Wednesday, May 20, 2015

LOA Arrived, Paperwork Update, and Prayer Request

Our agency did receive the hard copy of our LOA on Monday (May 18th) and over night mailed it to us.  I already had a copy of it by email so I was able to send off our I-800 packet yesterday afternoon (May 19th) via over night mail to immigration.   Then when I got home and we were eating dinner, the doorbell rang!  The Fed Ex man thought he was going to get away with a drop and run, but we asked him if he'd be so kind to let us get a picture of him with the package since we've done this for Lena and Reid's LOA as well.  He was a good sport about it!  



We signed it, took a copy, and a few pictures of it and it went back out in the mail back to our agency today.



This morning we woke up to two pictures of Macie that were taken on April 27th.  
She is growing up and getting so big- I barely recognized her!  Except her eyes of course- I'd recognize them anywhere. ;) 



We could use some prayers too.  We wanted to keep this a bit of a secret, but at this point having more people praying is better than keeping a secret.  Back in the fall, our home study agency approved us to adopt two children.  If you know us well or have heard me talk about our home study agency, you'd know that this is HUGE!  They rarely approve families for two.  We did some extra paperwork for our placing agency and received approval from them and from immigration for two as well.  In December, we learned about a little girl who is from the very same orphanage our Macie is from.  Her orphanage said that her paperwork was done, but they thought she was still waiting for a family. I knew I had not advocated for her, but swore I had seen her before. I am pretty convinced it is possible to have dreamed about a child you have never seen or met.  We had our agency check on her status/file and they found out that her file had been lost (this has nothing to do with them and sadly, it does happen).  Her medicals had to be re-done.  So we waited...and waited...and waited some more.  We were told at the end of March that it would be very realistic that it would arrive to our agency in April.  April came and went.  In early May we learned that it was being translated and that it might take 2-3 weeks for that.  Today we found out that her province forgot to put a certain stamp on it that was necessary, so it had been sent back to them. You would think this would be a quick fix, but who knows. This girl has no idea how messed up her paperwork has been and how much a family has been thinking about her and praying for her.  There have been so many God signs that this child is to be ours. I hope to be able to share them with you at some point.  If you pray, please pray that God will move mountains for this girl's paperwork to finally be completed and to arrive at our agency.  We have been trying to guard our hearts, but also have been waiting patiently and faithfully. We believe this will work out, but can't help but to be getting nervous now that we have our LOA for Macie.  We have to submit a letter of intent for a second child before our travel approval for Macie comes.  Please pray that He would reveal His plan soon.  We know His plan is perfect!


Friday, May 15, 2015

We've Got BIG News!

So I realized I've neglected this blog for close to two months- that time flew by!  
We've got a lot of updates!

Starting where we left off:   Evan was not chosen to receive the grant he applied for, but he was in the group of front runners who were asked for more info- I was so proud of him for doing that!  He did well on his fundraiser and raised a little over $200.  Thank you to those who helped support his fundraiser- you are wonderful! :)

Our dossier went to China on March 18th. It took awhile, but on March 30th, we got our Log-In Date (LID).


We've been very busy filling out grant applications during the wait for our Letter of Approval and want to again thank those of you have written so many reference letters on our behalf..you know who you are! :)  We JUST received a 2nd matching grant and have decided to try another online auction on Facebook to raise some money to put towards this grant since our first auction was so successful!   It won't be as big as the last one, but it should be full of good stuff!   Part of it will be focused on finding the right gift for a dad in your life for Father's Day, but there will be things for you moms and for your kids too!  If you have an item/items you'd like to donate, feel free to let me know or send me a picture(s) of them and an approximate retail value if you know it. I'll unveil the link when I have it ready, but we hope to run the auction for five days, starting the morning of June 13th and ending in the evening on June 17th.  That should give us time to get any Father's Day gifts delivered in person or via the mail. We may move it up a day or two sooner if we are ready to go....more on that later!  

On to the best update!!!!!  We got a call from our agency today that our Letter of Approval (LOA) from China was in the computer system!  That is what adoptive parents would call the soft LOA.  For those of you who like numbers, that was 46 days from LID.  Not bad!  Better than our LOA wait for Lena of 71 days.  We'll technically have the LOA when it arrives to our agency, hopefully on Monday.  This means China has officially approved us to be the parents for Mei Hua!!!  
WE


Macie Brynn MeiHua Henningfeld!

YES!  You did see that right.  We finally have chosen and revealed a name for our sweet girl...now hopefully I don't change my mind on the name or the spelling...
It's been almost 5 months since we got this photo.  We are so excited to bring this precious treasure home and to love on her and teach her a language.  Lena is getting very anxious too!   Today we are one BIG step closer.  On to filling out more paperwork for immigration and a few things on the US end and then to the last China step...the wait for travel approval.  Normally I'd say we'd be in China about 2.5 months from now.  That may hold true, but there may be a bit of delay for us and for a very good reason, but we shall see.  That will be another story for another day.  Thank you for praying for and supporting our family and for praying for Macie too!