Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Traveling sooner than expected...

We got an exciting phone call today from our adoption agency, they received our Letter of Acceptance (LOA)! The original time frame given to us for receiving our LOA was 3-4 months, but things moved along quickly, as it has only been 39 days!

This means that China has accepted our application to adopt Jesse and we can now work on the last leg of our journey.  We, of course, have more paperwork that needs to be completed and we do not have travel dates yet. However, the agency speculates that we will travel around November 15th or December 6th.  This is many months earlier than we had expected and are caught a bit off guard, but God's timing is perfect. So, bring on the next set of paperwork and let's bring him home!

Thank you all for your prayer support.  We are specifically praying for Jesse's heart to soften and be open to accepting us as his new family and for God to comfort him as he grieves all of his losses.

Saturday, August 24, 2013

Happy Birthday, Jesse!

I will greatly rejoice in the Lord.  Isaiah 61:10

Today is Jesse's 6th birthday.  We are so excited to know that this is the last birthday we will spend apart from each other and the last one he will spend in China. We were able to celebrate with very special friends and sing happy birthday to Jesse and blow out 6 candles in honor of him.  

However, this was a day to reflect upon Jesse's mother and her choosing life for Jesse.  We are so thankful that she chose to bring him into this world and am sure she is mourning on this day, as she will never see Jesse again.  We pray that she can find peace in her decision to choose a better life for Jesse and get him to a safe place.  We do not know or understand all that Jesse has been through in his 6 years, but we are counting the days until we can record his life in our family photo albums!  

We are still waiting to get our Letter of Acceptance (LOA) from China, and are hoping to travel in February(ish) of 2014.  Thank you for your prayers and support for our little man in China.