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!