Wednesday, February 12, 2014

The Lord has done this and it is marvelous in our eyes Psalm 118:23

So much to catch up on!! The last month (or 3!!) has been a blur of activity and happenings in the Porter house. Lots of exciting news!
 
First, as of December 2013, our adoption is FULLY FUNDED!!! WOOHOOOO!!! Praise the Lord!! When we started this journey, just about a year ago right now, we knew without a doubt that God was leading us to this, but we had no idea how we would pay for it. We both have good jobs and are in no way struggling to provide for our family, but we certainly did not have an extra $35K just lying around! We stepped out in faith knowing that if God was truly calling us to this, he would be faithful...and he truly has!!  We used savings to start the process and we were blessed to receive 4 grants that took care of over a third of the cost. The rest we raised. Through purchasing cookie dough, eating at Chick-fil-a, giving us your old stuff for our huge yardsale and donating generously to our Both Hands project, YOU helped us get here. We cannot express our gratitude enough. Seeing God's provision and perfect timing in our funding along the way strengthened our faith and humbled us.


On January 3rd we received word that China had issued our Letter of Acceptance (LOA). This is the big important document that leads into the final leg of the process. We had to wait for it to come via FedEx from our agency and then sign and return it to them so that they could send it back to China.  After this, we applied to United States Custom and Immigration Services to allow us to bring Caleb into the US as a citizen. That was approved on January 28th. Steve and I also obtained our travel visas in January. On Monday of this week, after China re-opened from their week long New Years festivities, our paperwork was dropped off in China to get Caleb a visa to leave China and enter the US. This typically takes about two weeks but we've been told it could be slightly delayed due to the back log from being closed for their holiday. After that process is complete, we wait a few weeks for travel approval! It is feasible that we could have that travel approval in a month or a little more! We are planning for travel at the very end of March or the early part of April!

We are finished with adoption paperwork until we are in China finalizing the adoption! The next task we will have is to book our flights! While we are waiting, we have a massive amount of training we are doing before we can travel. Our agency requires 9.5 hours of online video training and then a workbook from each of us. This is really excellent training about taking care of these precious kids that have had such a rough start in life. It is intimidating and it feels like a lot of work (it doesn't feel like we are done with adoption paper work with all this to do!!) but we know it is vital that we are prepared for what we may face and how different this will be than when we welcomed our "bio" kids into our family.


Yesterday, we received our final update and pictures! This included his current height, weight and foot length so that we know what to pack for him! We also found at this time, that he is in a group foster home in Beijing! This is great news! It is a foster home run by Christians and has an excellent reputation. Though it is still a group home and not a family type situation, they have much smaller caregiver to child ratios (1:2) than the orphanages. Also, this gave us additional information on him and additional pictures through their website! Another mom from our agency's facebook group recently adopted a girl that had been at this foster home and she was able to visit it when she was in China. She had wonderful things to say!


I love the attentive look on his face as he plays!!

We have been busy in our home this month preparing for his homecoming! We moved my office out of the fourth bedroom and into the basement and converted it into a nursery! It was a lot of work, but oh so much fun to see it nearing completion! We still have a few details to finish up, but our boy is coming home to a panda bear themed nursery! While we were at it, we decided to paint and redecorate our bedroom and upstairs hallway as well.




Look closely...do you see what he is looking at?? This was the BEST treat!! Last night we got pictures from the foster home of him looking at the family photo album we sent him!!!


This one really choked me up. He's staring at his brother and sister!!!



His nannies are telling him that we are his family and that we are coming!! I know he is so small, but I can't tell you what it means to me to know this!!! My sweet sweet boy is being told that he has a family! In a few weeks, he will be in our arms. Forever! What a miracle!

The Lord has indeed done this and it is marvelous in our eyes!!