Sunday, May 20, 2012
Lena sees her new family!
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Waiting and counting our blessings....
I just thought I'd write an update even though we don't really have any new news to share. We are really just in a waiting stage at this point. Today is day 39 in our wait for our LOA (Letter of Acceptance) from China. The average wait time for this LOA has been 90-100 days at this time. We are praying for a paperwork miracle to speed this up! Meanwhile, we have been working on our travel documents. The time frame from LOA received until travel is usually around 3 months. According to this time framework, we hope to travel around October. Fortunately, we know she is being well taken care of until we get there.
We have experienced many blessings during this process so far. First of all, we have been so blessed by the support of our friends and family. Our agency has been amazing to work with! Secondly, we received a grant from them which reduced our adoption program fee. They also lowered our agency fee, which was a big surprise! Because of these blessings, the majority of our overall remaining adoption fees consist of the mandatory China orphanage "donation" of $5000! Pretty awesome! We also, of course, have to pay for our travel expenses and 2 weeks of in-country expenses. As it turns out, our international adoption costs consist mainly of travel / and overseas expenses. This has been a pleasant surprise to us! God has indeed been making this possible once we stepped out in faith and said "yes." We are still waiting to hear from another grant we applied for and praying that it will come through.
Therefore, our only "fund-raiser" we are doing to help off-set the costs is our puzzle fundraiser. If you haven't read about it, I'll summarize: We have a puzzle that we are going to have hanging in Lena's room (pictured below). We are asking that our friends and family "purchase" a piece for $10 dollars. Each donor's name will be written on the back of the puzzle piece. We will preserve the puzzle with the names visible on the back to be a reminder of how so many people helped to bring Lena home to our family. Already, it has been such a blessing to us. Honestly, we are not extremely comfortable with "asking for money" from friends and family. Therefore, all the money we raise, will go directly to the China orphanage donation. Therefore, it not only is helping our family, but it is a way to help support many orphans who remain in China. If you would like to help, you can donate through the Paypal "Donate" button at the top of our page.
We have a couple recent pictures from China of our sweet girl. We are so blessed by the director of the children's home that is responsible for Lena, who sends me pictures periodically. She has been wonderful and we are so thankful for her! As our journey to Lena continues, we appreciate all your prayers and support.
Prayer requests: For our paperwork to be processed in a timely manner, for Lena's care and development while we are waiting, for Lena's foster parents, for Lena' birthmother, for the caregivers and children at the children's home where she spent her first year of life, for our travel arrangements to go smoothly, for Lena to adjust to our family and bond with us, and that our family will adjust well and embrace our "new normal."
Until next time...
We have experienced many blessings during this process so far. First of all, we have been so blessed by the support of our friends and family. Our agency has been amazing to work with! Secondly, we received a grant from them which reduced our adoption program fee. They also lowered our agency fee, which was a big surprise! Because of these blessings, the majority of our overall remaining adoption fees consist of the mandatory China orphanage "donation" of $5000! Pretty awesome! We also, of course, have to pay for our travel expenses and 2 weeks of in-country expenses. As it turns out, our international adoption costs consist mainly of travel / and overseas expenses. This has been a pleasant surprise to us! God has indeed been making this possible once we stepped out in faith and said "yes." We are still waiting to hear from another grant we applied for and praying that it will come through.
Therefore, our only "fund-raiser" we are doing to help off-set the costs is our puzzle fundraiser. If you haven't read about it, I'll summarize: We have a puzzle that we are going to have hanging in Lena's room (pictured below). We are asking that our friends and family "purchase" a piece for $10 dollars. Each donor's name will be written on the back of the puzzle piece. We will preserve the puzzle with the names visible on the back to be a reminder of how so many people helped to bring Lena home to our family. Already, it has been such a blessing to us. Honestly, we are not extremely comfortable with "asking for money" from friends and family. Therefore, all the money we raise, will go directly to the China orphanage donation. Therefore, it not only is helping our family, but it is a way to help support many orphans who remain in China. If you would like to help, you can donate through the Paypal "Donate" button at the top of our page.
We have a couple recent pictures from China of our sweet girl. We are so blessed by the director of the children's home that is responsible for Lena, who sends me pictures periodically. She has been wonderful and we are so thankful for her! As our journey to Lena continues, we appreciate all your prayers and support.
Prayer requests: For our paperwork to be processed in a timely manner, for Lena's care and development while we are waiting, for Lena's foster parents, for Lena' birthmother, for the caregivers and children at the children's home where she spent her first year of life, for our travel arrangements to go smoothly, for Lena to adjust to our family and bond with us, and that our family will adjust well and embrace our "new normal."
Until next time...
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