Sunday, August 29, 2010

Adoption Stats

It is estimated there are between 143 million and 200 million orphans worldwide.

Approximately 250,000 children are adopted annually, BUT...

Every day 5, 760 more children become orphans.

Each year 14, 505,000 children grow up as orphans and age out of the system by age sixteen.

Every 2.2. seconds another orphan ages out with no family to go to and no place to call home.

(Stats courtesy of recent UNICEF numbers, see link)

James 1:27 says:
"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress..."


http://skywardjourney.wordpress.com/why-adoption/

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Blurps, Blogs, and Care Packages

Just a few days ago someone on a yahoo adoptive parents group asked if I blog. They wanted me to send them my blog address so they could follow our adoption. Hhhhmmmm. Do I blog? Well, since my last post was in April, I am not sure I can claim true blogger status. I am more of a blurp-er, sending out little blurps every now and then.
I was encouraged to fix myself.
At first I wondered who in the world would care if my blurps became blogs anyway, except those four groupies who have me on their watch list (Hi Mom, Dad, Uncle JimBob and Aunt Ellie!). But in an effort toward consistency, I will give it a try and see if I can offer a post more often. Then maybe one day I can reach true "blogger" status. Sigh...

On August 9th, we received that long awaited Letter of Approval/Letter Seeking Confirmation -otherwise known as the LOA in adoption lingo.  It took 49 days from the time our dossier was received and logged in to the CCAA in China to get the LOA. During the wait, Mark was doing pre-deployment training in the Mojave desert. This is a picture of him (above) as he visited the airport USO...

Anyway, after the 30 day mark I was on my knees every morning pleading with God to send the LOA asap. After all, I argued, we are on a time crunch here with Mark's deployment approaching at the end of October. God was silent, except for a whispered "Wait" in my ear.
On August 9th, Mark's Battalion returned and I drove over to HQ to meet him. Some Marine missplaced his weapon and we all had to wait, but eventually they were dismissed. Mark followed my van in his car. As we pulled out, my cell phone rang. It was our agency! I swung into a nearby parking lot with Mark behind me. Then I got the good news we had been waiting for! We had received the Approval from China to adopt MingHua! Now, I was told, they needed us to BOTH sign the emailed copy TODAY and fax it back immediately to confirm that we would accept!
I got out of the car and told Mark. We had a little mini-celebration right there in the parking lot, laughing and crying and hugging. The Battalion S1 saw all the commotion and had pulled in beside us to ask if everything was ok. As Mark grabbed me in a big hug I heard him say "Everything is great, Captain!  We're having a boy! And he's eight years old!"
We could not have been happier if some one had told us we were expecting a baby!
On the way home, I marvelled at God's perfect timing. If that LOA had come a week earlier as I had asked, then Mark would not have been there to sign those papers. And I would have been one very frustrated mother!
Another good thing about getting the LOA was that we were given permission to send our first care package to Josiah (MingHua) along with photos and a letter introducing us as his new family. We used a service called LADYBUGSNLOVE which puts the package together and mails it from within China. This is a picture of the items we had placed in his package. It includes a toy car, a soft blanket (blue), some candy and nut, and a photo album. Angela, the gal in China who does the packing, chose the yellow fuzzy tiger photo album to put our pictures in because this is the year of the Tiger in China. We also included a disposable camera so that we could get pictures and money for the orphange to buy a celebration cake (these are very popular in China). 
Now we are waiting for the USCIS to grant approval for us to bring him home and then a travel invitation from China to go get him. All adoption proceedings will be finalized from within China.
Just heard today that the package was received from the orphanage on Thursday the 19th. So we hope to get pics soon. I would LOVE to post pictures of our little guy. But because of Hague Convention rules, we are not allowed to do that yet.  One day...