TRAVEL APPROVAL

AFTER ONLY A 7 DAY WAIT -
TRAVEL APPROVAL
ARRIVED TODAY!!!!!!!!


We have sent our agency our top 5 dates to for our Consulate Appointments. If all goes well, we will know tomorrow when we are leaving!

Birthday & Visa

Today the paperwork to process Joy's Visa to allow her to enter the U.S. is being dropped off at the American Embassy in China!!!! This is a 2 week process. After that we are just waiting for Travel Approval.

I miss her. How do you miss someone you haven't met? But I miss her. Her birthday is coming up next Thursday and we were able to have a birthday package sent to her. She will find out about us for what we think is the first time. The package includes a translated letter and a photo album with labels on the picture. I love the one that says 'HOME'. Something about seeing that word in HER photo album touched my heart.

Her orphanage was also sent money & agreed to buy a birthday cake & fruit for her class to share on her birthday and we hope to receive more pictures of her.

Stepping Forward...

Another Approval! After a day of Reflection.


My soul seems restless. ~ I would say my mind is restless which would be true but really it just feels like my entire being is restless. ~ Spring has sprung early, so we are itching to be free of schoolwork/housework and just relax in the breezes of the day. However, that never really happens but the idea of that just makes it hard to concentrate. We are so ready to be done with the WAITING PHASE of the adoption. I am eager every day to hear good news about progress. I check emails and recheck emails through out the day, hoping for news, any news that we have moved a little further along in the process.

Yesterday my Bible Study really spoke to my heart about my wait. Here are a few verses that reminded me WHO IS IN CHARGE HERE!


Isaiah 29:16 NIV ~ You turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay! Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, "You did not make me"? Can the pot say to the potter, "You know nothing"? (Confession: Lord, you really do know the perfect time for all things here on Earth. You really are still on the throne. You really still are moving mountains that I don't even see, acting on my behalf when I don't even know it. Thank you Lord for all your behind the scenes work.)

Isaiah 30:15, 18 NIV ~ This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: "In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it. Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him! (Confession: I have not been resting nor quiet and that is why my strength is waning. I just have not spent much time talking to him lately. I read, study and move on. I have not been quiet with him in a few weeks.)

Exodus 23:20 NIV ~ "See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared." (This verse was sent to me by our first adoption agency in our first adoption. What a nice reminder it was to see yesterday. In all our waiting, in all our preparations coupled with more waiting, the Lord is heavy at work and sending angels ahead of us and he is preparing the way. Thank you, Lord! Thank you! Without you NONE of this would be possible.)

And after a beautiful day of reflection, on March 15th, God was indeed at work behind the scenes. Little did I know our approval from the National Visa Center was processed that day. We received the good news today, the 16th. The cable/email went to the U.S. Embassy in Guangzhou China today. The liaison for our adoption agency will be filing Joy's Visa Application with at the Embassy next week. Our part is done. We are now finished with all paperwork and waiting on Visa Approval. It's a 2 week process and then we wait just one more short wait for Travel Approval.

The clock is ticking and it's not a New York Minute. It's not a Mexican Minute. It's a God Moment. He is and has prepared the way for our waiting sweetie to come home. And in His perfectness, I will rest.





~~And as a side note, I really did feel at peace today but not until after a sort of frustrating moment. A little "blurp" happened where our approval had the wrong spelling of Joy's Chinese name and our agency was closing early and not going to get our file to China today. It's been delayed until next week. But then I got an email from my mother. The email was just to tell me that the she was able to secure the cabin we always go to for Thanksgiving. I sighed a sigh of relief because I realized in that moment that I won't be going to the cabin without Joy. She may arrive a week early or four weeks late, but she won't be in China forever and soon, very soon, she will be here and our family will be complete.~~

All Logged In

As posted previously, our dossier was sent to China on November 28th. ~ We have been waiting and waiting (6 weeks weeks of waiting) to hear that our dossier was "logged in" to the database at China's Adoption Affairs office in Beijing. Thankfully, today we heard. It has been logged in and logged in for quite some time.

Our LID was December 2, 2011

We are now waiting on China to send us our formal referral of Ms. Joy. We hope to receive that in February. We'll sign it and send it back pronto. After that, we'll be waiting on China to issue us our Travel Approval.

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:

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!