Prayer request for a teensy baby

The grandson of Jill, a friend of ours from church is not doing well. He was born just a couple of weeks ago as a preemie and a twin. He has a serious blood infection. Please pray that God will heal his little (tiny!) body.

Happy Thursday!

Hope you all are having a great day. Not much new here. We are currently debating whether to hold off a week on sending our dossier to China so we can look at another agency's waiting child list on May 1. (We're hoping to have our dossier ready to go to China the week of April 16th or 23rd.) Once we send our dossier, we'll be locked into working exclusively with Great Wall. While we chose to do that a long time ago, we're wondering if we might hold off one week to give ourselves a chance to look at the waiting list for the agency that had Dang You Bin's file. It may not sound like a big deal but it seems like a week's difference in sending your dossier could result in a longer wait at the end for your referral. On the other hand, we could find our child on that list on May 1. Ah, decisions, decisions. Pray for us as we decide what to do.

Update! Dang You Bin found his family!

We are happy to report that the little boy in my previous post has been referred to a family! We are very excited about this news. Thanks to those of you who joined us in prayer over him and what role we might play in his life. It seems we were called on to lift him up in prayer, something we gladly did. Please pray that he has an easy transition and that God will prepare his new family to provide the love he (and every child!) deserves.

Prayers for a precious little boy

We found this little boy on a "waiting child" list and he stole our hearts. His name is Dang You Bin. He is listed as a special needs child because of a suspected demformity of his jaw. There are three families besides us who are interested in him. We were very happy to hear this. Regardless of which family becomes his "forever family," we have been moved by his sweet face and ask that you join us in praying over his young life.

Bulletin...Bulletin

This just in! Missy has won a regional Murrow award for a Hard News Feature she did entitled Debating Sex Education. WHOO-HOO!!! Her story now goes on to compete for a national Murrow.

Tell the government not to raise adoption form fees!

Our agency sent this out. Please take the time to respond on behalf of adopting families like us and ask the government NOT to raise our paperwork and fingerprinting fees. I've already sent my comments. I hope you'll do the same.

Dear Families and Adoption Professionals:

Fees are increasing at USCIS, and there is very little time left to voice our objection. The following is an outline on how the increase affects adoption and what we can do, as a group, to stop the increase. Please feel free to forward this message to any agency, listserv, group or individual who can help to eliminate the fee increases affecting adoption. We only have a week left to act on this.

Fee Increase Proposal

On February 1, 2007, USCIS published a Notice of Proposed Rule Making in the Federal Register that would substantially raise filing fees for most types of cases. If the proposed rule is adopted, filing fees would increase by an average of 66% over current fees. The proposed rule is subject to a 60-day comment period that ends on April 2, 2007. At the end of the comment period, USCIS will review and consider the comments it has received on its proposed rule. USCIS will then send its final proposal to the Office of Management and Budget for review. The OMB will make a final decision on the fee increase and issue the final rule.

Timing of Potential Increase

Fortunately, the “adjusted” fees will not take effect until the public has an opportunity to comment. The comment period is 60 days beginning February 1, 2007, and ending on April 2, 2007. The increase in fees should not become effective until June 2007 at the earliest.

Adoption-Related Petitions Affected by the Proposed Increase

Form
Petition Type
Current Fee
Proposed Fee
I-600/600A
Petition to Classify Orphan as an Immediate Relative
$ 545
$ 670
N-565
Application for Replacement of Certificate of Citizenship (used for name changes)
$ 220
$ 380
N-600
Application for Certificate of Citizenship
$ 255
$ 460

Biometric Services (fingerprints)
$ 70
$ 80
Together, Let’s Make a Difference!
Adoption is expensive enough already, and it is unconscionable to raise fees by up to 66% for adoption-related petitions. This can be fought, but it needs action by everyone in the adoption community. Please forward this e-mail on to anyone who would like to see the increase rejected. You action is needed quickly as we only have a week left to voice our objections.
Submit Your Comments to USCIS by April 2, 2007Anyone may comment on the proposed regulation. Those interested in commenting should take time to review the proposed regulation and formulate logical, potentially persuasive statements. Comments will be made public, as they will be posted as submitted at www.regulations.gov. One should NOT include any personal detail unless s/he is willing to share it freely. While no one likes prices to go up, simply complaining about the increase in costs is unlikely to have an impact.Comments must be received by April 2, 2007, and must reference the agency name (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services), as well as the docket number (USCIS-2006-0044). Comments may be submitted at http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main, the Federal Rulemaking Portal, or via mail or courier, in hardcopy, disk, or CD-ROM form to:
Director, Management DivisionU.S. Citizenship and Immigration ServicesDepartment of Homeland Security111 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, 3rd FloorWashington D.C. 20529
Conclusion Voicing your opinion makes you part of the democratic process, and this is how the U.S. government and legal systems are supposed to work. Although most of us hesitate to publicly comment, the government really does carefully consider the content of comments, as well as the sheer number of those responding. When USCIS introduced regulations to reduce the time for B-2 tourist visits from six months to 30 days, for example, there were more than 10,000 comments. That convinced the USCIS to shelve the proposal. Remember, the key is the QUANTITY of responses they get. It should not be difficult to get at least 10,000 of us to comment. Please take the time today to do this.

Whoo-hoo Weekend!

I'm ready for the weekend! Today started out sunny but it's now rainy. Blah! We are going to see a movie tonight. I'm not sure what we'll end up seeing. We have tickets to see Tuesdays with Morrie tomorrow night with our adoption friends from church (we need an official name for our group...LOL!). Before the show, we're going to our first meeting of the local group for families who have adopted or will adopt internationally. I'm excited to meet these families and learn from their experiences. Have a super Friday!

Storm Spotter Extraordinaire!

Yes, I am an official storm spotter!! I did a national story that aired yesterday on storm spotter training. And since I attended the entire storm spotter training session, I got a certificate. It was really interesting...and surprising that it's not always obvious when a tornado is about to form. We watched some cool videos of tornados by storm chasers.

Adoption update: We got most of our documents certified yesterday by the Secretary of State and got our birth and marriage certificates back from being authenticated! Slowly but surely we are getting things done. We hope to send our other documents for authentication tomorrow. Once that's done, we just have to wait for our federal paperwork and we'll be all set to send our dossier to China!! PRAISE THE LORD!!

A heartwarming story...

I'm a member of a local yahoo group about China adoption (I mostly read, I rarely post) and since there are no last names used in this story, I'm going to post it here. It's a very sweet reflection on adopting from China. Hope you enjoy it:

Today Kylah is 5! She is our first daughter adopted from China and opened my eyes to so much I had never known or seen before. What a blessing she has been in our lives. We started researching adopting in early 1999,and sent away for a packet from Childrens Hope shortly after. I remember the day it came in and I read how to prepare a dossier and was overwhelmed. It would be 2 years before we would pick that packet up again and start our adoption process. We were DTC (dossier to China) August of 2001 and received a referral Oct. 2 2002. At that point, 14 months to referral was unheard of up, the wait grew a little more than that over the months. When we received our referral in Oct we learned Yong Zhi Min was our daughter and that she lived in Yongzhou, Hunan and was born March 20 2002, the first day of Spring. Spring means new beginnings and that is what Kylah has brought into our lives. As you all know, we have brought two more daughters home from China since then and it often brings me back to how grateful I am that God planted the seed in my head back in 1999 while standing in line in a Build A Bear store in St. Louis on my oldest daughter Kaitlyn's 10th Birthday. We stood by a family who had just brought home a little one from China, and from that chance meeting our family has grown.

I am not an artist...but I play one on TV

I'm pretending to be artistic this weekend as I've begun assembling our photos for the dossier. You can submit up to 10. There are some minimum requirements and some "duh" instructions (like don't use photos with partially clothed people or alcoholic drinks) but basically you can be as creative as you want in selecting and displaying the photos. We browsed the craft shops today and I came away with enough scrapbook swag to create some nifty looking pages. We are going to photograph them so we can share them with everyone...once we send them off to China, we won't get to see them again! These are the photos the CCAA (Chinese officials) will use to match us with a child. Believe it or not, they actually try to find a child that looks like you. Our friends who are the regional reps for our adoption agency have one biological child, a Chinese daughter and are waiting to adopt their second Chinese daughter. Their first Chinese daughter, Reagan looks A LOT like the dad. Seriously!! They have similar eyes and facial features. They came to see Cinderella. After the show, he was holding Reagan and her little face was next to his. WOW! What a resemblance! Anyway, it's exciting to assemble our photos. After Friday's trip to KC, we started talking more about the nursery and decor. I also bought my first copy of Adoptive Families magazine. There was a great article in there about how you should start thinking like a couple that's expecting a baby...because you are!! How fabulous!

If you haven't yet, you should check out my sister's blog (link to the left). She's so good about posting photos and writing about her experiences in Thailand (Crystal--she got a kick out of your gecko comment!!). She's doing great. Brad and I sent her and her roommate an Easter Fun Pack, consisting mainly of chocolates. Wendy is convinced they're going to melt. We are fairly confident they'll be fine. We'll see!

Hope you are having a super weekend!! oxox

Back from KC

We had a great time in KC today. The visit to the CIS office was quite uneventful. There were only a few people there besides us. We went through a metal detector, presented our paperwork, then took a number to be fingerprinted. The fingerprinting was done electronically. That consists of wetting and drying your fingertips in an effort to get just the right amount of moisture on them to make for a good print.

We're hoping it takes no more than 4 weeks to get our paperwork back. We've heard that's the expected wait time these days. It's great news because as soon as we get this form, we'll be ready to submit our dossier. Whoo-hoo!

Before and after the CIS visit, we went to Cheesecake Factory. Pre-CIS, we split tex mex eggrolls and each had a chopped salad. We returned in the afternoon post-CIS for Brad to try the Tres Leches cheesecake. My mom made Tres Leches cake at Christmas and Brad was in love with it. Brad said the cheesecake was good but not as good as my mom's cake. I thought it was ok. I like something with a little chocolate myself. Here are a couple of photos of Missy today taken by Brad's cell phone camera outside Cheesecake Factory:

The Lily Advent

As I was enjoying myself in Jacksonville this week, Missy sent me an e-mail in which GWCA described the likely waiting time for applications coming in: at least 18 months, likely longer, as people rush to beat the May 1 deadline.

But it occurred to me that that period, however long it ends up being, will be a time of preparation, both in terms of our parenting skills, our home as well as our hearts and mind. That led me to describing it as the Lily Advent. In Sunday School, we've studied a book called "Manger and Mystery - An Advent Adventure." It's an Advent study, meant to rekindle the "reasons for the season." I'll just quote here from the first chapter:

The dictionary defines the word adventure as "a bold undertaking, in which hazards are to be encountered," "a remarkable occurrence in one's personal history," "a stirring experience." An Advent adventure is a risky and bold undertaking and, at the same time, a remarkable and stirring experience. It invites us to be awake, to expose ourselves to uncertainty about our destination. To welcome the surprises that unfold, to hear the old story in new ways, to look at traditional symbols through open eyes and hearts. To journey deeply through the season, wrapping our timeworn customs in new expectations.

Proud Mary

I had the chance this week to interview Mary Wilson of the Supremes (that's THE Supremes, as in Diana Ross). She was at the state capitol to testify for a bill designed to crack down on imposter Supremes. Apparently, there are lots of groups traveling around claiming to be the original Supremes. Anyway, she's like in her 60's. As you can see, she's absolutely gorgeous. She was also very gracious with her time in talking with me. She even sang a snippet of "Stop! In the Name of Love" for my story! What a lady! That's me, my graduate assistant, Mike and Mary in the bottom photo.

Brad is getting back late tonight from Florida. He has decided that I get to go with him next year. I'm not bitter about him leaving me behind in the rain and cold of Missouri this year while he frolicked in the warm, sandy surf on an island outside of Jacksonville...no, I'm not bitter at all.I just arranged to meet a friend for dinner and a movie at our arthouse cinema before getting Brad from the airport. Should be a blast! Hope you all have a super weekend!

Home Study Approved

I got an email this morning saying our home study has been approved by Great Wall. That means we just have to get the notarized copies and we're all set for our trip to Kansas City on March 16th. Brad left this morning for a business trip to Florida (poor baby!). Don't know what I'm going to do this week with all my "free time." I was excited to find out yesterday that The Painted Veil will be showing at the local cinema that shows arthouse films later this month. Whoo-hoo! Brad has already agreed to take me to see it again.

I talked to Weedy yesterday while she was at JFK waiting to board Singapore Air for the longest leg of her trip. She should arrive in Singapore this evening at 7:00PM EST and she'll get to Chiang Mai around 11:30PM EST. She said she'd call me when she arrives to let me know she got there.

Hope you're having a great Tuesday!

Feeling better

Thanks to everyone for the well wishes. I'm feeling better and I'm back at work today. After checking the website this morning, I discovered I was able to book an appointment with CIS in Kansas City on Friday, March 16. Whew! That date works much better for both Brad and me. So, that will be our date for sure. I guess they don't let you book more than two weeks in advance which is why the 16th wasn't an option yesterday when I was on their website.

I got the sweetest email from our regional reps with Great Wall. They came to see Cinderella and brought their two daughters: one biological, Ryleigh and one adopted from China, Reagan. Here's what the mom wrote:

"Ryleigh was so proud of her picture from Cinderella- she took it to church Sunday and to school on Monday! We can't thank you enough for the tickets, it was so much fun! Funny thing, too, the lady that sat in front of us has a daughter that went to preschool with Ryleigh one year and she didn't know we had Reagan. She asked us all about it and then ended up requesting an info packet from GWCA! It's so funny how things work out! I don't know how serious she was, but I was thinking about what a cool thing that would be if they ended up with a baby from China after we were there because of Reagan and Lily. I love fate! And how God puts the right people in our path at the right time!"

Isn't that the truth?!?! God does put the right people in our path at the right time. I'm so thankful for all of you.