Monday, July 7, 2014

Waiting for Qiu Le...

We are waiting...  But as we wait, we are preparing.  When we receive our LOA (only God knows when that will be), we will send our sweet boy a care package.  With Maeli, we included a photo album with photos of our family and home to help her learn more about us.  This time, we are doing the same but compiling a photo book that Maeli and I are working on together.  I'm writing simple English sentences about our family and Maeli is translating them to Chinese so that hopefully someone at the orphanage, or even Qiu Le, can read them.  We can only imagine that "getting a family" is going to be overwhelming.  So we want him to know a little bit about each of us.  We are also including some photos of our extended family and our home to help him have an idea about what's to expect once he comes home.

Since in all ways possible we consider him to be family already, we wanted to include some family photos with him in them.  We are so thankful to have a friend who also happens to be a wonderful photographer.  He captured our family and our longing for Qiu Le perfectly.  We hope Qiu Le sees his photo and knows that he is already part of our family.  





The Waiting for You sign also says I Love You in Chinese.  We hope Qiu Le knows that even though distance may separate us now, that we still love and eagerly wait for him to join our family.












As we wait, we are comforted by God's promises to work this out for HIS good.  And although I am eager and longing to cross the ocean and bring our boy home now, we will wait for HIS timing...



Thursday, July 3, 2014

Something to Celebrate

Today I woke up to an email from our adoption agency:  Our dossier has been logged in!!!  Our paperwork arrived in China on Monday of this week and as of today, we are LID (logged in dossier).

Now our LOA wait begins...  This part of the process can take anywhere from 40-100 days.  Please pray that our LOA is issued early so that we can travel for our boy before Thanksgiving.  We expect to travel 8 weeks after LOA (if there are no glitches).  As we prepare our home and begin to purchase clothes and items he will need, my desire and longing to bring him home continues to grow.  Having a child grow in your heart is hard when you aren't in control of most of the process.  I pray he is safe, full, and happy.  I can't fathom what our little guy has been through over the past 8 years, but I know that we will love him fiercely and forever.  My heart wants to guard against the what if's, but my head knows the road is going to be tough.  We are so thankful to have family and friends that support us and are willing to walk this road alongside us.  Thank you for praying for Qiu Le and loving us BIG!