Lifesong for Orphans & Both Hands

 

Loving these organizations! We are going through these organizations to help fund raise for our adoption. Lifesong, has several fund raising options but the one we liked the best was the one where we partner with the Both Hands organization and help a widow in the process. The purposes of each organization are below.

Lifesong: Bringing joy and purpose to orphans. We seek to mobilize the church, His body, where each member can provide a unique and special service: some to adopt, some to care, some to give.

Both Hands is a non-profit organization with a two-fold mission. We serve widows in a very practical way in our communities, while raising funds to help willing families adopt.

I had struggled with the dilemma of what to do about fundraising. How can we do it in a way that allows people a tax credit and is legal. Funneling through the church through the foster care and orphans ministry line item while legal was still kinda sketchy and I didn't feel good about it. We wanted to apply to Both Hands but the wait time for approval is like 6-8 weeks, which would be fine but Eric jumped the gun and involved our deacon in on what we wanted to do and she readily identified a single woman who has a time-sensitive situation and we need to help her sooner rather than later. So I was able to get through the grueling application process for Lifesong one day while my mom watched the kids...it took me 7 hours to hash it all out. The night before Eric actually spoke with the Director for Both Hands and was told that we can do the fundraising outside of the organization and he would send us the project manual. But again...how to handle the money? So I emailed Lifesong to inquire about an expedited process. And was pleased and shocked to get a reply with in an hour on a Friday afternoon! The said they could try to put a rush on it and get it reviewed in 2-3 weeks, no promises but they did tell me to put a note on the application and request a quick review. So, YAY, problem potentially solved. So now we are waiting to hear back from Lifesong and hopefully it will all run in God's perfect timing and be a great success! All this to say, both organizations were wonderful to listen to both our requests and concerns and try to help us out. I pray we will officially get to work with them soon!

Dossier Go Time!

I am very glad to announce that our Dossier is finished! But what a finish it was. The Dossier is comprised of 13 documents that are sent to China for China's approval. One such document is our state criminal background check and fingerprints. Well ours...expired. Nice, eh? I think I might have thrown up in the back of my mouth just a little when my case worker informed me of this. But she quickly let me know that I could get a local background check from one of the local police departments and they can write a letter, one for each Eric and I, that says we have no current criminal history. So I'm thinking, whew, just get a simple letter. Well our first police department doesn't do such a letter, the second I contacted can do the letter but can't give me a time frame for completion but they assured me it was likely to be less that two weeks. So the third try is always the charm right...yes, right! So thank you Shelby County Sheriff's Office and your staff in the records department! God love these people they did it for me in like 3o minutes! The only catch was that Eric and I both had to be present and it was a 40 minute drive away; oh and both of my children were conveniently OUT of school and with us. However, my children did great and the drive wasn't all that bad and in the end we had our letters saying that we had not committed any crimes in Shelby County. Here is where I must laugh. China will accept a local background check over a national FBI check. Understand that it is the national FBI check over all 50 states that expired, but to remedy that, a one county check will suffice. How many freakin' counties do you think there are in the entire U.S. of A.?So I could have robbed several banks just one county over and it wouldn't matter. I love China.

So now we wait. The Dossier is being authenticated as I type and then it will go through translation and then it will be sent to China; or maybe it gets translated in China, not sure and don't really care. Authentication takes 2-3 weeks. Once authenticated it takes like 3 days for it to get to China and then 2-3 weeks for us to get logged in. If I haven't harped on this enough, it is that log in date (LID) that we want...soon as we get the LID we can start looking for our child. Apparently our social worker has a few in mind for us already which is why she was so encouraging about us getting the Dossier completed yesterday. They have a surplus of boys right now in their system and so she asked me if we still were willing to take a boy, to which I replied..."Yes. Of course." However, the decision is not mine, it's up to God and we are trusting him to clearly reveal to us upon sight which child he has chosen for us. What I mean is that when we both see the child, we will both know, we won't haggle over which we prefer, we will just know our child when we see him/her. AAAAAAHHHHHHHH, it's so exciting and terrifying. Some days I'm like, "What the crap am I doing?! What if this new child totally screws up my other children?! What if s/he is a holy terror and it is just all wrong!?" Then, I hear the voice of my Lord saying to me, "Rest. I got this. I know what I'm doing; even if you don't know what you're doing." Sigh. Thank you Jesus.

CIS Approval

So we have finallly have it...CIS Approval! It came yesterday. But I have to tell you the funny story of how I found out. I was backing out of my drive way and said aloud in my car to Jesus, "Okay Jesus, today is the day we get approval from CIS. So just make it materialize in my mailbox." And I meant it. I then opened my mailbox to see a clipper magazine thing with a white nondescript envelope sitting face down on the magazine. I sighed a little and thought, a bill. But in keeping with faith, I yelled at the envelope as I was flipping it over to see who it was from, "HOMELAND SECURITY!!!" And when I flipped it over...it indeed was from Homeland Security! I laughed out loud and screamed at how funny Jesus is. I praised him and thanked him and we laughed together some more. I think the next time I see a white nondescript envelope in my mailbox I am going to scream, "CHECK FOR A MILLION DOLLARS TAX FREE!" God is good! So now I will run by all the items needed for the Dossier on Monday. Our timeline is now:

1. 2-3 weeks for authentication of the Dossier

2. 2-3 weeks for our Log In Date (LID) with China

3. Once we get the LID we start the matching process!!! That is the exciting part! Finding our child!

4. Once we have a match it is 5-6 months before we can travel to get our child.

That is all for now!

Space Camp Blessing

 

 

Okay so you are probably thinking...what in the world does that title have to do with adopting a baby? It's a good story and since there is NADA to report on the adoption front...waiting, waiting, waiting for the Feds, I felt like this was something cool to write about. And indeed it is. I have been blessed with the opportunity for the past four years now, of getting to interpret for Deaf Space Camp at the NASA Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, AL. It literally is a "blast"! It is my favorite interpreting assignment of the year. I block off space camp week on the calendar every year! This year was strange because it should have happened in May, but we had an F5 tornado rip through our state that in addition to being utterly devastating, it coincided with Deaf Space Camp and it had to be rescheduled. This proved to be wonderful for me as I was only 2 weeks out of back surgery for the original date. It was rescheduled for mid-August. This year I was able to stay with the same group of kids the entire week, normally we jump around to the different teams. This year was fabulous not only because we got to really know the students, which were all awesome, but they were the Advance Academy group, which is the older kids (14-18). As only God can arrange, an intelligent, beautiful, funny, enchanting young Chinese girl was in my group. Normally I would not point out a person's nationality except that for this blog it is central to the point. She was adopted from China when she was a toddler. What an amazing young woman she is. She is a natural emergent leader and everyone listened to her. She has great ideas and great compassion. She was a delight to watch. Her teacher is also incredible, Jen, (love this woman) and it was from Jen that I learned of Anna's background. She volunteered to ask Anna if she would mind me asking her questions about adoption. This gracious young girl, was so kind to spend like an hour with me speaking of her past, her experiences, her future, China, her homeland, visiting, volunteering at her orphanage, Red Thread, finding her parents, just everything. What an unbelievable blessing!!! I could go on and on about Anna, but her story is hers to tell, not mine but I wanted to mention her because she was a treasure of great worth to me. I am posting a couple pictures of her so you can know what she looks like and pray for her. Please pray for her continued success in life and for blessings to abound.