Tentative Itinerary

On Cosette's birthday we went to First Chinese, her favorite local restaurant to celebrate with friends. At the end of the meal, as is our tradition, we each opened and read the message in our fortune cookie. When my turn came I read “Three months from this date great things will happen.” There was some silence and finally John said, “oh, I guess we could be in China”. We all shrugged it off, trying not to dream. Well, today we received our tentative itinerary for our trip to China and three months after that birthday dinner is Sept 9, Daniel’s tentative adoption day!

I should emphasize the word tentative. We have NOT received travel clearance from China yet, and everything is dependent on travel clearance, but here’s the hopeful plan:

• Sept. 7 (Sun)---Arrive in Shenyang and stay at Trader’s Hotel.
• Sept. 24 (Wed)---Depart for home.

So, if this schedule remains true we will meet our son in 39 days!

Tonya

God owns the cattle on a thousand hills

My dad and mom were missionaries for all their adult lives. We depended completely on the generosity of churches and friends, and ultimately God for everything. I remember many times when the finances were tight. Often during these times my dad would say “don’t worry, God owns the cattle on a thousand hills” reference Psalm 50:10:

for every animal of the forest is mine,
and the cattle on a thousand hills.

Dad was reminding us that providing for our needs is never difficult for God, His resources are endless.

Well, His endless resources have been pouring into our lives. Last week we were given $1000 and today in the mail we received $2000! Also today a friend gave us a brand new bike and a bunch of clothes for Daniel. God is showing us his powerful hand.

Stay tuned… it’s going to be an exciting ride!

Tonya (for John, Cosette and Daniel)

Provision... you can help!

Recently while praying about our finances, asking God once again to provide what is needed to complete Daniel's adoption, I thought I heard the Lord say “ask”. I replied “I’ve been asking, Lord, are you going to answer?” I'm sure His reply is “ask others”.

In Geneses 50:21 it says “So then, don't be afraid. I will provide for you and your children. He reassured them and spoke kindly to them." My heart knows God can, and will provide. I am amazingly peaceful about that. But I still believe He is asking us to share the blessings of this adoption with you by asking you to help.

Acts 11:29 The disciples, each according to his ability, decided to provide help for the brothers living in Judea.

Here are some practical ways you could help with the expenses for our upcoming trip broken down into smallish parts. I’ve opened an account called “Chip In” where you can make a donation if you choose (see "chip in" at end of this post and on the side bar).

• Orphanage donation (help provide for the kids left behind in Daniel’s orphanage) - $3,000.00
• Sponsor airfare LA to China (about $1300 each) - $1300.00
• Sponsor a day of expenses in China - $425.00
• Sponsor one Chinese visa (we need three) - $130.00
• Sponsor one night in a hotel for our family of 4 in China - $120.00
• Sponsor a full day of meals for our family of 4 in China - $64.00
• Sponsor one meal for our family of 4 in China - $32.00
• Donate frequent flyer miles on American Air to help with our DFW – LA flights - ???

If you are in the area and you have big boy things you would like to donate that would be great too! Daniel’s measurements as of May 10 (the day after his 6^th birthday) were: 46.5 inches tall, 42 lbs, chest 26.3 inches, feet 8.26 inches. I’m not exactly sure what size that means he would wear. I’m guessing size 6, but he is sure to have grown some in the past few months. We need a bike, toys, clothes, anything you can think of that might be helpful, honestly. After 6 years with my overwhelmingly girlie girl princess I’m not even sure what we need for Daniel.

Without the prayers and support of our family and friends we could not have even considered adopting Daniel. You are such blessings to us. Thank you for helping us once again.

Stay tuned… the rumor from our agency is that we may get travel approval very very soon. According to our case manager the TA's are "in the mail" from China.

Be blessed,
Tonya (and for John, Cosette and Daniel)

Thursday, July 24, 2008 11:16 AM Add to Calendar

Citizenship… what does it mean?

Today Cosette and I got up early and drove to Dallas. We stood in a long line and waited for hours in a packed room full of strangers. Why? Believe it or not, this was the last step in Cosette’s paperwork. Yes, Cosette is finally in possession of a U.S. Certificate of Citizenship. She was officially a citizen on August 21, 2002, my 34^th birthday and the day she first touched U.S. soil. But today she has the proof. (to the right Cosette signing the forms)

As we were waiting today, watching all the other families excitedly file into this cramped room I began to think about what it means to be a citizen of the United States. What do you think it means? What are your responsibilities as a citizen? Any commitments? When the actual swearing in happened I caught a glimpse or what it means (right and below Cosette with a new friend she met this morning):

First some of our rights:

1. Freedom of religion
2. Freedom of Speech
3. Freedom of the Press
4. The Right to Assemble
5. The Right to Petition

Our responsibilities:

1. Obeying the laws
2. Paying taxes
3. Jury duty
4. Serve as a witness
5. Register for the draft
6. Voting!

On our drive home Cosette and I talked about what just happened. I asked her if she knew what it meant to be a U.S. Citizen and we talked briefly about the concepts listed above (right, Cosette with new certificate).

I believe that Cosette is right now forming her attitudes about voting, her place within the community, and her sense of a greater common good. Alarmingly, study after study shows a rapid increase in self concern and a decrease in the knowledge, interest, and participation by teens in the responsibilities of citizenship. In 1990, the Times Mirror study of five decades revealed that the current young generation, knows less, cares less . . . votes less, and, in 1990, were significantly less informed than middle-aged and older people about current events. Civic aptitude among 17-year-olds declined markedly by 1990, with students having particular difficulty answering questions on the political processes and historical traditions of our democracy.

"Children are one-third of our population and all of our future." - Unknown

What can I do to help my children avoid becoming a part of these statistics? Help them enter political life in situations where their voices will be heard. Help them see that their votes count. Work with them to develop a basic understanding of political institutions. Most importantly, provide experiences that help them learn about and engage with the community, whichever community that is local, citywide, regional, Democratic, or Republican (right, celebrating with chocolate pancakes).

Below are some ideas printed with permission from www.LearningtoGive.org

Promote Volunteering

"What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child."

—George Bernard Shaw

Encourage your children to be active, regular volunteers in an organization dealing with an issue they care about. Also, encourage organizations in which you're involved to develop policies and programs that support volunteer opportunities for young people (e.g., a youth advisory committee or youth positions on the adult board).

Discussion of Philanthropic Ideas

This is the time to hold family discussions on topics related to philanthropy. Students are both cynical and idealistic. Family discussions about complex issues, in a warm and supportive environment, can help your school-age adult sort through this complexity. At this age, your school aged child will begin to shift between idealism and realism.

Suggested Points of Discussion:

• Was Mother Teresa a saint or a loser? She died with only her personal clothing and a few other personal items. Was her life a success? Why or why not?
• What does it mean to have a sense of place and to belong to a community? What is important about it? To how many communities does your family belong (e.g., geographic community, religious community, ethnic community, world community, youth community, etc.)?
• How does giving and serving develop a sense of belonging and community?
• How does volunteering strengthen the community?
• What do you see as the key problems of our time? What are the causes and consequences? How might giving and serving make a difference to these problems?

Service-Learning at School

Encourage your school to develop high-quality service-learning opportunities as a teaching method. These volunteer experiences tie academic learning to real-world needs and volunteer efforts. Support your teen's involvement in appropriate community service. Advocate for the experience to have academic ties to the school curriculum.

Get Out the Vote

"We can't form our children on our own concepts; we must take them and love them as God gives them to us."

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Political awareness is key to political involvement. Have family discussions about current events, political candidates, judicial decisions, and family members' opinions about important topics. Remember, your teen has not reached a final position on any issue yet. Their opinions will change as they mature and go through life's experiences.

Model and encourage support of the political process. Volunteer together at a local campaign headquarters for presidential, state or local candidates. Prepare food to take to your local polling place on Election Day. Have a pamphlet-designing party for your teen's friends, then distribute the pamphlets to encourage other teens to vote. Help your teen hold a brainstorming session on how they can make a difference in the local election.

This blog is supposed to be about Daniel, I know, but this is the news for today. I hope you don’t mind.

Tonya

God's Timing... perfect every time

Today during my quiet time I sat thinking about our situation, wondering when our LOA (letter of acceptance) would come. When would we finally get to go to China and meet our precious son? So many well intentioned friends have reminded me that God’s timing is always best. I know that is true, but waiting is still hard. I’m so glad that I know the King of Kings, and that he loves my son more than I do.

That being said, I began to do a bit of sulking. I looked at my calendar and counted the days, 80 days and counting sense our documents were logged into the CCAA in China… Once again I calculated the “what ifs”… if we get LOA today, we might get TA in a few weeks and be in China by the end of August… Maybe by my 40th birthday, Aug 21? Probably not, because of the Olympics. What if China doesn't hurry up?... What if… I have a schedule China, don't you understand?

It was at this "feeling sorry for my doubtful self" point that I sat with my Bible and God directed me to this verse... a promise if you will! And this is what I read:

"For the vision still has its time, presses on to fulfillment and will not disappoint; if it delays, wait for it, it will surely come, it will not be late." Habakkuk2:3

Wow . . . it will not be late, hmmmm . . . I looked it up in the Message Bible:

And then God answered: "Write this. Write what you see. Write it out in big block letters so that it can be read on the run. This vision-message is a witness pointing to what's coming. It aches for the coming—it can hardly wait! And it doesn't lie. If it seems slow in coming, wait. It's on its way. It will come right on time. Habakkuk 2:3

Does God have me figured out or what? He knows exactly what I need, right when I need it. Thank you Lord!

You won’t believe what happened next. The cell phone rang. Guess what? It was Denise (at Dillon, our adoption agency) calling and she has our LOA in hand, EXACTLY ON TIME.

I happen to be in Tulsa this week for Dillon’s China Heritage camp with Cosette so I can sign the LOA today, FedEX it to John at home so he can sign it tomorrow and FedEx it back to Dillon for Monday delivery. GOD’S TIMING IS PERFECT.

Another very exciting development: Usually on adoption trips to China there is a group of adoptive families traveling together. This helps spread the expense of the translators, taxi’s etc. while in country. Because Daniel is older and we are an “expedited” adoption we were told we would not have a travel group, that our family would probably travel alone. We understand that if we travel alone we can expect our in China costs to almost double. Well, because of GOD’s TIMING, there is a group of Dillon families who we could travel with! They are adopting babies, and will be going to another Provence, but simply being in a “group” will lower our expenses!

Our next step will be to receive Travel Approval (TA) from China. We expect this to come in about 30 days. Travel is usually a few weeks after TA.

We still don't have all the money needed for this journey. We are trusting once again that God will provide exactly what we need, exactly when we need it.

God is GOOD! ALL the time.

Blessings,
~ Tonya

Preparing for Daniel

Physical: Our house is abuzz with preparations for Daniel. We are converting the nursery into a big boy room; cleaning out dressers and closets; replacing the teddy bears with balls, transformers and Lego’s. We will soon begin shopping for clothes. Typically children adopted from China come with the clothes on their backs and nothing more. Where does one start? Undies, what kind? Socks, pajama’s, t-shirts, shorts, shoes, etc. We need it all! Based on the most recent update on Daniel he should be wearing size 7 clothes and size 2 or 3 shoes. We welcome any hand me downs you have sitting around gathering dust!

Emotional: It is difficult to know how to prepare emotionally. We talk about Daniel, think about what time it is in China “now’, try to make him a real part of our every day lives. It’s very difficult. We don’t know Daniel. What does he like? Does he laugh easily? Does he have dimples when he smiles? Is his hair coarse or fine? Is he talkative or quiet? Does he love music? Drawing? Sports? Mostly we have questions, not answers. One afternoon in January Cosette painted the three pictures in this post. The first is a self-portrait, next is me (mom) and the third is a picture of Daniel. Amazing isn’t it? Daniel is a featureless boy. The contrast between the paintings speaks volumes.

Spiritual: We pray daily for Daniel. Actually, it would be more accurate to say we pray all day for him. Any time God puts him in my mind I lift up a prayer. Our hearts cry is that God would prepare Daniel’s heart for us, and ours for him. One thing to consider is that while we are spending all this time and energy preparing for Daniel, he may not have much or any preparation himself. There is a chance that he will learn about us only a few days before we meet. Many times children adopted internationally at Daniels age have the feeling that they have been kidnapped. They are mistrusting and fearful. Somehow we pray that this precious boy would know we are coming, that we love him, want him and will be his forever family.

Preparing is a process.

Adopting Again -- the beginning

Our journey to Daniel began in late October 2007 when Dillon International, the agency we used to adopt our daughter, Cosette, contacted us with a new list of “waiting” children. Although we regularly spoke of adopting again, we were not financially prepared for an expedited adoption, nor had we ever planned to adopt an older child. God had a different plan. I prayed as I opened the file Dillon sent. As the file opened, Daniel’s face jumped off the page and into my heart. I don’t know any other way to put it. It was an immediate thing. I hesitated as I called John to ask him to look at the list. I did not tell him about Daniel at first. I wanted to get his real response, not filtered by my hopes. John had a similar experience. We both knew Daniel was meant to be our son. So many questions remained. The biggest one was financial, where would the money come from? I have read enough about adopting an older child to know there are many obstacles and difficulties we could face. With a healthy portion of fear I prayed, asking God to please answer these three questions:

1) Where was the money coming from?

2)Would Daniels minor medical issue lead to long-term health problems, or did he have a clean bill of health?

3)Would Daniel be able to bond with us?

The next three days God amazed us! On day one God miraculously provided three quarters of the money we needed for this adoption from a completely unexpected source. On the second day I spoke with a therapist who reviewed Daniels file, including information about his relationship with his foster parents and she assured me, as well as she could, that Daniel seems to have a good attachment with his foster family. Day three included a “clean bill of health” from the international adoption clinic.

Honestly, I did not expect God to answer those questions, and certainly not so quickly. So began our journey to Daniel.

In the months that followed we completed “paperchase” as most adoptive families fondly call the paperwork phase. Out completed paperwork was logged into the Chinese Center of Adoption Affairs (CCAA) on April 23, and our official wait began. We expect to get our Letter of Intent (LOI) from CCAA any day now, and then we wait again for Travel Approval (TA). As we progress I plan to update this blog. Check back as often as you like.