We're Going to China!

We got the call late Thursday night - we got our requested consulate appointment of 12/22! So, we leave this week to go to China! Wednesday to be exact! We've been so busy either on the phone or the internet trying to finalize our travel plans to China and in China, that I'm only just now posting our good news on our blog. Whew. Whirlwind is an appropriate term to describe what we have just been through. We will get Jack on 12/14 and return on 12/24. What a Christmas present!

Thank you to all of our friends and family who have been praying for us - it got a little sticky there for a while. Let's just say that there was a glitch with our paperwork (imagine that?) and that our agency advocated for us. Then, there was the matter of not only finding reasonably priced tickets (we had watched them go up steadily all week), but finding tickets at all, such is the Christmas season. I was told some flights were sold out. And to top it all off, you can't just reschedule your requested Consulate appt. ... you better be there.

So, I think our eldest daughter will testify that her mom and dad were a little stressed. Not to mention that we were going on very little sleep (since China is 13 hours ahead of us, our approval was going to come in during the night). The pattern formed: search for and hold tickets for 24 hours in hopes of getting our appt. Stay up and wait for phone call so that I can buy the tickets before they expire. No appt. Search for and hold another set of tickets for 24 hours. Stay up and wait. No appt. You get the picture.

We were so anxious about all this that both Dan and I turned to God for help the same day, but at different times, realizing foolishly, that we should have done that from the beginning. Once we gave it to God, we finally relaxed that evening and left the computer. We got the call that night. :0)

We purchased tickets the next day - paying more than we budgeted, but trusting God in His plan. Later that day, God blessed us with a sweet, sweet lady from our agency (she handles our internal travel arrangements) who called me and politely informed me that we paid too much for our tickets. She helped us fix that and has since saved us quite a bit of money. To borrow some language from my 13 year old, "Betty, you rock!"

Throughout this adoption, when we have experienced some kind of delay, God has blessed us with a photo of our son, as if to remind us of His goal for us and for us to not be discouraged. During all this, our friend Andy, who had surprised us with a great photo of our son when he visited the orphanage, forwarded another photo he had received from LWB (Jack is in the orange shirt.). And, yes, we know ... Jack is a cutie pie. ;0)

Travel Approval

We got the call today!!! China is ready for us to come and get Jack - goodness knows, we've been ready for quite awhile now. We are still waiting confirmation of our Consulate appointment to finalize our travel plans, but will post that information when we hear from our agency. BTW, I've posted a Smilebox below - the last two pictures are of Jenna, then Jack - the jacket is the reason I spotted Jack on the internet. :0)

I spent some time today working on our blog and reflecting on this journey so far. Wow. We are almost there, but we surely didn't get there alone. Though the prayers of friends and family have sustained us through the ups and downs of the adoption, we certainly wouldn't be at this point today if we hadn't taken a chance on God. This has been a walk of faith for both Dan and me. When you decide to walk the path God has laid out for you, you will be afraid, but you will also feel more alive and closer to the Heavenly Father. Gosh, it would have been so easy to not go through with this second adoption, but God is faithful and keeps his promises to us. I'm overwhelmed with God's goodness and His plan for these two children and our family as a whole. The words from the hymn, "Great is Thy Faithfulness" come to mind:

Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father;
There is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not;
As Thou hast been, Thou forever will be.

Great is Thy faithfulness!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided;
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

Summer and winter and springtime and harvest,
Sun, moon and stars in their courses above
Join with all nature in manifold witness
To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,
Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

What is in a name?

Many have asked how I came to arrive at the name “Zacharias” for Jack’s middle name (See Michele’s post from January 2). Some suspect I may have pulled the name from the Bible. However, this is not the case. Rather, the inspiration for Jack’s middle name comes from Dr. Ravi Zacharias, the most dynamic and influential Christian apologist of our day. I fancy myself as a very amateur Christian apologist, and Dr. Zacharias teachings and writings have had a profound affect on my life. He has been gifted with a unique combination of incredible intellectual prowess and sincere humility that he consistently puts to masterful work in delivering his messages and responding to challenges to the Christian faith. He is firm and unyielding, yet, gracious and gentle. (He is precisely the type of person that Bill Maher did not interview in his film silly film Religulous). I encourage all of you to visit his website: http://www.rzim.org/, and give a listen to one of his podcasts.

Hoping ...

At day 102, not very close to the expected day 70, we finally received our LOA (Letter of Acceptance)! We had stopped counting days because it was a little daunting seeing day 80 then day 90 go by. So, for sanity's sake, we stopped looking at the calendar. As it turns out, we got a sweet treat for Halloween in the form of a phone call from our agency.

It should take about 21 days (and this seems to be on schedule) from when China receives our LOA to receive TA (Travel Approval). All we have to do is sign it and overnight it back to the agency. For those of you who followed our trip for Jenna, we received TA the day before Thanksgiving and we left for China on Nov. 30. Jenna's "Gotcha Day" was Dec. 2, which happens to be Jack's birthday. We're hoping to make it over there by then. I'm posting another picture of Jenna with Jack in Gansu, hoping that they will be together again soon ... hoping to finally get my arms around our little boy ... hoping that he will be as happy to meet his forever family as we are to welcome him home.

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LID!! Yippee!

What in the heck is an LID, and why are we so gosh darned excited about it? This is the date that our paperwork was logged in to China's system, and it is the date that we will begin counting from to try to estimate when we will get TA (or Travel Approval). Our Log In Date was July 22!! So, we are already about a third of the way there!!

Now, just when you thought you got a handle on all the adoption acronyms - we will get our LoA (Letter of Acceptance) about three weeks before we receive TA. So, once we get our LoA, we'll know that TA is just around the corner. Once we get TA, we will have to wait to hear when our CA (Consulate Appointment) is before we can book our flights. I know it's alot ... and I haven't even mentioned the LOI or the PA. Oh, and don't forget DTC!

In celebration of getting our LID, I thought I'd post some updated photos of Jenna!