All I want for Christmas....

Christmas is here. I love Christmas. Most folks do. I love presents. I love making my wish list months in advance. I love the anticipation of the gifs I'll receive. I love opening my gifts and seeing which ones from my wish list made it under the tree.

But not this year.

As I shop for others, I'm not inclined at all to wish for myself.

I've lost that desire to have a material possession under my tree this year.

All I want for Christmas is JOY.

The 'joy' that comes from the Lord.

Both the 'spiritual joy'


....and....

the Living-breathing-gonna-be-my-daughter-JOY!



I am so glad the Lord is bringing this JOY into our life. So thrilled she will change our lives. So happy that we are coming down to our last few months of waiting. So elated that 2012 will see her home.

Merry Christmas. Happy New Year.

and

May the JOY of the Lord be your Strength this year.

Happily Waiting on LID

LID = Log In Date

This is the date that China takes our dossier off the stack on someones desk and "logs" it into their computer system. That date is so very important. Because then they start processing our adoption. :-) That's a happy-happy day. I really feel like our LID will be this week. We won't hear from China or our agency for several more weeks but when we do hear from them, the dossier usually has already been logged in for about 3 weeks. It just takes that long to hear back from them. So this should be the week. I'm excited.

After the LID, then we wait about 45-60 days (or so) to get the Formal Referral of Ms. Joy. How very exciting!!!

It's all really happening.

She's really coming home in a few months.

Happy-happy!

The dossier has arrived

After much mad-dashing, between us and our agency, our Dossier was mailed to China on 11/22 and arrived in the hands of the Chinese government on 11/28/2011.

So what's next?
We wait for a Log in Date (LID). This is when they remove our dossier from a stack and log it into their system and begin processing it. From the date it arrived (11/28) it takes about 10 days for it to get logged in. We are looking at a LID of about 12/10. But we won't hear what that log in date is until probably the end of December.

After that?
We wait about 45-75 days to receive a Letter Seeking Confirmation from the Chinese government. That letter is our formal referral that China sends to us saying "Hey, there is little girl Gua Er Guo, and here is her picture, would you like to adopt her?" And we say "Uh, yeah!!!!" and send it back.

Then?
We wait again. Another 2 months. For TA (travel approval). TA is our formal invite to come to China, then we get to set an appt with the American Consulate, get our travel visas and airline tickets. All that takes about a 4 to 6 weeks.

Then?
We are OFF to China to get our baby girl.

This wait is exciting! And it's frustrating because you want everything to happen yesterday. But we know that God has the moment ordained that Joy will become a Clark and we anxiously look forward to that date.

77 days in the wilderness

There are several wilderness periods in an adoption. Where you "hurry up and wait" and then wait more and more and more. One of those wilderness periods is your wait for your USCIS (Homeland Security) Approval to arrive in the form of a documented numbered I797. Our wait was 77 days. But, it arrived and this wilderness period is OVER!!!

OUR DOSSIER IS COMPLETE!!!!!

After 6 months of paperchasing.


We took it all to the County Clerk:

Then to the Secretary of State in Annapolis:


Then to the Department of State in Washington, DC:


And finally the Chinese Embassy:



OUR PAPERCHASE IS OVER!!!!

The Fantastic FedEx man shipped it all off to our adoption agency:

A Promise is A Promise

The Lord is the same yesterday, today and forever. Man will fail us. Man will break his promises but God never will. And God promised me a child. He promised me Joy. So why do I fret?

It's day 76 of what we had been traditionally a 50 day wait for the Homeland Security (USCIS) clearance. Why us? Why did God choose us for this long wait? Why now when it was our turn to receive the approval? Why? Why? and more why?

Bottom line: I don't know. I may never know. And in all my worrying to make it happen yesterday, my worry does not accomplish one single thing of good.

God promised me Joy. Worry only makes us sick and doesn't accomplish anything. God keeps his promises. God has an appointed time that will not be missed.

And, so each day I try harder and harder to release my worry, my stomach knots over to Him.

You may not be an adoptive parent and wonder why 25 days is a big deal. Let me just say if you were pregnant and 25 days beyond your due date, you would have been induced. And friends, I am READY to be induced here!!!

I wish I could say I have fully handed it over. That would be a lie but I am leaning on the Everlasting Rock. I am pulling my strength from him. I know he will fulfill his promises. I know he will make my joy complete. I know she will be in my arms. I know that our family will be all together on one continent. I know these things. Let me focus on what I know and stop fretting over what only God knows.

Authentications & More Wait

We have almost our entire dossier complete. All we need is our USCIS (Homeland Security) Clearance.

The girls and I took all documents (our dossier) to the Secretary of State in Annapolis to get the State Seal. That was a fun trip.



The next day, Dale stayed home and watched all the kids so I could then take the dossier to the Dept of State and the Chinese Embassy to be Authenticated.

So here we are with our entire dossier certified and authenticated (since early October actually) AND we just KEEP WAITING and waiting and waiting. 73 days of waiting at this point for our USCIS clearance.

On day 70 we did hear from USCIS, yes, we did. But it was request for more information. A "pink slip" known as an RFE. You don't want to get an RFE. Really, you don't. It was 48hrs of scrambling and drama only to find out that our homestudy did indeed contain the information that they were requesting and we didn't need to do anything. Unfortunately that has added at minimum 6 more days of wait for our approval. They mailed the 'unnecessary" RFE on Nov 2, we received it on Nov 7. 5 days wasted. And now here we are on Nov 9th still without our approval email. Any day now. Any day now!

Another Step Closer

After the longest wait for a homestudy report we've ever had, we finally have our beloved document in hand!


And, it is finally on it's way along with several other documents and a big ole' check to Homeland Security in Texas.


I have a whole other post about WORRY that is brewing in my head. The Homeland Security (USCIS) process is taking quite some time right now and we have a very short deadline China has given us (6 months from start to paperwork in China....we are 4 months into that 6 months now.) Yikes! But God has a plan. He has a promise and He will prevail!

Joy Comes in the Morning

Psalm 30:5b
Weeping may last through the night,
but JOY comes with the morning.


I have been weeping and waiting for updates on my girl. My soul has longed to see her face. As I sat outside at 7am this morning my longing went into overload and I had a sense that I might have an update on her. I rushed inside the house to find these sweet photos gracing my computer screen.






Thanking Jesus for this glimpse at my sweet girl. Just a few more months and the wait will be over.

~Photos taken July 2011~

Freedom

Just thinking about our Joy on this Independence Day.
As she travels home she will gain various types of freedom.


Freedom to medical care.

Freedom to education.

Freedom of religion.

Freedom to vote.

Freedom to be.

Freedom.

Next 4th of July, she will be here. Her life, our life will be merged and we will be a family.

I miss her this day, terribly.

Update for June

We had the last meeting with our social worker on June 29th. We do not have all our clearances in yet but they should trickle in over the next week or two. The agency said even though we had our last meeting, it could take another 5 weeks to have a completed homestudy in hand. 5 weeks? Wow! That's quite a long time, really. But I am remembering God's timing is perfect. I will do what I can to hurry my part along and wait patiently (or - if I'm honest- not so patiently) on the Lord for the rest.

We had a few fun fundraisers in June. We now have $3,300 of the needed $10,000. Just $6,600 to go. Just! Well, that word "just" is an operative word that feels good some days and other days feels overwhelming.

We are hoping to raise more funds in July with our PUZZLE fundraiser.


We are also offering a $25 Target gift card raffle to ANYONE who donates ANY AMOUNT in the month of July. The raffle will take place on August 1st.

July is a hard month to raise funds. Families have costly vacations, kids have costly camps. Funds are low for everyone. But we are trusting on God to bring our Joy from the East as only He could promise.



We are also hoping that July will bring us updated pictures of Ms. Joy. The photos we have of her are from 2008. Quite a long time ago, aye? That's not sitting so well with my waiting-mommy-heart.

Well, I was going to use this blog only when we travel. But, I have found out I need an outlet for my heart. A place to write when I don't have anyone to talk to. When Facebook just is not fun anymore and well, honestly, I think my Facebook friends are sick of hearing from me. Awe, it's a mom-in-waiting. What is she to do? Not many understand. But those who have Been-There-Done-That do really get it. They get the wait is tough. They get that a waiting mom's heart is broken every second of every day. They just get it. And I am blessed that my Church Family seems so far to have "gotten it" too. They have embraced our Joy in a way that very few people have in the past. I am blessed by my Church, just totally blessed.

Just 3 words to say today....

Welcome

Welcome to Joy's Photo Blog. We have created this blog so that when we travel to China to adopt Joy, we'll have an easy location to upload photos of the trip.

We started Joy's adoption in May of 2011 and we hope to travel by March of 2012.

Below are her referral photos. These were taken in Sept of 2008. She was 6 years old.




We have asked for updated photos since these are two years old.