has enjoyed learning to sew with her grandma and earned a blue ribbon at the fair for an outfit she made for Anna. She has also become good at helping to cook dinner and desserts!



Rachel - is now 16. She recently received her driver's permit and is starting to learn to drive. This will be a good thing since she has so many interests that require transportation! She is taking some outside classes and loves many sports. All of the kids started taking tae kwon do this past year, but she is the only one that has actually been advancing to higher belts. This is partly due to her determination and also because she is the only one that has earned the money for the testing! She does a fair amount of babysitting, does some horse feeding and dog sitting and also enjoyed helping friends with haying during the summer. She is still passionate about writing and spends any free time on her writing projects. Last summer, she and I spent a week at a Christian Writer's Conference, which she loved. She submitted a proposal for a children's book to a book publisher at the conference. Although she was offered the opportunity to publish her book, we opted not to pursue it due to the costs involved. It was very encouraging for her though. She is interested in film making as well and is currently working on a film competition project with a friend. She has been becoming more involved in Teenpact, a government and civics program, and hopes to participate in more activities in the coming year. She also hopes for a new mission or ministry opportunity.



Pete and I - will be celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary this year! Years ago, I had imagined we might spend it in Hawaii or some other tropical location. It looks like our big trip this year will be to China! We are excited to go back. I must admit, I didn't think that in our 20th year of marriage we would be adding another child to our family. Life is full of many surprising adventures. After two company acquisitions in the past four years, Pete is now employed by a large German based company called SAP. He is still doing project management work. An interesting twist this year has been the opportunity for him to move his office home. We have LOVED having him work from home. Since his hours are sometimes very early because of the international work force, it has been nice for him not to have to drive to an office at 5:30 in the morning. Last year, he had to do a fair amount of traveling, so it is nice to have him around more when he isn't traveling. He and I are still running - when we have motivation, time and aren't injured. We hope it will keep us in good health and strong enough to keep up with our kids for many more years! Last year we ran in two half marathons. One of them was in Florida. My sister and brother-in-law treated us to a three day cruise in the Bahamas afterward which was quite a treat! Even though the girls are taking a few outside classes (foreign language, music, literature), I'm still overseeing the majority of the academics for all of our children. Five grades levels! This keeps my days pretty full. Just to make sure they remain full, I seem to regularly volunteer our home to host a variety of activities and events. There was a 10 day stretch in November where we hosted 8 different events. That was followed by my being sick for a week...so perhaps that was a bit much... We love having people in our very casual home. We just wish we had time to have all of the many special people in our lives here to spend time. We look forward to the coming year and hope for many more opportunities to spend time with our friends, family and new acquaintances. We are thankful for God's love and mercy in our lives and know it is by His grace alone that we are sustained day by day. May God bless you richly in the coming year.

Immigration Approval!

After waiting more days than I'm willing to count, we finally have our approval from the US Department of Homeland Security USCIS, Hague Unit to adopt a child from China! Our application was sent in mid-August and spent several months in a huge backlog of files created when new regulations were implemented in April . However, that will soon be just a memory. Our immigration officer told us she was putting our approval document in a fed-ex envelope for us today. Once it arrives, we will be notarizing it, driving it to Salem for certification, sending it to a courier in San Francisco who will hand carry it to the Chinese Consulate for Authentication and then forwarding it to our adoption agency where it will join the rest of our dossier for its journey to China! If all goes well, it will be there by the end of the year and we will begin the next wait which is for final approval from China to adopt Li Meng. That wait looks to be 3-4 months. Once we have that approval, it looks like it will take another couple months to actually get there. When we have received that Letter of Acceptance, we can officially post his picture on our blog.

While we were sleeping...PA!

There was exciting news in my email this morning! While we were sleeping last night, China issued our Preliminary Approval. This means that they reviewed our Letter of Intent to adopt a special needs child and some basic application information about our family and have agreed to review our file for his adoption. Our agency had previously agreed to request updated information once we had the PA. We never dreamed they would have almost instantaneous results! Our agency's China liaison called the orphanage and sent us an update dated 12/1/08 (today!) which means they would have been talking with them while we were sleeping last night since China is 13 hours ahead of us. The orphanage then took some pictures of him in his classroom and emailed those. We received four pictures of him in his classroom and a brief updated description, “A lovely boy, Li Meng. He is a little mischievous child, has many ideas to do something. He is good with painting, but doesn’t like study very much, and always has very good appetite for all kinds of food.” They also gave us measurements which show he is slightly taller than Mark, a couple pounds heavier and the same shoe size. I guess that will make clothes shopping a little easier! Last week, we finished moving the boys to a newly repainted room with three bunks! Here is a picture.

An Unexpected Thanksgiving Gift

Well, we had hoped to have our immigration approval by Thanksgiving. It doesn't appear that has happened. Yesterday, Pete called and was told our file has finally been assigned to an officer and is under review, so we are hopeful that it may happen soon. We had an unexpected blessing today! For the past two years, I have been doing volunteer work for the organization that provided Anna's foster care in China. We also sponsor a child for foster care. As a result, we receive their quarterly newsletters. It arrived today with such a special gift. Last summer, they did several summer camps with the older children in the orphanages and foster care program up in the province. I knew that another mission organization had done some of the camps, including Li Meng's orphanage. My understanding was that the camps were for older children, so I didn't expect he would be included. These camps were at several orphanages and probably included hundreds of children. When I was reading through the newsletter today, the center section had 17 pictures from the camps. To our shock, amazement and delight, one of the pictures included was a picture of Li Meng with one of the camp counselors! There is no doubt it is him. Aside from recognizing his sweet face, he is holding his very recognizable hand up to the camera to show off his craft. He and the counselor hugging him in the picture both have the most sweet smiles (probably why the picture made it in the newsletter). He has a decorated plate on his head and looks like he was having a great time at the camp. This picture will be such a special treasure to us. We only received two referral pictures. Those pictures are now over a year old and he wasn't really smiling in either one. What a special gift from our gracious Lord! Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and my favorite day of the year! My family has patiently endured my ban on Christmas decorations and music until after tomorrow and I have endeavored to keep focused on this day set aside for Thankfulness to our Gracious God (despite living in the Christmas Tree capitol of the world...) Praying it is a truly blessed day for all, Kristine

How long will the wait be?

I was just asked how long the wait will be once our paperwork is sent to China. I can only make a guess based on watching other families with our agency. It looks like we should expect to be in China about 5 months after our dossier is sent, so I have told people 4-6 months. When will our paper work be sent to China? Well, according to US Immigration, they should have processed our application (the one I hand delivered August 19), by yesterday. We tried to call yesterday and they weren't answering the phone. We left a message hoping they would call back. We had been hopeful that they were making efforts to reduce their backlog, but it appears to be getting worse. This would be a great thing for people to pray about, not just for our family, but for every family hoping to adopt from a Hague Convention country. Once we get that piece of paper, it will probably take 2-3 more weeks to get our dossier to China. At this point, we are thinking we might be in China in May or June. In the midst of all of this, however, I have been reminded that God has had a plan from the beginning and His timing is always perfect. Last week, I was thinking about when this little guy entered the orphanage at age three. I started wondering what we were doing that day. When I looked back at the dates, I was truly amazed at God's timing. The same week that he began his journey into the orphanage and into our hearts was the same week God first opened our eyes to the possibility of adopting from China. Many of those reading this blog already know the story of Anna. This is a very brief recap of that week. On October 12, 2005, I heard a prayer request for a little girl in China that needed a family. Many amazing and miraculous things happened that week to confirm that we should pursue that adoption. We had not previously even been talking about adoption, so it was a huge leap of faith for us. We were in contact with the family that had shared the prayer request for that little girl throughout the week. They were new acquaintances for us. On October 18, 2005, they had us to their home for dinner. They shared their adoption stories and we spent time praying for that little girl (Anna!) and for the other orphaned children in the world. That is the same day Li Meng entered the orphanage. With the time difference, as we were praying together, he would have been waking up the first morning in the orphanage. We didn't know about him until we spotted him in pictures with Anna over a year later, but God had a plan in motion. On April 9 of this year, the same family we had prayed with happened to mention a picture of a little girl that was posted on an adoption website. Someone had snapped pictures at a birthday party that had included a little girl they had just learned was referred to them. After looking at her picture, I noticed the agency had a list of China waiting children. When I looked at it, I found a description of a little boy that sounded like he could be Li Meng. After almost a year and a half of watching various agencies for him, we were amazed to see he had just been referred to that same agency! The girl in the party pictures came home last Friday. We had originally hoped our little guy would be home by Christmas. Now we are hoping our paperwork will be to China by Christmas. We had hoped Immigration would process our application by Thanksgiving. Now we are hoping they will return our calls by Thanksgiving. We don't understand why it has taken this long and will continue to do everything in our power to bring him home as soon as possible. However, through all of that, we know we can trust that God has had is eyes on this boy from the beginning and has plan for his life and the timing will be perfect. Have a blessed Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving is my favorite day of the year!

Electronic Acceptance Submitted

We are so happy that today our agency was able to send our official request for adoption to China! This has taken many months. This step is only for our preliminary approval. The official approval will not happen until we have sent our dossier for review. We are still waiting for that special piece of paper from US Immigration that will complete our dossier. We submitted our application in the middle of August, right in the midst of a huge backlog under their new procedures. According to the timeframes USCIS has given us, they should have our approval done by Thanksgiving. We are praying that will happen and we can quickly get our paperwork stamped in Salem and San Francisco, shipped to Virginia and off to China!

Birthday Boy

Today is Li Meng's 6th birthday. Sadly, we cannot send him anything yet. We look forward to the day we can send him gifts, letters and pictures and to next year when we can celebrate together. He was only 3 1/2 in the pictures we have of him with Anna. The referral pictures we received from our agency were taken a year ago this month. We hope that we will get some updated pictures. Tomorrow it will be two months since I hand delivered our immigration application to USCIS. Things are still processing very slowly. Hopefully, by the end of next month we will have that piece of paper we need to move our dossier along its way to China. Tonight, I made Chinese food and we sang Happy Birthday to the empty seat that Sarah had decorated with a Happy Birthday sign. We tried to eat with the chop sticks we had purchased during our last visit to China. We discovered the nicely finished ones are much more slippery than the plain wooden ones that come with take-out! Some of us resorted to forks. We need more practice! We pray that Li Meng is safe and well cared for while we wait.

While we're waiting

Well, if this were a pregnancy, six months into this, there would be visible signs of movement. Our delivery date would be in sight! However, adoptions don't work on such predictable time tables. This has been a struggle and an emotional challenge at times. On the way home from a prayer meeting tonight, I heard this song on the radio. It is from the Fireproof soundtrack. It spoke to my heart and I hunted down a You Tube video of it. Enjoy - "While I'm Waiting" by John Waller.

Adoption Update

"So is anything happening with the adoption?" Yes, things are happening, but the process is still very slow. On Friday, we had our "biometrics" appointments. This was our appointment to have our fingerprints taken for U.S. Immigration. That process is still very slow as a result of the regulations implemented in April. We did hear good news that USCIS intends to speed up processing. However, at present we are being told to expect 90 days. This is much longer than it took when we applied with Anna. We are praying we will be included in the sped up process. From what we hear, the processing is still very backlogged. Maybe our home study will be one of the few that doesn't require revisions! We had an unexpected blessing at just the right moment today. See the "help bring him home" link for details!

Dancin' Shoes

Yesterday Pete's niece, Jessica married Isaac! All of our children had a part in the celebration. Mark had fun waltzing with the bride and then trying out his own dance moves. Anna managed to find some dance shoes too!

Fall

Some of the other things happening around here! This summer, Anna turned four and Rachel turned 16! (Ignore the dates above, I'm a bit technically challenged and just realized today my camera date was wrong!) Anna's birthday was 6/26 and Rachel's was 8/18. We had a very fun and busy summer. We visited my sister and family in Nevada, worked around our property (finally got a bit of a garden in this year!) and had back yard camp fires in our fire pit. All of the kids won blue ribbons at the county fair. We think fairs are so much fun, we visited two different county fairs this year! Above is a puppet show production from last week. We officially started our fall routine last week. In addition to our academic studies at home, we have various children involved in music lessons, Spanish class, German class, Speech, Apologetics, Science co-op and Tae Kwon Do. Our entire family is involved in our soccer league. Even Anna is playing this year with coach dad!

ShiHeZi Visit - Update and Social Studies Lesson

We were disappointed to learn that the team that visited Xinjiang was diverted and unable to visit ShiHeZi or another orphanage. We aren't entirely certain why. However, there was terrorist activity reported in that province the following week, so it may have been due to security concerns. It is hard to say. We are praying for safety and security in this province and other parts of China during the Olympics and beyond. Many people are not aware that China has many, many minority groups. The full name of the Xinjiang province is The Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. We were told this means that Uighur people hold the top offices in the government and Universities. The Uighur people are a completely separate ethnic group than the Han Chinese (those you would think of as "Chinese") and from what I understand are more closely related to Islamic Turks. As happens in many cultures and countries, there are some extreme groups that resent Chinese rule and would like to be independent. Most of the Uighur people live peacefully with the Han Chinese. The Uighur people are the largest of the 23 minority groups present in Xinjiang. Another of the larger minority groups are the Kazak people. Unlike the Uighur people, the Kazak people do have a land to call their own in neighboring Kazakhstan. When we were in Xinjiang to adopt Anna, we had a week of waiting for her passport. During that time, we visited areas populated by Kazak people and Uighur villages in the mountainous areas. If you look at pictures of these areas, you will see the colorful yurts (similar to the less colorful ones found in some Oregon campgrounds) where they live. This was where Rachel had her interesting horse ride down a mountain. Our visit to Turpan, where we were stranded in the desert by the donkey cart, passed through Kazak villages. China is a vast and fascinating country with many people and features quite different from those seen in Beijing! This is the end of your social studies lesson for today...

Home Study Approved

We had word yesterday that after going through all of the necessary reviews to ensure it is written in compliance with the new regulations, our home study has finally been approved by our agency! We should be able to submit it to USCIS (U.S. immigration) for their review some time in the next few days. Currently, we are being told it is taking 3-4 months for USCIS processing. When we have received acknowledgment that our USCIS application is moving along, we will be able to submit our EA-Electronic Acceptance (formerly the LOI - Letter of Intent) which officially tells China that we would like to adopt Li Meng. For Anna, we had done this at the beginning of the adoption process. However, the current rules from the CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs) require that the dossier (that thick, official, stamped and sealed package of required documentation for the adoption) be submitted within 3 months of submitting your Electronic Acceptance. Since the USCIS timing is a bit unknown, we have had to wait on submitting our EA. When the EA is submitted, we will be waiting for a PA - Preliminary Approval - from China. This should happen while we are waiting for our immigration approval from USCIS. When the USCIS approval is received, we'll be driving it to Salem to be stamped by the State of Oregon before express mailing it to The Chinese Consulate in San Francisco for their stamp. When that is received back and all is sent to our agency, our dossier will be on its way to China for translation, review and approval. At present, it looks to be taking about 3 months for the RA-Referral Acceptance (in effect the official approval) to arrive and then 2-4 weeks for TA-Travel Approval. Actual travel should then be in another 1-4 weeks. There! Now you have all been updated on our progress and given a lesson in adoption lingo!

Visitors to Shihezi!!!

There is a mission team leaving for China tomorrow through Orphan Outreach missions. The team is from a church in Texas. Their visit includes a day with the children in Shihezi next week! They are taking pictures of Anna and our family to Director Guo. We have sent her pictures several times before over the past two years. They are also taking a letter to her. The team hopes to have an opportunity to interact with Li Meng and to take some pictures of the children that include him. We are very excited and thankful that I "stumbled" upon the information about this group a month or so ago. We are praying for this team. There will be a blog for this trip on the orphan outreach website. Here is a link if you want to try to find it. I couldn't find it yet, but they don't leave until tomorrow so it should be up soon. http://missions.orphanoutreachblog.org/

We have a name!

After much prayer and lively discussion, we have finally agreed on the name Joshua! We deliberated for a very long time about the name. Since he is old enough to understand the importance and significance of his name, it seemed even more important that we choose a name that would have significance and meaning. There were several other names that had serious consideration and in the end I asked my husband to make a decision. He took a quick poll on this name while we on vacation and announced this was the name. The next morning I decided it would be nice to read through the Old Testament book of Joshua. I didn't get very far before I realized that our family had worn this name around our necks. A few years ago my husband started wearing a shield/cross pendant that had the verse Joshua 1:9 on the back. James had wanted one too and Pete bought one for him. The next Christmas, James wanted to buy one for everyone else in the family. I wore mine all of the time until I got my necklace in China with the Love symbol. I think we should all start wearing them again until we bring Joshua home. Joshua 1:9 - "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go."

Be Still

Naturally, the question everyone asks is "how is the adoption coming along?" The short answer is - slowly. When we found Li Meng's referral in April and made the decision to pursue his adoption, we had thought perhaps things would move more quickly the second time around. This is not the case. A number of things have changed. We are with a different and much larger agency. China has changed some of their rules and processes. The U.S. State Department has implemented new regulations for approving adoption immigration from certain countries - including China. This is the biggest obstacle at the moment. If you want details, you can do a search on Hague Convention and Adoption. You will see that the intention was to protect children from illegitimate adoptions and child trafficking. The effect, however, has been to bring the adoption immigration process from Hague Convention countries to a halt since April 1. We are actually among the blessed to be with an agency that is even able to accept applications for these countries. Several agencies are in the "pending certification" stage or have been denied certification under the new regulations. Our former adoption agency is in the "pending" category and has not been able to accept applications since April 1. However, even the approved and certified agencies have been having tremendous struggles. Our agency has yet to have a adoption immigration approved since the implementation of the regulations. I have read blogs from other agencies that are also reporting that every single home study they have submitted has been rejected since April 1. I've been told the rejections have all had to do with technical points and wording rather than the content of the home study. Obviously, this does NOTHING to help orphaned children. The ultimate effect is to slow down the process, increase the agency costs, reduce the number of agencies that can place children which will result in less children having a family. At this point, our home study cannot be completed because our social worker is waiting to find out what wording will be accepted. We actually sent an email note to our U.S. Senator, Gordon Smith. I know many people have been contacting congress. I hope and pray they will realize these regulations have not been well implemented and take action to remedy the situation. In the meantime, it is personally very frustrating. We do not know when we can anticipate having our immigration approval which is needed before we can send our dossier to China. At this point, we have done everything we can do to expedite the process. We are left to Be Still and know that our little boy is in God's hands. He will watch over him and bringing us together at the right time. Thank you to all of you that have been praying. Hebrews 10:23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.

Home Study

We had our first home study meeting on Monday. Our social worker is a sweet mother of two with a Texas accent. She has one home study ahead of ours to complete. It is actually for another family we know that is adopting from China also. The home study process is complicated a bit by the new immigration rules that went into place on April 1 when the U.S. began implementing changes to comply with the Hague Convention on international adoption. Apparently the new centralized government agency now reviewing requests for adoption immigration is much more strict about the information and wording in the home study. No one seems to know just how long it will take to get our immigration approval, something that is needed to send our dossier to China. Once our home study is complete, we will send it in for review for U.S. immigration. Around the same time, we will be able to do our official request to China for preliminary approval to adopt Li Meng. Once China grants preliminary approval, they require the dossier be submitted within 3 months. Since there are unknowns about the timing for U.S. immigration approval, our agency has delayed making the request until they think we are within that 3 month window. We are very anxious to have that preliminary approval! Once that is received, we plan to send a photo album and gift package to Li Meng to begin to introduce ourselves. Prayers for this part of the process to be completed quickly are greatly appreciated! p.s. After about 70 attempts, we finally found a couple pictures we thought we could use in our dossier!

Praying for China Victims

Our prayers are also with the many victims of the earthquake in China. I heard this morning that there are more than 80,000 people dead or missing. We have heard from some of our former students in the neighboring province of Chongqing. There is such grieving in that country. There are said to be 5 million people without homes and there are many millions more in the surrounding areas that experienced the quake and are observing the suffering (Chongqing itself has 30 million people). We have heard of many ministries directing help to the victims. Here are a couple of links.http://adoptedbydesign.typepad.com/orphanstickethome/
http://www.childrenshopeint.org/earthquake.htm

One encouraging piece of news we have heard is that despite several orphanages being destroyed, no children in the orphanages were killed in this event. The first link above is specifically directed to helping provide new housing for the children from the orphanages that were destroyed. The second is for Children's Hope International. A friend in China has recommended them. They have workers in the earthquake zone. The link above is their daily posting of aid being given in the quake zone.

Praying that the light of God's love and mercy is shining brightly in the darkness left by the earthquake, the Aldrich Family

Praying for the Chapman Family

Our hearts are broken for the Chapman family this morning as they have lost their beautiful daughter Maria. She is the youngest of their three daughters adopted from China. As you can see from our blog, Steven Curtis Chapman's music has touched our hearts in many ways. Aside from his adoption related songs, he has written many other songs that God has used to touch my own heart over the years. I could make a list of different songs and how they have impacted me. I have sometimes referred to him as "Pastor Steven Curtis Chapman." I do believe God has truly inspired many of the songs he has written. He has written songs of comfort for many others, including parents that have lost children. We are praying that God brings comfort and peace to them in this tragedy. I saw this link today. http://chapmanchannel.typepad.com/inmemoryofmaria/

China Blessings - The Sequel

Li Meng

This sweet little boy is from the same corner of the world as our Anna. He lives in the orphanage in ShiHeZi that was responsible for Anna. He is in some of the pictures that we received of Anna. We made inquiries about him over a year ago when we noticed his arms appeared to have the same condition as Anna's. The orphanage director was kind enough to give us information about him and confirmed his condition is the same. This is a rare condition and a geneticist told us this version of it occurs in only about 1 in 200,000 births. His official birth date is October 18, 2002. This makes him 5 1/2 years old, one year younger than Mark and about 20 months older than Anna. About a month ago, I stumbled upon his listing with an adoption agency that friends are using to adopt children from Ethiopia. The circumstances were really quite miraculous. We began praying about what God would have us do now that we found this little guy available for adoption. This was not something we took lightly. After much prayer and consideration, we decided to make every effort to bring him into our family. The agency has approved our application and officially "matched" us with him. We are now beginning the "paperchase" that took about nine months to bring Anna to our home. Below are some of the pictures we originally saw that showed Anna and Li Meng together. For those of you that want to read the longer version of how Li Meng came into our lives, it is included in the Help Bring Him Home blog - see link. More updates on Li Meng and other updates from our family will be posted here in the future!