The beginning...

Our journey started last Spring as Mary began to look at Waiting Children lists yet again! This will be our 3rd trip to China in 27 months! Our first trip was for Juliana who is now 3 - her family day was 9/26/04 when they handed us a frail, cyanotic Yi Li Man at the Civil Affairs Office in Nanchang, Jiangxi. Two open heart surgeries later, Juls is vibrant and quite the chatterbox! All praise to the God who has prompted our hearts to adopt these lost children of China! Next, we traveled for Nathan FuJun, who is also now 3 (virtual twins that are just 2 weeks apart in age) - his family day was 8/21/05 at Langfang Children's Village near Beijing. We traveled to Nate's home province of Henan to do the adoption paperwork.

We are now on journey number 3 and so ready for Travel Approval (TA) to arrive! Sarabeth, Hong Jing Dong, is from Nanchang, Jiangxi and is 6 years old. We are using Heritage Adoption Services this time around (3rd agency in 3 adoptions). We sent LOI (letter of intent) 5/8; rec'd PA (preapproval) 6/12; were DTC (dossier to China) 8/9 and didn't get LID (log in date) until 9/5. We are now waiting for TA to arrive sometime next week!! Or so we've been told by our agency.

For those who may not know our family well, we have 6 children. Jeriah is 20 (domestic adop at age 4 days) who is an assistant/youth pastor while he continues to study at Faith Baptist Bible College. Caitlin is 14(bio) loves the piano and hopes to be a pilot someday. Grace is 12 (bio) and knows way too much trivia about Star Wars! Nathan and Juliana are both 3 as stated above. And we await the arrival of Sarabeth into our family!

Will blog more later! Follow us on our journey! Catch the adoption spirit! There are way too many children without a Mom and Dad in this world!!

Peace,
Mary