Life With Lillie

When in Doubt

2010-07-19T20:30:00.001-05:00

This week has been a little of a struggle. I keep thinking about what if's and that is never a good thing. Sometimes you just need to stay in the moment and not worry to much about the future but I couldn't help but think about whether these last few days have been some of the lasts for Lillie. I know that God will care for Lillie during the surgery. I know that His hand will be with the surgeons but I also don't know His plan. If He sees that Lillie will bring more glory if she is no longer able to walk, then that is what will be. This scares me alittle but I know it is a possibility. I am scared for her and for what she would endure if this is His will but I also know that He can still do miracles. Not that Lillie's surgery would have to be a miracle for her to continue functioning as she does now but there is also a major risk that she will no longer to be able to run and walk and crawl and chase her brothers.
I was thinking about this at church this Sunday. We are staying at my parents house in order to be close to Dallas when the time comes for the surgery on Wednesday. It brought me to tears as we sung about the angels being around us. I know that God's presence and His angels most certainly will have a presence on Wednesday. I am hoping that she feels this and it isn't too much of a trauma for her. I am praying that she will continue to be the happy, bright and smiling girl I see today and that she will get through this without terrible pain.
During the sermon, Lillie went to Children's church and when she came back to the pew, she brought her art work. I was so engrossed in thought about getting everyone out to the car that I didn't really take the moment to look clearly at her picture. As we were driving home, Christopher and I were discussing the upcoming events. We are both obviously worried and this discussion was not unlike others we have had, the only difference is that it is coming fast and this was our last Sunday to gain strength for the coming days. As we were talking, I looked down at the picture I was carrying that Lillie had made. It had a trace of her two little feet and the title was "Jesus Healed a Man Who Couldn't Walk". There was nothing else to say as we both cried and drove home. God's hand is holding Lillie right now and no matter what happens, He can do Miracles!! He will get us through this and He will use Lillie to remind us of His Awesome Power even if it turns out differently than we hope. Please continue to pray and lift her up to Christ....This is His Hour and we will hand our worries to Him.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
Psalms 139:14

Disappearing Act

2010-07-15T13:46:00.009-05:00

Wow! It has been a long time since I have blogged. There has been so much going on that I haven't had time. Here is the re-cap of the last few months.

January: We returned from China to head to a bowl game. The Alamo Bowl in San Antonio. Lillie loved the game and she got to wear a cheerleading outfit!! Everyone loved her in it. I was so surprised that she wasn't afraid of the loud noises and the band but she did great! We then returned home to life at the Anderson house busy with the boys going back to school and Lillie figuring out where she was and what her new life would be like. We also started seeing doctor's about her condition. We first had an x-ray, then a CT-scan, then 2 MRI's. We were originally told that she had congenital scoliosis but it turns out that she has many deformed vertebrae that cause the deformity in her spine. We also found out that she is truly a miracle baby and that there is a portion of her spine that is split into two by a bony spur. She is tethered at that point in her lumbar spine and also below. We were referred to Scottish Rite.

February: We were sent to Scottish Rite hospital in Dallas to make sure she didn't need orthopaedic treatment for the Scoliosis. She has a mild form, although, her vertebrae are so deformed they do not know if she will need it in the future. We were referred to Children's Medical Center in Dallas to see a neurosurgeon. When we checked with our insurance, they would not let us see them until we had seen the pedi neurosurgeon in Lubbock, so we go an appointment with him in late March. In the meantime, I had had several nodules in my thyroid and that they follow every year and they decided there was a new spot and we needed to do an aspiration biopsy. I had this done mid-February and got the results a little over a week later. The cells were suspicious so it was decided that I would have a total thyroidectomy and this was scheduled for early April.

March: The best part of March was that my parents took our family and my sister's family to Disneyworld for a week long of Mickey and Fun!! Lillie loved it and so did the boys, of course!!! It was such a wonderful trip full of great memories and family time!! I really believe that this gave us the strength to face what was to come. Upon our return, we saw the pediatric neurosurgeon and he confirmed the findings of the MRI's and we were told that Lillie would need surgery to correct the split formation and the tethering so that she would maintain complete functioning as she has now. The pediatric neurosurgeon was wanting to do the procedure in Lubbock and we were all for that but we were moving to Austin and he wasn't sure he could schedule us in time, so we were referred to Dallas since it is closer and the neurosurgeons are world renowned and highly capable of performing the surgery. (Christopher had already been approved for a leave from the university and we were headed to Austin for him to work on his doctorate if you were wondering) Our neurosurgeon in Lubbock was wonderful, spoke Chinese to Lillie and gave us great confidence but we realized that she really did need to be back in Dallas as the Scottish Rite doctors and our Lubbock doctor had referred us to the same specialists. Sometimes it is a circuitious route but God get's you where you need to be. So we had an appointment to see the neurosurgeon in May. Seems like the process moved very slow but it was all in His time and we had to work around my own health issues.

April: Total thyroidectomy performed on the 7th. It was providential that the decisions were made as they were. I had thyroid cancer at the age of 38 and yet, if I had known sooner or the route was done differently, we would never have been allowed to adopt Lillie. While this was all difficult and the surgery was hard and the lack of hormones made me exhausted, I felt peace in knowing that God had planned all of these months to not only make sure that I was cared for but that Lillie was adopted at this time and by our family. Several doctors later, I found that the cancer was so small, only on one side and the lymph nodes were clear. I do not require additional treatment other than follow up at 6 months and replacement therapy! Praise God for this as my mother had to undergo the radioactive isotope and it was not fun for her.

May: After a very difficult move to Austin, we headed to Dallas for Lillie's appointment. The surgeon was very confident that barring any complications, the surgery would treat her problem and keep her from losing functioning. Surgery was scheduled for July 21st. The surgery will last 8 hours and she will be in ICU the first night and in the hospital for a total of 3 days. Christopher started his doctoral work at UT and has really enjoyed his classes. I was fortunate that I was able to keep my job teaching online and was working from Austin instead of Lubbock. The boys finished up school in Lubbock and were excited to move to Austin.

June: We unpacked and enjoyed exploring Austin and going to the pool. Lillie loves her new room-very pink and loves having the boys home from school to play with.

July: We headed to Lake Jackson for a family reunion with Christopher's extended family. It was a lot of fun to see everyone as it had been about 4 years since we had all been together and everyone was able to see Lillie for the first time. Christopher's family including his sister and our niece and nephews were able to come for July 4th back to our house in Austin and we enjoyed fireworks, barbecuing and going to a the Round Rock Express minor league game.

So here we are. It is the week before Lillie's surgery and I decided it was time to get everyone updated. I am sorry it has been so long. It has truly been a wonderful but difficult and tiring few months. Through it all, we have felt the presence of God and know that He will be with Lillie next week during her surgery and recovery. We don't know what will be, but we do know that He has cared for her all of her life and that she is His child and He will be present in her life regardless of the outcome. We hope you will all pray for her, the doctors and our family as we continue our journey. I will update once the surgery is over and she is recovering.

She is truly an amazing little girl. Speaks almost perfect English. Tells us how happy she is and smiles and giggles all day long. She loves us and we love her. It has been a good transition. Not perfect, but good. She had her times of grieving, her times of defiance but we worked through it all and will continue to do so as she grows and continues to adapt to our family. Fortunately, she never had an issue with sleep as I have heard many talk about. She eats great, sleeps great and I believe God knew that I needed those two things during this time:) She loves pink, loves to have her fingers and toes painted and loves dresses. Quite the girly girl- which is truly fun for a mom of 3 boys:)

We are Off!!!

2009-12-09T20:31:00.002-06:00

We are currently in Dallas and fly out tomorrow at 10:10am. Keep us in your prayers and if you would like to follow our travel, our travel blog will be at:

www.babyjellybeans.com

Search for child name: Lillie Anderson

Hope you all have a Merry Christmas!! We will try to post pictures and our progress daily!!

Praise God!!'

Travel Approval and Consulate Appointment Confirmed- We are headed to China!!

2009-12-03T22:15:00.007-06:00

We received our Travel Approval on Monday and had been waiting for the Consulate to confirm an appointment before we could plan our travel. Well, today we received confirmation of our Consulate Appointment and we have finally been able to buy tickets!! I really can't believe it and am feeling very behind already. We leave one week from today, December 10th. out of Dallas/Ft. Worth Airport.

Our itinerary is as follows:

12/10 Leave DFW on American Airlines at 10:10am

12/11 Arrive Beijing via Tokyo at 9:30pm

12/12 Tour Beijing

12/13 Fly to Taiyuan City, Shanxi (Lillie's hometown)

12/14 GOTCHA Day- see Lillie for the first time and Christopher's Dad's Birthday! Lillie goes home to the hotel with us!!

12/15 Finalize Provincial Documentation for the Adoption- Lillie will officially be ours!!

12/16 Sight-seeing

12/17 Lillie's Chinese Passport will be ready for pick-up (can't leave for home without it)

12/18 Fly to Guangzhou

12/19 Medical Appointment/TB test/Possible Vaccinations (poor Lillie)

12/20 Sightseeing

12/21 Have Lillie's TB test read (pray it is all clear)

12/22 Consulate Appointment- fill out US paperwork

12/23 Oath at the Consulate- finalization of US documents

12/24 Pick up Lillie's US Visa after 3pm/ Take Train to Hong Kong/ Spend Christmas Eve in the Marriott Sky City at the Hong Kong Airport

12/25 Leave for home on American Airlines at 10:20am with layover in Tokyo. Arrive at 3:25pm Christmas Day in Dallas- Merry Christmas!! Lillie becomes a US citizen in Texas on Christmas Day!!! All our children will officially be Texans!!!

Collapse, open presents, eat homecooked meal, enjoy watching Lillie get to know her big brothers and part of her extended family!!! A Christmas Blessing!!

We will not be able to post to this blog easily during the trip. I am setting up a travel blog on a site that is accessible through the Great Firewall of China. When I have this all set up, I will post a link so that you all can see us through the whole journey- pictures included. Please continue to pray for us as this is very exciting and a little overwhelming right now. Also pray for the boys as they are starting to realize how long we will be gone and are a little worried- we had tears tonight about it. Please pray for my parents as they are caring for them for the 2 weeks. They will have a great time and I am sure they will be tired out by Christmas Day. We will skype while we are there so the boys can see us and Lillie and we are really hoping this will help some. And finally, please continue to pray for Lillie and her foster family. I have really been thinking about them this week. My heart breaks for them and for her. The knowledge that she only has a short time left in their care. I can't even imagine how they must feel. We do not think this will be easy and are as prepared as we can be for her to be very upset with us and very sad. We just pray that her heart is protected and that she works through this while knowing that her new family loves and cares deeply for her.

We were blessed to be invited to prayer on our behalf with our church elders on Wednesday night. It was a wonderful experience to share with them our journey and this has given me peace in the knowledge that God is in control and that our Christian brothers and sisters will be lifting us to Him during this time. With God all things are possible!!

We believe that God will watch over us during this time and we are so thankful to all of you for your prayers on our behalf. God is faithful and loving and cares for us in all things. We believe this adventure is just the beginning of our Lillie's story and we pray that it is the beginning of her steadfast love for our Lord and our Father who adopts us all as His children.

Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you, " declares the Lord "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future...."

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-25T23:57:00.003-06:00

First of all, Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We are spending this Thanksgiving Day with my Mom and Dad. Mom and I have been busy cooking this evening. I love to spend time with them and love to cook with my Mom. It gives us lots of time to just talk. We have a lot to be thankful for this year. First off, we got some great news this morning! Our travel approval is suppose to be sent from China this week. Our agency will, hopefully, have it in their hands on Monday. We really would like to travel before Christmas, so our agency has gone ahead and requested a Provincial Appointment of December 14th. This would be our "Gotcha Day" or the day we meet our Lillie for the first time and is also Christopher's Dad's Birthday which would make it a double blessing. We won't know for sure until Monday but we are being told that if all goes as planned, we could be purchasing airline tickets by Wednesday!!! This is all going to happen very quickly and we are beyond excited and so thankful to God as we are beginning to see His plan fall into place. If we are able to get this appointment, we would return either on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day!! What a wonderful gift that would be for us and all our family!!!

We are also very thankful this year for our wonderful boys. They are sweet and loving and fun and we are so blessed to have them and are so proud to be their parents!! We are also thankful for our parents and both our sisters and their husbands and our nephews and nieces and our grandparents and our extended family on both sides. Christopher and I talk often about how fortunate we are to have been born into such wonderful, loving Christian families. We realize that there are so many who are not as fortunate as we are and know that because of this great gift that God has given us, much is required of us as Christians and parents. We hope that we are able to be as good at it as our parents have been. We are also so thankful for our wonderful friends and our Church as they are not only supportive and encouraging but enrich our lives in so many ways. And finally, we are thankful for our Lord and our God who has given us grace and mercy and purpose in life. Blessings to all of your families. May God be with you on this wonderful day!

Lillie's Place

2009-11-24T08:15:00.005-06:00

After a couple of weekends of moving things around and shopping:) we finally have Lillie's space ready to go. I am sure there will be more to add later, but this is what she will come home to. We are so excited to see her and hope she will love her room. The picture behind the bed was the inspiration. It has little girls from all over the world in traditional costumes. The first little girl is from China. Christopher and I saw this in a store last year before Christmas and he bought it for me as one of my Christmas presents. It is hard to believe that we started this journey in July of last year and we are getting so close to bringing Lillie home. She has been a part of our family for longer than she knows. We have talked about her as if she were already here, she was a consideration in all we have done over the past year and a half and even before we saw her face or knew who she was or how old she was. This is a special time of year for us all to be thankful for the abundance that God has provided. He provides not only for our needs but in many cases, our wants. How blessed we are. Our boys have been working on projects all week at school related to Thanksgiving and I am reminded of how fortunate we are to live in this wonderful country (well at least most of the time) where we are free to care for our families and worship in our churches without threat or fear. I am so thankful for that and for my wonderful husband and our 3 amazing little boys. They are such a blessing and have such sweet spirits. God is good!

We are looking forward to adding one little amazing girl to this clan of boys. We have not heard anything about our travel approval and most likely will go into this holiday without it but are praying that we hear something at the beginning of next week so that we may be able to travel before Christmas. Happy Thanksgiving too all!!!

Psalms 100:3-5 Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.

Waiting for TA

2009-11-12T08:25:00.003-06:00

So as you know we are waiting for our travel approval. Our agency said this could come anywhere from 2 weeks to 6 weeks after our documents arrived back in Beijing. I just heard yesterday that the family who is with our agency that we have become friends with and whose timeline was similar to ours and who we thought we might get to travel with because their son is in the same SWI system received their TA!!! We are so happy and excited for them!! They are now waiting on a consulate appointment and if they get the one they want, they will leave on Thanksgiving!!! If we don't get our travel approval in the next few days it is highly doubtful that we will be able to travel with them. I was so hoping to do this as it was going to be so nice to have another Christian family in province with us and I was really hoping to meet them in person and meet their adorable son but this may just not be God's plan....so we wait and pray and hope and know that it will be in His time and not ours. Please pray for peace and clarity for this family as they have a lot of planning and packing ahead in the next week and a half and I know they are so excited to get to their son!!! This was also a huge reality check for us as we are thinking now that we really could leave anytime and may only have a weeks notice!!! I have moments when I think I am perfectly ready and lets get moving and then other moments of terror when I think that I can't possibly be ready - yes, the same emotions as waiting to go into labor:) But today we rejoice in the knowledge that one little boy in Taiyuan in the Shanxi Province of the People's Republic of China will be with his family in just a couple of weeks and will no longer be an orphan. Is there anything more wonderful to hear!! Praise God!!

Psalm 145: 1-2 I will exalt you, my God the King; I will praise your name for ever and ever. Every day I will praise you and extol your name for ever and ever. Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom.

Article 5

2009-11-06T23:20:00.003-06:00

It has been taking many families quite some time to hear about the Article 5 being picked up from the US Consulate by their agency and taken to Beijing to the CCAA. The Article 5 is the last piece of paper to be transported from the US to the Chinese Government that says that they will give the child being adopted a visa to enter the US as long as all is well with the paperwork when we get to the Consulate on the trip. I had heard through a certain adopting family discussion board that the US Consulate was no longer responding to or answering questions regarding the completion of the Article 5. It was only through the agency that you were finding out when this was done and your agency had picked it up to courier. Some were not hearing that this has been done and they have been waiting much longer than we have. I decided on Tuesday night to go ahead and email the Consulate to make sure they had received our documents, after all, there had been some type of glitch with our dossier at the CCAA and I was concerned....the only thing they could do was either not respond, or not give me any information- right? Well.....not 6 hours later, I received an email back from them. They told us that our Article 5/LSC had been picked up by our agency courier and should be on it's way to Beijing. Praise God! What exciting news this was. I was not only shocked to hear from them but they had great news about the paperwork!!! I couldn't believe it and neither could many of the families on the discussion board. No one is getting a response. I can only believe a compassionate soul decided to take the time to ease my worries. I must believe that this was a work of our Father who watches over His children and eases their concerns in sometimes little and sometimes BIG ways. We then received confirmation from our agency that this document was picked upon 11/4 and was headed to Beijing. This put us over the edge with getting ready for our impending travel. We took time to shop on Thursday to get some things we needed for the trip and today we re-arranged bedrooms to get her room ready for our return. Her bedding is here and her closet has a few clothes in it. She has a couple of dolls and a few girlie toys and we plan to get her home and take her shopping:) I also had been concerned that we would be overweight on our 1 checked bag which can only be 44lbs...so...I did a trial run....I packed my bag with Lillie's clothes, our presents for the orphanage director and workers and my clothes and I was only at 39lbs! Yea!! I think we are going to make it. I may be wearing the same outfit in many of the pictures..but that is okay, I will have one of the best accessories a mother can have and she will have some cute clothes on:) I am sure I have forgotten a few things but I now think it will be possible to stay under the limit!! Our travel advisor from the agency had us filling out our travel paperwork and has told us we should see a travel approval in the next few weeks. Once we have this, they will call the Consulate and get us an appointment and then we will know our travel dates!!! This is starting to seem real to both of us and it was a shock to the system to see her pink bedding in this world of blue!! I love it!! After I get everything done, I will post some pictures. The boys are getting excited and Micah has been asking when Lillie will be home and sleeping in her bed. We are still praying that all continues to move along so we will have her home for Christmas!! God is good!!

Visas

2009-10-30T13:32:00.003-05:00

Our passports were returned to us today from the Chinese Consulate in Houston. We officially have visas to enter China! The visa has an official red stamp and a picture of the Great Wall. We will have the pleasure of climbing one of the great wonders of the world! In my whole life I would never have imagined that I would be visiting this country and bringing home our daughter. It is really unfathomable at this point. God opened our hearts to this adventure 15 months ago and in a few short (well-they will feel long!) weeks, we will be using these visas! To think we might be traveling in 6 weeks is exciting and a little scary but we are so ready to bring her home! This is truly an unbelievable journey of the heart, mind and soul. God is faithful in all of His promises. Our journey, I believe, is a promise that He made to this small girl in need of a family. One that will love and protect her and will share Jesus with her. And a promise He has made to us- to see us through this journey and to continually provide the tools necessary to meet the call He whispered to us those many months ago. This journey reminds me daily that He never stops working to provide for His children. His children suffer in all countries and He suffers with them. He is always there- in every village, town, city and wilderness of our world in the light and dark of each day. And He loves each and every soul in such a way that we can't even comprehend His unconditional love. We get so caught up in our world that we sometimes forget that even though we may not have every earthly treasure that we may foolishly seek, He provides for our needs and will continue to do so. And, ultimately, our greatest reward will be offered to us when we leave our earthy home. If you are wondering how we chose Lillie as her name, it is because of the verses in Matthew 6 that refer to His caring so delicately for even the lilies of the field. These verses are of special meaning to me. I am a worrier by nature. You can say that it is a gene thing because I truly come from a long line of worriers. I try to remind myself of these verses often when I am struggling with this particular thing. When we were deciding on a name for our daughter, I returned to this place where I am reminded of God's deep love and His true control over our lives. When we started this journey, I knew that there would be much to worry over. This is a great leap of faith. A true test of my ability to release control to Him. I have struggled in this journey with worrying and I must continually remind myself of these verses. He is the light in the dark hours and will ultimately get me through this long process but the greatest thing I have learned from these verses is that He has cared and provided for our Lillie during these first years and will continue to do so throughout her life. She may have been abandoned by her earthly parents but never by her heavenly Father. She is a perfect child of God and we believe our lives will be blessed by her being in our family.

Matthew 6: 25-34 "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying 'what shall we eat?'or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his Kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

2009-10-27T10:56:00.002-05:00

We found out today that our documents have been cabled to the US Consulate in Guangzhou on October 26th. This means we our down to the final US step before Travel Approval. The Article 5 can take a few weeks to receive or a few days. Once it is complete, our agency will go to the consulate and courier the document to the CCAA in Beijing. Once this is complete, we are just waiting for the Travel Approval from the Chinese government!! We are getting closer...and are very excited....and a little nervous. It is time to start making the packing lists so that we are prepared to head out when it is time. I am hoping we will have a couple weeks notice but I have heard of families that found out on a Friday and left the following Thursday. So, we need to be prepared for any scenario. I will update again when we have confirmation of the Article 5. Please continue to keep this process in your prayers. Please pray for our families health and clarity of mind as we get closer to this wonderful little girl. Please pray for the boys as they are very excited but can't comprehend the change that is about to take place and the difficulty of mom and dad being gone for a lengthy trip. Also, as we get closer, it is likely they will move Lillie back into the orphanage and away from the foster family so that the transition is easier when she finally meets us. This breaks my heart but I know that it is for the best and that soon she will be with us but I can't imagine the grieving and fear that she will go through during that time. So please keep her in your prayers as well as she will really need us to lift her to the Father during this time.

On another note. Halloween is just around the corner. C is dressing as a special forces team member, H will be Taylor Potts sporting a Tech football uniform and M has decided to be a doctor complete with scrubs, lab coat and a stethoscope. They all look really cute and are very excited about trunk or treating! Blessings to all of you! I hope everyone has a wonderful and safe Halloween.

2009-10-19T20:02:00.013-05:00

We received our I-800 provisional approval in the mail today. It was dated

10/15/09. All documents were correct and we have the next step complete.

We now wait for this information to be cabled to the US consulate in

Guangzhou. I hear that this step takes about 10 days. Then we will wait for the Article 5 to be prepared to send to the CCAA.

This weekend we headed to Dallas for a get away. The boys stayed with

grandma and grandpa and Christopher and I had a relaxing day shopping and

seeing a movie. It was a nice break from football season.

C and H played football yesterday and both had exciting games. H ran for the

game winning touchdown and C played hard making tackles.

M is back in school and feeling a lot better. He enjoyed spending time with his Mimi and Papa this weekend. We bought Lillie's carseat and a few outfits to take to China this weekend as well. It was fun to buy

some pink things and a cute carseat with butterflies on it. We are slowly getting some travel items together for the trip. It is going to be a real

trick to get what we need in two bags that can only weigh 44lb each. We are

really going to try as there will be a fee for every leg of the trip if we don't.

Let's see...... DFW to some US city to Beijing. Then Beijing to Taiyuan.

Then Taiyuan to Guangzhou. Then Hong Kong to a US city. Then that US city

back to DFW. That could get rather pricey:) So don't laugh if you see me in the

same clothes over and over again:)Well, I will update again as soon as we get

more information. We are still hoping to leave the

first few weeks of December if all goes smoothly.

Visa Applications/ Waiting on I-800 approval

2009-10-13T21:47:00.004-05:00

We are now officially in the travel office at our adoption agency--YEAH!! We sent our applications and documentation (which includes your original passports- a little nerve-wracking) for our Visa's to travel. These must go to the Houston Chinese Consulate for approval and a stamp in the passport. Yes, I admit, this will be my first stamp in the passport. I have been out of the country, but only to Canada and the Caribbean- before passports were necessary and certainly nothing like this trip:) I am excited!! We also have a proposed travel date of Dec. 10th. The agency says we could go before or after but they are thinking this may be our travel group. So...if we are able and all goes well, we could be flying back in to Dallas on Christmas Eve. Wouldn't that be fun!! We are also still waiting on our final approval from US immigration. We should hear something this week and I will post when we receive it. Nothing else big going on. Just starting to make packing lists and thinking about the what if's regarding travel and of course, wondering what Lillie is up to:)

More Precious Than Gold

2009-10-07T20:27:00.005-05:00

This is our Letter Seeking Confirmation (LSC). Yes, this piece of paper a little over 8.5 X 11 is what we have been waiting for. It came on October 1st just after 1pm. The funny thing is that I had been working on my computer in the living room all day waiting for the Fed-Ex delivery person. I had my camera sitting on the table by the front door all ready to take a picture of the "stork" with the package as I had seen many families post pictures of the envelope and delivery guy. I thought this would be a great idea. So here I was waiting and waiting. I jumped at every sound of a car and ran to the front window...but no, not the truck. Until........ I was sitting there eating lunch and heard what sounded like the storm door opening. I literally, threw my plate on the couch (oops-but who cares about the mess at this point), ran to the door grabbing the camera as I am opening it AND........the package is already laying on the dusty Lubbock ground and the Fed-Ex truck is headed down the street. I mean, I RAN to the door to get this picture and he was already hauling it down the street- and THE STORK THREW MY BABY ON THE PORCH, IN THE DIRT!! Didn't he know what was in that package:) So much for my Kodak moment:) I did however, get a great picture of the truck speeding away and a funny story to tell Lillie when she is older. I then proceeded to check on all the paperwork for USCIS (US gov't.) and the DS230 (Dept. of State-Visa application for Lillie) and even having checked over and over again over the past 115 days, I found some mistakes. We fixed them and then signed all the documents and we were off to Fed-Ex to get them to the agency and the US gov't. So now we are in to the next wait. The USCIS agency received their package on Friday at around 1pm and our agency received the LSC and other documents yesterday. They will be sending those documents back to China on Friday. What I am shocked about is how quickly we got that important LSC signed and back in the mail. I am not sure we even had it for 3 hours before it was headed back to China via our agency. We couldn't be more sure about adopting this beautiful girl and can't wait to travel! So what happens next you ask.....We wait for the final approval (I-800) from the USCIS. They will then send us via email and snail mail, the approval document. We then forward our approval to our agency and they send it to China. The USCIS will also send all of our documentation to the NVC or National Visa Center to review and scan the documents which will then be emailed to the US Consulate in Guangzhou. Once Guangzhou receives those documents and the second LSC which is sent to them from the Chinese gov't., then they will issue what is called an Article 5. Once the Article 5 is issued, a courier picks this up and delivers it to the CCAA in Beijing where they will issue a Travel Approval (TA) for us to come to China. Once we receive this TA, our agency calls the consulate and sets up a Consulate Appt. (CA). Then we know when we travel! The average from LOA to TA for most families has run around 40-60 days. The boys were so excited to see the paperwork finally here. They have been praying (and so have we) that it would come soon. It is a relief to finally have it after such a long wait and we now know that all our paperwork was acceptable to the CCAA and they are happy to refer us our baby girl. We are now 7 days into our wait for TA.

Psalm 118:24 This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

2009-09-30T18:25:00.001-05:00

It came!!! Today we have been blessed to receive our Letter Seeking Confirmation for our beautiful girl, Sun Wen Yu. Our agency received it and are overnighting it to us. We are beyond excited and very relieved, after 115 days of waiting, to wipe the slate and start over with the next step. The next step usually takes 30-60 days to finish and then we are should travel a few weeks after that. So at this point if all goes as we hope, we should be traveling sometime at the beginning to the middle of December. What a perfect 15th Anniversary or Christmas present she would be! I will share more of the process later. We are celebrating tonight!! Praise God!!! Hold on little girl- we are on our way!!! China has officially approved us to be your family!!!!

Isaiah 25:1 O Lord, you are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done marvelous things, things planned long ago.

Day 115

2009-09-30T10:36:00.000-05:00

I do not have much to report. I spoke with our dossier specialist yesterday who has been a friend through this process. She looked back through our documents and online at our status. We still do not know anything more. The only thing she did tell me was that there were two packages that were due to arrive today at the agency from the CCAA and they were really hoping our LSC is in there. So there is still hope today that we might hear something. I am at home today with Micah as he isn't feeling to well this morning and I am hoping that we will hear one way or another very soon. If it is not in these packages, it is not likely we will hear anything for a couple of weeks. I am trying not to get discouraged and am holding out hope that God will provide us a small miracle today.

Romans 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

Care Package #2

2009-09-23T10:02:00.001-05:00

In order to "celebrate" our 100th day of waiting for our LSC, we sent another care package to our girl. We wanted to try and make it as fun as possible since we never expected we would be one of those families that waited sooo long for this paperwork. We just received pictures of what we sent her. This time we used Ann of Red Thread. I love both companies but chose her this time because I had seen the blanket with the red flowers and loved it! Who knows....Lillie could be wearing that outfit when we finally see her for the first time! I love the outfit and the adorable ladybug pajamas!! We sent another letter to let her know where we were in the process of coming to see her. We don't want her to wonder...although, at 2 1/2 yrs.old, I am not sure how much she understands. At least the foster family will know what to expect as we wait. Please continue to pray....the CCAA goes on official holiday at the beginning of October for 9 days. If we don't have this paperwork before that day, I do not know if there is anyway we can travel before the new year. Knowing full well that His plans have always greatly surpassed our own, we continue to pray God's plan is revealed soon and that we can move forward in this process.

Philippians 4:6-7 Do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

2009-09-19T14:09:00.001-05:00

UPDATE on Wenyu:

New pictures of our beautiful girl. It looks like she has quite the personality!! She is too cute if I do say so myself. We just received this update from our agency. After 105 days of waiting for our LSC and an update, we have at least received the update. I noticed that she has a dimple on her left cheek like her mama and brother Hayden. And...it looks like a guns up for all you Texas Tech fans in the picture on the left. Too funny!! The boys and Christopher also noticed the coke bottle in the window with the Chinese letters and thought that was pretty cool. She has grown some since our update through LBNL. She is now almost 28" tall and 22 pounds. They say she is walking and running on her own and that her motor development is great! She also is "very strong in language". We can only assume this means that she knows a lot of Chinese words- we hope? She also can sing songs and recite poems. She sounds like a very smart little girl. She can count from 1-10. Her hair has also grown---YEAH bows, here we come. They also say she is willful and has a little temper. I have visions of her throwing her first tantrum with us and schooling us in Chinese:) And I will be giggling and loving every minute of it. Don't get me wrong, I know this will be a hard transition and that she will be grieving and experiencing all kinds of emotions and we certainly will be thinking about those things but if you know our boys they are all fairly strong willed and it sounds like she will fit right in and be able to hold her own with her brothers. She will need that strength to survive in this family of boys.:) This could be a difficulty we may face when we get her but I am sure she will adjust one day at a time.

We are still waiting for that beautiful piece of official paper from China. After much prodding, we have had our agency check on it. What they are telling us doesn't make much sense. Apparently they outsource their translation department and were waiting for our document to return before they could review. Except we have seen so many others with a LID of the same date or later already get their LSC. Yes, I think our documents were actually "Lost in Translation" for real....But they say now they are reviewing and that we should have an approval very soon!!! I hope that is soon to me and not soon to them. I am really hoping we will hear something this week. We have joined the 100+ club which is not an envious position to be in since the average is 60-90 days. We are hoping we won't be the family that waited the longest at our agency. They are saying the longest they have seen is 115 days. So at day 105, we really are hoping to see it soon.

Whatever happens, it will be God's plan and we know this. He is a merciful God and I believe he knows that we have just about lost it a few times. So- I believe He is watching over us and will continue to strengthen us during this difficult wait and that it will come very soon.

Thank you to all that signed the TB petition. It has worked! The CDC has revised it's regulations and processing of children with TB so it looks like unless your child have severe upper lobe evident TB or a horrible case or have been exposed to multi-drug resistant TB, you will get a visa for the child and be headed home for treatment. It is the most prudent and reasonable process and we are all relieved!

The big boys (H and C) have their first football games tomorrow. Should be fun to see how it goes. C gets to play in the big high school stadium for the first time. Will be exciting!! And it is H's first game ever!! Yeah!!!

The Big Tech game is tonight...Christopher and the band are already there. GO TECH!! BEAT THE HORNS!!! We want a healthy repeat of last year. We can hope, right!! Anyway, I have to say this game is particularly hard on the band as the UT fans are not the sweetest in the Big 12. And, well...we kept them from a National Championship game last year.. Not that Tech is always a nice crowd but many do not think about how it must feel to be in any of the bands and walk through angry mobs...Here's hoping everyone makes it out with their uniform/hats/instruments and are not harmed in anyway!!!

Signing off for now. Really praying my next post will be THE ONE!!!!

Just Keep Waiting...Just Keep Waiting

2009-09-01T22:40:00.000-05:00

I feel like Dory in Finding Nemo. But seriously, people, we should be close-I hope (fingers crossed). We are almost to the longer wait time of 90 days. Today we are at 87 days. We have seen people lately over 100 days but even in this case, we would only be less than 2 weeks away from getting this piece of gold...I mean paper. This is just like me. I always leave the line in the grocery store to find the shorter line and end up waiting behind someone that has a major problem with a return or has an item that is from the back of the store that isn't scanning- you know what I am talking about. I am afraid our dossier has somehow taken on this problem and we just keep getting pushed to the back of the line:) At least at 90 days, I can push our agency to try and find out where we are and when we might get the LSC. Wish I had more to tell you about the adoption today, but we will continue to pray that it arrives soon and that Lillie and her foster family are doing well.

In other Anderson News, Hayden finished up playing summer baseball tonight and had the greatest game of the season- two outs and a hit on machine pitch! Yeah Hayden!

Corban and Hayden also started football practice this week and both are loving it! It is great that they enjoy sports so much but I am starting to worry that they will all be athletes and I don't know how we are going to get them to all their practices and games-fun but scary thought. And Micah, sweet Micah is still liking Pre-K and I think learning a thing or two. He sang two songs before bed the other day and almost had them down perfectly. He is still my baby and is not needing his mommy as much which is good for him but sad:( for me.

Christopher is finally done with summer band-YEAH! Did I say YEAH!!!!! I really love when school starts around here at least we are moving back into a pseudo-normal schedule. But I do love when they all get out in the spring.

First game this weekend against North Dakota? Who?? What?? They are going to melt! Anyway, the boys are looking forward to it- we have our game clothes and face tattoos ready to go:) Go TECH!

Well that is all for tonight. Hopefully, the next post will have some exciting news! Oh, and if you still want to contribute a square for Lillie's quilt, there is plenty of time. Send it on. If you need more information or don't know about this project, see older posts or email me! Thanks!

In the Window

2009-08-23T22:15:00.000-05:00

Many have been asking about where we are in the process. I wish I knew. At this point, we are in the window for average wait times for the LSC. We are on day 78 and still waiting. We did see someone who has the same Letter of Intent and Pre-approval dates receive their LSC last week, so I am really praying that it comes in the next couple of weeks. If it doesn't, we are really going to be cutting it close to travel before the end of the year.

I have also been asked what are the next steps are after we receive this document. It is as confusing to me as it is to most everyone who is adopting through the new improved (or not) Hague process but here goes....

We sign the LSC and send to our agency. They send a copy with our visa documents to the US Consulate and the original back to the Chinese Government (CCAA). We then send a copy with some other documents to the USCIS (US immigration) who approves the now complete I-800 (preapproval is the I-800A) and sends a letter of approval. USCIS also sends a letter of approval to another office in immigration who then has to verify and send what is called the Article 5 to the US Consulate in Guanzhou. Once this is received and processed, they send this via courier back to Beijing where the CCAA (Chinese Govt.) works to issue a Travel Approval. Once we receive the travel approval, the US sets up a consulate appt. in Guanzhou for us and then count back 14 days to our leave for China. The average seems to be 40-80 days once we receive the Article 5 to travel time. (this is sadly the best I can do to put this process into words-anyone confused? Me,too....)

All this for one little barely 20 pound girl to enter the US as our daughter. Just say "NO" to government healthcare! If this process is any indication of government control. It is as confusing and difficult as possible. One small error on a form and you could be waiting months for resolution before you can travel. There is a discussion board group of families who are adopting from China, and let me tell you, this is a reality and many are suffering due to small seemingly unimportant errors.

So that is what I know tonight...Maybe I will have more exciting news soon. I am so ready to get this document and move to the next window of paperwork.

Onto other fun life events, the kids start school tomorrow and are really excited. They will all be at the same school this year. Our youngest Micah is starting Pre-K and really excited about being at the big boy school but I am not so sure about him being so big:( Corban is starting 4th grade and Hayden is starting 2nd. They grow up so fast and are really sweet boys- we are very proud of them and feel so lucky to have spent a lot of time with them this summer just playing and having a good time. Hayden has been playing baseball and both he and Corban start football in the next couple of weeks.

We just got back from Greer, Arizona with my family. Spent the days fishing on the lake, in the streams, playing games and I even read 4 books (not related to my job) which was wonderful! Oh, and if you have never read a book called The Shack, I highly recommend it. A friend at church gave it to us and we both read it while on vacation. It really changed my thoughts on my relationship with God. It excited me about what we have to look forward to after all the suffering that occurs on earth. It gave me a new perspective on how God views me and how I should be viewing Him. I can't do it justice, so please, go out and get this book. It will change your life.

We are home now from our trip and Band camp started for Christopher last Thursday and both of us start teaching again this week. It is Fall Madness around here which will keep us busy while we wait for our beautiful girl. I wonder what she has been up to. Please continue to pray for us and this process. They say it is not for the faint of heart- I thought I was pretty tough but it is starting to wear on me and although I know that it will work out and all in God's time, I am a worrier and the waiting continues to be very difficult.

TB ISSUE:

One more thing, please go to this site and sign this petition. The CDC has discriminated against the adoption of foreign children and just passed a mandate that would require children to remain in their birth country for up to 9 months or until they are proven to be not contagious. Families may not find out their children are positive until the Chinese portion of the adoption is finalized which means that in the eyes of the Chinese government, these children are not their responsibility and are the parents now. This causes a huge problem since if they are positive, they can't bring them into the US. You do the math. What are these families suppose to do. Most can't stay in China for that length of time and most have other children, jobs, etc. It is a huge problem and the CDC just wants to stick to their "rule" without figuring out a plan for the consequences. There is a law that is going up to Congress in the fall that would allow for children of international adoptions to immediately be classified as US citizens. If they are classified as US citizens, they are not able to keep them from getting a visa and if you are one that is worried they are going to expose you, don't be.....According to one of the leading child TB experts in the country (he is at Texas Children's Hospital), there are only 2 confirmed cases in which adoptive children have passed TB to others once getting to the US. This means that over 99% who have active TB did not spread the disease. The risk is very low and no more than anyone else coming in from outside the US. There is a family that has recently had to leave their daughter in China with a agency friend because the child had tested for TB, had been on medication for 2 months and the US would not accept the test results from the Chinese Hospitals. The CDC wouldn't approve her for her visa. I just learned that she is getting to finally come home next weekend. This has cost this family so much emotionally, financially and physically because of this "rule" that was put into place in June. So please, go to this website and sign the petition.

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/build-families-not-barriers.html

Thanks!

Still Waiting...

2009-07-30T00:25:00.001-05:00

We started counting days from the LOI or letter of intent we sent to the Chinese government in June. This was the document that stated that we wanted to move forward to adopt Lillie. After that, you have to wait for the LOA (letter of approval) or LSC (letter seeking confirmation). This is the final approval that the Chinese government has said yes to the adoption. They say the average is 60-90 days but we have seen others wait upwards of 130-140 days. We are praying to be on the bottom end of that first number. We have no control over this nor do we know where our papers are in this process but we do know if we don't receive the LSC by early to mid September, the likelihood of us traveling before the New Year is very low. We continue to pray for a quick turn around and continue to trust that God is in control of this process.

2009-07-24T20:30:00.000-05:00

Introducing Our Beautiful
Daughter:

Lillie Hannah Wenyu
Anderson

Lillie Wenyu was found at the gate of the Taiyuan City Social Welfare Institute on June 17, 2007. The Dongshe police were called to investigate and were unable to find her birth parents. She was thought to be about 5 months old. She was given the birthdate of January 10, 2007. She was without any belongings and was taken to live there the same day. She currently resides with a foster family in Taiyuan City, Shanxi Province, People's Republic of China.

Updated Information through LadybugsnLove:
We just received updated pictures and information about Lillie Wenyu on July 23rd! These pictures were taken within the last week in her foster families home! Christopher and I were really getting anxious to see her again and were so happy to finally get more pictures and more information about her through this service. We were given 18 new pictures and were able to get answers to all 10 of our questions as well as a story that the foster family wanted to share about Lillie Wenyu. This was better than Gold!!! We were on our way to the boys swimming lessons when I got the email. We were able to just barely see the pictures on my phone and were so excited to get home and see the big pics. She is absolutely beautiful and appears to be so well taken care of by her foster family. They sent us pictures of her eating the cake we had ordered and there were also pictures of her with her foster mother and foster sister. Isn't that the biggest cake you have ever seen! It is as big as she is! Lillie lives with a family including a father, mother, sister and brother in an apartment in Taiyuan City. Her favorite toys are a little sheep and doll that she sleeps with. We are told that she may bring them with her when she is adopted. She likes to play with water (she and the boys will have fun!) and doesn't like green vegetables (she will be her youngest brother's best friend:) ) She is also reported to have a great personality but can be strong-willed at times and sometimes cranky. HMMMM...sounds like some other children I know:) It sounds like she will be able to hold her own with this family of boys! We also found out what her favorite song is “Shi Shang Zhi You Ma Ma Hao” (Mom is the best person in the world) which is a famous Chinese lullabye. We will definitely be learning this song as well as get recordings so that maybe it will help in her transition. She is potty trained for now (yeah!)....we'll see when she makes the transition if this will last. She is very small and wears about 18-24 month clothing US sizes and about a size 9 -9.5 toddler shoe. Which is great to know, now I can buy a few things for her! What a blessing this has been. It makes this so much more real to us. We were pre-approved to adopt her over 6 weeks ago and it was time to see her again. Since this was done through a 3rd party, Christopher is calling it "proof of life". Yes, we watch too many action movies:) After waiting for more information from the Chinese government without any results, we started wondering if she really existed or if they had mixed up the pictures or if this was all real. God is great! We are so blessed! Pray that her transition is not too difficult. The pictures really show her connection to her foster mother and foster sister. Which is a good thing but it means that she may grieve very hard when we adopt her. I could cry right now thinking about this. Pray for this family as I am sure while we are rejoicing, they are grieving. She has been in their family for most of her 2 1/2 years of life.

USCIS Updated Approval

2009-07-15T22:01:00.000-05:00

We just received our Supplement 3 Update approval today. In fact, I had just gotten off the phone with the Hague unit to make sure they had received it since it had taken a few weeks, and Christopher walked in with it from the mailbox. So now we are again officially approved by the US government to adopt from China. This I-797 now states specific age and medical condition so that we are ready to go.......when the time comes. We also received our first quilt square tonight at church! Thanks, Towns Family- we loved it!
We are hoping to travel to Dallas this weekend to attend the GWCA travel training seminar. This is suppose to answer many of our questions about the process in China, what to take, what to leave at home, what to do in case of ...fill in blank. I can fill in that blank with so many thoughts. I am, unfortunately, a worrier and worse case scenario person. Plan for the worst, be surprised by the best:) So for me, the planning is essential. Some things I must have a solution for before taking off in a big plane for 13 hours to arrive in a foreign land with too much cash in hand, a potential quarantine for swine flu, and me without my translator:) Just kidding. I know it will be a fun and a sometimes scary trip but will all be well worth it when we have her in our arms. We have in fact, purchased Rosetta Stone Mandarin and have been working on it and not surprisingly, the boys love it and think it is a game. Which it kind of is, but it will not be a game to me when I am trying to figure out what to order at McDonalds in Beijing:) or trying to figure out if she is hungry or needs to find a restroom:) Oh the joy and the adventure of this experience. I think Christopher and I will be laughing at ourselves... a lot- and with a lot of Chinese people who are laughing at what we just said which we will hope was not inappropriate:)

Care Package

2009-07-10T09:44:00.000-05:00

What a blessing to wake up to pictures of the new bunny and backpack that she will soon have from us..We decided to send a care package to our daughter while we wait for our next document. We contacted Ladybugsnlove, a business run by a Christian woman from the US and a Christian woman who resides in Beijing. The care package was sent today, so she should receive it at the beginning of next week. We also sent a cake which she should get sometime next week. Cakes are a special thing in China and we might even get new pictures of her enjoying the cake! We also had a letter translated to the orphanage director and her foster family and a letter our daughter. It took many drafts as we were allowed only 600 words. So in this 600 words, we had to tell the important people in her life a little about us and then tell our daughter all the things we wanted to say to her- it was so hard to know what to say and especially hard to fit it into 600 words. This was a tall order! We know she is only 2 1/2 and probably will not fully understand what it means but it is also important that she hears from us and knows that there is a family out there that belongs to her and already loves her. We hope her caregivers will show her the pictures and start to help her understand who we are. How can we already care so much for a child we have never met....I can only describe how I feel about it. It is very similar to loving your unborn child (although, we have already seen her face). You know this child is yours and your heart is already connected to her. It is a little scary to be emotionally connected to a child on the other side of the world and not have any control over her daily life or experience. We pray that she is healthy and well cared for and we know that ultimately God is in control of all things and that He cares for her in a way that we are unable to. This gives us much comfort as we wait. Although, we still need prayers for patience:) And we really do want that LSC as quickly as possible!

100 Good Wishes Quilt

2009-06-30T16:01:00.000-05:00

No, sadly, no big news today. Our homestudy update is complete and we have sent off the supplement 3 to the US government to make sure all of our approvals and documentation is correct when we travel. We do have a special request for those that are interested in participating. To welcome and celebrate a new life, there is a tradition in the northern part of China to make a Bai Jia Bei, or 100 Good Wishes Quilt. It is a custom to invite friends and family to contribute a patch of cloth with a wish for the baby. Most of the square is sewn into the quilt, while a smaller piece goes into a creative memory notebook with the wish for the child. The quilt contains the luck, energy, and good wishes from all the families and friends who contributed a square of fabric. The quilt is then passed down from generation to generation.
We would love very much for our family and friends to be a part of this tradition with us. Please contribute to the Bai Jia Bei.

Please send:
(1) One 5"x5" square of washable fabric that could work for a little girl. It can be new or "used and meaningful" fabric. Please pre-wash the fabric to prevent any shrinking when it becomes part of the Bai Jia Bei.
(2) A 4 X 6 card with a wish dedicated to our child. Please include a scrap of your fabric glued to the card. Your wish can be simple or elaborate, handwritten or typed. It can be something original you wrote, or a favorite poem, lyric, quote or special scripture that has meaning to you. Remember to sign the wish and include your city and state. This can be simple or elaborate. It can have photoes or stickers, whatever seems fun to you.
Please note that the finished size of the squares in the quilt will be 4X4, so if you are adding embroidery to your square, please keep that in mind.
We are asking that if you decide to send a square and wish, that you send it soon as possible so we will be able to get started making the quilt.

We appreciate it very much! Thank you!
The Anderson Family

Send to the following address:
6707 84th Street
Lubbock, Texas 79424

Hague Training Complete/Reviewing Homestudy

2009-06-22T23:11:00.000-05:00

Today we received confirmation that our adoption training is complete. This is a new requirement with the Hague convention and we had to take 10 hours of education regarding bonding, attachment and issues that may arise for children who have been in an orphanage. We also received our homestudy to review to make sure that there were not any errors. We are hoping to get the finalized copy this week so we can send it off to USCIS for an updated approval.

I also saw this poem today and wanted to share it.

Every call has a beginning.

A quiet moment when

God whispers a promise to a mother's heart.

A holy place where a father bows and faithfully

accepts the journey set before him.

A miraculous morning that unexpectedly dawns

casting it's first light on a chosen threshold.

A closed door opens.

A sacred invitation sent by the Father

leads to the other side of the world.

Where lonely hearts stare out orphanage windows

praying for someone to care.......

And then one morning,

on an ordinary day

an orphan's life changes.

God sends them a second chance

through you.

-Author Unknown

Homestudy Update

2009-06-21T21:31:00.000-05:00

Well it has been a very busy week. We moved into a new house less than a month ago and are having to update our homestudy with the social worker so the government knows where we live and knows that it is an acceptable home for our adoption. We have been working like crazy to get everything put away and looking nice which means no boxes and we had to have the pictures on the walls:) Anyway, we are all settled in and the social worker came for his visit. Everything went great and we are waiting for the document to send to the US government and to the CCAA. We have a wonderful social worker who has spent a lot of time educating and giving us information on this process and what we may encounter. We also have great friends who brought us dinner afterwards to make our day sooo much easier- thanks Gina and Andy- you guys are the best! And, Rosa's was great! We continue to wait for the Letter of final approval from the Chinese government. In some ways, I thought it would be easier once we knew who she was and where she was but the waiting is going to be hard. I am praying for much patience, I am ready to go tomorrow and bring her home but I know God will bring us to her when the time is right. In the meantime, we are working on an American name for her. We will be posting her picture with the announcement of her name very soon! We are also busy working on ideas for decorating her room. I am not sure what to do with a girl's room but I know it will have to have pink in it:) and I am loving looking at little girls clothes. I am hoping for an update on her development in the next few months so I can try and figure out what size she might be wearing when we pick her up. It is most likely that all she will bring with her is the clothes on her back as the orphanage and foster homes tend to keep as much as they can for other children which I think is very understandable. We will be allowed to send her a care package as soon ...so we continue to wait and pray for her safety and health.

Log In Date/ Shared List / PA

2009-06-13T16:15:00.000-05:00

Well I haven't had time to catch up with all that is going on but here we go..... We received our log-in date(LID) of April 16, 2009. This is an important date for many as the non-special needs adoptions are referred by this date. For us, this is not going to matter. Since we started this adoption, our hearts were opened to the idea of adopting a child with minor special needs. Each week new children show up on a list that our agency watches. One week ago, on June 6, 2009, we found our daughter on the shared agency special needs list. This process is very complicated and emotional. We locked in her file the same day but had to have our physician review her medical records so that we better understood her specific condition. We had 48 hours to make a final decision and have the paper work, letter of intent, (LOI) into the Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs. Our agency representative gave us until 2:30pm on Monday to give the final permission to submit the documents that were required to move forward with the adoption. If you do not get them in on-time, then you lose the opportunity to adopt the child. Lets just say, in our hearts we knew that she was our daughter on Saturday, but our minds had to catch up and make sure that we knew her condition and were ready for whatever we might encounter. After receiving a great report from our doctor at 12:30pm on Monday, we submitted our final documents to the CCAA at 12:51pm US Central Standard time.

We have found our daughter and she is absolutely beautiful! One of the most precious children, I have ever laid eyes on. She is described as being timid, shy and sweet. She has a beautiful smile and a sparkle in her eyes. We are overjoyed and thankful to God for blessing us throughout this emotional decision. He has given us a great peace in this process and we know that He continues to do so each day. There is nothing like seeing your child for the first time, whether you see them at their birth or at their birth into your family. There are no words. She is in Taiyuan City which is 300 miles southwest of Beijing. The boys love her and think she is so cute. They keep asking when she will be home.

They have told us that it may take 6-7 months before we can travel to bring her home. We are praying that we will have her home before Christmas! We were also told that the next step is that we would receive a pre-approval (PA) from the Chinese government and that this usually takes 2-4 weeks. Well....last night at around 5:45pm we received our PA from China! Only 3 days after petitioning - which we think is very quick! We are hoping that the remainder of the process will move quickly but know that there will no doubt be some obstacles to overcome. We will now wait for our documents to move through the review process and we will receive the Letter Seeking Confirmation (LSC). Once this is complete (they say it takes 30-60 days to receive), then we will be waiting for our TA (travel approval) and visas from both governments. Please pray that this moves quickly and smoothly and pray that her health continues and that she is doing well. I think of her often and wonder what she is doing. It is about a 13 hours difference in time, so when we are going to bed, it is morning for her. Such a strange thing to think that she lives a day ahead of us. We can't wait to get her home and introduce her. I will post pictures as soon as I am allowed to do so and keep you all updated on the process!

Dossier To China

2009-04-06T22:08:00.001-05:00

Welcome to our blog about the adoption of our daughter from China. This journey began many months ago when Christopher and I felt an intense calling to look into the possibility of an international adoption. For us, this was a new door to be opened as we had never truly thought that this was a path that we would take and really had thought our family was complete. We believe that God has placed the plight of the orphan in our hearts. It was as if He was saying, Don't get too comfortable- I have a better plan for you and it is beyond your imagination! Well, how can you argue with that! God has continued to show us His love and promise even through our difficult times, so we know He will be faithful on this journey as well.

We first attended a workshop with the Great Wall China Adoption Agency at the end of July of last year in Plano, Texas. When we started this discussion we knew it was important to understand what we were getting into before we moved forward and (not surprisingly) the agency that we had been looking at had a workshop in Plano and we were already suppose to be in Dallas that weekend. So we signed up right away and went through the process so we better understood what we were getting into- but I think we both knew that we were going to figure this out no matter how difficult it might have seemed. So after much discussion and prayer and with the support of both our families and our boys, we decided to move forward and began the process that will one day bring our daughter home from China. We believe that He has guided us in our decision and will continue to see us through this difficult process. Although we had started out with the intention of adopting a healthy daughter, our hearts have also been open to the possibility of adopting a child with minor special needs. We have just completed the "paperchase" and our Dossier arrived in China today, April 6, 2009. So we are currently DTC and awaiting the Log-In Date or LID. I will post more regarding the process for those who are interested in how this all works at a later date. We hope that you will join us in this adventure and ask that you pray for our family and our little girl somewhere in China.

Summer Fun

2008-08-11T19:24:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone! Well we have had a wonderful summer and have done a lot of traveling. We went to Florida in June and spent time with Christopher's family at Seacrest Beach. We all had a great time and the boys enjoyed the swimming and playing. Hayden and Corban both learned to ride their bikes without training wheels and were very excited. Micah loved "going to golfing" (miniature golf). We then traveled back home through Dallas to see my family and Wendy and Scott's new baby Abigail. She is beautiful and sweet and her big brothers dote on her.

Christopher and I then traveled to Las Vegas in early July for a conference that I was presenting at. We had a fun time and enjoyed "most" of the tourist sights. We were able to go to the top of the Eiffel tower, rode the rollercoaster at New York New York, saw the white tigers, went to the Star Trek Adventure and stayed in the Palazzo which was a wonderful brand new hotel Yes, I did learn from the conference but enjoyed the evenings with Christopher.

We then went to San Antonio at the end of July for a conference that Christopher needed to attend and I was able to do some recruiting for my job. The boys went with us on this trip and we took them to Sea World for two days. Micah loved "Shampu" and we had to go back for a second viewing. Corban rode his first big roller coaster and Hayden rode a big water ride- Atlantis. Everyone had a great time even though it was 100 degrees.

We have some surprising news for many of you. Christopher and I have decided to adopt a baby girl from China.