I have been reluctant to post about our current status because I want to tell you that we are DTC or LID, but we're close. Our I-797 should be at the Chinese Consulate today for authentication. Please pray that it comes back soon. We are hoping to have it back early next week as our agency sends off Dossiers to China on Fridays. I know that the last time we sent 12 documents we had them back in a week, and this is only 1 document, so we are hopeful. If not, we know that everything will happen in God's timing. I am really starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel. We started this journey back in August of 2010, and to have all the initial paperwork complete will be a welcome feeling. Please continue to pray for God's provision as we are now saving for travel, which some of you know can be the most expensive part.
In His service,
Brian
Friday, March 18, 2011
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Praise God! He Knows the End from the Beginning
...I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, 'My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure.' Isaiah 46:9-10
I am so thankful that I have a God who knows everything because He brought our attention to something that could caused a major set back in all our paperwork. Thursday, February 17th we sent our dossier to our Secretary of State to be certified. On Monday, February 2oth, Brian called the Secretary of State office to make sure they received our paperwork. The woman he spoke with said that she had received and certified the paperwork on friday and forwarded it to another office that was responsible for mailing it back to us. We were thrilled, except then she said that unfortunately one of the dossier papers was notarized by a Wisconsin notary and we would have to send this one single piece of paper to Wisconsin to be certified.
I couldn't believe it. I kept going over and over in my mind that I was sure all the notaries had been from Iowa... but I thought, "it is what it is" and depending on the the document we would have to send it on to Wisconsin or re-do the document and re-notarize it with an Iowa notary. Since this is our first adoption we weren't exactly sure how that would work so I contacted our adoption agency on Tuesday, February 21st, just to make sure that sending a document to Wisconsin for certification would be ok. She wrote me back that it was perfectly fine. Whew! Glad to hear that and then at the end of the email she wrote that we need to make sure our documents are less than six months old and if they are too old we would have to send them to the Chinese Embassy in Washington D.C. instead of the Chinese Consulate in Chicago. She said to contact her if we needed help sending the documents to D.C.
Why in the world would she mention anything about our documents being too old when I had only asked about the Wisconsin certification? Then I started thinking about the fact that we started gathering these documents in August and there may be some that are too old. So I called her to find out how to send the documents to the Chinese Embassy. In order to authenticate documents with the Chinese Consulate you first have to send them to the U.S. State Department to be certified and if you don't get a courier they could sit there for up to six weeks before you get them certified!! And I thought the Wisconsin certification was going to slow down the process! We decided that I could just send the documents that were older than six months. I took a look at the documents and realized that the six month expiration for our two oldest documents was Friday, February 25th!! We had 4 days to get our paperwork back from the Secretary of State and onto the Chinese Consulate in Chicago before the six month expiration.
We were told that the Chinese Consulate in Chicago is very particular about the expiration of the documents and they have been known to send back the whole dossier without authenticating a single thing if you are even close to the expiration date. We decided to go ahead and try to overnight the package to Chicago if we got it back in time from the Secretary of State. We believe we serve a mighty God and He wouldn't have drawn our attention to it if He didn't plan on getting all the documents authenticated. Brian checked the UPS tracking number for our dossier and we were supposed to receive that same day, Tuesday the 21st. Now we just had to hope that the document notarized from Wisconsin was not one of the documents that was too old since we still needed to send that one off to Wisconsin to be certified.
Brian left work at lunch to get a cashier's check from the bank for the Chinese Consulate so that we would have everything ready by the time the documents got here. As he was walking out of work he prayed to God that if He wanted to do a miracle that he would receive a text from me saying that UPS had already delivered the package so he could come home on his lunch break and take it to UPS to over night it. By the time he got to the car he received a text from me "UPS is here."
I opened the package to look over the documents to make sure they were all certified and to get them ready to send them on to the Chinese Consulate. I looked for the document with the Wisconsin notary. There was only one problem...there wasn't one. Every single document we had sent in had been certified!!
Brian got home, grabbed the paperwork, made copies for the consulate, and overnighted it to Chicago. They received it at 9:30 in the morning Wednesday, February 23rd, giving them at least two whole days to review, if not three counting Friday, before it expired. We had no doubt that all of our documents would be authenticated since the Lord went to such great lengths to make us aware of this problem. On Wednesday, March 2nd, we received our package from the consulate with all documents fully authenticated. We sent it on to our adoption agency and they are currently reviewing it before we are DTC (dossier to China).
Somehow the dossier expiration information had slipped through the cracks and we were not aware of it. Yet the Lord brought it to our attention by having the woman at the Secretary of State misinform us about one of our papers having a Wisconsin notarization, thereby causing me to email our adoption agency to check into that situation and the woman at our adoption agency was led by God to tell us to check our dossier documents expiration dates. If all of that hadn't happened, once receiving our dossier back from the Secretary of State, instead of sending it overnight on Tuesday we would have sent our paperwork ground to Chicago on Wednesday and it more than likely would have gotten to the consulate after the expiration date on Friday. I am so thankful that I serve a God who sees the end from the beginning and loves me enough not to keep it to Himself.
I am so thankful that I have a God who knows everything because He brought our attention to something that could caused a major set back in all our paperwork. Thursday, February 17th we sent our dossier to our Secretary of State to be certified. On Monday, February 2oth, Brian called the Secretary of State office to make sure they received our paperwork. The woman he spoke with said that she had received and certified the paperwork on friday and forwarded it to another office that was responsible for mailing it back to us. We were thrilled, except then she said that unfortunately one of the dossier papers was notarized by a Wisconsin notary and we would have to send this one single piece of paper to Wisconsin to be certified.
I couldn't believe it. I kept going over and over in my mind that I was sure all the notaries had been from Iowa... but I thought, "it is what it is" and depending on the the document we would have to send it on to Wisconsin or re-do the document and re-notarize it with an Iowa notary. Since this is our first adoption we weren't exactly sure how that would work so I contacted our adoption agency on Tuesday, February 21st, just to make sure that sending a document to Wisconsin for certification would be ok. She wrote me back that it was perfectly fine. Whew! Glad to hear that and then at the end of the email she wrote that we need to make sure our documents are less than six months old and if they are too old we would have to send them to the Chinese Embassy in Washington D.C. instead of the Chinese Consulate in Chicago. She said to contact her if we needed help sending the documents to D.C.
Why in the world would she mention anything about our documents being too old when I had only asked about the Wisconsin certification? Then I started thinking about the fact that we started gathering these documents in August and there may be some that are too old. So I called her to find out how to send the documents to the Chinese Embassy. In order to authenticate documents with the Chinese Consulate you first have to send them to the U.S. State Department to be certified and if you don't get a courier they could sit there for up to six weeks before you get them certified!! And I thought the Wisconsin certification was going to slow down the process! We decided that I could just send the documents that were older than six months. I took a look at the documents and realized that the six month expiration for our two oldest documents was Friday, February 25th!! We had 4 days to get our paperwork back from the Secretary of State and onto the Chinese Consulate in Chicago before the six month expiration.
We were told that the Chinese Consulate in Chicago is very particular about the expiration of the documents and they have been known to send back the whole dossier without authenticating a single thing if you are even close to the expiration date. We decided to go ahead and try to overnight the package to Chicago if we got it back in time from the Secretary of State. We believe we serve a mighty God and He wouldn't have drawn our attention to it if He didn't plan on getting all the documents authenticated. Brian checked the UPS tracking number for our dossier and we were supposed to receive that same day, Tuesday the 21st. Now we just had to hope that the document notarized from Wisconsin was not one of the documents that was too old since we still needed to send that one off to Wisconsin to be certified.
Brian left work at lunch to get a cashier's check from the bank for the Chinese Consulate so that we would have everything ready by the time the documents got here. As he was walking out of work he prayed to God that if He wanted to do a miracle that he would receive a text from me saying that UPS had already delivered the package so he could come home on his lunch break and take it to UPS to over night it. By the time he got to the car he received a text from me "UPS is here."
I opened the package to look over the documents to make sure they were all certified and to get them ready to send them on to the Chinese Consulate. I looked for the document with the Wisconsin notary. There was only one problem...there wasn't one. Every single document we had sent in had been certified!!
Brian got home, grabbed the paperwork, made copies for the consulate, and overnighted it to Chicago. They received it at 9:30 in the morning Wednesday, February 23rd, giving them at least two whole days to review, if not three counting Friday, before it expired. We had no doubt that all of our documents would be authenticated since the Lord went to such great lengths to make us aware of this problem. On Wednesday, March 2nd, we received our package from the consulate with all documents fully authenticated. We sent it on to our adoption agency and they are currently reviewing it before we are DTC (dossier to China).
Somehow the dossier expiration information had slipped through the cracks and we were not aware of it. Yet the Lord brought it to our attention by having the woman at the Secretary of State misinform us about one of our papers having a Wisconsin notarization, thereby causing me to email our adoption agency to check into that situation and the woman at our adoption agency was led by God to tell us to check our dossier documents expiration dates. If all of that hadn't happened, once receiving our dossier back from the Secretary of State, instead of sending it overnight on Tuesday we would have sent our paperwork ground to Chicago on Wednesday and it more than likely would have gotten to the consulate after the expiration date on Friday. I am so thankful that I serve a God who sees the end from the beginning and loves me enough not to keep it to Himself.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Dossier in Des Moines
Yesterday I sent the bulk of our dossier out to be state certified. It arrived in Des Moines this morning around 10:30am. Hopefully they can get through it and get it back to us soon so we can send it on to the Chinese Consulate. We still haven't received our I-797 but figured it was a good idea to get this part done in case we have any problems. That way we don't loose 3 weeks while we are waiting for our I-797.
Please pray for me as I am sharing our story at church tomorrow morning.
Brian
Please pray for me as I am sharing our story at church tomorrow morning.
Brian
Friday, February 11, 2011
Still Waiting
Quick update: We are still waiting on our I-797, the last piece of our dossier. We have our dossier all ready to go, in an envelope except this document. When I called the USCIS, they stated that they were working on a big backlog and it could be 60 days from the time our I-800a was received in TX, 12/29/2010. I know that this will all happen in God's timing, but I am really wanting to bring Josiah home. I had a dream last night that I was carrying him around the yard showing him some of the things around the house, and this made me want him home even more. It is hard to think that it may still be 6 months before we go, estimating 4-5 months from our log-in date, which will hopefully be sometime in March. Please pray that either the time goes by fast, or that some of those dates are moved up. There is a little boy on the other side of the world who wants a family, and the only thing that stands between him and us is time. Here is what one of our new friends Tina, who met Josiah in August, sent me a few weeks ago. This is what Josiah said to her:
"He pointed to a picture on the wall of a ship on some stormy seas in Harmony House. Other kids were crawling all over us, and for the most part, he never retaliated until provoked beyond what he could stand. He pointed to that picture and said, 'See that boat? My mommy and daddy are on that boat. The are taking a long time to come, but they are coming to pick me up."
Now if that doesn't make you want to fly halfway around the world just to hug him, I don't know what does. Josiah, we are coming and can't wait to get off that boat and hold you in our arms.
Brian
"He pointed to a picture on the wall of a ship on some stormy seas in Harmony House. Other kids were crawling all over us, and for the most part, he never retaliated until provoked beyond what he could stand. He pointed to that picture and said, 'See that boat? My mommy and daddy are on that boat. The are taking a long time to come, but they are coming to pick me up."
Now if that doesn't make you want to fly halfway around the world just to hug him, I don't know what does. Josiah, we are coming and can't wait to get off that boat and hold you in our arms.
Brian
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Fingerprinting complete!!
We had our USCIS fingerprinting appointment this morning at 9am and everything went great. We drove a total of 5 hours and it only took 10 minutes for our fingerprinting. Too bad there wasn't something closer. But to bring Josiah home, I would have flown to China and back to give my fingerprints if that was what was required. I just realized that I haven't put any new pictures of Josiah up recently, and believe me we have well over 100 pictures. So here you go:
Friday, January 21, 2011
You Shall Not Pervert Justice Due the Stranger
You shall not pervert justice due the stranger or the fatherless, nor take a widow's garment as a pledge. But you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore I command you to do this thing. (Deuteronomy 24:17-18)
Several weeks ago we began learning Chinese because we want to be able to communicate with Josiah once he becomes our son. We are learning as a family and collectively we are ready to begin lesson five, however Brian has been practicing on his own and he is somewhere around lesson 15. In order to practice the Chinese we have learned we decided to go to a Chinese restaurant and while we were there we met some very nice Chinese waitresses. For some reason after that first visit my dad kept wanting to take us there for dinner. We understand now that it was all a part of God's plan for us and for one of the waitresses that works there.
We began to form a friendship with this waitress who unfortunately speaks very little English, but somehow with our limited Chinese and her limited English we have been able to communicate fairly effectively. She told us her sons are going to be coming in February and she is hoping that we will be able to help them learn English. We told her that not only would we try to help them but that we would help her too if she wanted.
Her and her husband, who is a cook at the restaurant, have been living in America for 13 years and unfortunately have never met anyone or had enough time to learn very much English. They both work six days a week and have been trying to learn English out of a book. Not real helpful since you really have to be able to hear it. They said they have had some nice customers over the years who have helped them with a few words here and there, but they have had many more customers who have become angry with their limited English and have asked to speak to the manager to complain. What makes me even more angry is that over the years, while they have set up many different restaurants, they have been cheated out of their money and repeatedly exposed because of their lack of English. People saw their weakness and pounced. It saddens me to think that in the 13 years that they have been here they have not made any friends who were able to really take the time to help them with their English so that they would not be cheated.
We recently invited them over for dinner, although only Maggie was able to make it and she reciprocated the offer and invited us the next week to her house for dinner. They made us the most beautiful authentic Chinese Food for dinner. They had so very little in their apartment, which also happened to be in a very dangerous neighborhood, and yet they treated us like kings. Their home in China was by the sea, so our whole dinner was all seafood; crab, shrimp, two or three kinds of squid or maybe one was octopus, and it was all cooked in a soup at our table over a gas burner they set in the middle of the table. The soup had in it all kinds of vegetable I had never seen or heard of and these things called fish balls, where were about the most delicious thing I have ever tasted. They also made us chinese dumplings with pork and veggies in them which were also very delicious. They had so much food for us you would think they were feeding 12 people.
While we were there God showed us our purpose for being there. Maggie's husband asked Brian if he would be his translator as they were planning on opening a restaurant and they were afraid of being cheated. "Dishonest scales are an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is His delight." (Proverbs 11:1) God had sent us to tip the scales in their favor and bring justice to the stranger in the land. I have to say the most amazing thing about this though is that God does not do things by halves. God could have sent anyone who knew Chinese and English to help translate, but he sent the best possible help for them. Brian has a bachelor's degree in accounting, and a master's in business. Could anyone doubt God's love for those who are oppressed; the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow?
I read an article by Kerry Hasenbalg and in it she said, "God 'does not dwell in houses made with hands;' He dwells in those who believe." God's dwells in us so His love also dwells in us and we are to be His ambassadors, His hands and feet, to love those who are oppressed on His behalf. Jesus will one day say, "'Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.' Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?' And the King will answer and say to them, 'Assuredly I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.'" (Matthew 25:34-40)
I think there are a couple of things that are significant about the verses from Matthew that I hadn't noticed before. The first thing is that the people that Jesus identifies with, calling them His brethren, are those who are hungry, thirsty, strangers, naked, sick and in prison. The second thing is that "the righteous" are serving those who are hungry, thirsty, strangers, naked, sick and in prison without even realizing that they are serving God. Now that they have the love of God poured out in their hearts, they are reaching out to others based on a real love that they have for them, and not based on an obligation to do what God says or to somehow impress God with what they have done. I say this because we didn't realize that we were serving God in this situation until the very next day after our dinner with Maggie and her husband. We formed a friendship with them, found out about their story, they asked us to help and we said yes. The next morning the Lord opened my eyes and told me, "these are strangers in your land," and "I hate unjust scales," and "you have seen Jesus in them, you are serving Him." I melted into tears thanking God and praising Him for giving us this opportunity to serve Him.
Several weeks ago we began learning Chinese because we want to be able to communicate with Josiah once he becomes our son. We are learning as a family and collectively we are ready to begin lesson five, however Brian has been practicing on his own and he is somewhere around lesson 15. In order to practice the Chinese we have learned we decided to go to a Chinese restaurant and while we were there we met some very nice Chinese waitresses. For some reason after that first visit my dad kept wanting to take us there for dinner. We understand now that it was all a part of God's plan for us and for one of the waitresses that works there.
We began to form a friendship with this waitress who unfortunately speaks very little English, but somehow with our limited Chinese and her limited English we have been able to communicate fairly effectively. She told us her sons are going to be coming in February and she is hoping that we will be able to help them learn English. We told her that not only would we try to help them but that we would help her too if she wanted.
Her and her husband, who is a cook at the restaurant, have been living in America for 13 years and unfortunately have never met anyone or had enough time to learn very much English. They both work six days a week and have been trying to learn English out of a book. Not real helpful since you really have to be able to hear it. They said they have had some nice customers over the years who have helped them with a few words here and there, but they have had many more customers who have become angry with their limited English and have asked to speak to the manager to complain. What makes me even more angry is that over the years, while they have set up many different restaurants, they have been cheated out of their money and repeatedly exposed because of their lack of English. People saw their weakness and pounced. It saddens me to think that in the 13 years that they have been here they have not made any friends who were able to really take the time to help them with their English so that they would not be cheated.
We recently invited them over for dinner, although only Maggie was able to make it and she reciprocated the offer and invited us the next week to her house for dinner. They made us the most beautiful authentic Chinese Food for dinner. They had so very little in their apartment, which also happened to be in a very dangerous neighborhood, and yet they treated us like kings. Their home in China was by the sea, so our whole dinner was all seafood; crab, shrimp, two or three kinds of squid or maybe one was octopus, and it was all cooked in a soup at our table over a gas burner they set in the middle of the table. The soup had in it all kinds of vegetable I had never seen or heard of and these things called fish balls, where were about the most delicious thing I have ever tasted. They also made us chinese dumplings with pork and veggies in them which were also very delicious. They had so much food for us you would think they were feeding 12 people.
While we were there God showed us our purpose for being there. Maggie's husband asked Brian if he would be his translator as they were planning on opening a restaurant and they were afraid of being cheated. "Dishonest scales are an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is His delight." (Proverbs 11:1) God had sent us to tip the scales in their favor and bring justice to the stranger in the land. I have to say the most amazing thing about this though is that God does not do things by halves. God could have sent anyone who knew Chinese and English to help translate, but he sent the best possible help for them. Brian has a bachelor's degree in accounting, and a master's in business. Could anyone doubt God's love for those who are oppressed; the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow?
I read an article by Kerry Hasenbalg and in it she said, "God 'does not dwell in houses made with hands;' He dwells in those who believe." God's dwells in us so His love also dwells in us and we are to be His ambassadors, His hands and feet, to love those who are oppressed on His behalf. Jesus will one day say, "'Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.' Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?' And the King will answer and say to them, 'Assuredly I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.'" (Matthew 25:34-40)
I think there are a couple of things that are significant about the verses from Matthew that I hadn't noticed before. The first thing is that the people that Jesus identifies with, calling them His brethren, are those who are hungry, thirsty, strangers, naked, sick and in prison. The second thing is that "the righteous" are serving those who are hungry, thirsty, strangers, naked, sick and in prison without even realizing that they are serving God. Now that they have the love of God poured out in their hearts, they are reaching out to others based on a real love that they have for them, and not based on an obligation to do what God says or to somehow impress God with what they have done. I say this because we didn't realize that we were serving God in this situation until the very next day after our dinner with Maggie and her husband. We formed a friendship with them, found out about their story, they asked us to help and we said yes. The next morning the Lord opened my eyes and told me, "these are strangers in your land," and "I hate unjust scales," and "you have seen Jesus in them, you are serving Him." I melted into tears thanking God and praising Him for giving us this opportunity to serve Him.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Quick Update
Just wanted to provide a quick update as to where we are at in the process. We sent off our I-800a which was received by the USCIS on 12/29/10. When I sent them an email inquiring about our fingerprint appointment, they stated that it went out in the mail yesterday 1/18/11. I can't believe how long this process is taking, and believe me I know there are people out there that have taken years longer. It is hard knowing Josiah is over there in need of a family and we are dealing with paperwork here and it is looking like it wont be until August before we are able to even have a chance to go get him. I know that all things are going to happen in God's timing and I am ready for anything, but we love Josiah very much and can't hardly wait to hold him in our arms and bring him home to his new family. We also applied for the girls passports last week, which we should receive in about 4 weeks. Please keep praying that the Lord will provide the finances necessary to complete this adoption and that the time will go by quickly for all parties involved :) On a side note, we did apply to Show Hope for adoption assistance, so please be praying about that as well.
In His Service,
Brian
In His Service,
Brian
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