Originally written 5/4/08
The year of 2007 started out good. We had a nice Christmas and New Years even with the disappointment of not getting a referral.
The year of 2007 started out good. We had a nice Christmas and New Years even with the disappointment of not getting a referral.
Toward the end of February we received our income tax refund. In 2006 we put the whole thing toward the adoption and would have done the same this year except C needed braces. We got our return on a Friday and that afternoon Kurt and I discussed how we would allocate it. We could split it and put half toward the adoption and half toward the braces which would lower the monthly payments on the braces or we could put the whole amount toward one or the other and just hope that all would work out. That afternoon we decided to split it.
The weeks leading up to this decision AWAA announced that they were receiving a very small batch of referrals. Up until this time the batches were between 28 and 32 referrals. About half being boys and half girls. This batch was 5. We didn't tell anyone about this batch because we were confident that A would not be in this tiny batch of referrals and because we didn't want to have to tell people that we did not get a referral again.
At 7:20pm the Friday we got our refund we got a call from AWAA. I was walking upstairs when the phone rang and once I knew that it was AWAA I called Kurt upstairs and put them on speaker phone. After a few questions they told us that they had a referral for a little girl that they wanted us to look at. We were so excited. They told us that they would email u
s her information as soon as we got off the phone. We never wanted to get off the phone more than at that moment. We called all the children down and we went to the computer.
There it was. The referral information for Wu, MiaoQiu. We were given just three pictures of this precious child. We could not get over how beautiful she was. The information told us that she was 3 years old and her birthday was October 10, 2003. Kurt and I remembered that in October of 2003 we were building our house. The home that one day would be made ready for this little girl born so far away.
We all prayed for this child, that the Lord set aside for us, that she would be well cared for until we could bring her home and praised God for his goodness. Needless to say the tax refund all went toward the adoption. We had exactly what we needed when we needed it except the $4500.00 for the international flight expenses.
The n
ext steps were the RA (referral acceptance) which came a few weeks later as I recall. Then we waited for our TA (travel approval). That was the big thing. Once you got your TA you usually traveled up to two weeks later.
We had to make arrangements for C, J, and K for the two weeks we would spend in China. J and K were able to stay together with a very generous family. They had three children, one of them was in John's class at school and another one was in K's class at school. They had a very good time with this family. C got the benefit of two families. One was a wonderful church family whose lives had already been touched by an international adoption in their extended family. The other was an amazingly sweet and kind family whose son was in C's class at school. We could not begin to thank these families enough for the gift they gave us by keeping C, J, and K while
we went to bring home their sister. It was a tremendous comfort to know that they were well cared for while we were half way across the world.
We got our TA the middle of May and were scheduled to leave May 31st for Beijing, China. C was not happy about this because his 13th birthday was June 1st. He wanted us all together on his birthday. We just told him he was getting a new sister for his birthday and he would have to wait until we returned for his gift. I am pretty sure that is not what most 13 year old boys want, but that is what he got. ; )
The first 5 months of 2007 seemed to fly by as one thing happened after another. We were on our way to China the last day of May and would spend two weeks away from our family in order to bring home this special child God set aside just for us. We could not have been happier.
The weeks leading up to this decision AWAA announced that they were receiving a very small batch of referrals. Up until this time the batches were between 28 and 32 referrals. About half being boys and half girls. This batch was 5. We didn't tell anyone about this batch because we were confident that A would not be in this tiny batch of referrals and because we didn't want to have to tell people that we did not get a referral again.
At 7:20pm the Friday we got our refund we got a call from AWAA. I was walking upstairs when the phone rang and once I knew that it was AWAA I called Kurt upstairs and put them on speaker phone. After a few questions they told us that they had a referral for a little girl that they wanted us to look at. We were so excited. They told us that they would email u
s her information as soon as we got off the phone. We never wanted to get off the phone more than at that moment. We called all the children down and we went to the computer.There it was. The referral information for Wu, MiaoQiu. We were given just three pictures of this precious child. We could not get over how beautiful she was. The information told us that she was 3 years old and her birthday was October 10, 2003. Kurt and I remembered that in October of 2003 we were building our house. The home that one day would be made ready for this little girl born so far away.
We all prayed for this child, that the Lord set aside for us, that she would be well cared for until we could bring her home and praised God for his goodness. Needless to say the tax refund all went toward the adoption. We had exactly what we needed when we needed it except the $4500.00 for the international flight expenses.
The n
ext steps were the RA (referral acceptance) which came a few weeks later as I recall. Then we waited for our TA (travel approval). That was the big thing. Once you got your TA you usually traveled up to two weeks later.We had to make arrangements for C, J, and K for the two weeks we would spend in China. J and K were able to stay together with a very generous family. They had three children, one of them was in John's class at school and another one was in K's class at school. They had a very good time with this family. C got the benefit of two families. One was a wonderful church family whose lives had already been touched by an international adoption in their extended family. The other was an amazingly sweet and kind family whose son was in C's class at school. We could not begin to thank these families enough for the gift they gave us by keeping C, J, and K while
we went to bring home their sister. It was a tremendous comfort to know that they were well cared for while we were half way across the world.We got our TA the middle of May and were scheduled to leave May 31st for Beijing, China. C was not happy about this because his 13th birthday was June 1st. He wanted us all together on his birthday. We just told him he was getting a new sister for his birthday and he would have to wait until we returned for his gift. I am pretty sure that is not what most 13 year old boys want, but that is what he got. ; )
The first 5 months of 2007 seemed to fly by as one thing happened after another. We were on our way to China the last day of May and would spend two weeks away from our family in order to bring home this special child God set aside just for us. We could not have been happier.
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