National Visa Center Letter Received!

We received the NVC letter today and sent it along to American World Adoption.  We took a quick look at the timetable, and we have been getting most documents a little quicker than anticipated, so that is great!  If we continued to hit everything at the lower end of the range, we could be in China in October!

I-800 Provisional Approval Received!

We received our provisional approval for our I-800 from USCIS today!  As best we can tell, we could receive our travel authorization in maybe 5-6 weeks.  This is very good news!

Care Package and Updated Photos!

We contacted Ann at Red Thread in Guangzhou and arranged to have a "care package" delivered to Rebecca Joy.  We had heard good things about Ann, and were really happy to receive a note from her and a picture of the items she delivered.

From top left to right, we sent her some candy (to share with the other children and nannies), a blanket, a bag to carry everything home, some cookies, pajamas, a letter from us (translated), a doll, disposable camera and a 10 picture photo album containing pictures of our family.  Even though she is only 2 1/2, we thought that maybe she would look at the pictures and recognize our faces when we see her.  We understand that the nannies will try to explain that she is going to go home with her forever family.  We also asked Ann to request that the nannies send us some updated photos.  The letter we sent her is below.


Dear Shengxuan,

We are your new Mommy and Daddy and we will be coming to see you soon.  We are very excited and believe that you will be a wonderful part of our family.   You will have new brothers and sisters, and they are looking forward to meeting you.  Your little sister's name is Anna Hope and she is 4 years old.  She is also from China and she will be with us when we come to bring you home.   She is talking about your everyday.  You will also have another sister named Sarah, and two brothers named Tim and Michael.

When you come home with us, you will meet a lot of new friends.  You will be with Anna Hope and sleep with her in her room.  Anna Hope is looking forward to playing with you and sharing her toys.

We hope that you like your new doll and pajamas.  We will bring some other things with us when we come to bring you home.

We love you and cannot wait to see you!

Love,

Mommy and Daddy




After we sent this a couple of days ago, we were very excited to receive some updated photos today!  Here are a few of the new photos:

Rebecca Joy - Here we Come!

Rebecca Joy's Referral Photo

After our adoption of Anna Hope was completed in September 2007, we were convinced God wanted us to trust Him for one more child, even though we were both getting into the "upper 40's".  We applied through America World Adoption Association as soon as we could (March 2008) and eventually received a login date of March 2009.  On May 23, 2010, at a Global Day of Prayer service at our church, I (Phil) was impressed to ask God to identify our next child within 90 days.  Amazingly, God did this, and within 77 days we had been matched to Rebecca Joy, filed our electronic acceptance, received our pre-approval, received our referral agreement and filed our letter of acceptance.  She is currently 2 1/2 years old, which is 1 year and 9 months younger than Anna Hope.  Anna Hope is excited about meeting Rebecca Joy, and together God has now provided in abundance Hope and Joy.  What a great blessing.

We have filed the required paperwork, and are now waiting on our Travel Authorization from China.  Our best guess is that we will travel in late October, 2010, but Priscilla is hoping for earlier!

Our entire family is getting ready for another great adoption adventure.  Our oldest three children, Tim (20), Sarah (18) and Michael (17), are experiencing how great it is to see our younger children explore their world and experience life.   They are GREAT kids and really act like little "parents".  We have been asking God that our kids would see His hand move throughout the adoption process, and we are so thankful that this has been clearly evident.  Thank you, God, for this tremendous blessing.