TRAVEL APPROVAL!!!

WE HAVE OUR TRAVEL APPROVAL!!! KATE, WE ARE COMING FOR YOU!!!

This is SUCH big news!!!! On September 24, our Article 5 came. Then our agency applies to the Chinese government for our Travel Approval. That usually takes 3-4 weeks... and with the entire country of China on holiday this first week of October, we REALLY weren't expecting this! But it has arrived today! Woo-hoo!!!

So now our agency will apply to the US Consulate in China for our consulate appointment. Once we have that appointment date, we'll book our plane tickets and travel to China!!! WOW! Hopefully we'll have our consulate appointment date by this Wednesday. We'll either travel at the end of this month or sometime in November - we're getting there! and FAST! We are so excited and ready to go get little Kate and bring her home ; )

So, what have we been up to since our last post? I'm trying to keep track of our lives on this blog since I'm going to turn it into a little "while we waited for you" book for Kate. 

James and I went to Chattanooga for a night to celebrate our 6th wedding anniversary. We had a blast! We had our first date in Chattanooga so it's a special place for us!

Also in the above picture are 2 different business cards that Allison, an awesome gal who works with James, made for us for our China trip. The top picture is a red card that we can give to cab drivers, waiters, orphanage workers with gifts, and other Chinese people that we encounter. We have various gifts that we take over to give to different folks along the way, so this just says "thank you" in Chinese characters. It's just perfect! And the two pictures below are the front and back of the second business card. This one will go to other Americans - it has our contact info and blog address. I LOVE these business cards and it's so fun to have them all ready to go! Thank you, Allison!

And thank you to my friend Katie for helping me figure out how to do these cool collage pictures  (Diptic - it's an app for iPhone). I'm loving them, obviously! We've had lots of questions about Kate's room, how it's going getting ready for her, etc... so here are some pics! Kate and Anne will share a room. They say that these little ones from the orphanages really like to be in a room with another child - since that's what they're used to. And Anne is super excited about her soon-to-arrive roomy! We'll try this and see how it goes! We can always do some shifting around if need be ; ) We just put a crib in Anne's room and redecorated the walls ; ) The three canvases have each girl's verse (we pray and choose a verse for each girl). Kate actually has two verses (just one is on the wall for now!):

"you have filled our hearts with greater joy" psalm 4:7

and

"all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be" -ps 139:16

Molly will stay in her room (not pictured) because her "sleeping" habits are different than Anne's (and hopefully Kate's too!). Molly's a super early riser so we'll keep her in a different room for now! If she starts sleeping in, we may put her in with her sisters and the three of them can be together! We'll see how it goes ; ) Pictured below is the bathroom ; ) I really had fun making their little canvases with names, birth dates, etc. And I love this great sign "Jesus knows me this I love" from Etsy (http://www.etsy.com/listing/74265387/jesus-knows-me-this-i-love-distressed) Just in case you want one too!

My dad moved to Huntsville! It's been great having him here! In September, we visited the rest of my family in Texas. We were heading there for my aunt's birthday party and my cousin's baby shower. My cousin ended up having her baby early - the day we arrived! It was exciting to be in town when she was born. The guests of honor missed their baby shower... but that's ok! Some pics of these things are below... There is one of the girls, one of Molly sleeping on me, one of the bday party, one of the girls tickling my mom, one of the girls looking in the fish tank at the hospital when we went to see their new baby cousin (sorry I don't have baby pics! ak!), one of some of my best friends from high school's children with my girls (we all went swimming ; ), a family picture, and some of the girls in the airport (the girls had fun with the suitcases my mom got for them) ...

James is on the missions team at our church so we got to help put together an Adoption/Foster Information night for the community last Sunday night. It was AWESOME! SO many people helped - WAY too many to list. But it was awesome to see the community and our church family come together to put this together. Right after church Sunday, tons of people stayed to help move tables and chairs. And after the event, everyone was buzzing about, serving in every way they could think of - trash, bathroom duty, cleaning toys, etc. So neat to see the body of Christ serve together! The hands and feet of Jesus were at work for sure. Other neat donors: Starbucks donated ALL the coffee (for almost 200 adults!); Fresh Market donated most of the desserts (and they were FANCY!!!); Newks loaned us some brand new center piece things ... the church staff worked super hard to take care of the building, childcare, etc (it was 100 kids!) ... Lisa did TONS ... Rachell at James' office made a zillion copies of handouts to give the attendees. Twenty families who have adopted or fostered came to each "host" a table of those who were interested in adopting or fostering. Four amazing speakers came to share their expertise and lots of agencies and support groups came out and set up info tables for everyone. It was just awesome! God is really doing neat things in our area in many people's hearts... it seems there is a wave of folks moving toward adopting and/or fostering. It's just awesome to see! I think I've posted some of these stats before ... but they are staggering so I'll post them again. There are SO many orphans in the world and it is just heart-breaking. Awesome that God is moving so many to help care for these precious ones! 

Scary Adoption statistics:

- there are about 150 million orphans in the world; 30,000 were adopted last year (the current US population is about 300 million as you know, just to give you an idea about how many children that is!)

- 5,760 children are orphaned each DAY in the world  

- If a child is not adopted, they will eventually "age out" and be kicked out of the orphanage by age 14-18. Each year 14.5 million children worldwide age out and end up on the streets with no family, no skills, and no home. 10-15% of these children will commit suicide before age 18; 70% of the males will become criminals; 60% of the females are forced into prostitution. 

- One study found that out of every 15,000 orphans that "age out" in the US, 1500 commit suicide, 5,000 are unemployed, 6,000 are homeless, and 3,000 are in jail within three years. 

So obviously the need is HUGE and immediate. The night went really well as we all learned more about orphans, adoption, and fostering. Great teaching, fellowship, and food!

I wish I had taken more pictures! I got a couple before the event but none of it! Ak! Thank you Will Taylor for taking some when everyone was there and talking (and serving in every other capacity that day!). It was such a special night. We had handouts with lots of helpful adoption info, so if you want one, email me and I'll try to get you one!

We've been hiking a couple times and done some skipping of rocks (see below). James is great at teaching the girls about all sorts of things (acorns, rocks, animals, leaves) - he's great at it!

We have a busy couple weeks between now and China - and of course we will drop everything just as soon as we can travel and head on over the ocean! Ok, that seems like a sufficient update for now. Thanks for reading along and following us down this crazy path God is leading us on. TRAVEL APPROVAL!!! WOO-HOO!!! 

(ps. how long does it take to upload pictures from camera, send them to phone, make them into collages, write a blog, barely read through it, mostly erase it once, change font and somehow mix up every sentence, put it all back, and post the blog entry? all while mostly supervising two little girls? 3 hours.)

..and now to clean up the house from the aftermath created by the girls... they can do a lot more in 3 hours than i can!!!