I still can’t believe all that has happened this week! Really, in just 4 days. Tuesday we received our I-800 in the mail. This is the approval that says Yan Xin Chun will qualify as an adoptee under the Immigration and Nationality Act. With that information, we then emailed off for our adoption letter…which was told would take 4-7 days to receive. We received it the next day! This is issued by the National Visa Center and is the last document that tells the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou that our eligibility to adopt has been determined. All very formal and official, but all I needed off of these forms was a number that I could then input into the next application, the DS-260. This is required to then get our Article 5. On Thursday, Holt’s staff in Beijing sent our paperwork to the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou which is called the Article 5 drop off. This was HUGE! (insert happy dance here!!) Since the steps happened so quickly this week, and not over the next 3 weeks, we were able to get our Article 5 in before the Chinese New Year closures! We then count 10 business days forward when we will receive our Article 5 pick up. This lets the CCCWA (China Center for Children’s Welfare and Adoption) know that thus far we have met all U.S. government requirements of our adoption and it asks them to issue our TRAVEL APPROVAL!! Once we get TA, we can book our flights to China.
This quick turnaround does not mean we will travel sooner than expected. BUT it does mean we can book flights 4 weeks out from our travel instead of just 2 weeks, which will hopefully give us a better price on flights. If we had gotten bumped to traveling in April, our travel expenses would have been almost doubled due to a trade fair that is in China that week! Thank you Lord for your great plans! It also means we will have a few weeks where we won’t have paperwork to do and can spend our energy preparing for this trip and spending more time with our kiddos before leaving. Our travel advisor through Holt said it is pretty certain we will leave around March 17th, and the day we will meet Gracie will be Monday, March 21st!! Just less than 8 weeks away.
Speaking of kiddos, Emma will be traveling with us to China. We received her passport in the mail Tuesday and mailed all of our passports out to get our Visas. She has wanted to go ever since we told them about adopting. We knew she could make the trip, as it is difficult and not a vacation. We knew it would be a very hard trip for the boys to make, especially with William’s sensory issues and Jonathan’s age. We would truly love to take all of our kids, but knew we would need more adults traveling with us to help. We also considered me going alone or with a friend. We just couldn’t figure out how it was all going to work but we knew it was God who had brought us this far. The Lord made it very clear to us once we received Gracie’s referral. On his own, William came to us and said he really did not want to travel that far. We asked him why, and he pointed out several things he knew would be hard for him and some sensory things he did not want to experience…things that I hadn’t even thought about! I am so very proud of him that he was able to vocalize all he did about his feelings. The Lord has worked this out better than I could have imaged. This has been another great testimony of His great love for us. He is in full control and what He has planned is far better than what we can come up with on our own.
“It is the Lord who goes before you. He will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.” Deuteronomy 31:8
This quick turnaround does not mean we will travel sooner than expected. BUT it does mean we can book flights 4 weeks out from our travel instead of just 2 weeks, which will hopefully give us a better price on flights. If we had gotten bumped to traveling in April, our travel expenses would have been almost doubled due to a trade fair that is in China that week! Thank you Lord for your great plans! It also means we will have a few weeks where we won’t have paperwork to do and can spend our energy preparing for this trip and spending more time with our kiddos before leaving. Our travel advisor through Holt said it is pretty certain we will leave around March 17th, and the day we will meet Gracie will be Monday, March 21st!! Just less than 8 weeks away.
Speaking of kiddos, Emma will be traveling with us to China. We received her passport in the mail Tuesday and mailed all of our passports out to get our Visas. She has wanted to go ever since we told them about adopting. We knew she could make the trip, as it is difficult and not a vacation. We knew it would be a very hard trip for the boys to make, especially with William’s sensory issues and Jonathan’s age. We would truly love to take all of our kids, but knew we would need more adults traveling with us to help. We also considered me going alone or with a friend. We just couldn’t figure out how it was all going to work but we knew it was God who had brought us this far. The Lord made it very clear to us once we received Gracie’s referral. On his own, William came to us and said he really did not want to travel that far. We asked him why, and he pointed out several things he knew would be hard for him and some sensory things he did not want to experience…things that I hadn’t even thought about! I am so very proud of him that he was able to vocalize all he did about his feelings. The Lord has worked this out better than I could have imaged. This has been another great testimony of His great love for us. He is in full control and what He has planned is far better than what we can come up with on our own.
“It is the Lord who goes before you. He will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.” Deuteronomy 31:8