One Last Fundraiser, Friends!

As we wait on Jack's immigration approval, submit our visa paperwork, and do general travel reading/prep, we are also working on one last fundraiser!  God has graciously provided for us all along the way and now we only have $5k more to raise (praise him!!).  We have really loved seeing God provide the funds and it has encouraged us so much to have our community come around us and cheerfully give to help us bring our son home.  Thank you for your sweet generosity!  So, what is our last fundraiser....

We are going to be doing an online auction!  The plan is to have it in October.  It will last one week.  What we need your help with now is collecting donations.  We have been working at night, contacting folks that we know (and many that we don't) that might be willing to help.  We've gotten some really great donations- but we need more!  We are asking our fellow travelers along this adoption journey to put on their thinking caps and help us come up with some new donations.  Here are the categories we are looking for:

Vacation packages: know anyone that has a rental property at the beach, a timeshare, or access to a vacation property that is used for promotional purposes?  This would be HUGE.

Restaurant Gift Cards: everyone can help with this- just ask the owner/manager at your favorite restaurant if they would be willing to donate a gift card to the auction.  These always sell very well, and would really help!

Sports apparel/memorabilia:  have a signed basketball, signed jersey, or collection of bobble-heads you'd like to donate?  Do you have a connection with a famous college or pro athlete that might be willing to sign something for us?  

Tickets: we are looking for tickets to all kinds of events: football games, basketball games, Broadway shows at DPAC or Raleigh Memorial, movies, concerts....anything would be great!  NC State, UNC, Duke....bring it on!

Services: looking for local businesses to donate some of there services- could be a carpet cleaner, masseuse, home cleaner, auto detail shop....anything! Do you have any connections here?

Gift Packages: do you know any small business owners that would donate a small package from their store?  Could be a bakery, florist, decor.  

Crafts/Jewelry/Etsy/Art type stuff: know someone really talented?  See if they'll donate something for the auction!

Do any of those ring a bell?  We'd love to hear from you!  We hope to get this auction in front of a lot of people so this would be great advertising - a great way to get some visibility for your company.

We're excited and can't wait to share with you the fun things donated already!

His name will be...

Jack Stephen Harmon

Jack means "God is gracious."  This is grace - that we, who deserve nothing from God, have been given everything by him.  It is God calling us his own, calling us dearly loved.  It is Jesus living a perfect life yet suffering all the consequences we deserved in order to pay the price for us.  We pray for Jack that as he learns about who God is, he would see God's gracious hand in his life from the moment he was born. (By the way, if these words about what grace is sound strange to you or you have never heard things like it before, please talk to us about it. We'd love to talk!)

Stephen.  The story of Stephen is in Acts 6 & 7.  Stephen was a man full of faith in God's grace.  Stephen knew God well, knew the acts of God through history, and believed it until death.  There is another Stephen, too, that is part of why we would give our son this name.  Stephen Smallman was our pastor for a short time when our church was having trouble.  He patiently loved on us and our small church in a way that strengthened our faith and our church.  Two Stephens we hope our son will learn about and aim to be like.  Two Stephens we want to be more like ourselves.

So, let us re-introduce you to our son by his name this time.  

Say hello to Jack!

The Girls

This was the day we took the girls to get their passports.  It was back in May.  Since then, their passports have come in the mail and now they are about to be sent back out again to get Chinese Visas in them.  We are taking Leah and Molly with us when we go to China.  Daniel is staying on American soil. He'll stay with grandparents and a couple nights at some friends houses - he'll have a blast.  It will rip my heart out to get on a plane without him.  It will take Jesus giving me strength just to get me to the airplane without him.... but that isn't what this blog post is about.

This post is to address the fact that our girls are coming with us to China!  We are so excited we will have them with us.  This decision is different for every family.  Some decide not to take any of their kids and some take them all (even the littlest ones).  After much thought, discussion, and prayer, this is what we decided for our family.

We want the girls to see where their brother has been.  Maybe one day they will be able to tell him about their memories from that place.  We hope it will help them to bond with him and connect with him to see his history.  We think it may be good for him that they are with us, too.  He will be coming from a place of many kids and it may be helpful to have the girls with us to ease that transition a little bit.

Another reason we are taking them is that we want them to see China - a very beautiful and different place.  We want them to hear the Chinese language, taste the Chinese food, see the Chinese buildings.   We want this place to be more than just a place on the map for them.

But most of all, we want them to know God as bigger than just their "normal" experience of him.  We want them to see him at work.  We want to talk to them about visiting orphans in their affliction (James 1:27) and then actually do that with them.  We want their faith to be deepened by an experience of a God who goes beyond cultures.  We pray that God works in their hearts deeply during this trip!

Will it be a harder trip to have them with us?  Yes!  It will require more patience and more money (we are not raising funds for this as we feel we should pay for this part), but the benefits of it make it worth it.

We can't wait!  

What's Next?

Getting our LOA means that China approves of us adopting our son.  It means that they have read over our dossier and everything looks okay to them.  This is hugely exciting because it means we are so much closer to getting him home!  We waited 95 days for our LOA, the longest wait in our whole adoption process so far.  Our agency received our LOA on Monday. They sent it over-night to us so it arrived to our house on Tuesday (also my birthday - that's the sweetness of God, y'all).

We have to check that "we accept the adoptee" or "we cannot accept the adoptee" and sign our names.  We accept!  We accept with glad hearts!  

We have several pieces of paperwork to gather and then we will over-night our signed LOA and other paperwork back to our agency.  They will return it to China for us.

They will also submit our paperwork to USCIS (US Central Immigration Service) and we will wait for approval from them that our son can immigrate.  If we get this approval (we should) then he will become an American citizen as soon as our plane lands from China.

Then we wait for our Article 5, Travel Approval, and Consulate Appointment.  More details on those things when they are closer.  Don't want to make your head spin too much in one blog post.

Meanwhile, we are also applying for Chinese Visas. We can't travel without them.  I'm at the very beginning of this intimidating process.  Lots of forms and procedures to follow.  (All worth it to get my boy home, though.)

So.... 

When do we expect to travel?

Early/mid December!!

It is possible that things could move faster, so we are considering all of that now as we plan ahead.  But it looks like our son should be home before Christmas!

Letter of Acceptance

We got it!  More details on what comes next, when we expect to travel, and our son's name coming soon!

90 Days

The phone rang today. I saw that it as an Alabama number.  I've been waiting for a call from an Alabama number for weeks (our agency is based in Alabama). Waiting for news regarding our LOA.  The last I heard, our dossier was still being translated into Chinese.  And that translation started 90 days ago.  90 days.  So this morning I saw the Alabama number on my phone, my heart leaped, and I answered.  

There is good news, she said.  Long story short, our dossier has not only been translated.... it has also been reviewed and matched.  My understanding is that this means we essentially have our approval. We are just waiting on getting the actual LOA hard copy!  And that should come soon.  "I'm not going to cry" I said to her as I was getting all choked up.  I had been praying our dossier would just finish translation this week. God did abundantly more than that.  He did what I thought wasn't possible.

So, August you may end up bringing us our LOA afterall.  And I am praising God for that!

Chinese Class

 The girls have been taking a Chinese class this summer.  There were only four classes (and they missed one of them), but even with such a short time it was neat to see them learn some words.  The class was half language and half culture.  They made a Chinese dragon, did Chinese paper cutting, and on the last day made Chinese dumplings ("jiaozi").  

 They also had some egg rolls and a traditional pork dish ("lu rou fan") over rice for us to taste. 

 Cooked dumplings - so so yummy!

 This is Chinese candy that is kind of like a wafer and it is wrapped in seaweed.  Not a favorite with my girls but they did try it. :)

Leah with Sunny ("laoshi" = teacher in Chinese)

I loved this experience for my girls and hope to do it again soon!