Some Hopeful News!

We talked with our social worker this week. She was very hopeful that we will still be able to make the May 1st date. She told us that we do not have to be logged-in by May 1st, but that our dossier just has to be in China by May 1st. Tommy asked her about contacting our state senators to help, and she said that they have done that in AL to hurry things along before. One of our senators, Thad Cochran, is on a committee for Homeland Security which immigration services is under. His office is already beginning to work on hurrying our application through CIS! Yea!!!!

Also, more good news from Karla, our social worker: She believes that the new regulations starting in May will not keep us from adopting from China! She said that she believes that we will still be able to adopt even if we don’t meet the May 1st date. We will just have to send a letter from my doctor saying that I do not have signs of severe depression.

We are very encouraged by all of this good news! Thank you so much for your prayers! Please continue to pray for Rachel.

We have not been able to celebrate Chinese New Year this week because I am on day 3 of a BAD stomach virus. It’s been a miserable few days. Maybe we’ll celebrate next week just for fun.

PRAY! PRAY! PRAY!

Happy Chinese New Year! In China they are celebrating the new year from Feb. 18-24. I bought a few Chinese New Year ornaments at Hobby Lobby. We have Rachel’s Asian baby doll dressed in her Chinese New Year dress. (I’ll try to post a photo soon.)  The boys and I have been reading about the Chinese New Year celebrations in a book I have about Chinese holidays and celebrations. We plan to make some paper lanterns and have Chinese for supper one night. I haven’t decided yet whether I’m going to try to cook it or get take out. Our book has recipes, but I’m leaning toward take-out.

I apologize that I have not posted in so long. I’ve been waiting, hoping that I would have some news to post. Instead, we are still waiting…on our CIS approval. It has been 8 weeks today since the immigration office in Metairie received our home study. They are supposedly a fast office–we’ve heard even giving approval within 3-4 weeks.  So we need prayers, big time. Our window of opportunity to adopt from China is closing.

May 1st new adoption regulations will go into effect. One of these regulations is that adoptive parents cannot have taken any antidepressants within the past two years. Well, I’ve been on antidepressants for the past 6 years. If we do not get logged-in to the Chinese adoption system by May 1st, then we will not be able to adopt from China. So we REALLY need our CIS approval SOON! Once we get it we still have to get everything stamped at the Chinese Consulate in Houston which takes about 10 days and then send our dossier to China where it has to be translated. From what I’ve seen it takes about a month from the time the dossiers sent to China until you are given a log-in date. So we are really getting down to the wire as far as our time frame for being able to adopt.

I am strangely at peace with all of this. I think part of it is that I’ve been too busy to worry about it. We’ve prayed a lot about this, and we are just trying our best to trust God and His timing. We greatly appreciate your prayers on our behalf.

Another prayer request–next month a new list of special needs children comes out. I have been drawn to the idea of adopting a special needs child from the beginning. Tommy, as always, is lovingly concerned about any additional stress on me. But many of these children have easily correctable problems or problems that have already been corrected. If we choose to adopt a special needs child, we would have Rachel home significantly sooner and the cost is slightly less. Please pray that God will lead us in the direction we need to go.