A piece of my heart...

A piece of my heart is living outside of my body.. And not just outside of my body but across the world from our home.. Most days it's OK, we're busy and life just moves along. I treasure these days with Thomas, West and Hartley knowing all to well the reality of what lies ahead. The immense blessing but also the reality of the challenges that will come. I'm Christmas shopping, preparing a Thanksgiving menu, preparing for Trick or Treating and in my mind, and sometimes actions, beginning to pack..  I was pretty bummed last week when we were unable to get new pictures and video of Molly. I had hoped it would help me hold on this little bit longer. We did get some questions answered and although I'm super thankful for them they have made me long for her more, and be a little sad for her. I had tried really hard to get info on her foster sister.. Sadly we never got any and now she's been adopted. Sweet Molly has suffered another loss.. Although it's wonderful she's with her forever family Molly must wonder where she is..I had hoped to know where she had gone so I could keep them in touch.. no avail so far.:( We also learned that Molly was with her birth parents for nearly a year, then in a foster home, then the orphanage for a year and now this last foster family for the past year. Once with us that will be 5 major transitions in 2 1/2 years. I had honestly become a little relaxed about attachment disorders since she was with a foster family, hearing this has made me more alert and will have me working extra hard to bond with her. I'll do a big attachment post later and what that looks like for adopted kiddos but it means that Tommy and I have to be her main caregivers/comforters etc for a long while. What it looks like for each child is different, but I would guess a solid 6 months of just us meeting her needs, no gym nursery, babysitters etc. No one else can feed her, even if she wants food from you,you have to direct her back to us lovingly. I won't be a nervous Nelly about it. and honestly I've parented all my children like this to a certain extent. Kept them all close and still only leave them rarely. It's different for these kiddos though, caregivers have been interchangeable and she's been through a lot. She needs to know who her family is, mom, dad, 2 brothers, a sister.. I'm excited for Halloween tomorrow, West turns 6 in early November, we have swim meets coming up, then my sister is getting married, Thanksgiving, Christmas and we should be on a plane shortly there after! I know it will go fast and I don't want to rush it but my heart aches for our Molly.. To hold her, to hug her, to smell her, stroke her dark hair.. It's like a little switch has gone off and I'm ready to get off of this train..
 Paperwork wise we are waiting on our 800 approval. This approval gives us permission to bring Molly specifically into the country. Once we get that we move onto our GUZ and PDF then our article 5 process and then our TA, travel approval. After that we wait for our CA, consulate appointment and then we hop on a plane! We have some big news to share early next week regarding fundraising.. stay tuned! Right now we are praying in a few more grants to help us with our tickets specifically. God is faithful and I know his timing will be perfect for all of this here at the end.. We're coming sweet girl!!!!!

                                            Our visas heading off to get a Chinese stamp in them on top and our official LOA on the bottom from China!! Both say "extremely urgent.."

Have we raised all of our money?

This is a question we get a lot.. Are you finished fundraising, how much more do you need.. ? The short answer is no.. We still have a good bit to go and it's going to cost a little more to go at peak travel time in December then another time of the year, almost double what a normal ticket cost x4... When I feel nervous about how we'll make it I think back on how faithful God has been on this journey he has called us to. We started 8 months ago and through fundraising and grants we've brought in $24,000.00. That's a crazy amount of money, more than some folks make in a year!! We've done a lot of really successful fundraisers and had some generous grants. To date I am waiting to hear from 4 grants that I am super, super prayerful will make up the last bit of our funds to help us bring Molly home. Because we personally raised $17K of the $24K we don't feel led to do another big fundraiser right now. This has been fast! If she's home in December that's only a 10 month process for an International Adoption, not much down time, which is great to get her home, but tough fundraising wise because folks need to rest in between hearing from us asking them to donate. What can you do? Please join us in praying these grants in and that God would do immeasurably more then we could ask or imagine to bring Molly home. We are faithful that God loves Molly more then we ever could and he will continue to provide to bring her home to us. God is able friends.. xo
 ( certainly if you feel led to give you can give through our site on the main page)

LOA!!!!!!!!

BIG, BIG, BIG news came today. We have our Letter of Acceptance from China which means we'll have Molly in our arms, our arms, WOW, probably by the end of the year! 8-12 weeks is the estimate. Christmas will derail us a little but if everything goes as planned we "might" could leave December 26 or 27th!!! I'll write more later but wanted to share this big news now. Requesting new video, pictures, measurements and questions tonight. Hopefully more exciting news to come! Please begin praying now for all the little details. Molly's heart to be prepared for this big change ahead, my sweet boys whom we're leaving behind ( have never even been away for a weekend..) our health and the Grants to come through to make up all the extra money we need here at the end! God is able!

Where are we in the process?

Hello faithful followers. Just checked out stats and since we started the 2-26-13 we've had 16K hits on our blog! Isn't that incredible? Things are going really well. We received our LID (Logged in date) and am now waiting on out LOA (letter of acceptance) from that we could travel in 2- 2 1/2 months! Our LID was 9-16-2013 and from then begins the wait. China was shut down for a Holiday last week but will resume this week as normal. We were OOT ( out of translation) before they shut down so hopefully soon, very soon we'll be LOA. Once we receive LOA we'll submit our 800 paperwork to immigration to bring Molly into the country then a few other steps like PDF and Article 5 pick up and drop off, TA ( Travel approval) and CA ( Consulate appointment). There is a slim chance we could have her by Christmas but not likely now. We don't have a peace about being away from the boys for Christmas and in China. Gotcha days are normally on Mondays so the only days to have her and be home by Christmas are December 2 or December 9th. If those don't work out hopefully we can leave right after Christmas or once the boys get back to school. As much as we'd love to have her here by Christmas, it's also not ideal for her to transition in at that time. Christmas, although I try to be as prepared as possible, it's still a busy, stressful time.. Ultimately we believe in God's perfect timing and know that she will come home in HIS perfect time, not ours... It does help to know she is being loved and well taken care of.  2 big prayer request are outlined below;
 It is a common practice in China to take the children back to the orphanage before their adoptive parents travel. As you can imagine this is very traumatic for the little ones who have come to know and love their adoptive parents. There is a small chance she "might" be able to stay where she is until we come and that is our big prayer right now..
 Secondly we do still have a ways to go with fundraising.. We have three big grants, possibly 4 out there that we hope and pray will work out for us. One did just deny us but said we could apply again, which we have. The information they had was not as up to date as it should have been and they wanted us to have 50% raised before they would help us, we have and so hopefully now they will help us. They will review on November 6th...

 Thank you for your prayers and your support, we'll also get another update with pics/videos/questions and measurements once we have an idea of travel time!! Woohoo!!!!