Article 5

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!!