TA and CA and Flights Booked....Oh My!!!

Ok, so that might have been a little cheesy, but I couldn't help myself!  Please forgive me, I'm a giddy mom who's about to go wrap her arms around her little man that she's been waiting for for nearly a year!  So what does all of that mean?  It means this:  As I had posted on Monday, we received our TA (Travel Approval,) from China.  By 9pm that night, we had our CA (Consulate Appointment,) confirmed by China.  This is the date that really determines what your travel schedule looks like.  As of 10pm last night, our tickets to China were purchased!  Can you even believe it?  Because we still can't :)

So what is our plan?  well, due to flight prices, we are now getting into China a day earlier than expected, which gives us a day in Beijing to do whatever we want.  So what will we do, you ask?  Oh you know, probably go to visit the Great Wall.  No big deal.  (Please note the sarcasm in that sentence!  I'm SO beyond excited to be able to add it into our journey!  It was really the only thing I felt like I would miss in not going to Beijing!)

What is up after our mini visit to Beijing.  A little town that they call Zhangjiajie.  We want to go there because it looks a little something like this....

Photo courtesy of chinafacttours.com

Breathtaking.  We cannot wait to experience more of God's marvelous creation and amazing artwork!!  If it looks familiar at all to you, it's because the movie, Avatar, was partially filmed in this area.  The idea of the floating mountains in the movie was inspired by these tree topped peaks.  Oh one little thing that I forgot to mention....there are cable cars.  Like, crazy high cable cars that you need to take to get to the top.  I'm afraid of heights.  Cable cars + fear of heights = need for lots of prayers!  

Photo courtesy of paulchong.net

See?  I wasn't kidding!  The views from the top are unbelievable though, so I know that I have to do it!  I get nervous just looking at that picture.  AND...some of the cable cars have glass bottoms.  Really people?  Is that necessary?  I think I might have to resort to either looking up, or just shutting my eyes and spending the entire trip to the top in prayer :)

Moving right along, we will spend two days in Zhangjiajie, and then travel onto a city called Changsha, which is where we will get to meet our little man and have him join our family forever!  This will be on Monday, November 3rd in China, which of course with the time change will be Sunday, November 2nd in the U.S.  This probably means nothing to you, but if you are familiar with the world of adoption, you may know that in the U.S., November 2nd is National Orphan Sunday.  A day that churches and other organizations set aside to recognize our call to care for the 150 million orphans worldwide.  But this Orphan Sunday will be a particularly special Orphan Sunday.  There will be 150 million orphans MINUS ONE!!!!!  It is absolutely no coincidence in my mind that this will be the day that we meet the newest member of our family.  What an amazing and faithful God we serve!

I will end by asking you to consider being a partner in prayer with us during our journey.  We would love to have a group of our family and friends who are interested in covering us in prayer, and do have specific requests for specific points during our journey.  If you are interested in being part of our prayer team, please message me through Facebook, email us, or call us!!!  Thank you so much to all of you who have already been praying for our little man and this process.  We are so grateful and so blessed by all of you!

His Perfect Timing

So it's been awhile since I've updated ya'll on what's been going on adoption wise.  Well, it's been a lot of fill out more paperwork, send it in, and WAIT!  Ahhh I'm so sick of waiting!  So that's what we did.  I won't bore you with the details, but today our agency sent some additional documents to the U.S. Consulate in China.  This is technically the last step before we are out for our travel approval (TA,) from China!  Crazy!  Now don't get me wrong here people!  What you may have just read is that we will be leaving on a jet plane any day now because we are down to the last few steps of this process....um yeah no!  If it were only that easy!

What is the issue?  Well, it's called adoption + country with crazy fall holiday season = BAD!  Yes, if you were to Google which country in the world has the most fall holidays in the months of September and October, I'm confident that China would be top on the list!  There are two, one day holidays in September, and the real kick in the pants is the full week long holiday during the first part of October.  Ugh!  So at this point, we are thinking a mid-November travel date looks to be more realistic for us.  After figuring out that this is our true timeline this afternoon, I was feeling defeated.  Lately it seems like my group of other adoptive mommas and I have all been in a valley.  Feeling like the day will never come when we will ever get our arms around those precious children who have captured our hearts from thousands of miles away.  I have really felt like God has been speaking to me during this time to trust in Him.  Trying to encourage those other moms around me who are feeling the way that I have been feeling.  When I was driving in the car on the way to the store before dinner today, feeling defeated about our timeline, the song, "Blessed be Your Name," came on.  As I listened to the words, "When I'm found in the desert place, though I walk through the wilderness, blessed be your name, " were sung, it hit me.  God has a plan.  A master plan that I cannot understand or comprehend sometimes, but that He is in control of this adoption.  He has shown that to us from the very beginning.  Now folks, I am a member of a few, ok a lot of adoption boards on Facebook.  It seems so easy for everyone to say how great God is, or how God has answered their prayers when things go according to their plans.  But when things aren't going our way, I never see a word about praising God for His perfect timing.  This is true in all of our lives, adoption or not, but this has really hit me lately.  So blessed be your name, Lord.  Thank you that we aren't in control of this crazy process!

Oh yeah, and what have I neglected to let you know happened later after I returned home after running to the store?  A call.  From our adoption agency.  With an update on our little man....2 beautiful pictures and 11 glorious questions about our son answered!  So blessed be your name, Lord. Blessed be your name as I study every inch of my son's face, and blessed be your name as we continue to wait for these next long weeks, knowing that You are forever faithful.

And now that I've made you wait that long......presenting to you our little cutie patootie!

Smiles!  

And yes, we have some work to do in the fashion department!

The Day We've Been Waiting For....Well, one of them at least!

Thursday we got our LOA!!!  LOA stands for Letter of Acceptance, which is what we have been waiting for for the past 58 days...not like I was counting or anything!  This is a HUGE step in our process, and brings us about 8-12 weeks away from our little man!  This piece of paper essentially signifies that China has accepted our request for the little guy, and in this letter, they are asking us to check a box that states we would like to proceed with adopting him and sign it.  Would've been beautiful if we could've done this last year, right?!?!?!  AHHHH So excited!  Of course the littles and I were in the Mitten visiting family late last week, so the Letter of Acceptance, along with several other of our final pieces of paperwork, like Visa applications and immigration forms, won't get signed and Fedex Overnighted back to our adoption agency until Monday morning. Figures! In the meantime, we enjoyed this last bit of summer before it's time for school to start again...

We had an awesome time!  Now I'm anxiously awaiting an update on our little man, hopefully complete with his current measurements, and of course a picture!   Our most recent pictures are from November of last year.  I try to imagine in my head how much he has changed.  The anticipation is driving me nuts!  We DID get a mini update last week in regards to the potential issue with his file that I had discussed could potentially extend our adoption timeline.  Praise the Lord, it looks like this will NOT be the case, and we are still currently on track!  They also mentioned to us that our man is a quick growing boy, and that he is starting their equivalent of Preschool.  So excited for him!

Thank you to all of your for your prayers during this time.  Please pray that our paperwork continues to be processed quickly and smoothly.  I am still being optimistic and holding out hope for a possible October travel date.  However, there is a huge trade fair in Guangzhou, (read: very humid and tropical city in southeast China where the U.S Consulate is that we travel through on the way home,) in the middle of October.  This bumps up the price of flights, hotels, and basically everything else in the area during this time.  Booooo!  I will keep everyone posted on our progress in making it to an October travel date!!

Summer, where are you going???

Wow, can you believe that it's already the end of July?!?!?  Crazy stuff!  July is an absolute nuts month around our house.  Both the Big Guy and Little Lady's birthdays are in July, so we have lots of celebrating to do!  And this year, the celebrating started while with family in Michigan....

And kept going....

And going!!!

To think that Big Man's birthday isn't actually until Thursday of this week, and that we are going to be doing this all over again in a few days is more than this momma can handle!  This month has been exhausting!  The great part about being so busy this last month, is that I actually haven't had the chance to obsess over our LOA (Letter of Acceptance,) wait time.  We are currently on day 47 of our wait...not like anyone is counting around here or anything!  The way things have been running lately, wait times have been between 70-90 days.  I'm expecting and hoping to hear something by the time Big Man starts school next month.  

In the meantime, a few things.  Again, a HUGE THANK YOU to all who were involved in any way with our Both Hands project.  Still blows my mind!  Sponsorships are still coming in, which you can do so until we are fully funded.  The link with instructions on how to sponsor the day are at our Both Hands website here.   Before it got too late, we wanted to get our thank you notes out to all of those involved, (so those of you who have been involved, SPOILER ALERT!)  This is the pic we have decided on:

Coming soon to a house near you!

Lastly, I would ask that you be praying for our process.  I cannot disclose the entire situation, but please be praying that everything stays on track in terms of our adoption timeline.  There may be something involved that may cause our process to be set back by months, and we are fervently praying that this will not be the case, and that our little man will be home with us by the holidays this year.  

Thanks to all of you!  Hopefully my next post will have something to do with receiving our LOA!  YAY!!!!

Part 2 - Both Hands Project Day Recap!

First and foremost, a huge THANK YOU goes to all of our family and friends who supported us on this very special day.  To everyone from those who were on our team who received sponsors for the day, those who worked beside us because they have a love for serving others, and to those of you reading this who have sponsored this event.  Both our family and Ms. Brenda have been doubly blessed by this day!

To start the day, we were  I was extremely nervous about the chance of rain.  They were only saying that it was about 30-40%, but here in good ol' Ohio this week, it has been very warm and humid, which typically leads to pop up afternoon showers.  Pop up showers + newly stained fence and shutters = bad news!!  Thankfully, the Lord blessed us with a beautiful day!  The day actually got nicer as it went on!  By the time we left for the day, there was nothing but sunny skies!  We descended upon Ms. Brenda's house around 9:00 in the morning and gathered everyone around Ms. Brenda for a time of prayer for the day.  We then got our job assignments from the Mister, sent Ms. Brenda on her way for a day at the spa, and were down to work!  We had a wonderful group of volunteers who gave up all or part of their day to come and help us serve Ms. Brenda.  It was absolutely awesome to see!  We all kept saying how much we felt like we were on a mini version of Extreme Home Makeover!

The fence turned out wonderful, the garage was cleaned and organized, (however not without at least 20-30 people stopping to ask if we were having a garage sale!)  The garage ceiling was scraped and repainted, wallpaper was stripped and the hallway was repainted, shutters were repainted, the main living space was deep cleaned, items were prepared and priced for a garage sale, and lots and lots of bush trimming and mulching happened!  We also managed to get half way through the process of removing wallpaper and painting the downstairs bathroom, however, the aquarium wallpaper proved to be a little more of a challenge for us than expected.  Nemo wasn't going down without a fight, people!  Michael and I promised to go and finish the job within the next few weeks.

My nemesis...the fish wallpaper

All in all, it was an AWESOME day!  We were so beyond blessed to have had the opportunity to serve Ms. Brenda for the day.  Again, thank you to everyone who was involved in the day and for all of your prayers surrounding the day!  

Several individuals have already mentioned to us that they had forgotten to send in their sponsorship amounts prior to the project, and were wondering if they could still do so.  The answer is definitely YES!  Our account on the Both Hands website stays open until we are fully supported.  When that day comes, believe me, you will ALL know about it!  

If you are interested in a tax deductible donation, please either go to www.bothhandsfoundation.org/schaadt to donate electronically, or send in your donation amounts to the address below.  Thanks again!

Lifesong for Orphans

PO Box 40

Gridley, IL 61744

Write in the memo line: Preference Schaadt #4556

So without further adieu, why don't you just take a peek and see what we were up to yesterday??

Part 1 - Weeks Leading up to Both Hands

Wow!  SO much has happened since our last post that I suppose we should update everyone, not only on how awesome our Both Hands project was, but on all of the amazing adoption process updates as well!  

First and foremost, I had mentioned in our last post that our Dossier was sent to China.  It was officially logged in to the system on June 11th.  This date is referred to as your LID, (Log in Date,) in the adoption world.  We are hoping to get our Letter of Acceptance, (LOA,) for our little man by the first part of August. Anything after that would be amazing, and anything after that I would prefer not to discuss at this time ;)

This past month with the project, I, (Erin,) have been running around like a crazy woman trying to coordinate everything for our big day.  This included getting all of the sponsorship letters out to not only the members of our core team who live out of town so they could send them out to their sponsors, but also to all of the individuals that we were mailing letters to.  Once the letters were gone, I then moved on to finding sponsors within the community to help pay for our work supplies, lunch, etc.  It was amazing to see how God worked through this portion of our project.  A sweet new friend from the local adoption community donated our breakfast, and lunch was donated to us by both Bada Bing Pizza and Papa Johns, which was awesome!  Wooster Brush, in Wooster, Ohio donated our painting supplies, and Home Depot donated ALL of our other supplies!  This included stain, paint, mulch, etc.  It.was.amazing!  When the assistant manager told me the news, I wanted to cry, laugh, hug him all at the same time. Don't worry, I refrained!   When I saw our quote with all of our supplies totaled up to an amount that would've been a lot for us to have to pay, with the word PAID on it, it instantly made me think of the cross.  We all had a list of sins too long for any of us to cover ourselves, and Jesus stamped out PAID with His blood on our lists.  Amazing!  So thankful that God is continually receiving all of the glory throughout this process!  We had to pick up a few extra items during the day, but God also provided as several workers chipped in to cover the majority of those costs as well!  

Oh, and on the glorious day this past week when Home Depot so graciously decided to pay our bill, we also received an email that informed us that we received a grant for our adoption from an organization called the JSC Foundation!  Knock my little socks off!  We only applied for this one grant since we have focused almost all of our time on our Both Hands project, so we were thinking we wouldn't have much of a shot.  Of course God had different plans, and gave us the one-two punch with both the Home Depot donation and this email in one day!  So completely amazing!  

Part 2 - Both Hands Project Day Recap is on the way!

Both Hands!!

The Mister and I are over the moon beyond excited to announce that we have been approved for a Both Hands project!  Since a lot almost all of you have never heard of Both Hands, or a project with them, let me take a minute to break it down for you!

Both Hands is an organization that was created to help adoptive families serve others while in the process of their adoption as a means of helping to bring home their little one.  The foundation of the project centers around James 1:27, which tells us to look after widows and orphans.  What this means is that we create a group of family and friends to be on our team, and this group gets "sponsored," from their family and friends to help us work at a local widow's home for the day.  Our team members get sponsored for the day like someone would get sponsors for a walk-a-thon or something similar.  The most AWESOME part about this project though, is that we get to spend a day with those we love, loving on a sweet widow in the community who needs our help, all while raising funds to help us bring home our little man!  100% of all proceeds raised will go towards bringing our son home to us from China!  Wow, I just don't think it could get any better! A wonderful friend of ours introduced us to the Both Hands project last spring, and we fell in love with the idea.  This fall, we actually were able to help support another friend's project, and that completely sealed the deal!  We wanted in too!  

The widow we have selected lives in our community and attends our church.  She has no local family, and her house is in need of many repairs.  She is also getting ready to downsize, so we want to help her get ready for the sale of her home as well!  She is a wonderful woman, and we are so excited to get to bless her for a day!  

Do you want in too?  If you have gotten fired up like I am about this awesome opportunity, there are definitely ways that you can help!  

Pray.  Pray for things like extra helping hands on the work day, materials and supplies to be provided, and of course for no rain!  Also, please pray that God blesses this project in the way that He sees fit.  

Volunteer. If you want to get more involved, please feel free to consider volunteering to work the day of the project, which is going to be June 28th.  Both Hands has created a Facebook page for our event, which you can go to at https://www.facebook.com/events/296604640520636/.  At this page, you can sign up to attend the project and get down and dirty with us!

Donate.  Please consider sponsoring us on our work day.  We have already given and/or raised about $12,000 towards our adoption, however, we are still about $20,000 away from what we will need in order to bring our little man home.  Any amount given brings us one step closer to having our little man in our arms!  Some of you reading this will be receiving a letter in the mail either from our family, or from one of our team members.  There will be instructions on how to either mail in a donation, or donate online at http://www.bothhandsfoundation.org/schaadt.  If you are that excited and just cannot wait for your letter to arrive in the mail, or will just forget if you don't take action now, please by all means feel free to go to our Both Hands link!  Both the online donate button is ready for use, and the Both Hands mailing address is on that site as well.  All donations are tax deductible as well...bonus!  Also, if you have any extra work supplies laying around that you have no use for, I will be soon posting a list of items needed for the project date on our project website noted above.

We are so so so excited for this project, and know that it will be a day full of memories, not only for our team, but also for our widow as well!  In other news, our dossier did officially make it to China on Monday of this weekl!  YAY!  We are waiting to hear when we are logged into the computer system, which begins our loooong wait.  

More updates to come soon!!!