It's officially official

For months we have been telling the kids "We are working hard to adopt Peng, we really think they'll say 'yes', but we have to wait for the paperwork to go through and then we'll know it's officially, official." We just wanted to leave the window open in case something unexpected happened. 

We had told the kids the letter was probably coming soon and so today when we drove home from being out this morning and saw the Fed Ex package Jude exclaimed...."Does that mean it's official?!"  I was so glad to exclaim right back "YES!"

Then, he posed for this picture :)

Jude spies the"officially official" letter

This is a letter from China asking for our confirmation that we want to adopt Peng. (As if we haven't been telling them that forever!) They are asking us to sign it, then send to USCIS (Immigration), who will then add what they need to add and send it over back to China. That's the short version anyway.

But basically, we just wanted to share with all of you also, that it's officially official! We're matched with Qiu Peng and the paperwork is well underway to make him officially part of our family.

"They say" the expected time to travel after this letter comes is around 10-12 weeks.  As always, take with a grain of salt. But we're hoping.

I also talked to our social worker today. We mailed her a picture book for Peng with our family and home photos as well as a recordable story book so he could start hearing our voices.  She got it and put it in the mail to her China contact yesterday.

Timothy last week at the UPS store with our package for Peng

So, a few prayer requests now would be that....
a) that picture book and recordable story book get to Peng
b) that his caretakers show those to him
c) that his caretakers will use wise, true and comforting words to help prepare him for the "big change" coming
d) then keep joining us in Annie's continual prayer "Please God, make the papowook go faster!"

 

Thank you Jesus, for Your Faithfulness to Qiu Peng and our family!

Step 9, here we come!

This morning we woke up to a voice mail left by our social worker at 12:30am, saying "You know it's good news if I'm calling this late!" She had checked the China database before she went to bed and lo and behold...Peng's file was registered! It was a pretty fun way to wake up.

That phrase "a breath of fresh air" may be overused, but it probably is because it's so descriptive of situations like this. I've been feeling increasingly discouraged and weary since June and there was a haze around almost everything. When we heard the news this morning it was like a fresh and new breath was poured back into me and our family. Everything was lighter.

Back in late November I outlined the last 10 steps we need to get to China. Number 10 just got knocked out of the park and number 9 is on it's way to China as I type this.  Here is an excerpt from our Letter of Intent being submitted right now. 

We, Kevin and Courtney Hubers, respectfully respect to adopt Qiu Peng as our son from the People's Republic of China. Qiu Peng will become our own child, as if he had been born to us. We will always love and cherish him and will never abandon, harm or abuse him.  He will inherit from us as if he had been born to us.

We will educate him and provide him with everything he needs to succeed in life.

Our family is very excited at the prospect of learning more about Chinese culture, and about visiting China. We will teach Qiu Peng to always honor his Chinese heritage and to feel proud to have been born in China.

We promise to comply with China’s post adoption reporting requirements.  We will provide our reports in a timely fashion to Across the World Adoptions for submission to CCCWA.

I would be a great honor to adopt Qiu Peng from China into our family. We thank you for your kind consideration of our request.

It sounds like it can take anywhere from 10 days to 12 weeks to grant this request. And since I typed out that outline in November, we  have learned that because our Home Study has been processed and translated so long ago, we actually can skip step 8 of getting pre-approval. We just jump straight to regular old approval! It is called the LOSC (Letter of Seeking Confirmation) that takes 10 days to 12 weeks to receive. It's a big, fancy and formal letter that makes this all very real.

Once we have that letter, we'll be able to have a fairly accurate guesstimate of the timeline on the rest of the steps, including, when we travel.

Thank you for carrying this burden with us as we waited through the abyss of the unknown time frames. We are hopeful things will be a bit more mainstreamed from here. But as Kevin reminds me...we never know....so just take it one day at a time.  He's always been better at not being blindsided by unpredictability. One month turning into eight almost did me in, I confess. He seems to handle it better than I do and offers some much needed stability through this process.  

We may have more unseen hurdles ahead of us but today, we are just thankful. Thankful God helped us hang on to hope and thankful we are that much closer to meeting this little guy we are ready to call 'son'.

Yay Jesus!