Immanuel Needs a Miracle

When I started this journey three years ago, I called this my faith adoption thinking I would name the little girl I would adopt something that meant faith. Boy, was I wrong. Pun intended. This has been an adoption testing my faith at every turn. Folks who've been on this journey with me  know the long hours I have put in to raise funds via work, selling Tupperware, making crafts to sell at bazaars, and my fundraising efforts through organizations such as Reece's Rainbow, Go Fund Me, and Bonfire funds. People have graciously donated to both of the first two funds for which I am forever grateful. I've applied for foundation grants and was very, very grateful to receive one grant which will cover a third of the mandatory orphanage donation fee.

Immanuel needs a miracle now.  Funding fell through for my plane tickets--there's a long story there of what happened and didn't happen while I was dealing with a crisis due to actions of a bus driver at my kids' school. Airplane tickets now are $2700 and above, and rising.  I have to get to China by December 28th. There's no budge room, not even a little. I have to get Immanuel on December 30th or he loses his chance for a family forever. This weekend, when I should be making final preparations, cleaning house, and finishing up stuff from work,  I am now in crisis for this child. I am his last hope. I cannot, will not, let him down.

Donations to either Reece's Rainbow or Go Fund Me are needed now. Word needs to be spread beyond the base of folks following the journey here and on FB. Make Immanuel's dream of a family come true this Christmas.

Ginger on a Mission

So incredibly grateful for this support! You have got to go check out their designs! So beautiful! Thank you thank you thank you!

 

Ginger on a Mission is feeling lead to help a specific family racing against time and would like to donate 75% of our sales to the Terry Tomaszewski family as they need to get their aging out boy by January 1st! This is a desperate situation as in Immanuel's country, he will lose his chance to be adopted on that date!

Please consider donating or purchasing from our site: https://www.etsy.com/shop/GINGERONAMISSION and specify the Tomaszewski family. Read their story here: http://reecesrainbow.org/67597/sponsortomaszewski

 

 

Little bits of this and that

We received article 5 approval this week. Travel has been pushed back to December 26th with a potential consular appointment on December 30th, the last day we can possibly go. It is both a relief that the date has been pushed back and a worry since there won't be any budget room. Fundraising from all sources has jumped to nearly $2,000 for which we are extremely grateful and thankful. I'll get to work a regular work schedule for the next two weeks--weather permitting.

Got to wondering about slacks, socks, shoes, and gloves/mittens for our boy. Are there companies which make apparel for children who have limb and digital differences?

Hope you all rest easy this night in peace and comfort, and may that peace and comfort be extended to those without.

We need it now, Chihuahuas in the street, and a wild ride

If you've been following my blog for a while, you have already come to the conclusion that I will get my elbow stuck in a tuba case once in a while. Okay that one really didn't happen to me. I just heard about it. But it could have happened to me.

You see Janet, it's this way (time to run and hide this signals long, impossible or headshake producing stories that actually happened-- to me.):

 Just before work a little over a week ago, I got notice of LSC receipt--early (And hooray too, the folks over in China rock! Very grateful to them. Very.). Only problem was, I was just going in the door to work, 15 miles away from my computer and the needed paperwork with no way to extricate it or get to it in anything resembling the near future. Paperwork needed now. Now. And by the by, can you get it notarized? Cleared my schedule to get the needed paperwork out the door and on its way. Almost. Meanwhile, there were Chihuahuas running in the street, bicyclists jumping out from between moving cars and one and all trying to get me to hit them. Didn't work. I made it through the gauntlet. Docs out the door and overnighted, hah!

Or so I thought. Phone call the next day: you forgot the I-864. Horrors! No, really.  The I-800 can't go in without the I-864. It just can't. It's a permission and the I-800 will just sit there, smiling on someone's desk just as if it had good sense. Or worse. It will sit in the lock box. No one really knows what the lock box is. Well, it's probably a box and has a lock on it...or maybe not. Your assigned officer cannot go get documents out of the lock box. Not even if you beg and promise to be good or say pretty please with sugar on top. I'm not sure if the supervisors can either. This is a Fort Knox kind of thing. Procedures have to be followed. I imagine a kind of Mission Impossible sort of scenario.

Phone call continues: The signed LSC copy sent back immediately--we need the original signed and dated, not just a photocopy as you'd been told.  Send both back together. A day's delay. Not good. Not good at all. There's so little time. That was Friday. Saturday, no document. Okay, it will still get there in time if sent next-day delivery on Monday. No document Monday morning. No document Monday noon, Monday afternoon, and no document Monday evening. I'm going bonkers at this point.  I call and email my case manager even though I know she won't get the messages until the next day.

I can't sleep. I'm eating chocolate nuked with peanut butter like there's no tomorrow. Try it!! It is way better than a chocolate confection made with those ingredients from the store. Make sure to use dark chocolate and don't burn it. The pieces will still have their shape, they don't have to be liquid. Add Adams peanut butter about two huge spoonfuls. After nuking, not before. About one minute in the microwave. And you'll have bliss. As long as the pyrex measuring cup doesn't explode. That didn't happen--this time.

(Note: Nothing worse than burned chocolate....well, maybe cat pee in the toaster or on a hot stove top. That is truly awful. Truly. Toaster cat exhibited either great talent or sneakiness and cunning beyond belief or maybe total insensitivity. No clues left behind to alert an unsuspecting human who can't smell.)

 Anyway, just after midnight: delivery attempted over the weekend but no one home. ARgh! They knew I wouldn't be home and it had to be sent so it could be left! Livid. And what's with sending it via USPS? Wasn't it supposed to come FedEx? Water over the dam. USPS dated the notice for February, not November. It almost got shredded. More chocolate. Try to sleep. Get up, race to post office for the document so it can get out and I can get to work. Only, there's no way they can return it same day. Not even at this early hour. No way. No way. No way. Kind of like a bad dream. FedEx can't perform the deed either. UPS? No. Suggestions? Hiring a private jet. Are you kidding me?!! You're not kidding. You leave me no option. Mama's gotta do what Mama's gotta do: Cancel work. Like I don't need the money. Immanuel's life is worth more than anything. And I'm not going down. He's coming home. That's IT!

Grab the kids. Grab the dog. At least he's happy. He gets a ride. Rides = good to him. Call and email the agency, I'm coming. Adrenaline combined with prayer and purpose carried me almost the entire way to Seattle, despite the lack of sleep. As I drove, I practiced controlled breathing, prayed, reminded myself how lucky I was to be able to take off to do something so vitally important. I counted my blessings and admired the beautiful scenery and tried to enjoy the sunshine. The original LSC got signed and submitted. The I864 had to be redone anyway to conform to new instructions which we wouldn't have been able to do without the delay and drive. Lots of times these things happen for a reason. Best of all, we got provisional I800 approval and can look forward to the official approval starting Monday (which actually, technically is today).  "Fast away the old year passes..." "Time is slippin' slippin' into the future..."

Wrong turns can be good too--especially if you end up at Ikea and get items you needed anyway plus a yummy lunch.

LSC!

We received our letter seeking confirmation on Thursday! Now we wait for the I800 approval (not to be confused with the I800a). Only three more weeks until travel. Please pray there are no hiccups, road blocks, or difficulties of any kind. HH can't afford for there to be any.

Freight train a comin'!

That's how I'm feeling today. Tons of paperwork all due at once from every quarter. New system at work which isn't working any better than the new healthcare site. Computer keeps needing to be pushed to load webpages. My brain feels like something ate it, or it dropped out, or I lost it somewhere in my purse. I'll never find it if it's in my purse. I do clean it out. There's a black hole in there.. Honest.  Stuff disappears. Do you think it's related to the worm hole between my microwave and the car--cuz there must be a correlation someplace. Scratch that. A conspiracy. Logically, I know it doesn't take 20 minutes to walk the 30 feet from the microwave to the car. The time has been checked on both. It takes 20 minutes to walk from the microwave to the car. Just does. Cats to dodge/put out. Dog to bribe not to guilt me for not taking him to work. Lights. Grab the stuff Miracle Man was supposed to take out to recycling. Go back for paperwork I forgot.

Anyway, I'm feeling incredibly pressured right now. Only six more weeks. At most. Then HH will be coming home. So much to do between now and then. I wish I could clone myself several times. Or that I didn't need sleep. Or that the ADHD would go back in the box it came out of. God, please make it go away!

Really being tested right now, aren't I? I will win.

A funny thing happened on the way to get the kids' passports renewed...

Or maybe not so funny. You decide. You know, adults can renew by mail, right? Lucky us! However,  If you have to go to an actual passport office or a post office, take notice. Children must go in whether it is a renewal or a brand new passport. Stands to reason--they change so much. This travail began over the summer. When the kids weren't in school. When my schedule was packed to the brim.  So far, I have made four trips to get my children's passports renewed. There will be at least a fifth trip. Trip one: office moved. I just assumed they would be in the same place they were a few years ago. The post office doesn't move so why should the passport office, right? Yeah, wrong.  Trip two: We arrive at 2:30 p.m. great, huh?! Not so great. On Friday's they aren't open till 3 p.m., they closed at 2 p.m. I pulled the kids out of school early for that fiasco. Trip three: one app accepted, one rejected. Trip four: they closed early (even though I got there before the posted closure time). You see, they "have paper work to do and there is no budge room on Friday's." That's what the clerk told me.  What happened with the rejected app you ask? Well, your photo cannot have the person smiling with their mouth open. This will be rejected. Costco didn't know that. Neither did I. Now we all know. Copy both front and back of supporting documents--on the same page. DO NOT copy back and front on separate pieces of paper and staple them together. You will either be told to go redo your copies or have to wait for the clerk to redo them for you.

Other things you should know: Your child's emergency contact must be a family member, not a family friend. I had put a family friend since I have no relatives nearby and all close relatives are dead. HIPPA, I was told. What do they do for people who don't have any relatives? And for that matter, how would they have known if I hadn't put family friend in the box--not all of my relatives have the same last name as I do! Remember to initial your corrections.

Allot way more time than you think to get the passport(s). The clerk who helped us worked excruciatingly slowly. I understand they have to be careful and look everything over but this was ridiculous! I about went around the bend. Good thing she works for the government. There was only one person ahead of me the day I actually succeeded in getting into the office and it took nearly an hour to get finished. Yes, I let her know I had to be back to work. No, it did not do any good. And that was with all the forms printed and filled out beforehand. Take your kids out of school to get this done. There is no other option.

Do not expect the clerks to be knowledgeable about which offices do offer Saturday service (at least the ones in the local officer weren't). The website says our passport office does Saturdays by appointment. Well, not according to the folks who actually work there. They suggested I try the post office. Well, that would be a great idea--except the post office has almost no one able to provide passport services and all of them in our area have been switched to weekdays. Nearly 20,000 postal employees retired or left the postal service this year or so I was told.

Call ahead to find out the forms of payment accepted. Our office does not take cash. No credit. No debit.  Only checks and money orders. The one time I had cash, too. I think the website may have even said something about bringing in cash.

Processing times have pushed out to between six and eight weeks. Expedited service, which costs $60 more, will get it back hopefully in four weeks. You may be able to get it back in three weeks with overnight shipping both ways....And, if you don't have to make five trips, or schedule around work, school, and life. Or get the clerk I had. Good luck.

This week we celebrate Halloween, All Saints Day, and El Dia de los Muertos. There's another current running through this coming Sunday, Orphan Sunday. While we wouldn't be celebrating that 153 million children worldwide are orphans, there has been a movement among some church groups to dwell on support of orphans and orphan care together as a body on a single day. Here's the URL to their website http://orphansunday.org/

Since many liturgical churches celebrate All Saints Day this coming weekend, a friend of mine suggested we do Orphan Sunday on an alternate Sunday, St. Nicholas' feast day in Advent. Among other things, St. Nicholas is patron saint of children so it would be very fitting. What do you think?

First round of grant applications and more fundraiser stuff

Got one pre-app in tonight, another application finished and ready to go, a third one printed but not filled out (11 pages long). References alerted. Also looked at t-shirt slogans and graphics for that sale and fundraiser. Didn't really like any of the ones already created so I'm going to have to design one myself. That will be part of tomorrow's project.. I'll be at a holiday craft bazaar at the end of the month and an lining up some more for both the fundraiser and Tupperware. I'll post the t-shirt fundraiser as soon as I get it up and running. Hopefully by the end of the week? We'll have to sell 50 shirts or more before they'll print them. Should make really nice holiday gifts for people!

San Francisco here I come!

Or rather, here it comes. Our I797 should be in SF tomorrow morning. I sent it expedited but I've learned the consulate may be halting that service. Prayers requested that they will do it and that we get it back this week. Every day, every minute counts in this adoption!

I800a approval

Hey, all! Exciting news! We received our I800a approval on Friday. I'll have to race around this coming week to get it notarized, verified and off to the consulate to be authenticated! This is the last document for our dossier. If I can get courier service to handle it that should shave a week off the turn-around time for the trip to the consulate. Then it will head up to our agency to be translated and sent with the rest of the documents to China. I'm thinking we should be DTC in two to three weeks if all goes well and LID should follow thereafter. We simply have to travel by the end of the first week in December--say prayers for us, okay? Everything has got to go without any delays or bumps from here on out or HH will lose out on getting a family and it is just not acceptable for that to happen! Remember too, to click through and make a donation to his adoption fund--any amount greatly appreciated.

Hopefully, I will have more exciting news by the end of the week--stay tuned!

Three articles on church support of international adoption families

Christianity Today article on how churches can support adoptive parents

These are really good--especially the last one. If you're not Christian, please don't let it deter you from reading the articles; they can be applied to your own center of faith too.

Last call!! Scentsy fundraiser ends tonight!

All proceeds will go toward HH's adoption fund! If you love Scentsy and want to contribute to a great cause, now is the time!


https://scentswithadele.scentsy.us/Scentsy/Buy

A father's love

The decisions the father in this story has to make on behalf of his daughter will touch you to the core. The story is both heart-wrenching and warming.  Many parents around the globe must make these tough decisions. No parent should have to.

http://www.chinasmack.com/2009/stories/impoverished-farmer-father-abandoned-girl-daughter.html

Countdown?!!

I spoke with a very nice supervisor at the National Benefits Center today. While HH's case doesn't qualify for expediting at this time, she assured me that our file would be reviewed in the next couple weeks. Meaning, if all goes well, we could be looking at travel authorization in as little as six weeks. OMG! Now, before anyone gets too excited, from the look of things, there are a couple of Chinese holidays that might make a couple weeks impact on the other side of the ocean. On this side, we have to pray we don't get an RFE. What's an RFE? Returned for errors. The homestudy that has to be turned in with the I800a application has to have very specific questions asked and very specific wording. Some adoptive families have had their I800a's RFE'd 3, 4, and even 6 times. Which means the homestudy has to be rewritten, re-reviewed, re-submitted, returned to the queue, re-reviewed...you get the idea. If we get an RFE, that would probably put us into late November or early December. More than one....I don't want to think about that. That would be a very bad place. Especially with our holidays and holiday closures starting then. Time is running out. Lord, bring my HH home. Remove all obstacles for him. Don't let this one go to places unknown.

Scentsy Fundraiser is here!

For the month of September, my friend Adele will donate all proceeds from sales at Terry's party on her Scentsy website toward HH's adoption!


https://scentswithadele.scentsy.us/Scentsy/Buy

First we scurried, then we hurried, melted a little, and, now, we wait.

By afternoon, the San Francisco Chinese consulate will have our dossier documents to authenticate. It feels so good to be at this point! Most of the paper-chasing finished! Getting that last document on Friday after so many challenges, delays, stops and starts. Thus is the adoption journey.

We traveled to Salem to get the documents verified on Monday with the plan of sending them off for authentication on the same day. We didn't count on being pointed in the wrong direction in 90 degree heat to get a money order to pay the consulate to look at and approve the docs. (Anyone hear, "I'm melting, oh what a world!"? After trudging several looonggg blocks flanked by a pair of 12-year-olds who were trying very hard to be patient, I learned we had to back track and go the other way. More trudging.

Upon reaching the cool oasis of Safeway and basking in its refreshing air while waiting for the clerk to alight from her backroom haven, she informs me: cash only for money orders. Trudge to car dragging said 12-year-olds behind with promises of McDonald's on the race home. To drop them off. To head to work. Too late to get to the store with cash. Cash. Who knew? Mffff...well, I knew--about ten years ago! But that was then, this is now. Sorry. I forgot. Like, I've only bought money orders maybe three times in my life!

Off too late from work Tuesday to get docs off.

Wednesday. Off early. Traffic. Too late to get money from bank. Think. Think. Think. Solution found. Off to get money. Off to copy and FedEx docs priority or express or whatever they call it. Docs checked twice. Return envelope inside. Money inside. Whew!

The docs should come back next week so I can turn around and send them to our agency. If all goes well. It must. Clock is ticking. I hear it reverberating in my sleep. Waking. He must come home. He must. Must.

Good news from the agency: They've almost finished the written part of the homestudy. That gets to go to the consulate as well. But they will have the adventure of sending it.

USCIS so far has been silent on the I-800a but then they may have just gotten it. It had to go through the agency first. Praying for a miracle there. Usually, it takes them 55 or more days to send back the approval. God moved the mountains for Miracle Man. God, please move them for HH!

We will not give up!

While it could have been worse, it couldn't have happened at a worse time. A few hours ago I was rear-ended by another driver. The car in front of me had stopped and I had stopped as well. Thankfully, there were no broken bones or life-threatening injuries. I am hurting and will  see the doctor tomorrow. The trunk of the car can't be opened because the fender is crumpled up over part of it. The lock is unoperable and to my dismay, the trunk light was on. I called the car company after discovering this and while playing answer all their questions, repeatedly telling the lady on the other end of the line that I couldn't understand her  and to speak more clearly, the car's battery went dead. In my driveway. Nose in. When towing this vehicle you're supposed to do it from the front.

My plans for this evening had been to finish installing the vinyl plank floor in my living room and to do some painting. I don't know how that will happen now. I'm going to delegate as much to Miracle Man but he, after all, is still a boy. The final home study visit is this week and we have no more budge room to finish repairs on the house. I am down. I am not out. I will find a way to get everything done. I will not let HH's future go into darkness because of this or any other roadblock. I will go over, under, around, break through or blast to smithereens the difficulties in the way. I will break on through to the other side. HH will know a family. My family. We are coming HH. We will not give up!

3/18/2013 What do the children who get passed over feel about adoption?

What do the children who get passed over feel about adoption?


Warning: Have your kleenex ready.
In "Stuck" older adoptees tell what it meant to them. Please watch the movie, then join the fight to give all children a family by adding  your name to  the petition.


http://www.change. org/petitions/ make-a-child-
s-right-to- a-family- our-priority

My post on the petition:

I am mother to two wonderful adopted children and expectant mother to two more children by adoption. While my first daughter would probably have eventually found a family had I not adopted her, neither of my sons would have received a family if it were not for me. My first son has a rare syndrome which scared prospective parents off. His birth parents would not have been able to address his needs had they chosen to raise him. The director of his child care center told me no one in his 6 1/2 years had ever even asked for his file. I am a single mother. There were roadblocks to his adoption and weeks before I was to step on the plane to bring him home, the unthinkable happened: I was outsourced. I know you think I shouldn't have proceeded. I didn't turn my back on him. I had the resources. I stepped out on faith and brought him home anyway. He is now a teenager and as awesome a son as you can imagine. Where would he be if I hadn't? He was not allowed to go to school with the other children and would not have been until he had had enough operations so that he looked like everyone else--meaning he would never have gotten an education. He eventually would have ended up living on the streets, the object of ridicule, and suffering all kinds of abuse.

My son-to-be has waited for over 13 years. He has limb differences. That's all. Our local Shriner's Hospital can fit him with the prosthesis he needs. He is a very handsome young man, well-spoken, confident, and very deserving of a family--which all children are. In a few months, he will no longer be eligible for adoption. His future without a family, bleak.

In the course of adopting my children, I have worked two jobs at times, built an addition on my house (doing a lot of the work myself!) and now look toward successfully fundraising for my last two. I wish I could say they weren't my last and maybe they won't be but they likely will be. The need is so very great. Some of us feel called to have and ultimately do have birth children. Others have birth children and feel the pull of domestic or international adoption or both. Others, for whatever reason, only adopt.

I've said it many times: adoption is not for the faint of heart. An adoptive parent must be willing to undergo scrutiny by local, state, federal, and international governmental bodies, independent agencies  and a slew of other people and bodies who hopefully all concur the prospective parent worthy of parenting a child. Adoptive parents often have been through nightmare pregnancies and painful losses to realize their dream of a family. Financial burdens and an ever-changing landscape of requirements leaves many would-be adoptive parents discouraged, disheartened, and feeling the mountain is too high to climb. Biological parents don't typically have to face all this.

Every child deserves the love and care of an appropriate family. They deserve education, healthy living; freedom from abuse, neglect, forced labor, human traficking, ridicule, and stigmatization. Putting the adoption tax credit into law was a great step forward. We must step out in faith and with supreme courage and boldly make it our mission, our cause and our duty to ensure each and every child, everywhere, does not go without their needs being met. Period.