The Cost of Adoption

Okay friends, its time to get honest.  Adoption is expensive.  We do not like asking for donations, its hard, and not natural for either of us.  It's harder to imagine Elijah spending the next 5 years of his life in an orphanage and then to be turned out on the street to try to survive alone and without a family.  The truth is we need your help and Elijah needs your help, we can't do this alone.  The truth is Elijah will probably wait longer than necessary because we need time to save and earn extra money.  So far we have paid our home study update $250, WACAP application fee $500, and USCIS Visa fee $890.  Before our dossier can be resent to China we need to pay over $5000 for our agency and country fees, and then additional agency, country, travel, and orphanage fees.  Elijah is worth it and we know we need to trust the God has this.  So we are asking; will you help give a child a home, a family, and a chance to know the One true King?  We have many ways you can be a part of living out the words of God and caring for orphans.

Look at these two pictures the first is Gabi on Gotcha Day on May 13th the second is four short months later.  Can you believe the difference the love a family and a church can do for a child.

How you can help:

• T-Shirt Fundraiser: We will be submitting the order at the end of this week.  We still need to sale 25 more t-shirts.  They are $20 shipped to you or $15 if you are local.
• Origami Owl: I am selling these beautiful living lockets.  Every dime made is put towards bringing Elijah home.  You can buy jewelry directly from my website or host a party and share this jewelry with your friends: www.oneless.origamiowl.com.
• Puzzle Fundraiser:
• Are you the missing puzzle piece???
  We are starting our Puzzle Piece fundraiser with a twist.
  We are asking every person we are friends with on social media, who followed our journey to bring Gabi, our family, and everyone else who wants to support us to donate $10 to our puzzle piece fundraiser.  We will then write your name on the back of a puzzle piece.  The completed puzzle will be placed between glass and hung in Elijah’s room so he can see everyone who prayed from him, loved him and supported him even before he came home.
  We have a large goal: 750 puzzle pieces, so we are offering an incentive.  For every 100 puzzles pieces we receive donations for we will have a drawing.  The first will be a Kindle HD.  So not only are you supporting orphans, but you have a chance to win a new Kindle.
  Please considering donating $10 (or more if you feel led) to help bring Elijah home.
  Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause. Isaiah 1:17
  Ways to donate:
  Email: aclaw99@comcast.net and we will send you our address
  Paypal – click the paypal tab on the right side
• Please pray for our family, for Elijah, and for all orphans.

Elijah!

We have finally received preapproval to adopt Elijah (aka Jeremiah, Andy & Francesco)!!! Elijah is nine years old and has been waiting a long time for a family of his own.  We are so excited as it becomes more real.  Our I800A was also sent off today.  We decided the best route for us was to start over with I800A because it will keep us from having to do background checks later.  We have a few fundraisers to help us raise money to bring him home as quickly as possible.  The first is t-shirts.  We have designed a Hope for Orphans t-shirt and it is available in blue or pink.  Sizes start at youth M.

 

I love these shirts and hope you will considering ordering.  The back of the shirt has Jeremiah 29:11 on it.  They are $20 shipped, and you can pay through Paypal or mail us a check!

 

Second will be doing a puzzle fundraiser, watch for more information to come.

 

Third, I have started selling Origami Owl.  This is a fairly new jewelry line of living lockets.  You can order online through my website or host a party.  Visit www.oneless.origamiowl.com!

 

 

Thanks for following us on this journey!

 

Three Months with Gabi!

Today it really hit me how far Gabi has come in three months.  Really how far we have all come in three months.  When we were in China it really was one of the hardest times I (Christine) have gone through.  I knew it was a possibility that she would not bond with me and that she would reject me, but knowing and actually experiencing it are completely different.  I was so thankful that she attached to Andy quickly, but it hurt that I couldn’t hold her or comfort her when she was crying.  I also knew what I feeling could not compare to what she must be feeling.  She was taken from her nanny’s arm and given to complete strangers.  She was taken to a place that looked nothing like what she was used to, offered food she had never seen before, and whisked all over China in taxi’s, trains, and planes.  When I was carrying her through the hotel in Beijing she literally reached for complete strangers (men) to get away from me.  Our girl is so strong and resilient and all of that is just a distant memory.  She loves her mom and dad now (though often still prefers dad, but we are working that) and her brothers and sister.  She gives kisses and great big bear hugs.  If she wakes up crying I can comfort her now.  She is running, jumping and climbing stairs (no small feat if you observed her gross motor skills in May).

 

She laughs and cries when she doesn’t get her way.  In so many ways she is a normal two year, but I can’t help to think how extraordinary she is.  I know God has great things in store for her and I am so privileged to be a part of her story.  Adoption is hard, but oh so amazing and completely worth it.  We are called to care for the orphans, to be a father to fatherless.  There are so many children out there just like Gabi and they need a family.  We would love to talk to you about adoption. We would love for you to partner with us as we begin our next adoption.  Yes, we (I really mean Andy) will be traveling back to China to bring our new son home sometime in the next year.  Stay tuned to hear more about him as soon as we can share.

 

Blessed

* I wrote this a month ago, but never posted.  It has now been almost two months since we first held Gabi!!

Adoption is a blessing that I wish every family could experience.  We began this journey unsure of what the future would look like, how long it would take until we could hold our daughter, and completely trusting in God.  Trusting he called our family to adopt and trusting God’s plan was always for Gabi to be a part of our family.  When we didn’t know, He knew.  He knew our exact timing throughout the entire process.  As a family we trusted, we prayed, we prayed specific  big prayers, we asked God be with our family through this process, and He was!

Adoption is not easy and it is not for the faint of heart, but it is so worth it.  Our darling Fenley Gabriella has been with us for one month now, and it seems as if she has always been a part of our family.  God knew long before we did that she was our daughter.  We were contacted by another family this week who has been praying for our daughter since she was on our agencies waiting child list.  They fell in love with her immediately, and submitted paperwork for pre-approval to adopt her.  However, they were a couple hours too late.  Two hours prior we had sent pre-approval paperwork for Gabi to be our daughter.  We had no idea any of this had taken place, God knew, He knew she was ours and ensured our timing was perfect.  This family has prayed for Gabi for the past 9 months and for her family.  They cried and rejoiced knowing she had a forever family, and now that are waiting on a referral for their own Chinese treasure.  As they wait we will pray for them, as we will always be connected through adoption.  Because of Gabi at least one more child will have a family, because of God’s beautiful plan we have Gabi.

Colton teaching Gabi to float on her back!

She is warming up to the dogs!

 

He is Risen ...

He is risen indeed.

Another good week in the Law household. We received our I-800 approval and now we are waiting for our Article 5. It seems our paperwork only comes when we are too lazy to hit the mailbox. For the second time in a row, we had important news waiting for several hours just a hundred feet away in our mailbox. Needless to say, I am will be in no rush to check the mail until we get home from China.

The weekend had us just a little busy. A quick trip to visit my family on Saturday getting us home after 10:30 followed by an Easter Sunday lunch with Christine's family. I love the interest that so many family members have in our journey. Sandwiched in between this was an early morning of getting ready for church, finding Easter eggs in our family room, helping prepare a biscuits and gravy breakfast for the church, a terrific sermon on the Legend of Folded Napkin, and the always chaotic Easter egg hunt at church. The link to the online sermon is below.

http://new.livestream.com/D1Naz/events/1992599

I am finishing up Sunday with the 30 for 30 about NC State. I absolutely love the Jimmy V speech at the ESPY's

On the downside, we have hit a little speed bump in with fundraising. Our hope was to avoid putting anything on credit cards (at least to the point of collecting interest), but one of our sources of funds fell through and as so many people have felt over the last few years, the economic crunch is hitting mining machines again. So I will be taking at least four weeks of unemployment this year. But I know God will provide financially and I GET FOUR MORE WEEKS TO BOND WITH GABI!!!! The latter is very exciting for me if the capital letters didn't give it away.

After a week of travel and family activities, I will be enjoying a vacation day on Monday as the kids have their final day of Spring Break.

A Very Strange Spring Day

Today has been quite the day.  After a beautiful spring day on Saturday, we had a few overnight snow flakes turn into a pretty sizable winter storm.  While I headed north to the Bloomington airport through some icy roads, Christine and the kids headed east to Sidney to join in the 60th anniversary celebration of her grandparents.  Both of us drove past numerous cars in the ditches.  I nearly made it into a ditch near Maroa while Christine got stuck as she pulled into Sidney.  The day turned out well for our family in the end.  My plane was the only one to take off from the airport this afternoon while a handful of others were cancelled and the anniversary celebration was moved closer to home.  60 years is definitely something to celebrate.  Apparently it is rare enough that the likes of Hallmark and Amazon haven't commercialized the special mark in their relationship.  They are loved not only by there family but by so many around town.  Congratulation Richard and Irma!

Our paperwork pregnancy is nearing an end.  All signs point to us traveling by June.  We are hoping that since this is our forth child, that maybe we will go early and travel in May.  Strangely enough it seems like a long time coming and like it has just been coming so quickly.  I think the later is a little bit of the fear of the unknown.  Will we have a child that falls in love with everyone in our family from day one, or will we have major struggles.  The answer is probably somewhere in between.

This process is full of emotions.  Had you asked me a year ago that I would shed tears for someone thousands of miles away that I never met, I probably would had laughed at you.  Each day is filled with excitement.  Excitement of seeing Gabi in person in just a few short weeks.  Excitement of hearing Lyndsey pray so earnestly to get her sister home.  Excitement to see Aiden do little things like making Gabi a Valentine's card or changing the background on his iPod to an American flag next to a Chinese flag.  At the same time I have struggled with celebrating Christmas while Gabi is without a family or singing happy birthday to a picture.  Good moments are constantly followed by difficult ones. But knowing she will be in my arms soon makes it all worth it.  God has opened my heart to this little girl and we pray that God is preparing her heart for us.

Christine had a chance to visit the Champaign School for the Deaf this past week.  She came back very excited by the program.  Apparently Macon County has never used them which means families have had to take up the cost and the travel themselves to use the service.  So my next big ask is to help bring this experience to Gabi.  The money is probably the smaller part of this ask. Finding a way to get her to and from each school each day is the big need. 

Thanks for joining us on our journey.  Our family very much appreciates the emotional and financial support we have received from family, new friends, and old friends.

China Approval!!

Wow! What a day.  Our family received the best news today – we have received approval from China to adopt Gabi!!  I keep saying Gabi is coming home soon.  This is the final countdown – WACAP has said about 2 ½ months to travel.  However every timeline they have given us has been longer than the actual time frame.  They told us 3 – 4 months for approval and we received it in 39 days!

I want to share with you an amazing God moment we were able to share with our children.  My timeline in my head has always been to have approval by March 15^th, since we started that was my goal.  So last night I told the kids that we all need to pray and ask that we receive approval this week and believe that God would answer this prayer.  The verse that was coming to mind all evening was Matthew 18:19 “Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.”  How amazing that God answered our prayer and we were able to witness what happens when we live out God’s word.  This adoption has brought our entire family closer to God and continues to strengthen our faith. 

So what’s next?  (Remember our agency typically gives longer than normal wait-times, average right now seems to be 8 weeks)

·         I-800 approval (3 weeks)

·         I-800 approval forwarded to the National Visa Center, NVC forward approval to U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou City, China (2-3 weeks)

·         U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou signs off on Article Letter 5 (2 weeks)

·         CCCWA issues Notice to Travel (TA) (3-4 weeks)

·         Discuss travel date and request consulate appointment

·         Appointment confirmed

·         We book our flights!!!

Look how short our list has become.  Now I am worrying about what to do with kids and dogs if we travel before June, but it is a great problem to have because that means Gabi is coming home soon.

Thank you to everyone who has joined in our celebrating, everyone who has prayed for us (please keep those prayers coming), and everyone who has contributed to our adoption fundraising.

We still have our fundraiser going on through March from the blog Worthy of the Prize: http://www.worthyoftheprize.blogspot.com/2013/03/meet-law-family-our-newest-adoption.html

We have also had amazing pizza fundraisers at our church; we have been selling noodles, greeting cards (we sold 50 boxes!) and our timeshare.  Thank you!  Gabi is almost home.