Gracious God

Our Lord has been abundantly gracious to us. We do not deserve His grace upon our lives, yet He continues to pour it out on our family. We are looking forward to this week of deep reflection of all He is for us.

We know He is also pouring His grace upon Maeve. We are encouraged knowing next year she will be spending Thanksgiving with us instead of her current situation. We are trying to remain confident in God's timing for each piece of paper needed for us to travel. We were to receive the next piece of paper on Monday and it did not arrive until yesterday....this means we are set back a week (due to the U.S. embassy being closed for Thanksgiving). We will not know until the last week or so if we will get to travel in January as anticipated (had we received the paper on Monday, January travel would be   a stronger possibility). They (the staff in China) will submit our paperwork (Article 5) to the embassy next Monday. We should receive our completed Article 5 on December 16th. We then wait for TA which allows us to enter China and complete Maeve's adoption.

This process is elaborate; however, if you would fervently pray for speedy paperwork we would appreciate it. Please continue to pray for Maeve: for God to soften and prepare her heart for a big change and for her to be well cared for until we reach her.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family!

Watching Her Play

We had a roller-coaster day in the adoption world Wednesday. We were informed that our paperwork, which should be with immigration in Kansas City,...is not. Please pray this will be sent ASAP and the officer will make a quick review of the paperwork.

About 5 minutes after receiving that email, we received......11 pictures and 4 video clips of Maeve! Unbelievable! We saw her playing and eating bread! Oh, how we are praying we can get to her quickly (with no more paperwork delays).  It was sweet, yet hard to see her...so close but not close enough. She has moved to another care facility. We would love to know what she has been through yet know we may never have answers.

*Our adoption agency is not allowing us to post these pictures and videos...however, if you want to come to our home and see them we would be happy to show you :)

Maren (as did all our children) got to see the pics and videos. She is processing "little Maeve,"as she calls her, in relation to her own story. Both girls have limb differences which draw people's stares and comments. Please pray for her heart to be comforted and filled by Jesus and for her identity to be found in Christ alone (not man's approval). For the first time, Maren has voiced her dislike for having a prosthetic leg. Please pray for guidance for us as we parent through the tough questions from our toddler regarding God's story in her life situation.

LOA

We are so thankful: our LOA arrived! We had just been told last week that most families were currently waiting 90-120 days for LOA...and then ours arrived at day 52 (the exact same timeframe as Maren's)! We know God has a timetable that surpasses all of ours! It was overnighted to us and delivered Friday. We then took it to Danial to sign and went to the post office to overnight LOA (plus about 30 pages of documentation)) to Texas (where immigration paperwork is sent). We now know we will travel in January or February; realistically leaving the U.S. on January 10th, but hopefully the 3rd if the rest of the paperwork were to move on target or early.

Adoption includes a massive paperwork trail. The rest of the paperwork trail to get to Maeve:

1) I-800 approval document: comes from U.S. immigration (typically 2 weeks from sending it to Texas).

2) Article 5: comes from the U.S. consulate in China (typically 3 weeks from I-800 approval document; however, currently they are taking longer to process).

3) TA (travel approval): comes from the Chinese government giving us approval that every single document is completed and processed and we can go get our sweet girl (typically takes 2 weeks from Article 5).

We will not know when we get to travel until approximately 10-15 days before we leave for China. Because of all the upcoming holidays in the U.S. there is a chance we could get bumped to February. Will you please join us in praying for quick processing of each of these 3 documents? We are trying to rest in God's will and sovereignty as the best plan (instead of our plan); however, there are times we fail.