Hurry Up and Wait

We are waiting, have been waiting for about a month, to get an update from Sammy's orphanage.  We received an update in December with pictures.  Here is a picture from that update.

We have also been blessed by another family with a child in Sammy's orphanage.  When she received an update of her daughter, our Sammy was in the background!  The internet is amazing.

Several people have asked for an update on our adoption and what the process actually looks like.   The past few months haven't been all that exciting.  We have been crazy busy with lots and lots of paperwork, training classes, meetings with social workers, and rushing to get all our documents notarized and turned into the agency.  Whew!  I am happy to say it is all done!  We had our USCIS fingerprints done yesterday, and now we wait for the approval.  Once we get our approval we will be DTC!

DTC, in the adoption world, means dossier to China.  We are hoping to be DTC by the end of April.  At that point our dossier (all our notarized and translated documents) will be off to China and we will be logged in.  After we get our LID (log in date) we wait for our LOA.  The LOA (letter of acceptance) is the approval we need to make Sammy ours.  Right now China has pre-approved us as his family, but they won't give acceptance until they have reviewed our dossier.  After we receive LOA we wait for our TA.  TA (travel approval) gives us permission to travel to China to get Sammy.  We have 90 days to travel from the date of TA.   Our agency told us that it usually takes about 5 months from LID to travel.  We are hoping to travel October 1-14 2011.  

Sammy

When people first hear we are adopting a boy from China they are a little surprised.  Most people assume only little girls are adopted from China, and that it takes years to bring them home.   While there is some truth to this assumption, it is not always the case.   Right now the wait for a healthy baby girl in China is about 6 years, however, there are hundreds of waiting children needing homes now.  The waiting children are considered special needs.  Their needs vary from mild to severe and some are even healthy, but older.

Sammy is considered a special needs child because he is deaf.  We began sign language classes in November and are learning ASL as a family.  It is an amazing, beautiful language and we can't wait to share it with our new son.

Here is the first picture we saw of him.  The picture that stole or hearts.  

Here is Sammy, please keep him in your prayers.  

Adoption

Danny first brought up adoption about four years ago.  I wasn't sure that was the direction I wanted our family to go, but contacted an agency anyway, mostly to pacify him.  We received the info and I told Danny I needed time to pray about it.  One week later we found out I was pregnant with our fourth, Malachi.  That was it.  God had decided for us.  I shelved the adoption idea, feeling our family was complete.  Little did I know that God and Danny had other plans.  

In September we visited a church whose guest speaker's sermon was on adoption.  A topic not foreign to me, but not part of my future either...or so I thought.   His message stirred my heart in a way I didn't think was possible.  I  found myself praying for orphans and asking God if maybe I had been wrong.  I soon found out that while I had closed the adoption door years ago, it had remained wide open for Danny.  In his mind it was just a matter of God's timing and the changing of my heart.  My wonderful, patient husband waited silently and prayed while God worked on my heart.  I am so thankful to my husband and his diligent prayers.  God changed my heart. 

 Through an amazing series of events God answered Danny's prayers.   He led us to our precious little boy,  Zheng Shaowei in Shanghai, China.  He turned two on October 17th.  We have decided to name him Samuel Shaowei, and the kids refer to him as Sammy.  We are hoping to bring him home before his third birthday.

Our God is good, always.  There is no doubt in my mind that this is his plan for our future. Please keep our family in your prayers as we endure this long paper chase to China.  It comforts me to know that the process is long to help insure the safety of the children, but my arms ache for my missing child.  Please pray for Sammy's health and safety while he waits.