All that said, the Lord, as always, has the whole world in His Hands. So, we are trusting him with the major needs of the day as we embrace our little piece to live out His passion of hope and restoration in this avenue of adoption.
Last week we got our final official update from the orphanage on JiaYun. A few new pictures and a video and answers to 7 or so more questions! They have been SO responsive to us. We've gotten 4 udpates since March. With each update, we get more small glimpses into her life. This time we learned she likes to make goofy faces. How fun is that!?
Each time we get an update, it means we have more records to show her about her early life as she gets older. I'm so thankful for these. Last time, when we went to Ben's orphanage we saw his baby, baby picture for the first time. We didn't know if we'd get one of those. It's a bit blurry, but it's his favorite picture. I'm hopeful we will receive one of JiaYun when we get to her orphanage as well.
We also got news this morning that our picture book made it to JiaYun's orphanage! So, hopefully within the next day or so she will see our faces for the first time. A representative from our agency who lives in China translated explanations under each picture for us. Please pray that the staff presents adoption in an age appropriate and positive way to JiaYun. Typically, they see adoption as a good thing. However, sometimes there can be qualifiers added to it like "be a good girl so your family keeps you". Please pray for JiaYun's heart to be protected from any notion that she will need to perform or behave well in order to earn our love. You could pray also for her caretakers to know the unconditional love of their Savior as well.
So...now the question that we get asked the most often...."When do you travel!?" We will not know exactly until we get Travel Approval and lock in a Consulate Appointment with the Chinese government. We tailor our flights around that one appointment.
However, based on the estimates of our last few steps of the process...we hope to get Travel Approval the 2nd week of September. If we can lock in our Consulate Appointment a few days after that, we can book our flights for October.
China is pretty good at parties. And we are running into two of them with our travels. The Autumn Moon Festival is the first week of October, so that rules out a few weeks in early Oct. and then there is more celebration near the end of the month. It won't interfere with our government processes, I don't think, but it just means for potentially other things to maneuver while we're in country.
However, as it stands, we're hoping to leave mid October and arrive home early November. We're thankful for family and friends who are willing to step in to love on and take care of Annie, Jude and Ben here while we travel across the oceans with Timothy. TJ is highly anticipating his first international flight. We'll see how excited he is about it all after the 22 hour flight. But overall, TJ has a pretty positive outlook on life, so he'll make the best of it.
To try to stay ahead of the prep and potentially it's a bit of 'nesting', this weekend we looked for the bins of 2T/3T clothes we saved from Annie to get out and start washing, etc. Well it turns out, we must have gotten rid of them because they are nowhere to be found! So, if you happen to know anyone who wants to rehome their little girl clothes, feel free to send them our way!
So, that's the update on our end. As we, and most of the country preps for school, we look forward to the routine and consistency that it all brings. If you read our blog last time around, you may remember Ben was a runner. So, in June, a month after he was home, I was likely the only person in Minnesota wishing it were winter time so we could stay contained inside for a bit! JiaYun will be coming home in the season of fall/early winter. So, I will get my wish this time around :)
We have thoroughly enjoyed our summer. Both our travels and our time at home. It's our second summer in our new house, so it's nice to have the 'newness' gone and everything feel just a little more settled. Just in time to rock the boat again with another family member!
(We couldn't let ourselves get TOO settled!)
Happy Labor Day to you all!
Courtney for the Hubers family
Enjoy a few of the pictures JiaYun will be seeing this week of her new family and home.
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