We received our first "shower" present!

Today was exciting. I belong to an online group of Christians adopting from China, affectionately nicknamed the "ladybugs". I participated in my first "cyber shower" which had a bedtime theme. Well, today we received our child's first gift! Jessica sent our little girl two beautiful silky nightgowns (with ladybugs on them, of course), a book of prayers and a really cute book about the moon, which actually acts as a night light. I have never seen one like it before. It was really fun to receive something for our little one. Jessica is also trying to adopt a little girl who is older, so hopefully she bought her daughter one of those beautiful nightgowns! Thanks Jessica.

NewSong-China Rescue

To listen to this video, you will need to stop the Steven Curtis Chapman video at the bottom of the page.

Jessica shared this with an online group I belong to. It says so much and is truly heartwrenching. Please watch it...

Bethany has a new COP list!

It's incredible but Bethany has just received a new COP (Children of Promise) list yesterday. This is a little over a month after the last one. Normally, they come about every 3 or 4 months, so this is great. I like to think that this means China is working at getting more children out of orphanages and set into families! We are still thinking that we will be patient and wait, rather than requesting one of the children on this list, but we are open to God's leading.

We are out of review!

We just found out that China has reviewed all dossiers logged in through March 31, 2006! This is a significant step because it means that we have officially been approved by the China Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA) to adopt one of their children! They did not ask any questions, and required nothing more from us while they reviewed our dossier, which is good. This is basically the last step before being matched with a child. Unfortunately, this doesn't mean that we will be matched any sooner, since we are still waiting our turn in line, but it does mean that our dossier is progressing!

Referrals and the wait

Well, as I learn how to work with this site, I will try to keep you updated on the happenings in the China adoption world. Yesterday, we learned that China had issued referrals to all dossiers with an LID of 10/14/05 to 10/24/05. This is only 11 days worth of referrals for the month of February. That is a little depressing, since that means it will take China a full three months to match all of October 2005 LIDs. At this rate, it will take us 3 years to get our referral! Don't worry, I know that won't happen, but it would be nice if they would pick up the pace a little... Those that just received their referrals have waited 16-17 months for their referral. Who knows, maybe next month, China will match an entire month worth of LIDs! Here's hoping!

Welcome to our new website!

We are so excited to share our journey to China with you! We realized that God was calling us again to adoption in December of 2005, and started gathering all the documents needed for our 2nd adoption. It was definately easier this time around, since we knew more about what to expect in this process. Our Dossier (the packet of information containing all information about us that is required by China) requesting a child was sent to China on March 8, 2006. This is exactly five years after our dossier was sent to China during our adoption of Katie! Our Log In Date (LID) is March 24, 2006. It is this date that China uses to process requests. So, we have been waiting almost a year now. China has experienced a slow down in their process. We are hoping to receive our referral for our child this fall. It would be wonderful if it could be sooner, but it may, in fact, be later than that. We are trying to be patient.

Thanks for visiting us!