Bloodlines by John Piper

I stumbled across this video today and had to post.


Bloodlines Documentary with John Piper from Crossway on Vimeo.

I hope it blesses and challenges you as it did me!

making strides

It's been a crazy, eventful week regarding our adoption. First off, I want to thank our dear friends, Bryan and Sarah Lauren Ickes for one of the coolest gifts for our baby girl! It's a set of wooden blocks that is basically a puzzle, map of China, Chinese lessons and character drawing lessons all in one. You guys are the coolest and we can't wait to break them out with her!

I did end up going to Raleigh on Monday morning to get our documents authenticated on the state level. Thanks to my mom for going with me!

I'm really glad we went in person because there were a few mistakes I was able to take care of on the spot that would have taken more time to deal with via snail mail. I also didn't realize we would have to authenticate our birth certificates. Andy was born in VA so I found out his would have to be mailed to Richmond to be authenticated. Or I could just drive to Richmond myself!

So, that's what I decided to do on Tuesday. I left our house at 6:00 am, got to Richmond by 8:45 am, was in and out in less than 10 minutes and home by 12:30 pm! If I would have mailed his birth certificate, our agency would not have received it back from Richmond for at least a week and possibly more due to the Thanksgiving holiday. I felt a little crazy for making the drive but it really worked out well. I'm so glad I decided to go for it.

Our agency has everything now. The documents just need to be sent to DC for authentication at the national level (don't think it didn't cross my mind to do that myself!). Hopefully our dossier will be in China by early December and logged in shortly thereafter. Trying not to get my hopes up too high for a Christmas match!

We'd love your continued prayers as we get closer and closer to getting a referral. Just please pray for His leading in this decision as the time draws near. And that it would be quick!

lookie there

We finally got our approval letter in the mail on Thursday and went to get the last piece of paperwork notarized today.

After talking with our agency a little more, I found out I can go to Raleigh myself on Monday to get it all authenticated, which will save us a few days :) And I'm all about that!

a labor of love

You see this stack of papers?

This is what we call a labor of L.O.V.E.! It represents a lot of time, money and effort spent over the last 7.5 months. And it's finally going to be making it's way over to the land of our daughter. If only we could go with it!

After several phone calls this week, I finally heard what I wanted to hear today...we have been cleared by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to adopt! We weren't concerned about eventually getting approval. It's just that if they wanted to request more info, that would have taken even longer. And, as I've mentioned in previous posts, this is all we've been waiting on to take the next steps.

So, what's next? Hopefully we'll get our official letter of approval in the mail next week, mail our dossier to our agency and have them authenticate all of our documents. This step can take a couple of weeks.

Then, these papers are on to The People's Republic of China!

adoption awareness month

November is National Adoption Awareness month! I dropped in on Julie Cratty's blog and she had posted this wonderful Third Day video. I wanted to share it as well. Enjoy!

*Side note: I saw Third Day in concert in Mebane, NC when I was in high school. I'm pretty sure no one really knew them at that time!

Update: I just checked in on our I-800A. They are working on the files with a receipt date of Sept 1. Ours is Sept 2 :) So, I'll be checking back in with them on Wednesday morning. Hopefully not too much longer.