Day 1 - Touring Beijing

Greetings from Beijing.  As Elise mentioned yesterday, we were fried when we finally hit our hotel pillows at 8:30 pm local time, which still felt like 4:30 am to us.  You would think that we would be able to sleep a long time after being up for 24 hours, but we still found ourselves awake around 3:30 am local time.  So we all got showered, dressed, and cruised around the hotel a bit, waiting for the breakfast to open up at 6 am.  While we were wandering we ran into another man in our travel group with his young son who was also having difficulty sleeping.  Turns out he is a worship pastor at a large reformed church in the Chicago area. Needless to say we hit it off with him and his family, and have enjoyed getting to know our fellow travel companions on this adoption road.  There are a total of 11 families traveling together for the next 2 weeks.  It has been a particular blessing to be traveling with our friends from home, the Barcelos family.

After breakfast we headed out for a day of touring.  Our first stop was a rickshaw ride to tour a traditional Beijing home, called a "Hutong".  Think four small, primitive rooms surrounding an outdoor courtyard with no private bathrooms,  only access to public bathrooms.  Did I mention it was snowing here in Beijing?  It snowed for at least 4 hours, which made for an interesting rickshaw ride.  What was shocking to us about the Hutong we visited was that it was valued at over $7 million because of it's location and historical significance.  Crazy

                                                   Doug & Aaron on the rickshaw

After a traditional Chinese lunch, we headed to a silk factory, where we got to see the process of silk garment and quilt making, which Beijing is famous for

Next was Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City.  You are probably familiar with the square, but may not have heard of the Forbidden City, I know I hadn't.  The Forbidden City was built about 600 years ago and was built as a palace for the emperor and 30,000 of his closest friends.  This palace, or city, is 9,999 rooms, covers hundreds of acres and was reserved for government officials only, thus "forbidden" to any Chinese commoners.

                                              Tiananmen Square with the Barcelos Family

                                                           Forbidden City

Once done with our tours for the day, we ventured out to dinner in Beijing with our friends the Barcelos's.  We were in search of the famous "Peking Duck".  For the first time during our time here we were without our guide and the language barrier became evident.  At one point we thought we ordered rice and water, which never came, and Kendra Barcelos even resorted to sign language in a last ditch effort at communication.  Elise's contribution to the ordering process was "I want fried bean curd".  What?  Who orders that?  So we got a pyramid of fried bean curd (or bean "turd" as Aaron called it) that nobody would eat, so Mr. Iron Gut (me) powered through four bean curd logs.  As I type this, I can still feel them rolling around inside.  Lets hope Elise can do better next time.

                                                             Fried Bean Curd

                                                           Beijing at Christmas

Signing off for now. Tomorrow we are off to the Great Wall, a jade factory, and an acrobat show.  Only 2 1/2 more days until our "gotcha day" with little Jack!

Doug (for Elise too)

We made it!

Just a quick note to let you know we made it safely. We have been up for just about 24 hours now.  It is currently 4:30 am in California on 12/1 and 8:30 pm in China.  The kids are fast asleep and snoring. It has been a long day.  We are glad to be in our hotel to get some rest finally.  A big day of touring tomorrow!  Hopefully I can update a little more after our adventures tomorrow.

Good night!

We leave in 5 days!!!

We are officially counting down....well I have been counting for a few weeks now, but now we are actually really close!!

This will probably be my last post before we travel.  

Please continue to pray for us.  Everyone who is traveling has been healthy so far.  Gracie has a bit of a cold and Casey sounds like he is getting one too.  Pray that it does not get to the rest of us.  Doug, Hannah, Aaron and I will be traveling.  Casey and Grace are being taken care of by our wonderful family and friends.We are so blessed to have a wonderful network of people to depend on.

Please pray the little ones we are leaving behind. As we get closer to leaving, my heart starts to feel the sadness of being seperated from my kiddos.  It is hard, I want to spend quality time with them, yet I have so much to do to get ready.  On top of it all, I haven't been feeling very good.  I am not sick, but my neck has been extremely tense and I have been having heart burn.  I am hoping these are all due to the stress of the holidays and getting ready to travel to a foreign country.  I hope that once we sit down on the airplane, it will all subside.  Sooner would be better though.

Below is our itinerary if you would like to know where we will be during our journey to Jack.

11/30   Leave U.S. for Beijing. 

12/1     Arrive in Beijing 

12/2     Tour Beijing. 

            Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, Hutong Tour, and optional acrobatics show

12/3     Tour Beijing. 

            Great Wall

12/4     Depart Beijing for Zhengzhou

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12/5     Today you will receive your child!  Congratulations! Please make sure to take plenty of pictures as these photos are a requirement for the one month post-adoption report!

12/6     All families will take a bus to the registration office to complete the Adoption Registration in the morning.

12/7     Free time or rest.

12/8     Free time or rest.  Optional tours maybe available please ask Yisha for details.

12/9     Receive your child’s passport.

Leave Zhengzhou for Guangzhou on China Southern flight CZ 3619 (18:10-20:25).

12/10   Take bus to Shamian Island to complete your child’s visa physical and visa photo taken this morning. Bring supplies (water, snack, etc.).

12/11   Free day in Guangzhou.

 12/12   Today is your Consulate appointment. 

12/13   A CCAI representative will go to the U.S. Consulate to receive your child’s visa packet

Prepare to leave for home.

12/14   Depart Hong Kong for the USA. 

            LaCroix – Depart Guangzhou for Hong Kong on Dragon Airlines flight KA 783 @ 09:50. Booked by you.

  
Leave China for the U.S.  Please check in 2 hours prior to departure for the US.

We have TA!!!

The most important email in our journey so far, arrived on Wednesday, November 9th.  Again, I was not home for this very important and exciting email.  We were at CC for the day.  I checked my friends phone around 9:15, and nothing.  Then at 9:36, Doug called from New York, he was there on business.  I have a special ring when he calls.  It startled me, and I knew we got TA!!  I was at our co-op, which had just dismissed from the group opening, and I yelled we got TA!!  I was so excited. 


According to our agency the soonest we could travel will be November 30th.  I still asked if we could leave this Wednesday, but they said no.  I figure it doesn't hurt to ask. :)  Our tickets have been purchased.  Now we wait and prepare to leave.  We will meet Jack on December 5th and he will be with us from that point on.  I can't wait to go.  Only 22 days until I hold my baby boy!!

God has been so good throughout this process.  Although I wanted to leave sooner, I trust in His perfect plan.  I know that His timing is perfect in everything. 

I will post again before we leave with our itinerary posted.  In the meantime, please pray for the health of our family, especially those of us traveling(Doug, me, Hannah and Aaron). And also for Jack, that his heart will be ready to be part of a family. "I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you." John 14:18

Waiting on Travel Approval!

I am excited that we have now moved on to waiting for Travel Approval (TA), the last step in our journey!  Our Article 5 was picked up from the U.S. Consulate and has been sent to Beijing to the CCCWA to wait to be processed for TA.  It seems like we have been on this road forever, and I am glad we will be getting off very soon.  It looks like we should be home to celebrate Christmas with Jack. 

I am thankful the Lord has chosen this path for our family!  Pray for us as we wait and prepare to travel.  Time will hopefully fly by!

What are we waiting on now?

Life after LOA...we sent our immigration paperwork to be approved on the 9th of September.  We were approved on the 27th.  From there we need to be "cabled" All this means is that all of our immigration/visa paperwork is sent to the the Consulate in Guangzhou, China.  Once it arrives, we wait 2 weeks for what is called Article 5.  The U.S. Consulate issues Article 5 (kind of a U.S. letter of acceptance).  Then after Article 5, we will officially be waiting for our TA (Travel approval).

We could be traveling by mid November!!  My dream timeline would to leave on November 16th.  However, I don't know what will happen.  Please pray for me!!  I need to trust the Lord's timing.  I have been given many opportunities to trust...but I obviously need more practice!! 

Hopefully soon I will be able to post that we received our TA....until then keep our family in your prayers!

8 weeks/ 56 days we waited for our LOA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On Wednesday, September 7 we received our acceptance letter (LOA) from China to officially adopt Jack.  The kids and I were all at their once a week class.  I was hoping to get LOA that day, but had no way of checking our email.  Doug had been advised to check it often and let me know.  It was 10:36 am, I was in class with Aaron and thought I should check my phone for a text.  I thought it was possible to have missed a text from Doug since my phone was on vibrate.  I grabbed my phone out of my pocket and saw that Doug was calling.  I quickly answered.  Doug said, "This is the call you've been waiting for!"  I was overcome with excitement.  Had I not been at a church with classes going on, I would have screamed.  It was the best news in our adoption journey so far.  Now that we have our LOA, we have a rough timeline as to when we will travel.  The time between now and when we travel is approximately 11 weeks.  We are hoping to be traveling to China in the end of November to early December.  We could possibly be gone for Thanksgiving.  The Lord's timing is perfect as always.  He is teaching me to trust Him in all things.  Our friends also received their LOA the same day.  It is very likely that we will travel together.  What a blessing that will be to have our brother and sister in Christ to go on this journey with!!  It is not certain, but I am praying that we will be traveling together.