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!