Good News!!!

Like cold water to a weary soul is good news from a distant land. Proverbs 25:25

We are so thrilled to announce that our LOA has arrived from China! We heard the news on Friday morning! The girls and I rushed to the store to have a cake decorated with "LOA" and then dashed off to let Kevin know at his work site. What a happy day it was! Then on Saturday we picked up the package from UPS sent by our adoption coordinator in Charleston! We signed the papers and sent them back immediately!

Today we filled out our visa applications and sent them on! Throughout this whole process, we have not wanted to be the ones to hold up progress!!

Now it is the wait for the "TA"... travel approval from China! That means we are approved to travel to China to bring home Mia! It will be a few days from the TA to secure the "CA" which means the American consulate appointment. After our appointment is made with the American consulate in Guangzhou, our agency will give us our travel dates. We are hoping from early September - but there will need to be some miracles to make that happen! Please pray with us for quick turnarounds on all of these papers!

False Labor at Day 125

So frustrating... thought the rumblings were labor but we are just VERY uncomfortable!! We are trying to keep enjoying summer... have spent quite a bit of time at the beach... have taken some day trips with friends... and even spent a day with our friend Tian. Here is a picture of her with our Emma!

A Few Rumblings

Today we received a little communication in preparation for travel paperwork. Of course we filled out the papers quickly and sent them in to our agency. We still do not have our LOA - Day 120. This is about twice as long as we had anticipated waiting for this important paper from the CCAA in Beijing. We are hoping that this latest request for information means that our LOA will be here soon!

In the meantime, we are finishing Mia's room and putting together packing lists. It is looking more like post - Olympic travel for us! We are hoping that we fly in on the same planes that just took out the Olympians! A quick roundtrip turn-around!! I'm trying to put my mind around Mia preparations, getting our family ready for the school routine, and knowing that travel will come quickly after I start teaching again. But we'll see! We are not taking anything for granted at this point!

101 Dalmations... I mean DAYS!!

Our best laid plans are not always the way things work out! We are now at 101 days waiting for our LOA from China. When we started the process with our agency, we thought we would have LOA at about 65 days of waiting. We are now quite a ways beyond that and to be honest, we have gone through bouts of deep discouragement. But we are trying our best to take it a day at a time, enjoying our girls and the last summer with only two daughters.

Our latest news from 2 or 3 weeks ago, is that we are "in review". This means that the CCAA is looking at every piece of our file and making sure that we qualify for their adoption criteria. If they have a question, they will contact our agency, who in turn will contact us! The good news is that we have NOT been contacted for any new information.

So we still wait. The next step will be that our file moves from "review" into the "LOA" issuing department. We are not sure how long that will take.

In the meantime and since it is summer, I have begun thinking about packing for the big trip! I am gathering other people's packing lists. I'm also beginning to think of what I need with a two year old coming into our family! All of Emma and Savannah's 2 year old things have been given away!

So - from the beach - I'm still thinking every minute of the dark haired, brown-eyed girl on the other side of the world!

Sweet Poem

As a girl I had a dream, to be a mom someday.
My baby would have eyes of blue and hair the hue of hay.
But now my dreams have been transformed. New visions fill my head.
The tresses that I long to stroke are raven black instead.

And in my dreams those eyes are not so big or blue or round.
Now in my dreams they're almond shaped and colored cocoa brown.
And in my dreams my arms can stretch across enormous seas.
They reach half-way around the world and hold you close to me.

~Gayle Leubecker

Psalm 46

God is our refuge and strength,
an ever present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear,
though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with their surging.

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy place where the Most High dwells.
God is within her, she will not fall;
God will help her at break of day.
nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;
He lifts his voice, the earth melts.

The Lord Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.

Come and see the works of the Lord,
the desolations he has brought to the earth.
He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth;
he breaks the bow and shatters the spear,
he burns the shields with fire.

"Be still, and know that I am God'
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth."

The Lord Almighty is with us (and with Mia);
the God of Jacob is our fortress.

Sooooooo

are you tired of checking this blog and seeing NOTHING??? So are we!!