Adoption Update: New Shirts & Paperwork Progress!

Exciting things this Monday morning!

April Fundraiser: “& Di-di” Shirts (But They’re More Than Just Shirts!)

.

.

You know how you’ve seen a dozen versions of the Helvetica shirt, but just haven’t found the one that’s right for you?

You know how friends and family and strangers on the street are always asking you why you love China?

You know how you’re never quite sure what to get mom for Mother’s Day?

Problem(s) solved!

Here’s the skinny:

• 3 styles — T-shirts (Youth XS through Adult 3XL), long sleeve tees, and women’s slouchy tanks
• 5 colors — Depending on the style there are up to five colors to choose from.
• Deadline: April 21
• Ships April 30, so yes, they’ll be here in time for Mother’s Day.
• bonfire.com/best-adoption-shirt-ever

(We have to sell at least five for the shirts to go to print, but we’ve already sold three so I think we’ll be okay.)

.

.

Your summer wardrobe seriously needs one of these shirts.

BUT WAIT! It’s more than a shirt, it’s also your ticket to free, original art!

We’re planning an art show fundraiser for mid-May (tentatively May 18, so save the date and book a babysitter). Details coming at ‘cha very soon (the roster of artists is amazing), but we are going to raffle some original art. Wearing your “& Di-di” shirt to the art show will get you $5 worth of free raffle tickets!

Can’t come to the art show? That’s okay! The raffle will be online, and you don’t need to be present to win. You can post a picture of you in your shirt on the night of the show and we’ll put your name in the bucket for you! So you get the shirt, and maybe some awesome art, and we give you $5 back. 

If you want to help out even more (or if you want to help out but don’t want a shirt — which is crazy but I suppose is probably possible), our PayPal.me account is always open. Make sure to let PayPal know that you’re sending money to friends and family, so nothing is deducted. Everything that comes into our PayPal will help us pay down the fees and payments that we’ve had to put on our credit card so far.

Updates: Paperwork and Grants

.

.

Paperwork is done. Most of it anyway. There will always be a little more paperwork to do, but our dossier was sent to China Thursday and arrived in Beijing this morning. We’re just waiting for official confirmation that it arrived in the right office.

Sending the dossier was super exciting and we worked like crazy to get it in under a tight deadline, but it also ousted the Immigration package as the most expensive envelope I’ve ever mailed. And it triggered the second-stage wave of fees, so grant applications continue with equal enthusiasm.

.

Grants applied for: 14
Grants awarded: 0

.

Many of them are on quarterly schedules, so they closed at the end of March and are still in review. So I haven’t started to lose hope just yet. I am a little worried that we live in this gray area where we qualify to apply for grants … but we’re also probably not the poorest people trying to adopt— or adopting a child with major medical needs—so we don’t excite as much sympathy as other applications.

But we know God is in this with us. We’ve already seen him provide and come through in just the right moment (in some ways I can’t even tell you about yet) so many times already. I keep coming back to a conversation we had at the very beginning of this whole process and remembering that we agreed to be obedient and leave room for God to do a miracle.

So that’s what we’re doing.

Prayer Requests

I’ve always believed in prayer, but the last six months have reminded me why. (Someday I’ll be able to tell you all those things too.) If you’re thinking of us in your prayer time:

• Paperwork — Pray for wings on our dossier and favor with every Chinese official who reads it. Before we were just eager. Now there’s an actual deadline we really want to make.
• Provision — Pray for the fundraisers and the grants, for generosity and favor in the hearts of shoppers and art fans and grant committees. We really don’t want to hit a wall because we’re out of financial options for moving forward.
• Di-di — Please continue to pray for our boy. Pray for protection, health, strength, and peace. Pray that God would even begin to prepare his heart to meet us, and for the difficult transition he doesn’t even know he is facing.
• Caretakers — We still pray for honesty, integrity, and the fear of God on whomever is in charge of him today.
• Biological family — There is no situation or circumstance in which giving up a baby is easy, and there’s no amount of time that removes a child from a mother’s heart. Pray comfort and peace (and salvation) over his biological parents.
• Our Man Cub — He’s very, very excited, but also doesn’t realize the huge transition that his life is going to take as well. There will someone else calling me, “Mama,” sharing his room, playing with his toys. His room has been his sovereign kingdom for five years, and he’s not going to get to ease into sharing everything by starting with an infant.

Thanks, fam! We love you all and are every day more convinced that we could never pull this off without such an amazing church family and online/offline community.