The Crew

The Crew
Christina, Matthew, Joshua and Katie Grace XiHua

Thursday, September 30, 2010

JOSHUA IS 5!!


Happy Birthday to our sweet Joshua! He turned 5 years old yesterday. Joshua is our very busy, really talkative, super inquisitive and wonderfully creative little boy. He keeps us entertained with all of his thoughts and ideas. Life is never boring with Joshua around and I couldn't imagine one single day without his happy face! Thank you Lord for Joshua.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

WE HAVE SOME VERY EXCITING WORDS AND ACRONYMS TO SHARE!


Okay - Do these words below mean anything to you?

VIEW FILE
DR REVIEW
REQUEST MATCH
LOCKED IN
LOI
PA

These might not make total sense to my Taiwan adoption friends, but to the China adoption friends, they probably do. Just slightly different lingo.

We have a little girl from China that we are (barring any unforeseen circumstances) adopting!!!
Yes, I said China! We have sort of come full circle as we had originally first considered China. But when we had heard that the wait for China was up to 5 years, we pursued other options. At that time, we didn't understand what the Waiting Child/Special Needs program was all about. But in light of the loooong wait for Taiwan, we decided to look back at the China program, specifically the WC program and that is where we found the little special girl!

This has all come to pass in the past couple of weeks!

On 9/8/2010 - We requested her file. Although we are not logged into China, we could view her file because she had been waiting just over 30 days.

On 9/11 - We had our Dr. review her file.

On 9/16 - We asked to be matched.

On 9/17 - We were "locked in" with her by our agency.

On 9/18 - Our LOI (letter of intent) was received by the China.

On 9/21 - PA - We received pre- approval from China! It only took 3 days??!!

Now we have until mid December to complete our China home study, dossier, and I 800. So we will be scrambling to get all of that done.

We are very excited about this and of course, nothing is set in stone until she is in our arms. Or at least receiving our LOA (letter of approval) would be great. That probably won't be until January. Then travel would be a couple months after that, I am assuming.

Hopeful, happy news!

I cannot post a name or photo of this little precious sweetie. But she is 2 1/2 years old and so cute!! I can't wait to share more, but that is all for now.


Thursday, September 2, 2010

THE GOOD OF THE WAIT


I wanted to express some positive thoughts regarding our long wait. I am positive that the orphanage has the children's needs at the forefront of their plans, there is no question of that. And although the wait to adopt from Taiwan has become really long and families can be looking at 3 - 5 years for a match (less than 2 years ago, the wait was 6 - 12 months for a referral), let me share some positive possibilities of what that might mean for the orphaned children.

- It may mean that more birth moms are getting the support they need to be accepted in society when they have a child out of wedlock.

- It may mean that more birth parents are getting support in order to care for their child.

- It may mean that less children are being abandoned or relinquished.

- It may mean that more Taiwan local families are considering adoption as a positive thing and therefore the children remain in their birth country.

- It may mean more homes for the children who need them!

Isn't that what it is all about, really? Children having a home and family of their own?

Father to the fatherless, defender of widows — this is God, whose dwelling is holy. God places the lonely in families.

Psalms 68:5-6





Many hungry children near the boarder of Myanmar and Thailand-click on photo