Thursday, July 18, 2013
Wonderful news!!!!
As I've done once a week for the past several weeks, I once again called the Hague adoption office to find out if our I-800 A petition to adopt from a foreign country has been approved. This meant approving our homestudy, too, without requiring additional or changed wording. I called, and the secretary said, "You have been assigned an officer, and her name is..." Then she said, "Let me transfer you." She told me that we were approved on the 16th and that it is on its way through the mail! That is GREAT, since our other dossier documents went to the Consulate earlier this week. Now when Bethany receives THEM back, we won't have to wait extra long before the immigration comes back from the Consulate either, and they will all go off to China together. :) God is great!!
Thank you so much for all your prayers. God must have known my patience was wearing pretty thin, given the wait for that and the wait for my husband's car to be fixed, because it looks like-- we hope-- that is on its way to a fix now, too (after being to several car shops that find something else to charge us for). The next wait is our initial approval from the Consulate, but I don't think that's supposed to take too long.
Also, I guess I can tell you now, that if we like our son's given Chinese name, we will keep it, but if we don't think it would sound right or if it would be hard to pronounce over here, we will change it to Gabriel, and his middle name will be Song. That's if we get a boy, and chances are we will, according to everyone we've spoken with. :) (If we are matched with a girl, we'll happily accept that referral too, but we'll be starting the name search over then! Gabriella is out of the question.)
Things are moving right along, and so am I for now!
Until next time,
Jenn
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Paperwork to Michigan and then to Chinese Consulate
Good evening!
This week has been a busy one with grants being mailed and some new things potentially in the works involving widows and orphans and our church. More on that to come... if it takes off as we hope it does. We were the ones who introduced it to our Respect Life committee. :) If it works for us, we would be working with an organization called "Both Hands Helping," which would allow our church to create a fund for adoptive parents while helping widows at the same time. Google it if you want to know more. Otherwise, just wait. We should know more about what will happen in the next two or three months (I hope).
Today the big news is that our dossier and its two copies were mailed to Bethany Christian Services Global and sent to the China Team. Here's a picture of our documents that had to be state-sealed, but don't let the picture fool you. This was not even half of the paperwork we had to fill out!
We had to send in everything now because certain documents expire after six months of being done, so they need to be sent to the Chinese Consulate ASAP. We were so eager to get this adoption moving that we did a lot of it early, knowing that timing could be an issue but also hearing that immigration moved really fast after fingerprinting. Unfortunately, we are still waiting for immigration to come through. We called a few days ago, and we have still not been "assigned an officer," and they really can't tell us more than that. I asked if they were running behind, since I know some people who have received approval letters within a week of fingerprinting, and the secretary told me that they were and that it depends on where we live. That seemed odd to me. We're not that far from the processing center in Missouri-- at least no further than anyone else in Indianapolis. Oh well. There's no rushing the government.
We also trust God that there must be some reason for this delay. Maybe our son is not yet old enough for the waiting child list. Whatever it is, we will trust God's timing.
The other big news for today is that it is the fourth anniversary of our first date. We will be going to see the Indianapolis Symphony at Ellis Park-- and we have to leave right now! :)
Please keep us in your prayers as we wait for immigration to come through. We thank everyone who continues to read our blog, and we enjoy being able to share each step along the way.
-Jennifer and Howie
This week has been a busy one with grants being mailed and some new things potentially in the works involving widows and orphans and our church. More on that to come... if it takes off as we hope it does. We were the ones who introduced it to our Respect Life committee. :) If it works for us, we would be working with an organization called "Both Hands Helping," which would allow our church to create a fund for adoptive parents while helping widows at the same time. Google it if you want to know more. Otherwise, just wait. We should know more about what will happen in the next two or three months (I hope).
Today the big news is that our dossier and its two copies were mailed to Bethany Christian Services Global and sent to the China Team. Here's a picture of our documents that had to be state-sealed, but don't let the picture fool you. This was not even half of the paperwork we had to fill out!
We had to send in everything now because certain documents expire after six months of being done, so they need to be sent to the Chinese Consulate ASAP. We were so eager to get this adoption moving that we did a lot of it early, knowing that timing could be an issue but also hearing that immigration moved really fast after fingerprinting. Unfortunately, we are still waiting for immigration to come through. We called a few days ago, and we have still not been "assigned an officer," and they really can't tell us more than that. I asked if they were running behind, since I know some people who have received approval letters within a week of fingerprinting, and the secretary told me that they were and that it depends on where we live. That seemed odd to me. We're not that far from the processing center in Missouri-- at least no further than anyone else in Indianapolis. Oh well. There's no rushing the government.
We also trust God that there must be some reason for this delay. Maybe our son is not yet old enough for the waiting child list. Whatever it is, we will trust God's timing.
The other big news for today is that it is the fourth anniversary of our first date. We will be going to see the Indianapolis Symphony at Ellis Park-- and we have to leave right now! :)
Please keep us in your prayers as we wait for immigration to come through. We thank everyone who continues to read our blog, and we enjoy being able to share each step along the way.
-Jennifer and Howie
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